legacycentral bbs

Apparently Enduring Solutions Limited (ESL) has a board that will work with the first gen turbo Legacies if you swap out the ECU. Check out this post for more info. (text below for those without Facebook)

https://www.facebook.com/EnduringSoluti ... 1619462225


To everyone in North America who have been asking me about compatibility with USDM Legacies from 90-94, it appears I was wrong to say ESL isn't compatible. Here is Rick from Superior Soobie:

Hi Andy - Rick here from Superior Soobie and Import in Portland, Oregon, USA

Just wanted to let you guys know that we have had great success with using the ESL board on the USDM Legacy's by switching to the 92-96 JDM/EDM ECU. We had a customer that had asked one of you guys about ESL for her car and the answer was that it was not compatible with the ECU in her car. Which is true, but it's also trivial to swap the ECU over to one that is compatible so I wanted to clarify that your product DOES work with all 90 to 94 USDM Legacy models with the caveat that you must swap the ECU. We got the ESL installed on her 93 Legacy and it runs fabulously. The wasted spark ignition feature that you enabled a while back in the tuning software makes the ECU swap a matter of merging a single ground wire for the MAP sensor ground and plugging it in. There are no other changes required at all.
(FYI an ESL ECU is 390usd currently,which gets you live mapping, mafless, twin maps, diagnostics, 3d boost, closed loop knock and idle control, etc etc etc).

I've been aware of this for a while. Only know of one or two members on the BBS running it, but to my knowledge they are only running the base maps (which I read was the same as a Z4 WRX ecu).

With the decent exchange rate, this might be a good deal if you could find a tuner willing to work with the software. It's actually £410 shipped (to the US) for the board plus cable and software, which works out to ~$545 .

I'm happy to assist with locals wanting to install and tune the ESL board. I do road tunes with a focus on engine reliability for local GM and Subaru owners.

What about a GM motor in a subie?? Lol I know where an old school LT1 is sitting with its harness and tranny.

Sounds good to me! 6.0L in a Subaru anyone?

They kept the ABS pump lol. Why??

Because they wanted to keep ABS? Makes sense to me.

As the owner of two daily driven old non-ABS vehicles, I will say that internet car guys always claim "they can outbrake ABS" but rarely is that statement true. I'd never delete ABS on a street car, chances are it'll stop the car way quicker and under more control than a normal person will in an unexpected emergency situation. Actual race car drivers can ignore what I just said.

Alphius wrote:Because they wanted to keep ABS? Makes sense to me.

As the owner of two daily driven old non-ABS vehicles, I will say that internet car guys always claim "they can outbrake ABS" but rarely is that statement true. I'd never delete ABS on a street car, chances are it'll stop the car way quicker and under more control than a normal person will in an unexpected emergency situation. Actual race car drivers can ignore what I just said.

I completely agree with this! ABS is for those panic times that you don't think and just react. It would have saved my bacon in the only fender bender I've been in.

You guys know this standalone won't control more than a 4cyl right?

I'm strongly considering getting one. The Robtune is a great solution for most people, but it has no flexibility if you change the compression ratios, injector sizes, drastically larger turbo, etc. Plus it's tuned pig rich for safety. Not knocking it because I've enjoyed mine for years, but I'd like an actual tuneable ecu.

What's an Internet car guy?? The ones without beat up hands and back problems? Lol

Pntaste4evr99 wrote:What's an Internet car guy?? The ones without beat up hands and back problems? Lol

Keyboard mechanics.
La-z-boy racers.
Flatbrim hat crowd.

Call it what you will, they all have clean hands.

I miss you guys! The 4th gen is great but I'd love to have my original back. I'll make it up to WCSS again I hope.

whoa now, i wear flat brims and have dirty hands....
i guess theres always an exception

I'm guilty of deleting ABS myself. I don't know that I would recommend it but it failed to work at all in the snow (perhaps it's not meant to work in snow/ice?) and I got mad and got rid of it. People had harsh opinions on this but there's tons of cars without ABS so I'm no worse off now than they are. I wouldn't do it again, though.

ABS doesn't work great on ice and can increase stopping distances. But it can help in keeping you from going too out of control.

The early ABS is not the best. I could cause my 94 SS to disable ABS at the start of a drive in the snow just by mashing the throttle and letting the tires spin for about five seconds. The ABS light would light up solid and ABS would disable until the next key cycle. If the inputs from the wheel speed sensors don't make sense, the ABS ECU will set a code and disable. Multiple wheels spinning at different speeds was enough for it to kick out. It does this for safety, if you actually have a wonky wheel speed sensor, it doesn't want to apply ABS every time you touch the pedal since then you won't be able to stop.

Also, if all 4 tires stop simultaneously, the ABS doesn't know the car is moving and won't perform it's duty, leading to a locked slide. The secret in snow and ice is a slow, gentle, yet fairly firm application to let the ABS work. Don't jam the pedal hard and don't add extra pedal pressure when it starts pulsing, because if all 4 tires lock at the same time it'll just slide. Keep firm pedal pressure, and if all 4 lock up just release and reapply like you would with a non-ABS car anyway.

Would this be a good option for replacing a Robtune ECU? What do you need to get this working? JDM/EDM EJ22t ECU, ESL board, tuning cable and software and laptop?

-Jason

hellosubaru wrote:Would this be a good option for replacing a Robtune ECU? What do you need to get this working? JDM/EDM EJ22t ECU, ESL board, tuning cable and software and laptop?

-Jason

This should run in place of a robtune with no additional changes, if you tune using MAF. It plugs in to an ej20g ecu where the robtune chip went.

Finally got mine in this week! I'm getting it tuned by Alphius on the 30th.
My setup is: Stock ej22t, td05, 06-07 WRX TMIC, 550cc injectors. We will be going with a MAF based tune for now, but I'll be building a better engine this winter.

And here it is installed. The daughter card sticks out a little past the ECU's board, but there's still a quarter inch or so of clearance, no issues there.




I also grabbed the bottom half of a usdm 92-94 NA ecu housing, it works perfectly with the EJ20g ecu and top housing, fitting into our 1st gen legacys without issue.

Very cool! I can't wait to see how the tuning process goes. Thanks for being the guinea pig, Mike.

If Mikes goes good, I'm next in line!

Do you need the 4-to-2 converter to run this option with the EJ20g ECU?

hellosubaru wrote:Do you need the 4-to-2 converter to run this option with the EJ20g ECU?

According to ESL, wasted spark or coil on plug is selectable in the software, no converter needed. I'll know more when we tune my car.

Subbed! super interested as im still trying to find an EM solution for my little project