Aftermarket ECU's / Stand alone EMS's

[hybrid 1039]

Thought I might make a topic about this as Brendon (assault) and I are researching stand alone engine management systems at the moment ..

Seems to me that its seen as a bit of a black art. When I spose it really shouldnt be.

Maybe also some of you other car build / racing types may want to list some of the other less known brands / links to them around and your personal experience with brands / pitfalls. If we can get some good info in this thread i'll sticky it .. as I have a feeling over the next year or two we will see more and more FI BMW projects.

Ill start.

Autronic:

http://www.autronic.com/

Model: SM4

Benefits: VANOS control, Flat shifting, Antilag, Traction control, Varible boost per gear.

BMW notes: Needs to run extra external ignition box. (MSD DIS-4).

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

I'll be running a Motec system in my M3 when i get it on the road. Not too sure which Motec i'll be running.. probably the M4.

Basically gona be able to adjust/advance ignition timing on each cylinder, set AF ratios thru gears and fully map the car with the KK cams.

www.Motec.com

Laurence.

[Andrew 30]

I have the Link LEMV5 on my racecar -

Pros - Good user interface, can do everything you need for simpler engines. CHEAP.

Cons - Perhaps not as feature rich as more expensive ECUs.

BMW Specific: Needs custom ignition triggering - but Bob @ Hitek motorsport has done it to my car and can replicate it for any m20 (motronic and l-jet)

I have the Motec M4 in my turbo.

Pros - Trillions of features.

Cons - Annoyingly hard to program. Too expensive.

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

I have the Motec M4 in my turbo.

Pros - Trillions of features.

Cons - Annoyingly hard to program. Too expensive.

yeah.. i heard about the price :S:S.. I think i'm getting mine a bit cheeper. guy building my engine runs his owns cars and i think he's secured a good deal cos he's brining in a few units for his other cars.

Do you find it easy to use?

Laurence.

[Damo 23]

I will be producing my own ECU's some time in the future. Its a project that keeps getting pushed aside, but the 335 turbo is in the last stages of being pieced back together so it will need one.

My point is that it is not a black art at all

Having tried almost every ECU under the sun I do have to say Autronic have one of the best systems, Motec's are also good, Haltech's I wouldnt trust and Microtech's are good also. Link is a good 'cheap' option.

Look out for a RevSpec ECU in that list one day

[Matty 0]

As a short reply, I'll add that there's a hell of a lot more to ECU performance than the raw specifications. Pretty much any ECU on the market can be tuned for the same max power dyno curve, but that's a tiny portion of the mapping, and one where you spend maybe 1% of your road driving time. Fuel economy, emissions, cold start, hot start, transient throttle response, etc etc etc... it's all important to get right. It's not so much a black art as a very very complex system that can take a long time to understand fully.

The biggest single factor would probably be the person doing the tuning. Just because someone owns a dyno shop doesn't mean they know what they're doing...

Whatever system you choose, look for the best backup support you can get, because you'll almost certainly need it.

One trick I've heard is that you can buy a Motec M400, find someone with an M800 to do an auto-tune, and then dump the auto-tune back into the M400 Saves heaps of manual tuning time.