Aftermarket ECUs

[Sardonicus]

pb450 said:

Another Canems convert here. The boys at Lloyds supplied, installed mapped and generally set up the whole thing over a 3 week period.

They were aware that I live 120 miles away, so repeat visits wasn't an option. Five months and 2000 miles in and I'm really happy. Car is smooth, no shunting and predictable in terms of start up, warm up and general drivability. Yes, there is a modest power increase and a small fuel economy gain but these weren't the primary reasons for installation.

Future proofing and reliability were the main objectives and to that end the box is ticked. A recent 1400 mile Scottish trip and the car didn't miss a beat.

It's not cheap but if the car's a keeper, it's money well spent. All IMHO, of course.

None of them are that cheap inc MS etc when you factor in a decent wideband controller materials time etc, in saying this it was the single best modification I made to my car in 2009 jeez was it that long ago already no failures or reliability issues but apparently thats the norm with proper assembly of the ECU itself rather than some spotty chav/oik doing self assembly in his bedroom which is where the poor rep comes from for Megasquirt products, however all the suggested ECU's thus far get my do not play down correct mapping either because you can fit a £3k ECU but mapped poorly or incorrectly you may as well use as an expensive paperweight

Edited by Sardonicus on Wednesday 28th June 13:05

[450Nick]

Sardonicus said:

one of them are that cheap inc MS etc when you factor in a decent wideband controller materials time etc, in saying this it was the single best modification I made to my car in 2009 jeez was it that long ago already no failures or reliability issues but apparently thats the norm with proper assembly of the ECU itself rather than some spotty chav/oik doing self assembly in his bedroom which is where the poor rep comes from for Megasquirt products, however all the suggested ECU's thus far get my do not play down correct mapping either because you can fit a £3k ECU but mapped poorly or incorrectly you may as well use as an expensive paperweight

Edited by Sardonicus on Wednesday 28th June 13:05

Mapping is everything! I had mine done by at least 4 different people and nobody got it right, so I've gone with a robot from 1994 now and it's better the efforts of all of the humans!

[QBee]

Hence why I went a Emerald:

1. Known established product with a multi-map capability
2. Mapper (Jools) is over ten years younger than me and lives and works less than 40 miles away.
3. Jools has an A1 reputation as a quality mapper and all-round good guy.
4. Jools offered me a drive in, drive out solution, including specifying and supplying the wide band lambda, coil packs, ECU, wideband controller/AFR gauge, making up the loom and mapping the system on his rolling road, and even including wiring in the boost controller..

[ray von]

Sardonicus said:

one of them are that cheap inc MS etc when you factor in a decent wideband controller materials time etc, in saying this it was the single best modification I made to my car in 2009 jeez was it that long ago already no failures or reliability issues but apparently thats the norm with proper assembly of the ECU itself rather than some spotty chav/oik doing self assembly in his bedroom which is where the poor rep comes from for Megasquirt products, however all the suggested ECU's thus far get my do not play down correct mapping either because you can fit a £3k ECU but mapped poorly or incorrectly you may as well use as an expensive paperweight

this 1,000,000 times. A well made loom is a must as well

[Sardonicus]

450Nick said:

Sardonicus said:

one of them are that cheap inc MS etc when you factor in a decent wideband controller materials time etc, in saying this it was the single best modification I made to my car in 2009 jeez was it that long ago already no failures or reliability issues but apparently thats the norm with proper assembly of the ECU itself rather than some spotty chav/oik doing self assembly in his bedroom which is where the poor rep comes from for Megasquirt products, however all the suggested ECU's thus far get my do not play down correct mapping either because you can fit a £3k ECU but mapped poorly or incorrectly you may as well use as an expensive paperweight

Edited by Sardonicus on Wednesday 28th June 13:05

Mapping is everything! I had mine done by at least 4 different people and nobody got it right, so I've gone with a robot from 1994 now and it's better the efforts of all of the humans!

Looks like we are all on the same page with this stuff Oh! we are literally

[trev4]

450Nick said:

motul1974 said:

Speaking of the OEM Gems system Nick.....hows yours going and do you think Sprint will ever get around to publishing your article?

...living it hope!

Adrian

Hi Adrian! The GEMS system is working extremely well now; the car is absolutely stunning to drive. It's almost weirdly smooth even at walking pace in 5th - I'm well pleased with it!

