MBE ECU to haltech adaptor

[paulmon]

I have a locked MBE ECU in my 2008 Sigma 150. The tune on the 150s was never great from caterham. I have two options I can order and unlock unit from the UK and try to find someone here to tune it in Canada or get it tuned remotely from the UK. 

 

The other option is to do something like a haltech and just create an adapter between the caterham harness and the haltech. I would prefer not to cut the existing wires in case of next owner wants to go back to the stock ECU for whatever reason down the road. 

 

Has anyone had anybody create an adapter? I might give it a go myself but I don't have patience for wiring. Doesn't even need to be haltech anything that is common in the North America market would suffice. 

[Scott_]

You could reach out to https://www.stmotorsport.net/product-page/obd-diagnostic-connector-female-mbe-ecu-comms-motorsport-rally-race  and ask about the MBE plug you need and if they could do a harness or partial harness and you could just wire it to Haltech (or other) standalone ECU plugs.  You need the MBE ecu plug and a pinout list for the MBE.  Haltech sell plug and pin kits for all of their current gen ECUs and all of the pinouts for the ECUs are available on their site.  Depending on features you want, a Haltech 750 or 1500 might be enough.  

 

You would likely want to add a WB o2 and that will add some complexity to the install but make tuning at home and auto tuning with the Haltech a reality for you.  Do a youtube search on Haltech autotune and you'll see what I mean.  https://youtu.be/b_ly9YZodxw?si=3HahDUoV28-c9klw   There are lots of resources for DIY tuning and wiring if you want to learn a new skill.

 

There are active Haltech FB groups and lots of folks on those groups who run speed and wiring shops in North America that could help if you don't want to do it yourself.

 

OR, like you say, just buy an unlocked MBE and it will save you much of the wiring hassle and you just need to find someone to tune it.   You could likely find someone to provide you a good base map to start from.  

 

You might ask yourself as well what you'd gain and is it worth it.   if you don't have drivability issues now it might not be worth the spend from a performance perspective.

 

 

Scott

[Slonie]

I've often wondered about this route in abstract, as a Pectel T2 dying is going to (likely) be an extended amount of downtime locating a replacement. Not that it's happened to me, but it's on my mind. Of course, switching ECUs and having to re-tune from scratch would also be an extended downtime (for me, anyway), even if it was "plug and play" with a harness.  Either way would seem to beat re-wiring the whole thing though! I try not to think about it too much.