Whats a 4.5 MBE worth?

[satman]

Having now sold the Cerbie, I have a number of spares that I plan to put up for sale, including and original 4.5 MBE that was removed when I upgraded to the Emerald ECU. (MBE is in perfect working order).

Now I plan on putting this and the other items on either the classifieds or Ebay, and want to ask for a senisible price/reserve.

Has any of you bought an MBE and how much did you pay? Or does anyone have any idea realisically whats its worth?

[trackcar]

an MBE from one of the specialist breakers will be several hundreds of pounds

[julian64]

Alternatively an MBE941 for a TVR will be about £50 on ebay . Have bought two this way over the last year.

Don't ask why I needed two

[ro_butler]

I bought one earlier this year for £80 on ebay, same situation as you, guy had upgraded to an emerald. I figured it would be nice to have an unmolested spare, as mine has been remapped by Austec so is non standard inside.

[julian64]

On the subject of the MBE, was having another friendly chat with the MBE people who said they were now seriously looking into an upgrade for the MBE for TVR people. They were thinking of this because of the amount of calls they had recieved. I didn't have the heart to tell them most of those calls were me using different voices.

They offered me an upgrade there and then. It comprised an upgraded crystal to 16Mhz, some changes to the resistors on the board, swapping the NVRom for a flash ram, and of course the software to make the board run easimap 5 rather than the easimap 4 which is apparently the maximum it can currently run.

This would have effectively changed it back into a normal current spec MBE. I think they wanted about £250. If you went for that paddy, you could effectively open up the sale to anyone who wanted a full blown MBE and therefore you might be able to get much more for the MBE.

[Manfred]

That depends if you need a ECU or if you just want spare, I needed one and paid recently 250 GBP, being happy to get one.

[Cyclone1]

ro_butler said:

I bought one earlier this year for £80 on ebay, same situation as you, guy had upgraded to an emerald. I figured it would be nice to have an unmolested spare, as mine has been remapped by Austec so is non standard inside.

If your original MBE had been remapped then the only difference would be the chip inside it would have been replaced. There was no need for you to buy another one.

Jules.

[methodwares]

what other bits do you have?

[trackcar]

How far did you get with your decompiling Julian? did you manage to get to remapping stage yet? or are you just going to get yours upgraded to later spec and use easimap?

[Cyclone1]

Manfred said:

That depends if you need a ECU or if you just want spare, I needed one and paid recently 250 GBP, being happy to get one.

I've seen them at £200 - £400 which seems to be the going rate for a genuine MBE that can be dropped onto another Cerb. If they can be found cheaper then it's a bonus provided they are from a good source.

Jules.

[julian64]

trackcar said:

How far did you get with your decompiling Julian? did you manage to get to remapping stage yet? or are you just going to get yours upgraded to later spec and use easimap?

Nope, decompiling still going on. Unfortunately its a long job. I have a fairly detailed circuit diagram now although on several bits of paper. Slowly commenting the decompiled code. Its a very frustratingly long job as it wasn't written in assembler code. It was written with a higher level language and compiled which means it does a whole bunch of seemingly nonsensical time wasting stuff rather than obvious code. The overall plan is to get it back to accepting easimap commands.

The upgrade won't work in the way you think. It won't be a replacement for a TVR, but simply a means to get your MBE back to normal spec. While I wait for pigs to fly at MBE and them to actually get a TVR version working to map on the fly, I shall keep plodding on. The only sure thing is that ONE of us will eventually get there.

[ridds]

julian64 said:

On the subject of the MBE, was having another friendly chat with the MBE people who said they were now seriously looking into an upgrade for the MBE for TVR people. They were thinking of this because of the amount of calls they had recieved. I didn't have the heart to tell them most of those calls were me using different voices.

They offered me an upgrade there and then. It comprised an upgraded crystal to 16Mhz, some changes to the resistors on the board, swapping the NVRom for a flash ram, and of course the software to make the board run easimap 5 rather than the easimap 4 which is apparently the maximum it can currently run.

This would have effectively changed it back into a normal current spec MBE. I think they wanted about £250. If you went for that paddy, you could effectively open up the sale to anyone who wanted a full blown MBE and therefore you might be able to get much more for the MBE.

Blimey that is very exciting news, particually at that price. Seems quite resonable.

at the different voices. Top job!

In all honesty I can't think why they wouldn't want to do it. It's easy money for them reselling what is effectively an old product.

[SimonSparrow]

julian64 said:

trackcar said:

How far did you get with your decompiling Julian? did you manage to get to remapping stage yet? or are you just going to get yours upgraded to later spec and use easimap?

Nope, decompiling still going on. Unfortunately its a long job. I have a fairly detailed circuit diagram now although on several bits of paper. Slowly commenting the decompiled code. Its a very frustratingly long job as it wasn't written in assembler code. It was written with a higher level language and compiled which means it does a whole bunch of seemingly nonsensical time wasting stuff rather than obvious code. The overall plan is to get it back to accepting easimap commands.

The upgrade won't work in the way you think. It won't be a replacement for a TVR, but simply a means to get your MBE back to normal spec. While I wait for pigs to fly at MBE and them to actually get a TVR version working to map on the fly, I shall keep plodding on. The only sure thing is that ONE of us will eventually get there.

Ah, shame. I first thought that it would create a mappable version for the Cerbera, but what you're saying is that they can take a Cerb specific MBE and then make it into a 'generic' one.

