11 replies to this topic

[xrocketengineer]

Hello everybody from sunny Florida. I bought recently a 94 SPI Cooper Monte Carlo with A/C and Japanese specs. It came with the MNE101070 ECU. It drains the battery in a few days. Other than that starts and runs fine.
I have figured out the problem with the battery draining and the warm relay module. It is a smart failure, meaning that it is not there all the time. It shows up the first time you start the car and will not go away until, the battery is disconnected, battery dies or one of the connectors on the the relay module is disconnected.
What remains active after the engine is turned off is the main relay. The relay coil gets 12V from the battery through pin 6 of the larger connector on the relay module (hot all the time, brown wire). The ground for the coil is provided by pin 3 (white and pink wire and and same as pin 4 on the ECU) of the smaller connector when the engine starts activating the relay. However, when the engine is turned off, the ECU continues to provide a ground path through the above mentioned pins causing the the main relay to stay active. If either connector on the relay module is disconnected and reconnected, the failure resets and goes away. But it will come back with the next engine start.
So it looks like pin 4 on the ECU is acting up.
The seller of the car (from Canada) has been outstanding. He provided me with many free spare parts and even with an ECU. The ECU is an MNE101170 (uncoded?) The good news is that the main relay is set and reset with the ignition switch as it should be. The bad news is that the car does not seem to like the ECU. The fuel pump runs, the car cranks and sometimes fires a couple of times but that is it.
So, is there something that I need to do to this ECU to make it work?
Is there a good and reasonably priced ECU repair place that I can send one or both of these ECU's?
Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[Racing Gold]

Hello everybody from sunny Florida. I bought recently a 94 SPI Cooper Monte Carlo with A/C and Japanese specs. It came with the MNE101070 ECU. It drains the battery in a few days. Other than that starts and runs fine.
I have figured out the problem with the battery draining and the warm relay module. It is a smart failure, meaning that it is not there all the time. It shows up the first time you start the car and will not go away until, the battery is disconnected, battery dies or one of the connectors on the the relay module is disconnected.
What remains active after the engine is turned off is the main relay. The relay coil gets 12V from the battery through pin 6 of the larger connector on the relay module (hot all the time, brown wire). The ground for the coil is provided by pin 3 (white and pink wire and and same as pin 4 on the ECU) of the smaller connector when the engine starts activating the relay. However, when the engine is turned off, the ECU continues to provide a ground path through the above mentioned pins causing the the main relay to stay active. If either connector on the relay module is disconnected and reconnected, the failure resets and goes away. But it will come back with the next engine start.
So it looks like pin 4 on the ECU is acting up.
The seller of the car (from Canada) has been outstanding. He provided me with many free spare parts and even with an ECU. The ECU is an MNE101170 (uncoded?) The good news is that the main relay is set and reset with the ignition switch as it should be. The bad news is that the car does not seem to like the ECU. The fuel pump runs, the car cranks and sometimes fires a couple of times but that is it.
So, is there something that I need to do to this ECU to make it work?
Is there a good and reasonably priced ECU repair place that I can send one or both of these ECU's?
Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Hi, The MNE 101070 is the correct one for your car, same as my Cooper which has the single button on the key fob for the alarm. This model did not have immobiliser. From late 94 on, the cars were given an alarm and an immobiliser and the key fob had two buttons accordingly. The ECU for that later car has a Code MNE101170. (as you have) If you fit that to your existing car, it will not run but do as you describe. It will not run because you need the matching double button key fob and alarm box to go with it. I am currently building a Cooper race Mini with this later two button fob, or rather it did have that. I have changed the wiring loom to fit the earlier ECU, as per my road Cooper, 101070, because these are interchangeable should I then have problems with the race car. I have the UK address of the Company that seals our ECU's for racing if that helps? They overhaul them and give a warranty on them for about £150

[xrocketengineer]

Thanks for the reply Racing Gold. My car has no alarm, even the boot and bonnet switches are not there. Maybe, because it is a Japanese market model. What I am trying to figure out is if the code on the MNE 101170 can be eliminated by an ECU remanufacturer to make it work like the MNE101070. If that is possible, I would rather send the MNE 101170 for repair since I can still drive the car with the other one. I can work around the battery discharge issue.
If the MNE 101170 can not be "uncoded", then I would considered the option of buying a remanufactured MNE 101070 unit and have the one currently in the car repaired at a later date for a spare. It is hard to find parts, everything has to be ordered and there is no service locally on this side of the "pond".
I am assuming that the company that you refer to is ATP Electronics Development Ltd. I would like to have these issues cleared before I approach a remanufacturer.

Thanks again,

[xrocketengineer]

I found this thread from about a year ago.

http://www.theminifo...showtopic=73042

It indicates that it is possible to remove the code on an ECU. Has anybody first hand experience with this? What company can do it?

Thanks,

[Sprocket]

Send APT an email, they will be able to tell you for sure whether the code can be removed, or ask them if they have an MNE101070 ECU on the shelf for outright purchase?

Some one else had exactly the same problem you describe, I cannot for the life of me find the topic, but i am sure the real problem was indeed the ECU holding on the main relay indefinately when the key has been removed.

[xrocketengineer]

Thanks Sprocket, I do appreciate your input. I have learned a lot from your postings. I will send the Email to APT. I was hoping that somebody had already gone through a successful process of "uncoding" an ECU so I could learn from that. I will let you know what I find out.

Thanks again!

[Sprocket]

It's not rocket science

hehe

[xrocketengineer]

This is the reply I received from ATP Electronics Development Ltd. So, uncoding the MNE101170 can be done and I will proceed that way.

Thank you for your enquiry,
Your suggestion 1 below is fine. We can test , remanufacture and
uncode your MNE101170 so that you can use it on your car , and then
remanufacture your MNE101070 at a later date. Unfortunately , we do not have
any spare MNE101070 units so your suggestion 2 is not possible.
Remanufacturing charge is £120 GBP (about $175 today) plus the shipping cost
back to you. We accept payment by Visa , Mastercard , Paypal or by bank
transfer.
Note:- If you ship it to us , send it as a faulty unit to be repaired and
declare the value at the minimum your shipping company will allow ,
otherwise they will charge us import duty on the received package.
Best Regards
Webmaster

[Sprocket]

Sounds reasonable, except the price

[xrocketengineer]

Sounds reasonable, except the price

Well, the price seems competitive. The shipping is killing me. Check out these other sites.

http://www.carelect....o.uk/frame.html

http://www.the-ecu-doctor.co.uk/

http://www.bluestrea...ufacturer=Rover

[tmsmini]

Wonder why the one comapany no longer accepts units from abroad?

I bought a spare set for an MPi last yeard and I was wondering if it was possible to have both ECUs and immoblisers with all the key fobs programmed the same. That way when I have a failure, I would be able to swap another component in and have it work without being reprogrammed.
Terry

[xrocketengineer]

Well, I received my remanufactured MNE101170 ECU from ATP about 2hrs ago and I put it in. The veredict is: 1. It has all kind of labels that say that it can not be controlled by a security system (yessss!) 2. The car started right up on the first attempt (yippeee!) 3. It drives a lot better than with the old one! It gets past 4000 RPM very quickly if you are not careful (woohoo!). Before, it seemed to hit a wall there even though it seemed to drive fine. Now, it feels like a Cooper!
I assume that the old ECU was on its last legs. It was expensive but worth it.

Edited by xrocketengineer, 09 April 2009 - 05:52 PM.