Quote Originally Posted by lateapex911 View Post
Roger, the ECU is a terrible example. I was very involved in the current rule, and it's genesis has nothing to do with cheating.
The first rule that allowed chips in boxes might have had some people claiming that it was due to the difficulty in policing, but really, that's not logical either. If carbed cars had the ability to change mixture and timing, why shouldn't ECU cars have the same rule allowances?

I'll make it simple for you: The existing rule is in place mostly because modern day ECUS are, or will be, overly cumbersome and limiting when it comes to building a race car.
I bet you point to the spherical bearing rule next....
Jake,

I was around through most of the ECU issue. EFI cars already had the ability to change the resistance values. The way I remember it, the original iteration of the ECU rule was 'stuff whatever you can in the original box w/ the original connections'. That was in response to not being able to police re-flashed chips. The 'stuff it in the original box' thing was a great example of trying to 'legalize' the cheating w/o giving away the farm. The problem was, not all cars had the same size boxes, and you had guys adding vacuum circuits where none existed initially. The current 'use whatever you want' model was a reaction to the fact that the 'stuff it in the original box' version didn't work.

To claim that the open ECU rule was the result of wanting to give EFI folks the same flexibility as the carb'd folks is disingenuous and revisionist history. As far as looking to the future, what ever happened to 'warts and all'? And IT rules written for what may come down the road in the future? That's a new one.