[89 Rag]

For the sake of arguement, I'll entertain this idea for a minute and ask you opinions about what you have, what's out there and your likes/dislikes about the many Ecu's out there.

I like what I'm seeing from Autronic and of course MoTec but I'm learning so bear with me please...

[Rob x-7]

it would depend on who was going to do my tuning, I chose Wolf V500

[mazdaspeed7]

I agree with rob. a $5k motec isnt worth a shit without someone who can tune it well. Most of the options out there are adequate, so Id find a tuner you like and you trust with your motors life, and go with what they recommend.

I like the megasquirt, and its my first choice for an ecu(my protege is getting one with the klze swap), but its not for everyone. Its capable, expandable, and all open source. Anything you can think of you may want, someone probably has already done it, either hardware or software. Theres lots of good base maps out there, I know BDC has put up a bunch of maps, timing and fuel for the MS over on 7club. I hate to recommend that forum for anything, but the megasquirt subforum is great there. Some really knowledgable and helpful guys.

The MS isnt hard, but there is a learning curve to it, and its best suited for people that like to tinker. If you want something to plug in, get tuned, and forget about it, a mainstream one may be a better choice.

[89 Rag]

It will almost certainly be a Portland, OR. based tuner, don't see trailering the car to California or back east, might consider flying someone in too.

Doesnt matter how much the Ecu might cost at this point, I'm going the be a student and learn for that kind of money

Kinda lean in resonses though, any one else wanna chime in?

[1988RedT2]

I'm happy with the E6X. I installed and tuned it myself. I won't say the tune is perfect, but driveability is better than stock, and it's been down the strip a bunch of times and hasn't blown up, so that says something. I started with a base map from the hitman and tweaked it a little on the fuel. I didn't even touch the ignition map.

[GreyGT-C]

I've run the PFS purple box in the past.. a Haltec E6A, a Haltec E6K, Motec M4 and now the Electromotive Tec3R.

ALL of them are better than stock (except maybe that PFS purple POS) and are easy to tune (except the Motec) Pick one that ALOT of other people have and you can get tech support easy and maps for it.

Sadly, my favorite ECU so far is the factory LS corvette/camaro ECU. LS Edit and HP Tuners are EXTREMELY EASY to use and you can do anything you want with it.

[bluetii]

It really depends on what you are trying to tune. If it is just an N/A street car don't waste your money on a huge dollar EMS, if it is a professional race car then by all means go all out.

We tune the Haltech, Microtech, Apexi Power FC, etc... My personal choice is the Power FC, ease of installation, very easy to tune, lots of support, as far as injector staging and trigger pick up , it is bullet proof. The Microtech and Haltech both have well know issues in those areas and you need to make a new engine harness.

The PFC is plug and play even in the S4 and S5 FC with our adapter harnesses

[89 Rag]

Is that AEM's adapter harness box stock, or a mad scientist version there of?

I like Apexi's stuff, have used the SafcII in my car for a while now and have considered the Power FC, kinda looks like you guys have made it even easy(er) for an FC owner to make the switch.

I noticed you have two versions, sort of, in your TII vert project. The cosmo set-up had FD igniters and the run down for the fc adapation has the end user modifying the FC coil/igniters. Do you do the latter portion in house also, or strictly provide the info for the end user to perform?

[j9fd3s]

89 Rag, on 16 January 2010 - 10:20 PM, said:

Kinda lean in resonses though, any one else wanna chime in?

my ecu knowledge is kind of dated i think...

i like the rtek, as its just a tunable stock ecu. no wiring... it does have limitations, as the sensors (afm) can only read so far. for a mild street car its the easiest.

haltechs. i like the e6k, its reilable, but primitive. the e11 (e8) is very close to being really great, unfortunately its buggy, i think they have fixed most of these, but you know, when the software locks up, car no run.
the e6x has the windows software, which is a little harder to use than the e6k's dos (you use the mouse and drive!), seems to be more sensitive about trigger wiring.

the haltech harnesses are full of solder blobs, and weird ground loops... we used to basically redo em so its more like the factory mazda harness with the haltech ecu plug, we never had trigger issues that way...

MS: i find it really confusing. its also a bit primitive, they don't do sequential injection, there's no injector phasing. the assembled units arent cheap either. i could be missing something...

power FC; its kind of like the rtek, unless you have the apexi software, its limited. they are reliable, price is right too, IF it fits your application.

wolf; there's only one guy to buy from locally here, and hes had some personal problems. system LOOKS fine...

electromotive; i've driven a car with it (tec2) and it was really nice, at the time the software was nice, but its pretty dated now. not sure why, but all the scca guys were running em, and then had problems and jumped ship.

motec; its expensive, but they work. they have good support. uses DOS software, which is good, windows freezes. but its expensive!

so as you can see, i'm not really jazzed about the ecu choices. although i havent really looked into it seriously in a few years

[89 Rag]

I like the Rtek as well (thinking stage2 upgrade), even for its limitations. I would like to play with one with the pocketlogger a little prior to buying but I guess, for the money, I could just grab it and see what's what on my current set-up before making engine mods to make some comparisons vs. just stock w/SafcII.

