A cheated ECU with a raised rev limiter is very easy to detect on the track. For every track there are well established shift points, and I think we all possess video of some of our competirors shifting way beyond these established shift points.
There are tracks where a couple of hundred extra RPM's will move a shift point to a more desirable spot - crest of a hill, beyond the apex of a turn etc.
Some time back we asked one of our competitors to swich back his ECU as we were all aware of what was going on and he complied immediately. I think we can do a lot of the policing of this in our own class without teching and protesting.
However if we are not going to self-police, tech or protest ECU's, expect to see the established shift points at your local tracks start to creep. Just sayin!
In regards to this let me ask a serious question and get some veteran thoughts. The rule change this year with regards to the 4.3 diff being mandatory for all competitors, obviously only affected the 94-97 cars. Before with the 4.1, the lower rev limiter setting(6900), seemed to still put us at about the same shift points as the 1.6 or NB cars. Now it is a noticeable difference and really has put us in what seems to be a disadvantage at our local/regional tracks.
I realize they say stock ecu's can vary somewhat...but how much really? I'm guessing the 1.6 cars stock rev limiter is around 7200rpm? Like the 4.3, would it be unheard of to require a max rpm for all rev limiters(maybe 1.6s number)and allow the 1.8's to adjust to this? Or at least allow the NA 1.8's to adjust to the NB 1.8's since we had to adjust the diff ratio to match? Other than an expense to change the crystal for any 1.8NA owner, other than to move to be more "equal" is there some disadvantage to this idea?