Hi all,

I have a 2005 Mini Cooper S and am looking to put the JCW map onto my ECU. I have all supporting hardware modifications.

I bought an MPPS tool from eBay and successfully managed to read and save the current map on the car as a .bin file. When I went to put the JCW .ori file onto the car, I keep getting this when it reaches 100%:

'An error has occurred. Please go to c:\\MPPS\\Logs\\ and send all the data files in that folder to 'errors@amtcartech.com' so we can review. Please do this as soon as possible so we can review the problem!'

The car then won't start and I need to reload the old file back onto the car and its fine.

Any advice/help/guidance would be appreciated. I'm very new to this all and have followed what people have done previously on the minitorque forum. However I seem to be having no success.

:wave: I know the question posted was 3 years back, but I just wanted to answer the question in case other people end up with a similar situation or of they come across this topic while searching Google for something similar.

You cannot simply just flash over a JCW 210hp bin file to your Mini Cooper S ecu and expect car to start. The main reason why this will not work is because of the locations of where every little map occur within the file. Every other Mini r53 has a different software version of the Siemens EMS 2000 ecu. With every software version, the maps contained within the ecu's ROM occurs at different stored locations within the memory. So when you go to start your car for example, all of the components such as the immobilizer (EWS) is trying to search the ecu for a specific map or piece of info at a specific address it thinks that information it is still at. The problem is that because you flashed over a map file that:

A. Was probably from a different software version ecu
B. Was from a JCW packaged car and not a regular MCS

that piece of info is no longer at the address where it appeared within your original map file. Therefore your car won't even start. The EWS reads the chip contained in your key, verifies this info along with info stored in your ECU at a specific address, then if all matches allows the vehicle to start.

Also, the map files between an automatic and manual transmission contain extra little maps which also mixes up the organization of where things occur in each of the files. I also noticed that a JCW file contains certain maps that I don't even have within my own MCS file and trust me, I've scrolled through every inch of both files from where the actual hexdump of engine control data starts until the end and seen things that looks almost the same, but when zoomed in are actually something totally different.

When people say to "remap" their Mini Cooper S with a JCW map, it literally means copying over maps from a JCW file into your original MCS file one map at a time. It's painstakingly time consuming your first few times because you have no idea where to start. A remap is simply not just copying over an entire file from start to end and writing it into your ecu. That's just copy and paste and as I've told to you won't work. Even if both software versions of parent and child ECU are same, and both cars has exactly same package, car still might not start because of different immobilizer info stored in key and EWS.

Unless there is a much simpler process, only way to truely remap your MCS with JCW file is to open both files in WinOLS. Start at the very end of your hexdump I think 79999 address or something, and you are going to have to scroll backwards one inch at a time of your original file. Then you'll have to search through the JCW file until you see a map that closely matches what you currently have showing in your 2D window of your original file. You can then use the compare feature to lock both maps in place and WinOLS will overlap both maps using a split screen. Then you can see if there are differences. Anything in red means that the values of the compared file (JCW for example) are larger than your original values, and green color means values are smaller and you can simply highlight sections to copy over and there is actually a button in the compare window feature that allows you to transfer over all values from the JCW file over to your file without having to select each row and column individually if you did it in the text view. That's why 2D feature is important, easier to spot a similar shaped line graph than to spot similar 16-bit numbers in a ocean of random set of numbers. But there are some people who are born with that talent to spot a matching set of numbers quicker and they tune their ECUs that way I guess.

I just wanted to share my feedback because I saw this question about can I remap r53 with JCW map and some people gave only brief answers without explaining what those differences mean. Some people say yes but many differences in maps. We all know that, that's what we want are the different values from the JCW maps to run on our MCS to get more power from our generic JCW builds. But I have a feeling there is an easier way to copy all the tuned info from the JCW file over to your MCS file without having to do my method. Like a custom mappack or some project file that when loaded into WinOLS will do everything automatically like a bot. Anyhow hope that helps and if I am wrong, someone correct me.

Also with MPPS tool, the modified BIN file must have it's checksums corrected before writing the file to your ecu. Again, when you change values around in your file it shifts all the data slightly. Checksum corrector like Ultimo, which is free just Google you can find, will make sure things come back into alignment otherwise MPPS will fail to load the file and you'll get an error and may even brick up your ecu. If that happens, you can try to turn car off, then back to on position and write back your original file. :arrow: which I have to stress, always make a few copies of your original factory file and save it on multiple places, even email yourself a copy. Last thing you would want to wish for is to screw up and have no backup copy of your original ECU file. Then you'll have to pay up mucho denero to have your ECU restored by one of the professional tuners.