Engine Management

[FLESHAXXE]

For some time now I have been thinking about using the Greddy Ultimate which is a piggy back on my 20v blacktop.However I have been hearing countless stories about having to retune ever so often.I have also heard of the link storm which is very good but pricey as well. Has anyone used the Greddy Ultimate with the blacktop and has had very good gains?

[d1 mule]

what about a Link atom...

a stand alone will always be better than a piggy back

[Grrrrrrr!]

what about a Link atom...

a stand alone will always be better than a piggy back

+1. Piggybacks are a hack.
Better off with carbies. 4 of them in a nice line on a blacktop.

[Lith]

+1. Piggybacks are a hack.

Pretty much agreed with this - there is no way I'd ever recommend an E-Manage, or really any piggyback unless you had a REALLY good reason. If you had to go a piggyback I'd probably go for a MapECU over an E-Manage. I have done a bunch of tuning on an E-Manage and managed to "make it work" on possibly one of the worst combinations you'd want to do it with, basically a fully worked H22A Prelude running E85 - made good power and it is quite driveable considering, but there was a lot of messing around and compromise required to make it work. I'd call it far from ideal.

Better off with carbies. 4 of them in a nice line on a blacktop.

Not sure if serious.

[Boost_4_Life]

Not sure if serious.

whats worse is ive seen kits for sale to convert 20v to carbs...

go the link atom, best thing I ever did to my 20v

[Mr Ree]

On the contrary to Lith's experience with them, I couldnt be happier with my emanage ultimate, it does exactly what its supposed to do, and has never caused any issues. Has lots of features too, not normally found with your typical piggyback.

My car starts, idles, and runs 100% like stock, except im putting out around 100% more power than the factory setup. Who knows, maybe it works better on some setups than others?

Im not saying they are the best thing since sliced bread, but if you dont want to go to a standalone, the EMU sure beats an SAFC, any day of the week.

[2jayzgte]

+1. Piggybacks are a hack.

Pretty much agreed with this - there is no way I'd ever recommend an E-Manage, or really any piggyback unless you had a REALLY good reason. If you had to go a piggyback I'd probably go for a MapECU over an E-Manage. I have done a bunch of tuning on an E-Manage and managed to "make it work" on possibly one of the worst combinations you'd want to do it with, basically a fully worked H22A Prelude running E85 - made good power and it is quite driveable considering, but there was a lot of messing around and compromise required to make it work. I'd call it far from ideal.

Better off with carbies. 4 of them in a nice line on a blacktop.

Not sure if serious.

So Lith don't you rate F-Cons they have the ability to do both run standalone and piggy-back.

They seem to be one of the very most popular ECU's in Japan.

[Lith]

On the contrary to Lith's experience with them, I couldnt be happier with my emanage ultimate, it does exactly what its supposed to do, and has never caused any issues. Has lots of features too, not normally found with your typical piggyback.

My car starts, idles, and runs 100% like stock. Who knows, maybe it works better on some setups than others?

I never said it doesn't do it's job - our experience sounds similar, just our opinion on using a hack to be responsible for injector and ignition control is conflicting. The E-Manage did exactly what we told it the whole way through, though the experience would have been a great amount nicer if we had a proper stand alone ECU instead of trying to force or trick the stock ECU's hand. I don't like trusting the stock ECU when you can never be too sure what it's going to try to decide to do, or attempt to do when it realises it isn't in control.

One of the easiest to explain situations which should express what I didn't like about tuning with the E-Manage, bearing in mind we needed to get a tune together which would allow it to be run on fuel easily found at the pump in NZ.... if you disagree with my thoughts on the place of an EManage ECU, interested to know your thoughts on these points I encountered tuning one on the Prelude:

- BB6 Honda Prelude ECU runs a factory wideband O2 sensor and an ECU which trims from it's output REALLY quickly. Trying to build a base injector adjustment table to make it at least closer to target (so the whole tune doesn't rely on closed loop to make it tidy) is pretty much impossible, and when in closed loop you are stuck to the Honda ECU's targets.

- The stock ECU doesn't seem to limit it's fuel trims - you could max out the E-Manage injector adjustment and the Honda ECU will trim it back to run it's intended target. At least to the point we tried to.

