OBDII compliant aftermarket ECUs

[B19GRR]

Hi,

Got a question that you guys might be able to help with. I've just had a head upgrade to my Elise - standard 1.8K now producing peak 156bhp@6000 and 143lbft@5400. It's still running the OEM Lotus K4 ecu and as a result any attempts to alter the cam timing cause it to lean out too much at the top end. The kit is Race-Speeds RS-150 plus a Piper 270 cam on the inlet. The head has been ported with enlarged inlets. Both inlet and exhaust cam are set at standard timing and the engine idles really well.

So inorder to get more out of the engine I need to be looking at a programmable ECU but it needs to be compliant to OBDII and whatever the current EU spec is.

The typical choice is Emerald but that's not 100% compliant. Any others spring to mind? Needs to be relatively cheap to get set up and get a map made up on so cheap/free software for mapping is a bonus.

The alternative is to use a piggy back such as the Dastek Unichip but that currently doesn't work for the K-Series.

Thanks for any thoughts.
Rob.

[joospeed]

Is there any reason why it has to be compliant Rob? If it's for diagnostic purposes that doesn't matter since any aftermarket ECU programming software will let you read all the sensor outputs in real time so fault fixing becomes much easier.
Did they say why the Dastek doesn't work? I'm sure John Nobles have Dastek'd K series cars before..

[B19GRR]

Hey Dr. Joolz, I meant to ask you yesterday actually but brain was a bit dead ;-)

I contacted Dastek direct and they said they were working on a K version at that time but no idea when it would be ready.

There is another piggy back apparently Perfect Powers SMT6 which the guys at Clifford Cox in Reading fit, (RR used by Race Speed) although once again it's not known if that works with the K series yet.

Piggy backs do seem to be the way to go at the moment, the only downside is the inability to change rev-limit but that's only an issue for kits using individual TBs that work best at higher revs.

The reason I'm looking for OBDII is really for Owen at Race-Speed because he wants to produce his upgrade kits in a fully raod legal state. The Emerald is used extensively in the S1 Elise as that's not OBDII. It's also used by some tuners in the S2 such as Turbo Technics supercharger conversion but that's just a very grey area.

Damn Euroean legislation is a right PITA!

Have you had any success using chips on Cerbies yet Joolz? Got into the MBE yet?

Cheers,
Rob

[Boosted LS1]

Have you looked at DTA. Allan is a helpful guy?

I always thought there was a lot of mileage with maybe using saab stuff as a retrofit application. Seems very sophisticated and uses knock sensor and MAP inputs. Would that help?

[B19GRR]

Boosted LS1 said:

Have you looked at DTA. Allan is a helpful guy?

As it happens I was looking at the DTA site earlier. Seems that their E48 Exp ECU has been used on a few competion spec Elises, all S1s though. I'll drop them a line though.

Boosted LS1 said:

I always thought there was a lot of mileage with maybe using saab stuff as a retrofit application. Seems very sophisticated and uses knock sensor and MAP inputs. Would that help?

Hmmm, no idea! Are they reprogrammable? I do know that the K doesn't have a knock sensor, don't know what it does MAP wise.

[annodomini2]

OBDII, is just a diagnostics standard, with data read out in a particular format. And a standard for the connector (although this is open to interpretation!)

It doesn't affect the operation of the engine, it just allows a standard fault code reader to read the error codes.

[Boosted LS1]

Subscribe to this internet magazine and read this article. It will tell you what you need to know and subscription is really quite cheap (Ozzie dollars)

http://autospeed.com/cms/A_1935/article.html

[bertie]

As has been said, ODBII is a diagnostic protocol which is a requirement for type approval.

It's not a legislative requirement in this country for aftermarket so why you'd be bothered I'm not sure.

[B19GRR]

Sorry guys, terminology confusion. Should be EU3 (I think) compliant or whatever the current EU reg is. So that it can trigger the MIL light using a post CAT O2 sensor if the CAT isn't working, and whatever else the EU regs require.

OBDII would be handy so that the numpties at dealers can still just plug their toys in and not know any different

[bertie]

Ah ha...however...

Again, there are no legislative requirements in this country for aftermarket, so once a car is sold the onlt legislative requirement is to pass an MOT.

[B19GRR]

Hmmm, now that's an interesting piece of info!

thanks Bertie!

[dino ferrana]

As long as it will still pass an MOT you won't have a problem. I am sure you can get a map produced with this in mind.