If Banzai racing's adapter harness and coil mod worked to run the FD version of the Power FC with datalogit on my car, I'd almost want to go that way if the Rtek was too limited for the engine mods on the N/A that I have in mind.

It might appear like im trying to cheap out or not put in the work but understand, I totally went through ALL the wiring on this car when I did the resto a number of years back. Not the half-assed, band-aid, make it work for now stuff. I went through every inch of wire on that car: unbundeled, untaped, cleaned connectors and contacts, replaced bad wiring, checked and rechecked, installed all new sensors, shrink tubed, soldered...you name it, I did it. I'd rather not put in the time now on rewiring an engine harness for a standalone that requires a new harness on an N/A engine, even a heavily modded one, If what I've already done can support an under 400hp application unless its absolutely necessary.

[Rob x-7]

all the other wiring would stay, just the engine harness would get changed

again my choice would be to decide who is tuning the car and see what they suggest, figuring you will learn how to do it yourself will be a very costly mistake

[j9fd3s]

89 Rag, on 21 January 2010 - 04:21 PM, said:

I like the Rtek as well (thinking stage2 upgrade), even for its limitations. I would like to play with one with the pocketlogger a little prior to buying but I guess, for the money, I could just grab it and see what's what on my current set-up before making engine mods to make some comparisons vs. just stock w/SafcII.

If Banzai racing's adapter harness and coil mod worked to run the FD version of the Power FC with datalogit on my car, I'd almost want to go that way if the Rtek was too limited for the engine mods on the N/A that I have in mind.

It might appear like im trying to cheap out or not put in the work but understand, I totally went through ALL the wiring on this car when I did the resto a number of years back. Not the half-assed, band-aid, make it work for now stuff. I went through every inch of wire on that car: unbundeled, untaped, cleaned connectors and contacts, replaced bad wiring, checked and rechecked, installed all new sensors, shrink tubed, soldered...you name it, I did it. I'd rather not put in the time now on rewiring an engine harness for a standalone that requires a new harness on an N/A engine, even a heavily modded one, If what I've already done can support an under 400hp application unless its absolutely necessary.

we've done a few weird setups over the years. the race car had an e6x board in the stock FC ecu case. stock engine harness was used, 100% unchanged, and actually we had NONE of the trigger problems that everyone else had...

the yellow FC had a prototype haltech to mazda adaptor harness. one end is like the ECU plug, the other is the haltech plug. paul later built a little circuit board setup for this. again the mazda wiring is untouched, you can switch back to the stock ecu in minutes.

the ECU connectors aren't really hard to find anymore either.

[SAFC3S]

Anyone tried the new Haltech Platinum Sport?

I have heard good things from a couple guys I know running them on 350's, curious if any of you have seen one in action.

[bluetii]

89 Rag, on 20 January 2010 - 01:05 PM, said:

Is that AEM's adapter harness box stock, or a mad scientist version there of?

I like Apexi's stuff, have used the SafcII in my car for a while now and have considered the Power FC, kinda looks like you guys have made it even easy(er) for an FC owner to make the switch.

I noticed you have two versions, sort of, in your TII vert project. The cosmo set-up had FD igniters and the run down for the fc adapation has the end user modifying the FC coil/igniters. Do you do the latter portion in house also, or strictly provide the info for the end user to perform?

It is less expensive and far less complicated to simply modify the tailing coil, then it is to install the FD ignitor. We have both sets of directions up as there are people installing 13B-rew engines that want to use the FD coils. In our vert we have the FD coils and ignitor. However sourcing another FC trailing coil is much easier and are how-to is very easy to follow as long as you know how to solder. Then if you decide to switch back to the stock ECU you just drop in a unmodifed coil and you are done.

[Maxt]

Like Rob said, yours or your tuners ability to tune, and also if you are after rudimentary engine control or total vehicle control.
I'm a motec fan boy, if you need basic engine control, m2r, a little more M48, if you want total wizbang, m800, its hard to find something that the m800 can't do. Add a dash, and a power module for a pro install. No more harness slop and exterior input integration headaches.
My other picks in order would be Fcon V-pro, Link, then power FC..

[j9fd3s]

back in the day the link wasn't so hot, but it seems like its gotten a lot better recently