How Many Of You Use An Aftermarket Ecu And If So,what Make?

[hicas_posse]

hi guys,

how many of you use the aftermarket ECUs around? If so, what make?

i dont' mind the fuel going when i drive the car for performance but when i'm normally driving and it eats a fair bit, that's when i m not happy.My mechnanic tells me that it;s best to use a HALTECH Sv6 as it'll optimise the fuel maps based on my driving(ie i get to choose differing fuel maps when i drive).

No flaming but guys, what's your word on aftermarket ECUs in terms of daily driver consumption?

oh,yeah, errr.. where is the ECU located in the R33 gTS-t series 2?

Thanks!!

[Guilt-Toy]

hi guys,

how many of you use the aftermarket ECUs around? If so, what make?

i dont' mind the fuel going when i drive the car for performance but when i'm normally driving and it eats a fair bit, that's when i m not happy.My mechnanic tells me that it;s best to use a HALTECH Sv6 as it'll optimise the fuel maps based on my driving(ie i get to choose differing fuel maps when i drive).

No flaming but guys, what's your word on aftermarket ECUs in terms of daily driver consumption?

oh,yeah, errr.. where is the ECU located in the R33 gTS-t series 2?

Thanks!!

The best ECU that you could get for power and economy is a Apexi Power FC.

The ecu is located on the passenger side kick panel. a couple of 10mil bolts and it comes out easy.

Why do you have to change maps when you are driving ? I dont understand this. Why do this when you can have one map cater for all situations ? When your on boost then you will have the load points tuned to run the mixture you need and when your on cruze you will be on a completly different load point that will run a nice mixture for economy.

THE ONLY reason you need to change your maps is if you run a high high octane fuel on your car for the track and use different timing / fuel values for the different fuel you are running like C16 / AVGAS etc etc.

Get the power FC do it properly the first time and enjoy the driveability of an AFM.

[2BNVS]

yep the power fc is great for alot of applications but depending how far u wanna take it, ive got alot of custom shit on my 25/30 and not much standard stuff ie. afm etc and the power fc wasnt good enough so i upgraded to an Autronic SM4 but obviously if ur not chasing big figures etc the poewr fc will be perfect

ben...

[Guilt-Toy]

yep the power fc is great for alot of applications but depending how far u wanna take it, ive got alot of custom shit on my 25/30 and not much standard stuff ie. afm etc and the power fc wasnt good enough so i upgraded to an Autronic SM4 but obviously if ur not chasing big figures etc the poewr fc will be perfect

ben...

The japs are making much more power then you with the Power FC. Its all up to the tuner.

[2BNVS]

yeh well i had a number of tuners who specialise with power fc's working on my motor and they couldnt get it perfect with what it has... maybe the japs have retained alot of gear that i dont have, if so then that explains it...plug the autronic in and there ya go absolutley perfect, better than any tne i coulda gotten on a power fc and a shit load more capabilities

ben...

[hicas_posse]

The best ECU that you could get for power and economy is a Apexi Power FC.

The ecu is located on the passenger side kick panel. a couple of 10mil bolts and it comes out easy.

Why do you have to change maps when you are driving ? I dont understand this. Why do this when you can have one map cater for all situations ? When your on boost then you will have the load points tuned to run the mixture you need and when your on cruze you will be on a completly different load point that will run a nice mixture for economy.

THE ONLY reason you need to change your maps is if you run a high high octane fuel on your car for the track and use different timing / fuel values for the different fuel you are running like C16 / AVGAS etc etc.

Get the power FC do it properly the first time and enjoy the driveability of an AFM.

dude,

thank you. yeah, i take it my friend and myself are still pretty much juniors in the field of forced inducted performance. yeah, what you said was interesting about the load points thing. I will talk to my mechanic.

thank you!

[N I B]

PFC and Wolf are good plugin units and I think Haltech are doing the same now,If your happy with your Tuner-mechanic go with what he prefers to use.