Regarding the article, I have been reliably told that it will be in the next issue of Sprint (July) so hopefully you'll see it soon

I really liked the sound of the Gems system do you know if it is likely to be offered as a drive in drive out upgrade any time soon.

[Engineer1949]

emerald


john

[450Nick]

trev4 said:

I really liked the sound of the Gems system do you know if it is likely to be offered as a drive in drive out upgrade any time soon.

I know that Mark Adams is talking about doing it but it is not currently offered. If you have a chat with him on the phone, I'm sure he can let you know if it will be offered and how much etc..

[andy43]

QBee said:

Hence why I went a Emerald:

1. Known established product with a multi-map capability
2. Mapper (Jools) is over ten years younger than me and lives and works less than 40 miles away.
3. Jools has an A1 reputation as a quality mapper and all-round good guy.
4. Jools offered me a drive in, drive out solution, including specifying and supplying the wide band lambda, coil packs, ECU, wideband controller/AFR gauge, making up the loom and mapping the system on his rolling road, and even including wiring in the boost controller..

Mostly +1
By the time I have flogged all the old lucas bits off, cost to change will be way under 2k on my pretty much standard 4 litre Griff.
Pops'n'bangs map should not be underestimated for childish fun. Shunted in and smoothly drove out 2 weeks later. Wasn't bad on the Lucas most of the time to be honest, apart from new rotor, cap, coil, afm, leads, extenders, amp, and cutting out stone cold dead a couple of times
Wideband in the Y piece here too, minimal extra cost but worth it as you get an extra gauge with many flashing lights.
As long as whoever fits it is mapping it, is fairly local to you, and you get all-new parts including the loom there's probably nothing in it apart from price between the MBE/Canems/Emerald.
I reckon a clever option could be a standalone mapped ignition system in conjunction with a remapped Lucas running the fuelling - but you still have the same loom and problems getting decent quality non-chinese parts to keep the thing going.
Gems does sound very very interesting, and I should probably have considered it although what I wanted was a one-stop-with-new-loom fully-fitted-and-mapped solution - ask me to rewire a house and I'm fine, give me an ECU multiplug to assemble and I'd run.
Looking forward to the Gems article in Sprint this month.
Best thing "I've" done to the car, well worth it.

[QBee]

Nice summary Andy. I agree with your comments. I mention the age thing only because I want my mapper to still be around working as long as I can get in and out of the car!
I too have the wide band lambda, and only ditched the pops and bangs map (for now) in favour of three different turbo maps. But I can see myself not using the middle (6psi) map, so if that is the case the pops and bangs map might find a home.....

ETA a cheap option is to run Megajolt with the 14 CUX.

Edited by QBee on Wednesday 28th June 20:48

[N7GTX]

MBE as fitted and and mapped by Powers. If its good enough for Dom, then its good enough for me

[ChimpOnGas]

Its worth pointing out the Gems ECU is the only engine management system we're discussing here that offers fully sequential injection.

While many offering semi-sequential systems will try to convince you there's little real world benefit to be had in going fully sequential offering up some pretty good arguments to support their argument.... I remain unconvinced until the day I run both back to back.

And here's why.

We already know fully sequential injection gives slightly better fuel economy, reduced emissions and delivers superior idle quality; while these differences may be slight to the extent they are considered by some as insignificant, surely drivability, idle quality and general running sophistication are the Holy Grails of any engine management installation.

We also know a fully sequential ECU is more expensive to produce and significantly more time consuming and challenging to map, so perhaps these are the real reasons all the usual suspects are still semi-sequential? One thing is for sure no car manufacture has fitted a semi-sequential system for almost 20 years.... so you've got to ask the question

The Gems system solves the additional complexity of mapping a fully sequential system by offering a degree of self learning, it's still a million miles away from today's levels of fuzzy logic artificial intelligence computing but in the same token you could also very easily argue it's light years ahead of a batch fired Canems, Emerald or MBE ECU.

All this, the low cost of a used Gems ECU and its OEM quality & development budget are good reasons why we should all be following what the 450Nick is doing very closely indeed

Saying that Lloyd Specialist Developments in partnership with Canems already offer this....

http://www.lloydspecialistdevelopments.co.uk/canem...

