The ECU must be removed from the car and is programmed by special spring contacts without soldering on the circuit board. This method is used for example if a car has no connection from the OBD connector to the ECU or for very new ECU versions. The best tool for this is the BDM 100

Which way of programming is used, depends on manufacturer, model, year and the ECU type in the car. Generally we use the “easiest” way of programming. So if a car can be programmed by the OBD port, we will do it this way.

After the security entries for the OBD2 programming get more and more difficult, a new possibility has come up for chiptuning of ECUs with Motorola MPC555 - 565.

This generation of Motorola processors contain 448KB - 1MB Flash memory. That memory cannot be read and programmed with an eprom programmer. Therfore it is possible over the so called BDM interface, which must be implemented on every ECU board. For that purpose there are mostly 10 solder pads on the PCB.

Alternative there are ECUs with 12 or 14 solder pads, which can be supplied with operating voltage over these pads.

The BDM100 connects these solder pads of the BDM port with the WinOLS PC over the USB bus. The BDM100 gets its operating voltage from the USB bus. The ECU needs its own supply voltage of +12 volts.

The BDM100 is a universal reader/programmer (it does not require our RACE software necessarily) that allows the user to read and program files in the ECU supplied with MOTOROLA MPC5xx processor (essential).

The BDM100 requires the ECU to be open, "on the bench", as the reading/programming operations are realized by linking a flat cable to specific area the ECU (the tool, on the other side, is linked to the USB port of a computer).

It allows also to create perfect copies of the whole software of an ECU (after having read the original ECU software).

The software allows to read and program the WHOLE ECU content of:
* 29BL802 SSOP eprom file (or ROM memory with maps if eprom physically not present);
* MOTOROLA MPC5xx Processor file;
* Serial Eprom content.

Please note that even in the case of the ECU blocking, due to the wrong checksum recalculation, the ECU can always be reprogrammed and then retrieved (if the original software has been previously stored).