RomRaider

People occasionally ask how to defeat immobilizers. The people asking these questions are presumably good people with perfectly valid scenarios - engine transplants across model years or even manufacturers - but right after someone finds a way to defeat an immobilizer, that capability will also be available to dirtbags who just want to steal cars. And that would suck.

Immobilizers for 16-bit Subarus have already been defeated, which is unfortunate for everybody who owns one. However that hasn't happened yet for 32-bit Subarus, and nobody who owns one wants to see that change.

And that is why, following some private discussion among the RomRaider moderators, we have agreed that current and future threads about defeating immobilizers will be locked.

As the thread is still open I can add something like an opposition point to NSFW. My problem with the immos are ecutek locked ecus not stealing cars. If you want to steal it - no immo will stop you tho. An audi in my underground garage was tried 3 days in a roll. The guy bypassed the OEM immo but there was another one. On the forth day the car was gone pulled with another car (we saw it on the camera afterwards).

However if there was a way to remove the stupid ecutek I won't bother with immos Already bought 3 ecus for friends cars due to not having local ecutek tuner to remove it, asking a guy with some handheld device who can re-learn a new ecu for me. I know they're trying to protect their tunes but that way they are owning my ECU which for me seems to be quite unacceptable

It is true that tow trucks are an already-widely-known way to defeat immobilizers.

But let's not make it any easier than that.

And recovering from EcuTek locking is indeed another reason that some people have legitimate needs to defeat immobilizers. However that is a problem that people with EcuTek-locked ECUs should take up with EcuTek. They owe their customers some kind of solution to that. There must be some way to unlock those ECUs without also making everyone else's cars easier to steal. Or maybe there isn't - but that's still not a reason to develop or publicize ways to it easier to steal cars, and it's still a problem that needs to be taken up with EcuTek.

i'd have to side with NSFW on this one, if you need to swap back to a non-locked ECU then easiest way is to swap the immobiliser chip from the old ECU to the new one then it should fire straight up and be ready for opensource work.

No one is questioning NSFW tho. I was just pointing where the problems can come and in which situations we sometimes need it. I'm still driving a Subaru (my second one until now) and I do not like to have my immo isolation solution posted anywhere

What i said may of been taboo

I don't know how things work on older ECUs but on the GT86/BRZ if I flash a stock ROM onto the ECU with the ProECU software then that essentially unlocks the ECU leaving it open to be flashed by Tactrix/OFT etc. I would be hopeful that the same could be true of the older type and you just need to find a dealer to do do it for you.

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Engine\wiring swap is another problem that needs more skills.

Okay that's even better.

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However if there are any way to restore the stock rom and erase the ecutek it will be great if you can share with us. If you want of course.

For 32 bit SH7055F/SH7055SF/SH7058/SH7058S based Denso ecu you may use shbootmode.

If I have to edit any more posts I will just lock this thread.

I'd really rather not do that.

To verify, is the immo sync data stored in the typical ROMs we work with? I.e. if one car is flashed with a pull from another car's stock ROM (given same YMM, market, & calid), will this render the flash recipient unstartable?

Car A > Stock ROM pull X, calid Z
Car B > Stock ROM pull Y, calid Z
Stock ROM pull Y >> onto >> Car A

Immo will not lock Subaru recipient ecu in such a case.

Yes, that's not a problem. You can flash your ECU with a ROM from another car as long as the new ROM is compatible with the kind of ECU that you have.

Subaru pretty commonly releases incremental updates during the first couple years of a car's life. When I heard that dealerships were upgrading cars from A2WC510N (which my car came with) to A2WC522N, I did the upgrade myself by copying my fueling/timing/etc tables to an A2WC522N ROM that I got from someone else.

Thanks for confirming, folks.