Installation of Adapter board and High Boost EEPROM in Lotus Elan

  1. Disconnect the battery
  2. Locate the and remove the ECU. The position depends on the type of Elan:
The ECU position varies slightly depending on whether the car is equipped with air conditioning but the procedure is essentially the same.

ECU position RHD no air-con

RHD, no air conditioning


ECU position RHD no air-con

RHD with air conditioning

Access to the ECU can be easily gained by flexing the top of the glove-box to defeat the catch and fully dropping the glove-box as shown: 


Remove the two multipole plugs at the right hand side. These can be quite hard to get out - be patient and don’t pull by the wires.

The ECU is held in a bracket by two studs at the bottom. Loosen the two 10mm nuts and withdraw the ECU (pivot the loose side clear of the bracket and pull clear).

ECU position LHD

  1. Look up there and see what's what -- find the 2 10mm nuts on the side brackets -- the other side has rubber bungs and pops right out
  2. With driver's door open, sit on floor right next to the car and reach right hand in and find the ecu by feel and the 2 nuts. (This is actually a very comfortable normal sitting position)
  3. put 10mm ratchet spanner on the two nuts to loosen them a bit only
  4. undo the nuts carefully by hand -- don't drop and lose them!
  5. pull ECU out and fold it down on the harness 
  6. Remove the two multipole plugs. These can be quite hard to get out - be patient and don’t pull by the wires.

(Instructions from Doug a.k.a. av8ndoc)
  1. Ensure you are earthed to prevent damage to either the ECU or the upgrade. The ECU has a lid held on by two ¼" head screws. Undo these screws and remove the lid.

    2. The blue-lidded MEMCAL and the retaining clips at each end can be clearly seen.

  2. Push the clips at each end outwards to remove the MEMCAL from the ECU.


    3. Notice the chip inside the MEMCAL can be seen through the opening on the left and the limp home circuitry through the window on the right in the picture above
    .
  3. Take the MEMCAL and plug it into the Moates adapter card:

    4. The side of the MEMCAL with the limp-home circuitry should be connected to the adapter board. In the picture above the chips of the MEMCAL and adapter can be seen to be on the same side.

  4. The ECU casing can be opened up a little by taking the top and bottom edges of the casing at the open side and pushing them apart. This gives more room to insert the MEMCAL/adapter assembly. The adapter should be held with the adapter board horizontal and the MEMCAL pushed into the opening in the ECU case:

    5. Move the assembly in to the case until the plug on the bottom of the adapter board is over the MEMCAL socket in the ECU. Don’t use force, if the assembly is positioned correctly and the case is opened sufficiently it goes in quite easily.

  5. Ensure the adapter card is correctly situated over the socket. Then push it home by applying pressure to both ends of the adapter board assembly. The catches will pop up to a vertical position when it is fully home.
  6. Replace the plastic end piece,

    7. the lid and the screws.

  7. Remount in car, insert the two plugs and reconnect battery.

 

Testing

Turn on the ignition. The check engine light (CEL) should blink and stay on as normal. On starting the car should behave entirely normally. If the CEL remains on then you should disconnect the battery for a minute or two and retry. If the problem persists remove the ECU, check your handywork and if necessary remove the upgrade.

If the CEL remains off and the car is running normally then test drive the car. Allow the engine to reach operating temperature before attempting any boost testing – the ECU will limit boost until the engine is warm. Once operating temperature has been reached, and the road conditions allow, use full throttle. The boost observed depends on the chip variant you have selected:

Catalyst equipped cars may experience a later peak and even lower peak boost depending on the state of the catalysts and the resultant backpressure.

If the boost goes off the scale, where boost creep was not present before and the boost gauge was working normally, then an FCD may be present – I’d recommend removal of the upgrade until the cause is identified and corrected.

If the boost does not reach the target value under full throttle and high revs then

  1. If a BOV is installed it may be opening early preventing full boost (see checklist section)
  2. The TPS may be faulty maladjusted
  3. The throttle cable may be maladjusted
  4. Exhaust back-pressure
  5. A leak in the intake track
  6. Bad spark plugs (gap to big, fouled or otherwise faulty)
  7. Another pre-existing fault
Let me know if you have problems and I’ll do my best to help.

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