OpenSource ECU Definitions

So over the last couple of weeks, I've worked my way through the lions share of the EFI tuning catalog in preperation to open source tune my own car. One thing that jumps out at me though is that in order to successfully tune the car without issue.... having accurate (and hopefully fully defined) ECU definitions is a non optional pre-requisite. This aspect of open source tuning seems to be kind of glossed over in the course(s) which assume that you will just be able to find accurate ECU definitions no problem, and betting your engine on those definitions being correct is nbd.

There does seem to be a fairly well stocked git repo linked out from RomRaider forums for both EcuFlash/RomRaider (at least for subarus), but even if there is a file there for the car/model/year you are looking for you have no gaurentee of its accuracy.

As far as I can tell these definitions are pretty basic XML files that just label certain memory addresses as human readable table names and perhaps include some other basic info like the number of elements tha table has. My questions are basically:

1.) How can I verify the contents of the ECU definitions to make sure that the addresses specified in the file are indeed pointing to a table that controls what the table name says it does.

2.) How can I work to help refine the definitions if it turns out some of the tables are wrong or there are some tables that are missing?

I can understand why this subject was omitted as its perhaps more reverse engineering than tuning but It seems too important to just cross your fingers and hope some random definitions you downloaded from a 5 year old forum post are accurate.

Any insight appreciated 👍

Very good point and I agree with you totally.

May not be of much help but with all of my pouring over forums and message boards I've found (to answer your question) that there is no "quality control" for ECU definitions for open source tuning, period. Many will spread the word of quality through reputation and word of mouth but at the end of the day...you simply don't know/will not know.

And to answer your second question. I feel that if you have a good understanding regarding computer programing (which it may sound like you do) you could surf the forums and jump in to the world of reverse engineering; which sounds crazy complicated. Learning to tune is more than enough for me, lol!

Hope this helps!