Your best bet is prolly to sell the car. Have you tried getting in touch with the governing agency and see if there is some kind of waiver that can acquired. I refuse to believe that having a factory replaced ECU should cause a failure. That basically saying that anyone in the state of Mass that has an ECU failure is screwed, no way that can be the case.

 

One thing that comes to mind about installing a NEW ECU is that in Piwis II there are options for "reading and writing" from the old ecu ( Things like Vin number and coding) on ECU's that CAN be communicated with. There is also the option to install and program the ECU WITHOUT reading the old ECU, and install Vin and coding manually on ECU's that CANNOT be communicated with (fried)(OR are CORRUPTED).

While this is not spelled out step by step by the Piwis II, the procedure does exist , and is at the discretion of the Technician as to whether to "read and write" or not, ( and the TECH must be familiar with this procedure)

If the Technician does not "read anything" from the old ECU , I see no way for the bad data to be transferred to the new ECU.

So while it is an expensive option, Installing the NEW ECU, WITHOUT reading from the old ECU in my mind, may solve the issue !!

 

Someone overwrote the CVN and CALID fields in the ECU. They are now blank. MA is looking for specific values in those fields to tell them that the ECU programming in the car is OEM Porsche and has not been modified. I believe the CVN is a checksum value computed based on the rest of the code.

I do not know what values are being looked for by MA, if I give them a value they will tell me yes or no, but they will not tell us what values should be in those fields. So Jorge gave them the values from his stock ECU and MA looked them up and said that as far as the state's concerned, the values don't match anything they have, so they wouldn't pass his FL car if it ever came to MA.

I have thought about talking with my state rep, but I also know how long that can drag out, assuming any action is even taken. I wasn't quite to the point where I was ready to involve her but I guess it can't hurt.

To be honest though my anxiety level is so high now over this car, I just want to make it go away (at a fair price). Every time I get in it, I just get worried about the whole situation. I paid MA $3000 in taxes for NO REASON at this point, so also want to see if there is a way to reclaim those but I don't think there is. I've looked at opening a business in NH and registering it there, but I don't want to do all these workarounds, they're costly, time consuming and stressful and I did something similar 20 years ago and ended up in court because a butthurt cop thought I was trying to avoid paying sales tax on my NSX. I have a car that passes safety check and emissions, but I can't legally drive it. This car is 100% legal in 48 (possibly 49) other states!!!

The whole situation is just very upsetting. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous car and it's a unicorn. A blue Turbo S cabrio 6MT took me a year to find and it's a crappy time of year to be selling a cabrio.

 

This is interesting as Porsche told me they cannot help because the only option is to read from the existing ECU and rewrite using that code. They said the only option to completely wipe the code and start fresh was buying a new ECU for $4000+labor.

If you said that would 100% solve the problem, MAYBE I would consider that route, but again it comes down to will the values returned in the two questionable fields match what MA has on record. If they do not, I've thrown away thousands of good $$ after bad $$$. And given that we've checked a stock Porsche with MA, and were told it would not pass, I'm not convinced that a new ECU would pass. There's nothing wrong with my ECU anyway. That's like buying a new computer and reinstalling all your software because solitaire won't run on your current Windows computer. Everything else on your computer works fine though.

 

IF the ONLY option was to read from the OLD ECU then, then a fried ECU would kill/total the car !!

The fact that the Florida car does not have the correct CALID ( calibration identification number) and CVN ( calibration verification number )(checksum) is a puzzle. You mean to say that this car right off the import ship would not have passed MA CALID and CVN checks? That would be a MAJOR problem !!!

Calibration levels can be programmed straight from the PIWIS tester. Options include ROW, X50, OBDII,OBDII LEV,China, Market A, Market B, Market C, ect. depending on model. Most models only have 3-4 options.

Your calibration would be OBDII LEV, unless you have a X50 option witch I think is in another step , and another step will be transmission option manual/automatic.

 

Apply for an Emissions Waiver...you pass all the other tests http://www.massvehiclecheck.com/motorist_questions.html

Your problem is not with your ECU or the actual emissions test which you said passed. Your problem is a technical issue.

