THIS IS OLD. THE INSTALLATION PROCEDURE IS CORRECT, BUT All REFERENCES AND PICTURES OF THE DAUGHTERBOARD ARE VERY VERY OUT OF DATE
If you have questions about anything other than hardware (i.e. rom tuning, etc.), please post them in a new thread. I'd like to keep this thread devoted to simply installing a daughterboard. If you don't know what this is for, search, but basically this lets you run a different rom than the stock one. The stock rom is contained the rightmost of the three big chips on the ecu. Rather than replacing this chip a board is added in to the connector on the top of the ecu. Also a jumper must be set to tell the ecu to read from the daughterboard and not the stock rom. This is exactly what JWT etc do when you buy a "tuned" ecu (except for Mine's, on some ecus they actually replace the stock chip).
I'm going to assume your reading this because your interested in modding lots of ecus, and you know how to solder but have limited experience. If you just want a daughterboard added to a single ecu its probably cheaper to pay someone else to do it (like me!). Its not hard but it really helps to have the right tools for the job and they cost money.
A quick note about daughterboards... there are several brands of these out there, but you may have to do a little hunting to find them. Most are Japanese or Australian, but several companies now ship to the US. There are even importers on Ebay that resell them. Different boards have complications like even/odd burning, etc, and you need to be familiar with how your particular board works. The board being installed in this tutorial is a basic board that holds just one rom image burned straight up. One last thing, if your planning on updating the roms I highly recommend you get a daughterboard that 1) uses ZIF sockets and 2) uses EEPROMs. Number 2 you can upgrade yourself, number 1 your stuck with. Also, if your looking for a rom burner I recommend the USB flash burner from
www.moates.net for $85.
So lets get started. First off you need the following: Daughterboard and connector (duh!), through-hole solder rework station, drill with "hammer" setting, acetone, and basic hand tools. If your wondering what a through-hole rework station is, its a special kind of solder tool that has an air pump in the center of its tip, so you can melt then remove the solder. Heres mine, the regular tip is on the left and the solder sucker is on the right:
...and a closeup of the solder sucker, because pictures go farther than words. The hole in the tip is where the solder gets sucked up.
So heres my work area with my tools laid out:
First remove the holder from the ecu. I like to remove the ecu+holder from the car, it just seems easiest that way for me. Next remove the top and bottom of the ecu. This is what you need the drill with the "hammer" setting. Nissan glues the damn screws in and they're really soft, so if you use a screwdriver you'll end up stripping about every other screw. FYI if you do strip them use a 1/8th drill bit to drill them out. I haven't stripped any since moving to the hammer drill method, way cool.
Okay, so heres the ecu with both sides off. I've circled the header position at the top where you need to remove the old solder and add your new header.
...and a close-up of the header:
The jumper is on the back of the board. Its not like a PC jumper, its actually soldered in place. Its in the position marked 'CJ1' and right next to it you'll see a spot marked 'CJ2'. You need to move the jumper from CJ1 to CJ2.
But lets start with the header. First there is a sealant on the board you need to remove. I gently wash it with acetone then rub away the sealant. Be sure to get both sides and the jumper in both positions too. Make sure the acetone is dry before the solder (duh!).
Heres what it looks like when you remove the sealant. Its real hard to see, but if you notice on the top end of the connector you can see where I've removed the sealant.
Now use the solder sucker and remove the old solder. Usually most will come out, but some holes are really stubborn, like the ones below. On these holes add new solder until it makes a nice bubble, then suck it out. Get all the holes nice and clean.
...ready to add the header (oh so clean!):
Now just add the header. Start from the top left and work right, then do the lower row. This is so your iron isn't over any spot you just soldered.
Now lets move to the jumper. If you've got a smt solder tool (they look like a pair of tweezers) this is easy. If not, use two irons, one on each side, and gently pry up the little sucker. Don't worry if you destroy it, replacelents are cheap or a little bit of wire will work in a jiffy. Its glued to the board so it can be a b*tch to get loose sometimes. Remove the excess solder first with your solder sucker then pry away. Heres it moved over, I'm holding one end in place with an exacto knife while I solder the other end. This helps to keep it from moving on you.
Now you just insert your daughter board and your done, right?
Well, it depends on the board. JWT makes theres big enough to bolt into the mounting tabs on the edge of the ecu, but boards that size are expensive and a waste of space. Most Japanese boards just stay attached by the header and thats generally good enough. I compromised, and use a mounting hole in the center of my board to mount a nylon stand off. Then I put a small dab of epoxy on the bottom of the board and glue it to the ecu.
...and heres it completed (ok, so this is an older prototype). That board isn't going anywhere, its in there really tight!
Any questions, I'll try to answer them as best I can. If your looking for a B14 board, I'm working on it, give me a couple of months. I don't know of any off the shelf boards you can use.
EDIT
In response to questions PM'd to me:
Question: Could you put a switch on the CJ1 CJ2 jumper positions and toggle between the stock rom and your tuned version?
Answer: Yes, but why go to that trouble? Just use a daughterboard that can support multiple images and make one image the stock rom. Don't have the stock rom? No worries, I've been collecting stock roms for a while, I'll be happy to post them. If you want the rom from your specific ecu you can dump it via the consult port or mail me the ecu and I'll do it for you.
Question: Is there a daughterboard that I can plug my laptop into and flash the roms without removing them from the car?
Answer: Yes! See my vendor section, Realtime ECU!
