Standalones That You Would Never Use

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Fred
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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by Fred »

JaniM, vote added.

About CB's old unit, and the edelbrock, and holley stuff, those are old models and not currently available. I think it'd be unfair to judge on non-current stuff? Obviously this is a grey line, though. Old Haltech, old Link, old Motec, they all suck, badly. Current units that suck have no excuse, even if the "current unit" is still widely available (eg MS1).

About the new CB Magna, is it general purpose, or specific to VW flat-four/subaru engines? I don't think we'll ever get much feedback on something that's not GP, and I'm not sure non-GP stuff belongs here, either. On this note, if I included something non-GP, point it out.

In any case, the above comments are a valuable record, so keep em coming even if they don't make it into the first post!

Added this, at zero: http://www.efitechnology.com/

Fred.
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JaniM
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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by JaniM »

That why I pointed that Magna, if some has some more info. I'm intresting what they have "better" now, than earlier.
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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by Fred »

http://www.fuelairspark.com

FAST XFI added with zero count! Looks pretty simplistic, though.

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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by pishta »

There are a few bolt on TBI kits that look like carbs now (MSD, Wilson V-power, Professional products, F.A.S.T, etc). Most do self tuning too. But its still TBI people, that stuff went out of style with Duran Duran, day glow clothing and big hair.....
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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by Fred »

No such thing as auto-tune, only auto calibration! :-p
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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by pishta »

That Professional products "Powerjection III" netted an 11% HP increase and about the same in torque. For $1700 I would expect a little more oomph. Thats $62 per hp.
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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by Fred »

For 1700usd of EMS, and no physical change to the engine, I'd pray the manufacture did a good job and that I'd make zero extra hp. :-p
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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by Fred »

Fred wrote:Also added, with zero count: http://ecumaster.com/en/

This is Polish developed. I stumbled across it four days ago when searching for a BMW engine, clicked on a Spanish website that deals in this gear, and then found it. Looks OK.
Vote added. Sorry Polish guy. Your user manual shows signs of naivety and average design. This is just my opinion, it still looks OKish, but there are some show stoppers for me. See below:
Before you perform firmware upgrade, please disconnect injectors and ignition coils !
Bad design IMO. I know others disagree.
Injectors size - flow rate of the single injector in cm^3/min. It is assumed that the number of injectors is equal to the number of cylinders. If their number is different, you should give the average flow rate for a single cylinder.
Dead time config oddly placed in a separate location to flow. Odd. At first I thought it didn't have it. Still, combining injector flows like that is weird at best. At worst you have two vastly different dead times (which he refers to as open times, which is wrong) and only one place to configure them. No option for different fuels in each rail, too.
AFR TABLE Afr Table indicates the desired AFR target for every engine speed and load point that the engine might operate. To use this table EGO Feedback must be active.
AFR in petrol terms is ugly if you're not running petrol. No mention of scaling it. And not used as an integral value in calcs, so VE is NOT actually true VE at all.

Hall in put has a sw switchable 4.7k pull up, too weak IMO. Only supports simple missing tooth + sync.

7A on board ignition drivers. Not a fan of this, as everyone knows. 7A is marginal too, IMO. Hot coils will exceed this.

Wideband built in, don't like this either. Design requires calibration and it'd be nice to see it pitted against a test gas.

It is however pretty fully featured, both in hardware and software.

Fred.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
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FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by Joseph Davis »

The problem with this poll is complete retards, or the intellectually lazy who do not put in the requisite seat time to hold an informed opinion, hold equal weight in these results. Some of these companies have several eras of tech development, and you commonly find ALL of them still in play... exactly which box by Company X are we bashing? Take findings, dash liberally with salt.



- Hydra should pull a 1.5 on the overall scale of standalones, and NOT be top of the list of suck. I've went through a lot of issues with them, specifically the early ones that would corrupt firmware when flashing maps, but 2.6/2.7 is very stable and turns out a very well running vehicle. It still has a cumbersome interface which is something only innumerate nancyboys complain about, although that being said if *I* designed a GUI I would spend some time on it. Also, the designer is a bit of a clueless toolbag... I was informed he had no intention of mapping injector latency below 10 volts as the box would shut off if the voltage went below that mark. I have logs of 7 volts while cranking.
---> Negative vote for 2.1/2.4 boxes, I'm fine with 2.6/2.7. Neutral overall.


- MS1 is only acceptable on a NA chassis Miata, in low power scenarios, for the budget minded, where lack injector latency adjustment causing some fueling swings is not a concern, nor are small driving hiccoughs. Despite it's obvious and abundant flaws, I have turned out turbo Miatas that run for years with it.
---> Score one for the losing team.


- Microtech would be fine if it was priced to compete with MS1. It's crude, but it does work. Again, injector latency table does not exist = loldongs.
---> Not on my dime, negative.


- BabyStuff3 has robust hardware and is a favorite of the big power drag scene. It is simple and bare bones, and is therefore perfect for the target market. As an independent tuner who does not give John Meaney blowjobs, I do not have the passwords to the secret speshul screens that pull up advanced tables... this puts me in a position where I am perfectly competent, but another guy who is possibly less competent can get a better result out of the box because he sucks a good dick.
---> Fuck all whore EMS, knock that bitch down a couple spots.


- SDS works, I've tuned two cars with it. Crude with a capital C, no frills, but it works repeatably which can't be said for a lot of higher end boxes.. If I was aware of how much it costs I might have a fit of nerdrage, but I don't so meh.
---> Neutral.


- I've tuned TEC-3r and TEC-GT on Honda applications. The synthetic generated VE table premise is a bit kooky, but it works repeatably and reliably. It is the only standalone I have ever experienced that runs a distributor Honda as well as a an OEM Honda ECU does, which is a high water mark for 90s OEM ECU technology. The irony that you get a couple grand deep into making a car run just like it would on a stock ECU does not escape me.
---> It's good. If it were cheaper I would run it on my own cars.


- I like Holley HP/Dominator. Unconditional like. I have had nothing but excellent results out of it, and it is super inexpensive in the big picture. If you are talking about the Commander or other, older implementations... that stuff is junk.
---> HP/Dominator is awesome, everything else is crap.


- FAST XFI is a solid unit, again a simple straightforward American drag race application. I only mention it because I'm fond of the mixed SD and TPS "load" expression it uses for cars with big cams. Priced out of my interest compared to Holley HP/Dominator.
---> Good.


- I hear AEM has finally figured out, after a few years in, how to come up with base calibrations for the EngineLab box they licensed... the old GEMS based stuff has issues.
---> LOL marketing company that designs nothing is LOL


- The current era of Haltech standalones is quite good, the old stuff is horrible. HUGE table resolution, try to edit more than one cell at a time and the whole thing corrupts. I have had bad experiences with their current era standalones used as piggyback over top of a stock DBW ECU, and horrible tech support from the company regarding it.
---> Current era boxes as true standalones are good, huge negative strike against anything else they have.


- FreeEMS - that Fred guy is a dick.
---> It sucks :P :P :P
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Re: Standalones That You Would Never Use

Post by Joseph Davis »

^^^

Keep in mind I do like crude implementations like MS1/Miata and SDS (or the crude push button Link box from the old Flyin' Miata kits that Fred coached me on a couple years back), every time I have been presented with one the owner knew it was not a full featured or perfect thing, and were happy with their results. As with everything, read between the lines.
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