[Shaun]

yep the power fc is great for alot of applications but depending how far u wanna take it, ive got alot of custom shit on my 25/30 and not much standard stuff ie. afm etc and the power fc wasnt good enough so i upgraded to an Autronic SM4 but obviously if ur not chasing big figures etc the poewr fc will be perfect

ben...

Yeah Ben, Im stoked with my SM4 as well! By the way, i hope the GTR wheels were what you expected.

Shaun.

[paulr33]

powerfc for skyline

no questions asked

[2BNVS]

hehe yeh thanks shaun they look awesome, my mate and i couldnt believe how light they actually were for stockies its great

i just got the MT's fitted to them so its looks tough hehe, time to hit the drag strip soon i think

ben...

[calais25t]

I use an EMS stinger.

[GTRNUR]

I use a wolf but to answer the question properly it doesn't really matter what ecu you choose for your car when it comes to making it economical. THAT ALL comes down to the individual tune thats running in the ecu.

Mechanical factors that DO affect your economy directly are injector size and camshaft timing.

The biggest thing that affects economy is the fact that once you've got your great honkin' turbo, 850cc injectors and 700hp pump etc, you can't help but hold it flat occasionally, cause after all thats why we bought turbo cars!

There's been a lot of rumor circulating that once ECU will be more economical than another, or make more power than the other. Fact is, its all bullshit!

For any given engine at any given load with the same air temps, boost pressure, injectors etc and lastly injector pulse width, the performance and economy is IDENTICAL. (not factoring in air restrictions caused by MAF sensor style ecu's).

As far as choosing an aftermarket ecu goes, get one that you can easily get good local support for and make sure it can be tuned by someone you can trust to make both good power for you without de-tuning or blowing it up.

So many tuners tune on the soft side of things so they don't break their customers cars. You NEVER hear about how many Jap tuners break how many engines before they get that magical 400rwkw figure, which is part of the learning process required when pushing for really BIG power figures.

[paulr33]

i dont see why injector size woudl affect economy.

it shouldnt matter if you have 370cc or 1000cc injectors.

its the injector map that decides how much fuel is used.

[psybic]

As far as choosing an aftermarket ecu goes, get one that you can easily get good local support for and make sure it can be tuned by someone you can trust to make both good power for you without de-tuning or blowing it up.

And thats all you can do. Tried not to reply in this ECU war thread cause its pointless. Fact is, the above statement is something no one can argue with.

If your tuner tunes Power FC poorly, you'll find poor results, if they love it, its your best option. as with other ECU's. No point arguing.

Only thing I think we'll all agree on, is since upgrading ECU's to aftermarket, its worth the upgrade!

[GTRNUR]

i dont see why injector size woudl affect economy.

it shouldnt matter if you have 370cc or 1000cc injectors.

its the injector map that decides how much fuel is used.

Large injectors require small pulse widths at low speed operation for the car to have the correct AFR's at idle, and when under low load situations like driving down a slight incline. The problem is that once you get below about 1.4ms the average low impedance injector begins to missfire, making fuel delivery eratic.

So there you have a minimum pulse width, and your stuck with it because below that mark the car will miss and backfire from going lean for brief moments. Running the minimum pulse width under all light load circumstances then results in you getting more fuel than you need.

From my experience i've had this become a problem around the 600cc mark on 2lt 4 cylinders. I'd imagine its about the 500-550cc mark on a 2-2.5lt 6 cylinder.

[BHDave]

If you are worried about fuel economy the get an ecu that can run closed loop for cruise (ie, uses the o2 sensor for feedback and adjusts the mixtures to acheive a set target a/f ratio on the fly).

Other than that get something that you can get tuned locally by a tuner you trust.

