ecu opinions and thoughts?

what do people use for ecu's or piggy back systems. Does anyone use stand alone systems? reviews? opinions? thoughts? questions? it's something I don't know a lot about and I'd like to learn more about them.

Piggy Backs are band-aids, do it right and get a standalone.

Super biased opinion, but get a power FC. They're relatively cheap, super easy to work with, easy to find, and you get the commander to monitor things like water temp, rpm, battery voltage, etc.

I love my power fc and it doesn't even work as well as it should, due to home made wiring lol but i would recommend Power FC

im sure other people who are familiar with other set ups would recommend others

ive worked with piggybacks like the apexi SAFC, and the AEM EMS
and full standalones like the powerFC and megasquirt and haltech

both of the piggybacks i listed are pretty much garbage, AEM also makes an EMS thats a full standalone, a ton of more options, antilag,aux injection etc, but the software is not very user friendly. the powerFC has the easiest user friendly interface - but the powerfc "controller" is very limited in what you can change, you''ll need the datalogit and a laptop. the megasquirt system is by far the best, but also the most expensive, your setup probably will not need something like this. ive played around on a haltech in a friends evo in toronto for a few minutes, i cant really say for sure since i didnt tune the car, but from everywhere else i gather haltech is great, more expensive than a powerfc, more options though.

i recommended powerfc to all my friends, and they bought them. if you ever change anything up, its pretty simple to retune on the street, however for a very basic setup, example 550's,z32 maf, s14 turbo just get your ecu reflashed, its about $500 cheaper, but if you change your setup ever, have fun sending it away again for a pretty generic tune, unless you drive to calgary, throw it on the dyno and get it reflashed at the same time. youll just end up saving money in the long long run going standalone.

Power fc

I'm running megasquirt on my car. Using it for fuel only, It took me some time to set it up because of the A.D.D but works awesome! If you want to read more on megasquirt here's a link http://www.megamanual.com/mtabcon.htm has tons of info here.

How come your looking into standalones?

i just wanted to hear what everyone else uses and user friendly stuff. Get some general info on here for new people including myself. i didn't know all the different choices that was available for all the different vehicles.

Im running a custom vems setup built by lugtronic, specifically for my car and setup

if its for a nissan your best bang for your buck will be nistune, can fully tune everything, and is 400$ or so from autodream in calgary.

There is nothing wrong with piggybacks, especially on OBD2 cars.

A unit like AEM F/IC is a good way to add a turbo or supercharger to a Naturall Aspirated OBD2 vehicle. Pull out the factory ECU for standalone on most OBD2 cars and they will have a shit fit. Literally nothing will work right, from your power locks to your stereo, to your speedo. Everything is connected, everything is a digital signal. So when you plug a scanner into into, the tech/dealer can diaganose as problem with any system on the car. A lot of those cars are throttle by wire, I'm not even sure Megasqurt can do that? (I certainly wouldn't trust it to do that anyways). But I pretty sure your talking about that S-Chassis in your avatar, so this doesn't affect you.

My biggest overal concern with standalones ( and if you put in the time you could fix it), is rarely are they as nice to drive everyday as a modifed or piggybacked stock ECU. That is their cold start/warm up cycle, and part throttle load never sems to be as good. They always make more power at WOT, but I don't drive at WOT most of the time. I know if you put in the tuning time, this can all be fixed and tuned to perfection though, so that one is more an observation then a a rule. I would say really consider and keep in mind that you will hate driving this car in everyday situations if you don't see the tuning all the way through.

Piggybacks however are often set up only come in to play when you start making boost (via a MAP sensor) or at WOT for naturally aspirated stuff. So for cold start, idle, part throttle cruising, etc that's all handled by stock perimeters. Sometimes there is some tweaks for the inbetween stuff, but usually not far off what the stock mapping. So it all usually works quite well.

I guess it really depends what do you want to with it? How much control over everything do you really need? Like why do you want it in the first place, what is the plan?

all the cars i have driven with stand alone have had great idle and drive ability, except the cars with SDS cause they lacked the idle control.
if a person is smart and tedious the idle and part throttle can be flawless

Heretic wrote:

There is nothing wrong with piggybacks, especially on OBD2 cars.

A unit like AEM F/IC is a good way to add a turbo or supercharger to a Naturall Aspirated OBD2 vehicle. Pull out the factory ECU for standalone on most OBD2 cars and they will have a shit fit. Literally nothing will work right, from your power locks to your stereo, to your speedo. Everything is connected, everything is a digital signal. So when you plug a scanner into into, the tech/dealer can diaganose as problem with any system on the car. A lot of those cars are throttle by wire, I'm not even sure Megasqurt can do that? (I certainly wouldn't trust it to do that anyways). But I pretty sure your talking about that S-Chassis in your avatar, so this doesn't affect you.

My biggest overal concern with standalones ( and if you put in the time you could fix it), is rarely are they as nice to drive everyday as a modifed or piggybacked stock ECU. That is their cold start/warm up cycle, and part throttle load never sems to be as good. They always make more power at WOT, but I don't drive at WOT most of the time. I know if you put in the tuning time, this can all be fixed and tuned to perfection though, so that one is more an observation then a a rule. I would say really consider and keep in mind that you will hate driving this car in everyday situations if you don't see the tuning all the way through.

Piggybacks however are often set up only come in to play when you start making boost (via a MAP sensor) or at WOT for naturally aspirated stuff. So for cold start, idle, part throttle cruising, etc that's all handled by stock perimeters. Sometimes there is some tweaks for the inbetween stuff, but usually not far off what the stock mapping. So it all usually works quite well.

I guess it really depends what do you want to with it? How much control over everything do you really need? Like why do you want it in the first place, what is the plan?

You and I could get along great. I hated having to piece together my megasquirt system, and I got overwhelmed because of it, I eventually just gave up on it, and sold all the turbo parts for the car.

In hindsight, I would have worked through it, or bought an s-chassis.

again nistune is awesome, if your only making minor adjustments you can do so to the stock maps. it has the auto tune functions of the expensive standalones. only downside is that they still require a maf, but you can run almost any maf.