MSefi.com read only forum (Jan.15,2018)

My battery has been disconnected for over a year while I did some work on the engine. I'm wondering if the software needs to be reloaded because the battery was disconnected for so long. Would it need both the ECU and map software?

After connecting the battery, my engine (Zetec w/EDIS) barely runs and acts like the timing is off. It ran just fine before I disconnected the battery and there were no changes to the engine that would affect the software map - no cams, changes in fuel injection, etc. I've checked the mechanical parts of the timing and the timing itself and they're fine. The flywheel sensor is OK as well.

Thanks!

Many new OEM cars have keep alive memory that can be lost when the battery is disconnected, but this is just the result of self-tuning by the ECU. It can cause the car to run rough when first started but then it will recover as the ECU retunes.

But no MS ecus have this feature, its flash code and data are permanent unless reprogrammed in a very specific way. So, your MS should come back to life, and it sounds like it did. If it did fail it is highly unlikely that the car would run at all. The biggest cause of corrupt code, as far as I can tell, is an interruption of power while a data change is being burned, because prior to burning an entire 1 kbyte block must be erased at once, then each word in the block is re-written, one by one.

OK, thanks!