All posts categorized Car Hacking

ECU Reverse Engineering Step 1 - Another ECU

As I mentioned in the previous post, I had been sent the 1995 ECU BPL9-18-881B by an online seller, so I ended up buying an ECU from a 1999 NB Miata with the model number BP5R-18-881. This ECU came in today, so I quickly opened it up to take some pictures and find datasheets.

Posted on May 22, 2019 by Vikas N Kumar

ECU Reverse Engineering Step 1

Going down the rabbit hole towards understanding the ECU, that I had had bought a few days ago, led me to realize based on ECU model numbers that BPL9-18-881B is the ECU for a 1995 Miata rather than a 1999 (Miata.net forum reference). I was disappointed and reached out to the seller on Facebook who did say they will send me the 1999 version and it was an error on their part, but so far they have not fixed their error. I consider this a loss of $60. I decided to move on, however. I bought a 1999 ECU on eBay and it should arrive in a week or so. Meanwhile, I will continue with this 1995 ECU since it will be cool to build two test benches to understand the difference between the cars.

Posted on May 17, 2019 by Vikas N Kumar

Miata ECU and Car Hacking

A few years ago I had purchased the Car Hacker’s Handbook (Figure 1) from No Starch Press as I was interested to see what that book taught. I work in software and did some reverse engineering for a few years, so with the current Miata project it made sense to learn some tricks of hacking the car software (or firmware).

Posted on May 14, 2019 by Vikas N Kumar