Exige Motorsport ECU Upgrade

[Nige W]

Hi there, I have just posted this on SELOC and got some good feedback. However I wondered whether any PHers had any feedback on the lotus motorsport ECU upgrade that reduces the point at which the low lift cams come into play from 6200 rpm to 5700 rpm? I am trying to understand whether it is worthwhile doing for £500 and whether it makes the cars power more useable?

[TonyHetherington]

I've moved this into the Exige/Elise forum for you, I think you'll get a more timely response in here

Tony (moderator)

[beez]

Thinking of doing the same thing my self.

Check out this topic from a while back ECU ReFlash

[Snapper7]

I had it on my Exige and I have to say that it was worth it. I used to find that the car in standard form would drop out of the power band to often.

The ECU upgrade lowered the cam change over point just enough to keep the car in the real powerband. IMHO it really transformed the car.

The downside is that I had the Stage 2 Exhaust and an ITG kit on the car. But I kept getting the engine warning light trip due to the CO2 reading. I the end I had to remove the ITG kit and it all worked fine.

In a tossup over ITG or ECU upgrade it would be the ECU every time for me.

The only downside to the ECU upgrade is that the effect of the Cam changeover is far less pronounced and you lose the sudden screaming banshee for a smoother transition. Which I did miss for a while, but I would rather have have the improvement in the ability to keep the car on cam.

Hope that helps

[peter450]

You can get a tweaked ECU reflash/upgrade that lowers the cam change point and works with aftermarket mod's like yours to give you another 10 or so bhp, think is was hanger 111 that do it

[Foolish Dave]

Snapper7 said:

I had it on my Exige and I have to say that it was worth it. I used to find that the car in standard form would drop out of the power band to often.

The ECU upgrade lowered the cam change over point just enough to keep the car in the real powerband. IMHO it really transformed the car.

The downside is that I had the Stage 2 Exhaust and an ITG kit on the car. But I kept getting the engine warning light trip due to the CO2 reading. I the end I had to remove the ITG kit and it all worked fine.

In a tossup over ITG or ECU upgrade it would be the ECU every time for me.

The only downside to the ECU upgrade is that the effect of the Cam changeover is far less pronounced and you lose the sudden screaming banshee for a smoother transition. Which I did miss for a while, but I would rather have have the improvement in the ability to keep the car on cam.

Hope that helps

Mel's had the engine warning light come on every summer since the car was new. Castle's said they'd seen the same error code on lots (but generally from the pre-Cat sensor and ours was after) but that the stage 2 and pipercross mix did seem to up the rate of false readings when the sensor give up.
We put is down to the petrol in Europe while we were touring, but this year it happened just before the trip. It turned out that the sensor was doing it's job and clean air was getting into the exhaust and messing with the sensor.

While it was in for this, the ECU was done - I've not driven the car yet, but Mel is well pleased with the difference, but then as we have the ECU re-set and upgraded along with getting the exhaust fixed, it's hard to know which one of these things has really made the difference, but as Mel knows the car, I'm going with the ECU upgrade.

[21TonyK]

Hanger111 do the straight reflash for £300 and a GT spec at £400 designed to work with induction and exhaust combinations that they say gives up to 200bhp. I'm contemplating the GT spec as I have an ITG+Larini combination.