- If the stock ECU doesn't get it's O2 sensor signal, or if the reading is not what it expects and it cannot trim it to hit it's target then instead of giving up it goes into limp mode which seems to involve (from the E-Manage logs) throwing spark at random HEAVILY retarded points and behaving generally like a douche

- The ever proactive Honda ECU will go into lambda targetting when the rpm change drops below a certain rate, which means steady state dyno tuning is impossible as it would even target 1λ at wide open throttle if the RPM aren't changing. MBT tuning is pointless if you don't have the same air fuel mixture in the cylinder you would NORMALLY have, not to mention there is no way I am going to sit on the dyno at 4500rpm at WOT on 98octane running at 1λ on an engine running that kind of compression etc so it means you can't using steady state tuning to build a sensible timing map which sucks arse on an engine where the points of being under and over advanced are relatively close to each other

The reasons I have for suggesting the MAPECU may be a better choice if you are hugely compelled to go with a hack ECU is that it is locally developed, still being supported and developed and has some very nice features which are easily comparable with the EMU - as well as others, such as being able to create a map of BS lambda readings to feed the stock ECU to keep it thinking it is running the show.

except im putting out around 100% more power than the factory setup

http://nzhondas.com/lower-north-island/142325-nzhondas-summer-dyno-day-stm-2nd-feb.html

Should go to this - would be quite interesting to see what it is making, MAPC's dyno turned out to be fairly erratic, it got clearer and clearer the more I used it... would be interesting to see what it made on dyno that held and measured power consistently

Im not saying they are the best thing since sliced bread, but if you dont want to go to a standalone, the EMU sure beats an SAFC, any day of the week.

This we can agree with.

So Lith don't you rate F-Cons they have the ability to do both run standalone and piggy-back.

I never said anything about HKS F-Cons I've never used one, so can't really comment on them... part of the reason for that is as far as I understand you basically have to be a workshop and get permission to (and even pay to?) have the right to tune an FCon on a case by case basis? Basically there is not a huge amount of support for them in NZ and they are rare as hens teeth here, so the only reasons I'd have to not recommend one of those would be the fact that they aren't that cheap, not that common and therefore long term support isn't that guaranteed. Nothing to do with the ECU's actual capabilities.

The reason the E-Manage Ultimate was chosen for the car I had tuned was that it's active diff setup has a proprietory can-like connection to the diff control which the protocol for has not been distributed or cracked meaning if a stand alone ECU is chosen the diff becomes an open diff, and the owner was not interested in swapping it out for an aftermarket LSD. At the time when we did research it seemed like an F-ConV Pro could be the gun choice if it weren't for the fact we wouldn't be able to tune it ourselves, and be limited to perhaps two workshops in NZ I know of off hand who CURRENTLY will tune them and no guarantee of if that number will go up or down.

Probably worth noting that NZ and Australia developed ECUs are increasing in popularity in Japan, too.... a lot of cars over there using the likes Link/ViPEC etc these days despite having the likes of FCons, EManage, PFC etc being locally made and supported since ages ago.

[2jayzgte]

Yeah I guess HKS want to protect against cowboys tuning there ECU's I guess as you have to use there tuning software.I believe Andre used to have it but only Soichi in AKLD is the only guy in NZ allowed to use it is how I understand.

I've had the F-Con V-Pro in my car for just about 5 years now and have'nt had any issues and I'm using it in its piggy-back form and its been brilliant even gives you better fuel economy which is a real bonus also on long trips.

[steroidcontaskie]

Hi

I have a MAPECU 3 in my 2jzge-T soarer and save some USB driver communication issues, it seems very easy to install and tune.

Also, the support is absolutley excellent, the manufacturer spent 30 mins on the phone with me going though what the possible problems might be when I was having probelms connecting to the ECU.

I think that how succesful a piggy back can be has more to do with what your factory ECU is. As Mr Ree says, lots of people have MAP ECUs (2s and 3s) and eManage units with there 2jzge turbo conversion and have no issues at all. I have an OBD2 ECU and if I unplug my factory O2 sensor the car retains the Fuel MAP that I have given it and idles and starts perfectly.

Importantly, find a tuner for the ECU before you by it. You dont want to get in installed and have no one local that will tune it.

Cheers
Edward

[steroidcontaskie]

- If the stock ECU doesn't get it's O2 sensor signal, or if the reading is not what it expects and it cannot trim it to hit it's target then instead of giving up it goes into limp mode which seems to involve (from the E-Manage logs) throwing spark at random HEAVILY retarded points and behaving generally like a douche

The MAPECU 3 has a table for adjusting the voltage from the factory O2 sensors, so you can tune for a different A/F from what the factory computer wants in closed loop mode (although the tuners I talked to didnt want to use this feature if the car would run with the O2 sensor disconnected).

I dont claim to fully understand it, but it seems what you do is tune the car as you want it with the O2 sensor removed, then plug it back in and see what the fuel trims coming from the O2 sensor are, you then use the O2 adjust table to modify the O2 voltage so the factory ECU see a value that means it doesnt need to adjust ffuel trims at all. The upside of doing this is that the factory ECU gets an O2 signal so is happy and it will use the O2 readings to keep the A/F at what you tuned it too.

Sounds pretty cool if you can get it to work.

[Lith]

Yep, alluded to that in my post in regards to what it has over the EManage