[rob82]

Well I'll tell you what I think, not all ECU's are the same and not all ECU's are dependant on the tuners ability. There are definately different levels of engine management and cost does not always depict the best quality ECU for the application. Not all ecu's will give you the same power!!!! It may only be a difference of a few hp but an ECU's timing control ability can make a difference along with spark capacity. The whole menatilty that all ECU's are the same is just BS. Drive a properly tuned autronic GTR compared to a wolf3d GTR there's just no comparison.

[nissan_280zx]

i run an EMS 8860 on my RB20.

It does well for fuel econ when cruising, an average of 9l per 100km at a guess. and it does drink a bit when i get up it tho. But on a stocko RB20DET with an exhaust and FMIC i am making 220rwhp on stock boost. i just upped the boost to about 13 - 14 psi and it still runs great.

the whole lot runs of the TPS and MAP sensors, so no MAF for me.

[R33S2]

PFC and Wolf are good plugin units and I think Haltech are doing the same now,If your happy with your Tuner-mechanic go with what he prefers to use.

What he said, the unit is only as good as the tuner running it.

[GTRNUR]

Well I'll tell you what I think, not all ECU's are the same and not all ECU's are dependant on the tuners ability. There are definately different levels of engine management and cost does not always depict the best quality ECU for the application. Not all ecu's will give you the same power!!!! It may only be a difference of a few hp but an ECU's timing control ability can make a difference along with spark capacity. The whole menatilty that all ECU's are the same is just BS. Drive a properly tuned autronic GTR compared to a wolf3d GTR there's just no comparison.

I'd like you to elaborate on that a lot more on what your trying to say there. Timing control ability, as in at what crank degrees injectors will fire in sequential operation, and at what point ignition will fire is adjustable in wolf and Haltech ecu's. You can also individually retard or advance individual cylinders if required with both ecu's.

By spark capacity i assume you mean spark energy? Has nothing to do with the ecu. All three ecu's allow you to adjust on/off times when controlling dumb coil ignitors which does affect spark energy directly. So long as that charge time is configured the same on all ecu's the spark energy will be the same. If you want powerful sparks, upgrade to a CDI system, start looking thru the Excel and MSD catalogues. HKS ignitions all though being well designed specificly for nissans arent the only option. MSD's top of the line race ignitions can produce 70Kv+ at the plug. Regardless of coils, ignitors or CDI systems spark capacity has nothing at all to do with the ECU.

I do agree the autronics are one hell of an ecu, and i've personally seen one on a RB25/30 thats cranking out an easy 700hp. Installations on WRX's and EVO's, anti-lag and huge turbo's produce an awesome result.

The autronics self learn mode makes it such an easy to tune system, you can very quickly get a good result with them. This has got to be the main advantage of the autronic over all other ecu's, as without self learn you are relying on the tuners ability to tune the ecu manually. The tuner has to understand the dynamics of the engine they are tuning, and this is a big call as a lot of tuners "specialize" in a particular breed or configuration of engine. Stock vs larger or multiple throttle bodies (GTR and others), radical head porting, high lift cams etc all alter how the ecu map will work.

If you go back to basics... remove the turbo and just talk about a naturally aspirated V8. Add the correct sized carburator and mechanical/vac distributor and tune it. Then compare that to its injected counterpart and you'll find the performance is virtually identical. Its been proven. The only minor diferences in performance is due the restriction of the venturi and the sometimes poor fuel distribution to the front and rear cylinders that occurs with some manifold designs.

Speaking from the perspective of an engines builder that wires and tunes ECU's, is a qualified electronics and has been providing high end IT computer support for about 10 years I can say it all comes down to the individual tune. If the HP produced by any ecu is diferent to another ecu on the same engine it just means the tune isn't correct. By same HP i mean within about 5-10hp, as anyone thats done back to back testing on a dyno will know the results can vary this much without changing any settings at all.

Not looking to start a pissing/flaming contest here about one ecu vs another, but i'd really like to hear a logical reason for your comment.

Regards,

Ian