thoughts re: a locked chip

[twinsteve]

So I went in to get a stage 1 custom tune by a shop here in ATL that has an ex-Revo/Eurocharged guy that does their Audi tuning....did a baseline dyno run (341 on a dyno dynamics), so that was all good

Problem was when he went to do flash....couldn't communicate through port....we pulled ECU, cracked it open, and low and behold it had some sort of locked down chip in it (he couldn't even bench flash it)

Thoughts? Don't think it's APR or another tune....the program on it was all stock parameters, but chip was locked down

Do I buy a new stock ECU....a new chip and have Audi flash it to stock for me? What are my options?

[4everRS]

This is what a soldered APR chip looks like.



He should be able to desolder the old chip and put in a new one. Unless theres something I'm missing, I think this is basic tuning stuff, when this situation comes up.

[kday]

You have to remove that whole little board and solder a blank chip back down to the main PCB.

Same deal with MTM:


It doesn't look too hard for someone with decent soldering experience.

[ben916]

So I went in to get a stage 1 custom tune by a shop here in ATL that has an ex-Revo/Eurocharged guy that does their Audi tuning....did a baseline dyno run (341 on a dyno dynamics), so that was all good

Problem was when he went to do flash....couldn't communicate through port....we pulled ECU, cracked it open, and low and behold it had some sort of locked down chip in it (he couldn't even bench flash it)

Thoughts? Don't think it's APR or another tune....the program on it was all stock parameters, but chip was locked down

Do I buy a new stock ECU....a new chip and have Audi flash it to stock for me? What are my options?

do what Kyle did and call APR and have your VIN handy, you might have an early Xmas present in your hands!!!!

[twinsteve]

do what Kyle did and call APR and have your VIN handy, you might have an early Xmas present in your hands!!!!

I called APR and the person I spoke to (someone in "Technical Support") said they couldn't trace by VIN to determine if they had ever worked on the....we tried messing around with cruise control switch which is how APR activates, but I am sure it was security-enabled, so I would need the code

[MaxRS6]

^If it is an APR chip, they can reset the code

[marklar182]

Go to an APR dealer, they can hook up and see if you have APR. If so they can reset the security code if needed.