[angus337]

The GEMs option does look very appealing and I'm certainly looking forward to finding out more about the installation requirements, costs and mapping software.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Megasquirt MS3 can also run full sequential fueling and ignition.

One thing that hasn't really been mentioned above is the software for the various ECUs. I do find the megasquirt software (tunerstudio and megalog vieiwer) easy to use. One of the best features for me is Autotune, which for DIY mapping I find essential.

[Franksy]

Julian at Kits and Classics installed the Emerald K6, wiring loom, his own HT leads, fuel hoses and two maps on my Chimaera two and a half years ago. The car was trailered up to Chesterfield as it was running so badly it wouldn't have made the 150 mile journey. Two weeks later it was trailered back. I never actually met Julian at all, we spoke on the phone and by email. The install and most importantly the mapping was first class. Never had any issues at all, and the pops 'n bangs map was hilarious.
Two and a half years on and after a recent V8 Developments install I finally made the trek up to see Julian for a re-map, last Friday.
Make that three maps: 1,Road/Eco. 2,Pops'N Bangs. 3,Trackday. Here's the really important bit, Julian does't just map the car on the rollers trying to get a big number. He then takes the car out on the road fine tuning the maps particularly for low speed light throttle.
Very important if you've got a wild cam. This process makes all the difference to other mappers. I've been to Emerald in Norfolk, I
wouldn't go again. As been said before, not only does Julian know the RV8 like the back of his hand, he owns a couple of them too.
From now on I wouldn't go anywhere else, well worth the 3 hour journey. Plus he's a very nice chap.

[ChimpOnGas]

angus337 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Megasquirt MS3 can also run full sequential fueling and ignition.

You're right of course, I was really referring to the three semi-secuential offerings (Canems batch fired, Emerald & MBE), recently I had a look at Magasquirt, it was built by a friend who is some what of a genius with these things. His fully sequential Megasquirt system lives on his V12 E-Type that (yes you guessed it) burns petrol or at a flick of a switch LPG .

I concluded after looking at the software that Magasquirt is an amazing system, you could spend an entire lifetime learning it properly as its extremely feature rich, if you can imagine it it's likely Megasquirt can do it, I doubt you could ever wish for more adaptability and user configuration. I think the only problem with it might be that it's actually got too many options, which unless you're experienced or very disciplined with the features it would be quite easy to map yourself into trouble.

I know one of David Hampshire's objectives when he started Canems Engine Management systems was to make his product simple by only offering the features that are really important, this is a commendable idea and I suspect he started with Megasquirt as his reference which formed his design brief for his ECU. Megasquirt has excellent forum support but it is very geeky, and like all forums it's a case of filtering the good advice from the bad, if you're not hands on it may not be the best choice.

Its certainly not for everyone but Megasquirt should not be removed from the OP's list of options, having now seen the system and it's software, Megasquirt is something I have a lot of respect for and would love to learn. As my knowledge grows it would be nice to have a system that grows with me and offers the option to explore and experiment with the elements Canems chose to omit.

[Sardonicus]

angus337 said:

The GEMs option does look very appealing and I'm certainly looking forward to finding out more about the installation requirements, costs and mapping software.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Megasquirt MS3 can also run full sequential fueling and ignition.

One thing that hasn't really been mentioned above is the software for the various ECUs. I do find the megasquirt software (tunerstudio and megalog vieiwer) easy to use. One of the best features for me is Autotune, which for DIY mapping I find essential.

It does full seq inj I already have my MS3X ready to be installed outing my reliable MS2E purely for better control as I plan on full seq fuel and more toys programmable inputs/outputs one I plan to have working is flat shift full throttle shifting with a clutch ECU interrupt switch fitted bit like my sports bike days quick shifters

Edited by Sardonicus on Thursday 29th June 10:33

[N7GTX]

Franksy said:

As been said before, not only does Julian know the RV8 like the back of his hand, he owns a couple of them too.
From now on I wouldn't go anywhere else, well worth the 3 hour journey. Plus he's a very nice chap.

