3 Rotor Wankel with old ECU
Moderators:R!C0, JonMan, RickS
Hi,
We have a Mazda RX-8 race car with a 20B triple rotary engine, and a quite old GEMS ECU.
Based on the very old printed documentation, it is the GEMS MULTI Engine Management System (sorry, I haven't found any product/serial number so far). We are using an (also very, very old) Amstrad PPC512 portable PC to program the ECU.
I guess our problem is pretty obvious. We are looking for a solution so that we can use our present time notebooks/PCs to program the ECU, and maybe an up-to-date software. Currently we have a bunch of exe files on a floppy disk that we can use. These are: TROTMOD.EXE, DISP.EXE, 3ROTMOD.exe and NEC1188.EXE. We can upload, download, edit configuration files with DO extensions.
We are very worried, that losing the PPC512 would make it impossible to change ECU config. We already tried a notebook equipped with a COM port. Monitoring values and ECU to PC data flow seems to be working. But we haven't managed to upload new configurations yet. It might be something with the communication protocol over the COM port (or bad bit/s settings). The upload process seems to end too fast, and there is no change in ECU config afterwards.
I'm sure it will be very hard to find any information regarding all this old stuff. Replacing the ECU is something we cannot afford right now, so we hope there is a way to work with this ECU with today's computers. Any help is very much appreciated.
Sz.B.
We have a Mazda RX-8 race car with a 20B triple rotary engine, and a quite old GEMS ECU.
Based on the very old printed documentation, it is the GEMS MULTI Engine Management System (sorry, I haven't found any product/serial number so far). We are using an (also very, very old) Amstrad PPC512 portable PC to program the ECU.
I guess our problem is pretty obvious. We are looking for a solution so that we can use our present time notebooks/PCs to program the ECU, and maybe an up-to-date software. Currently we have a bunch of exe files on a floppy disk that we can use. These are: TROTMOD.EXE, DISP.EXE, 3ROTMOD.exe and NEC1188.EXE. We can upload, download, edit configuration files with DO extensions.
We are very worried, that losing the PPC512 would make it impossible to change ECU config. We already tried a notebook equipped with a COM port. Monitoring values and ECU to PC data flow seems to be working. But we haven't managed to upload new configurations yet. It might be something with the communication protocol over the COM port (or bad bit/s settings). The upload process seems to end too fast, and there is no change in ECU config afterwards.
I'm sure it will be very hard to find any information regarding all this old stuff. Replacing the ECU is something we cannot afford right now, so we hope there is a way to work with this ECU with today's computers. Any help is very much appreciated.
Sz.B.
Re: 3 Rotor Wankel with old ECU
Hi,
It sounds like the software needs to be enabled for uploading calibrations. Unfortunatly this is something we can not do as although the unit was made by us the software is owned by Prodrive. I suggest that you contact them. Their details are in our resellers section here
Regards
Rico
It sounds like the software needs to be enabled for uploading calibrations. Unfortunatly this is something we can not do as although the unit was made by us the software is owned by Prodrive. I suggest that you contact them. Their details are in our resellers section here
Regards
Rico
Re: 3 Rotor Wankel with old ECU
Thank you for your quick response. I'm going to contact Prodrive to see if we can find a solution to make the old software run on our computers.
Greetings, Sz.B.
Greetings, Sz.B.
Re: 3 Rotor Wankel with old ECU
Hello again,
I contacted Prodrive, and it turns out that the software we have is about 15 years old, so it could not have been made by them, because they did not have any software capability at that time.
So the question still remains... Is there maybe a new software, or could we use the old programs of the MULTI EMS under WinXP?
Thank You,
Sz. B.
I contacted Prodrive, and it turns out that the software we have is about 15 years old, so it could not have been made by them, because they did not have any software capability at that time.
So the question still remains... Is there maybe a new software, or could we use the old programs of the MULTI EMS under WinXP?
Thank You,
Sz. B.
Re: 3 Rotor Wankel with old ECU
Hi,
Apologies for giving incorrect information, i have had some other people here look at your problem, and we realise that the software was ours (very old! not many people here were around then!) But i'm afraid that the ECU is very old and will only work with that software and will not be compatiable with our Windows XP software.
The only thing i can suggest is to try and get hold of another old computer, with windows 95, and try using that as your backup computer.
Apologies again we could not help
Rico
Apologies for giving incorrect information, i have had some other people here look at your problem, and we realise that the software was ours (very old! not many people here were around then!) But i'm afraid that the ECU is very old and will only work with that software and will not be compatiable with our Windows XP software.
The only thing i can suggest is to try and get hold of another old computer, with windows 95, and try using that as your backup computer.
Apologies again we could not help
Rico
Re: 3 Rotor Wankel with old ECU
Hi,
No problem at all.
Maybe the solution for us will be simpler than it seems. Since the software basically works under XP, and it's only the upload of configurations that we've been unable to achieve so far, the easiest thing could be to find out how to make the COM port under XP work just as the one on the PPC512 - I believe the problem has something to do with this.
I'm going to keep searching, and post updates if I find out something.
But should You find technical docs or anyithing usable about the software (even source code is interesting for me) it is still welcome...
Thank You,
Sz.B.
No problem at all.
Maybe the solution for us will be simpler than it seems. Since the software basically works under XP, and it's only the upload of configurations that we've been unable to achieve so far, the easiest thing could be to find out how to make the COM port under XP work just as the one on the PPC512 - I believe the problem has something to do with this.
I'm going to keep searching, and post updates if I find out something.
But should You find technical docs or anyithing usable about the software (even source code is interesting for me) it is still welcome...
Thank You,
Sz.B.
Re: 3 Rotor Wankel with old ECU
Hi
Yes, should we find anything we will of course post it.
Sorry again and heres hoping you are succesful!
Yes, should we find anything we will of course post it.
Sorry again and heres hoping you are succesful!