 

I already went down the waiver road. The waiver is only valid if the car was not 'tampered' with. Having non-stock ECU is considered tampering thus the waiver process is not an avenue I can take. Even though mine is MOSTLY stock, my blank fields (which flashing back to stock using the tuner I mentioned did not populate nor was it expected to, his flash isn't designed to do that and we didn't know about that issue at the time we flashed) indicate it is NOT stock as far as MA is concerned. Thanks for researching that though!

And yes, assuming Jorge is indeed running stock code as he says he is, then it would have failed right off the boat. It could be there is something wrong with the test database MA is using, but how do I prove that short of a lawsuit and discovery?

For the CALID and CVN, are you saying that there are only a few valid results that can be returned? I was sort of wondering if the VIN worked into it so that every single vehicle would have a different result. And would you expect 2004 X50 (or 2003 X50, etc) be any different than 2005 Turbo S (which is X50)?

 

I know how you can flash it back to stock. An ECU tuner. They have stock files and can flash cars back to stock. I know a distributor that could probably do it for you but he would probably charge something. Anyways its probably worth the try. He would need your ECU code to start to see if he has the file. If you want send me your ecu number through PM and ill pass it on to him and also send you his info.

 

I have no idea if the Vin number is added to or multiplied by the calibration number for form some obscure number, I doubt it, but it is certainly possible.

The calibrations have to be EPA approved in the US, some other country's have a lot less restrictions , the calibrations may be different due to the emission laws, availability and quality of the available fuel.

The calibrations can be updated for better emissions, performance, or to cure a particular complaint from a certain condition in a particular part of the country. Anytime a calibration is changed the new calibration must be sent to EPA to be certified and receives a new ID number. The new calibration supersedes the older version but BOTH are EPA approved and valid unless the calibration is recalled. Older cars with the same engine COULD have the original version or a superseded version(if one is available). The Piwis II tester at the dealership will have latest calibration for that particular emission level/engine type/year model.

 

That's where I started. A tuner flashed me back to stock, but the flash does not overwrite/replace the CALID/CVN fields. I need a tune that is stock and sets those to a value that the state finds acceptable (and we don't know what values are acceptable because the state won't tell us). Somewhere in the history of this car, those fields were wiped out by another tuner and now we can't figure out what to put them back to.

 

Quite a frightening saga - please keep us updated. For those living in tough emission states (CA, MA and others) I guess part of any PPI now will be can the car pass emission testing.

 

The problem is I bought the car in MI. It would pass emissions in MI. Once I got it to MA, it would not pass as the rules are different. I don't think there is any possible way any PPI done in Michigan could have answered the question 'will the car pass emissions in MA'.

Had I known the ECU had been modified, I could have flashed it via a tuner, threw on some O2 extenders to remove the resulting CEL and passed at a local inspection station. The local station doesn't do this crazy CVN/CALID testing (I don't think).

I've now written to Porsche corporate as well as my state senator and state rep. Don't know how far it will get me, but I'm not sure what else I can do apart from throw money at the problem and hope, and that's a waste of money.

If you live in MA, the solution is either buy a car that's 15 years old (exempt from this mess) or buy a car from someone in MA as if it fails inspection, the seller has to fix it or take back the car (don't quote me on that, but I think that's the case).

I could park the car until 2020 and the problem would go away (assuming the legislation doesn't change) but that's a ridiculous plan.

 

Fingers crossed, my senator's office has taken the case.

 

and just like that the problem is gone. Thank you senator. I got a call from the MA RMV telling me they looked at the test results of my car, everything looks fine, the person I've been dealing with should have allowed it to pass and they have cleared the flag preventing me from getting a sticker.

Hallelujah!!

Headed to get a sticker this afternoon.

 

Wow! I read this thread with fascination, had so much good technical information, but it did not seem to make sense. I have happy for you and your unicorn!

Funny, I had an issue with the title of my 996, it got sent to USAA (I financed it) with a Nevada title, and some how it went through the system and it was titled in IL, but then Nevada issued another title, etc. I couldn't renew my registration the 2nd year because of this, I went round and round to get it registered again, in the end, all I had to do was to get the "right guy" on the phone and he knew what was going on, had me text him a picture of the VIN plate on the car and BAM it was done.

Talk to the right people, get the right results.