In a similar vein I would not go anywhere else than Powers. With the rich TVR heritage this company has (they have your original engine build sheets) plus all the upgrades and in-house engine manufacturing in their amazing workshop, including their AJP engines - 4.7 litre anyone? - as well as RV8s, its no wonder many TVR owners take their cars to them. Not only owners but other TVR specialists send their engines to Dom for rebuilding/testing/upgrading. That in itself speaks volumes and one of the reasons I chose Powers for my upgrades. Who else offers a 3 year unlimited mileage warranty? And that is using only 10/40 or 15/40 semi-synthetic oil. No synthetic stuff here and indeed its use would invalidate the warranty.

It should be remembered that MBE developed and supplied the ECU for the birth of the Cerbera 4.2 V8 and had been supplying ECUs prior to that so perhaps one of the reasons why Powers chose MBE over others.

http://www.mbesystems.com/case_study_tvr.html

Oh, and Dom is a real gentleman to boot. Pity its a 4 hour round trip to see him.......

P.S. The AJP V8 MBE 9A9 ecu is fully sequential (fuel and ignition) if required.

[KateV8]

Yes in the interests of clarity the MBE does support fully sequential of you go for the 9A9 B option.

[QBee]

Good to hear there is a good choice of both systems and mappers/installers out there.

[Classic Chim]

N7GTX said:

In a similar vein I would not go anywhere else than Powers. With the rich TVR heritage this company has (they have your original engine build sheets) plus all the upgrades and in-house engine manufacturing in their amazing workshop, including their AJP engines - 4.7 litre anyone? - as well as RV8s, its no wonder many TVR owners take their cars to them. Not only owners but other TVR specialists send their engines to Dom for rebuilding/testing/upgrading. That in itself speaks volumes and one of the reasons I chose Powers for my upgrades. Who else offers a 3 year unlimited mileage warranty? And that is using only 10/40 or 15/40 semi-synthetic oil. No synthetic stuff here and indeed its use would invalidate the warranty.

It should be remembered that MBE developed and supplied the ECU for the birth of the Cerbera 4.2 V8 and had been supplying ECUs prior to that so perhaps one of the reasons why Powers chose MBE over others.

http://www.mbesystems.com/case_study_tvr.html

Oh, and Dom is a real gentleman to boot. Pity its a 4 hour round trip to see him.......

P.S. The AJP V8 MBE 9A9 ecu is fully sequential (fuel and ignition) if required.

,
I enjoyed reading that little lot.
As can be seen and heard from the responses they all do a good job regardless of Ecu brand. Loom is a big part and then locality of mapper/ installer/ quality of workmanship.
You can't really fault any of the main dealers who are offering this upgrade and I agree it's essentially around the same initial cost regardless of who installs it. Unless you go DIY of course.
We are indeed lucky there are alternatives and competition.

The system is only as good as the mapper and again in Lloyds Joolz and Jason at Powers we have experts. How many TVR has Jason mapped for instance.
All good choices.
This fully sequential firing stuff,,,, ability to tinker etc,
Why. I really can't fault how my car runs so what benifits would this bring.
Once mapped its adaptive upto set % perimeters etc so unless you have a change of engine character it will self adjust.
Once your maps are working well in all conditions you wouldn't want to change them would you?
The Tvr chip in the CUX is working pretty well on cars that are nearly 20 years old and so shows fuelling is never going to be miles out unless something's wrong so as I'm assuming my new Ecu is more than capable of fine tuning and should not need re mapping very often,,, is this nieve of me,,, am I missing something ?
Ok we have the geeks,,,,, long live the geeks but most blokes considering this at some point don't want to have to re set or adjust things unless necessary or keep fine tuning it. I want it fine tuned by the mapper then hopefully not need to touch it for years.....
My engine state of tune should stay pretty much the same for years unless it wears,,,,
It's constantly wearing but my logic says CUX cars have the same chip it left the factory with sometimes 100,000 + miles on the clock and it still works!!!!
We shouldn't need to adjust or again am I missing a mechanical fundermentsl or something?

Since mines been installed coming up 2 years now it's had idle adjustment made once and nothing else. Some % perimeter changes for self adjustment but that would only come into effect if something was badly amis so no changes to its map.
Still exactly the same as the day it was mapped really. Starts exactly the same every time and runs as if fully warm in this weather instantly from cold.
Best thing I ever did for the longevity of my re built engine.
My single biggest satisfaction is how the engine oil stays cleaner for much longer. 2000 before it was black as your hat, now 4000 and it's still brown,,, get in there.