Good luck with the de-compliing, I'm watching with interest.

[julian64]

SimonSparrow said:

julian64 said:

trackcar said:

How far did you get with your decompiling Julian? did you manage to get to remapping stage yet? or are you just going to get yours upgraded to later spec and use easimap?

Nope, decompiling still going on. Unfortunately its a long job. I have a fairly detailed circuit diagram now although on several bits of paper. Slowly commenting the decompiled code. Its a very frustratingly long job as it wasn't written in assembler code. It was written with a higher level language and compiled which means it does a whole bunch of seemingly nonsensical time wasting stuff rather than obvious code. The overall plan is to get it back to accepting easimap commands.

The upgrade won't work in the way you think. It won't be a replacement for a TVR, but simply a means to get your MBE back to normal spec. While I wait for pigs to fly at MBE and them to actually get a TVR version working to map on the fly, I shall keep plodding on. The only sure thing is that ONE of us will eventually get there.

Ah, shame. I first thought that it would create a mappable version for the Cerbera, but what you're saying is that they can take a Cerb specific MBE and then make it into a 'generic' one.

Good luck with the de-compliing, I'm watching with interest.

Yep sorry, I'm obviously not being very clear. Its putting an MBE for a TVR back to a generic one, which is pretty useless for us, might well help satman if he could put the MBE back to standard 'current' version for £250 then sell it for £5-600 new prices.

They ARE looking at upgrading the TVR one, but would want to do the hardware upgrade then give you a new chip, when they finally get around to making the new chip of course. Effectively charging you twice for the upgrade and therefore making them enough profit to justify the effort. They have admitted to me that the problem they have is that they have no details from the time the TVR MBE was made and the chap who seems to have been soley responsible for coding it left. Initially I thought this was just BS as it was unbelievable they would actually lose the details, and considered the were just telling me this to put me off but been told this by two independant people now one in MBE proper and one in SBS, so I don't know.

Anyhow, I pootle on as said. Might be wasting my time if they finally turn up with the goods, or might get to the point we could produce a PH's replacement ECU amongst us. That would be good.

[ridds]

Still lost here then.

So it would be an Easimap 5 compliant ECU. What would stop people using the software on it then?

Or are they jus saying it could use Easimap 5 to 'read' the ECU and nothing more?

[Scrooloose]

satman said:

Having now sold the Cerbie, I have a number of spares that I plan to put up for sale, including and original 4.5 MBE that was removed when I upgraded to the Emerald ECU. (MBE is in perfect working order).

Now I plan on putting this and the other items on either the classifieds or Ebay, and want to ask for a senisible price/reserve.

Has any of you bought an MBE and how much did you pay? Or does anyone have any idea realisically whats its worth?

I'm looking for one of these - would be happy to part with a sensible sum for it. Please mail me through profile

[julian64]

ridds said:

Still lost here then.

So it would be an Easimap 5 compliant ECU. What would stop people using the software on it then?

Or are they jus saying it could use Easimap 5 to 'read' the ECU and nothing more?

The program that runs the 'MBE TVR ECU' and the 'MBE standard ECU' are different. A TVR MBE converted to being a standard MBE ECU would no longer be able to run a TVR but would run their software and be pretty cool in a K series caterham.

In short us TVR owners want an MBE that works with a TVR and works with easimap, preferably one that also nods a wink to traction control and an MOT pass button to press. Ideally I'd like one that vibrates my seat as well, when it detects my eyes are getting tired, and a text to speech facility so it can generate random compliments on driving, or applause from a speaker in the cubby hole when it detects high lateral G without a resultant impact.

Also a standard MBE ECU is not the same hardware as a TVR MBE ECU, well as far as MBE are concerned it isn't but then they fluff around and talk unconvincingly about resistors to supply power to injectors being different and stuff.

Sorry, I sure someone with a better command of the english language will be along soon to translate my gibberish.

[mikesr]

I don't think MBE could get a standard unit to work in a TVR and provide the same level of features. Particularly with respect to the aircon control where they used things like oil pressure input and the intercooler spray driver in the circuit. The software handling this must be completely non standard.

It certainly wouldn't be a simple plugin replacement. They would have to do something with the wiring to get the aircon to work without using the ECU.

There are other differences like the lambda control that might require a change of sensors.
The TVR MBE has a much simpler algorithm in that it only reacts to target lambda 0 or non zero (which it treats as 1). The std MBE lets you set a target lambda of .9 or whatever.

Traction control and launch control might be something worth changing to a std MBE for. But we (Trackcar and I) did look at it but its fairly basic. It seems the ignition soft/hard cut that it uses is not implemented in the TVR MBE so we never experimented with it.

There are a few other differences as well but its been a while so can't recall them all.

[julian64]

Well, quite. The 'standard' wiring pinout for the MBE is something they threw in the bin when planning its use for the TVR

I don't think a standard MBE would ever work in a TVR, and didn't mean to suggest it would.

[mikesr]

ridds said:

Still lost here then.

So it would be an Easimap 5 compliant ECU. What would stop people using the software on it then?

Or are they jus saying it could use Easimap 5 to 'read' the ECU and nothing more?

You can use Easimap 5 to read the ECU anyway.

Just load the .ecf configuration file from the TVR diagnostics into Easimap and away you go.