legacycentral bbs

anyone else looking into the hydra standalone?

Nico's has a normal working tach and IAC valve.

But his is a plug-n-play unit.

Mine is a wire-in SMC unit.

need to save up cash but the headquarter for the hydra is in northern cal. i'll need to get the car to them so they can get the info they need to create the ems for us legacy ss owners. i'll keep you all posted.

but the 93-96 wrx one is plug and play...

asc_up wrote:but the 93-96 wrx one is plug and play...

(Excuse me as I pull all of this from memory, I had these discussions nearly two years ago...)

Right, the 93-96 WRX unit is Plug and Play and works for our Legacy SS or the normal (non turbo) car if you swap the cam and crank pins.

I had a lengthy discussion with the guys at Autronic about the plug and play unit, wiring issues, the different sparking systems (the WRX of that year runs coil-on-plug IIRC), the short and the skippy of the conversation (I have saved somewhere):

The PnP unit fires plugs in a "bank" like bank-fire injection; two plugs are fired at the same time, on the WRX this turns the coil on plug setup into sort of a wasted-spark setup (like our cars are); I'm not aware if the OEM ECU for the 93-96 WRX is wasted-spark like that or not since they're coil-on-plug (and I didn't do unnecessary research) - either way, my point is: Do not let the coil-on-plug setup of the WRX concern you about our wasted spark setup, the Autronic drives both ignition systems the same.

You need to run a vac line for the onboard MAP sensor and,
you can only use boost control or IAC control, that being said there's a post around here by someone using just boost control and setting a higher idle for the car to idle on cold starts (think the throttle is set to be open some more).
You'll need to run an IAT (charge temp) sensor as well.

Everything else is the same, I think you may lose A/C control but I can't recall; someone else can chime in on that.

good to know. that's interesting how the coil on plug ignition system basically works as wasted spark though.

so now it seems that all i have to do is find a spare $2000. greeaaat. haha.

asc_up wrote:good to know. that's interesting how the coil on plug ignition system basically works as wasted spark though.

so now it seems that all i have to do is find a spare $2000. greeaaat. haha.

Last time I priced an Autronic was about two years ago (so don't take this as the gospel) but the price straight from autronic was $1950AUD and $65AUD for shipping. That's about $1700 after currency conversion (not including fees). From a dealer in the states around the same time the price was $1800. This doesn't include the wideband getup from them (which I've been told is something you want to get to use autotune, or you'll spend the same amount of money or more on a dyno doing most of your manual tune) which I think is about $300 more but I'm not sure of that price.

Two years later things could be cheaper or more expensive - BTW: Autronic doesn't allow it's dealers to publish pricing so people can't "shop around" for prices since different countries have different taxes and one may be cheaper than the next.

I got the AEM UEGO gauge/controller for wideband duties. It actually has a setting specifically for outputting to an Autronic.

IronMonkeyL255 wrote:I got the AEM UEGO gauge/controller for wideband duties. It actually has a setting specifically for outputting to an Autronic.

Accuracy is the key here, not all wideband controllers are the same. If I was going to forgo taking my car to a tuner and paying them gobs or money, or spending two or three hours on a dyno for gobs of money, I'd get the unit sold specifically by autronic just because if I had any problems with the tune being crap, they wouldn't be able to say "well, you're not using our unit"

When spending $1700, $300 is chump change.

Well, I didn't spend $1700, so it's a bit more than chump change to me.

i have been in contact with element tuning and looks like he has a plug and play version for 91 to 94 legacy turbo.

anyone got it and what's your thoughts on their autotune feature?

from what i was told, there will be a preloaded map with my list of mods installed.

thanks in advance.

The Hydra is solid hardware. The software is poor, however. Tuning takes a long time due to their datalogging setup.



Also, keep in mind that any map Phil puts together is simply to get the car running. It will still need a complete tune regardless.

93forestpearl wrote:The Hydra is solid hardware. The software is poor, however. Tuning takes a long time due to their datalogging setup.



Also, keep in mind that any map Phil puts together is simply to get the car running. It will still need a complete tune regardless.

got it. so regardless of the autotune feature, it'll have to be tuned. just a matter of how much time to tune it.....

Correct.


If you get it with the wideband, it will run the car at what your target map is. It can only correct for values that are reasonably close however.


I feel that any EMS should be tuned for that particular motor. I've seen identical setups make upwards of 30-40whp different just because one motor liked more timing than the other.


Some tuners are very familiar with the Hydra's quirks, so they can get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Having a dyno with it's own wideband helps since they would not be dependent on the Hydra's datalogging.

In the end, fuel is fuel, and timing is timing. It's just the interface and extras that separate the various EMS's in a given price range.



Granted, I would love the top of the line Pectel system, but $6k is a little much for what I'm trying to do.

thanks. same here...too much money into this 91 legacy.....

but i want to get it running.......

i think next to upgrade after this will be the transmission........what transmission are you running?

'05 6mt.



If you want to save some money, think hard about wiring a system in. I know it is intimidating, but it only took me about 10 hours with sourcing the wires and doing the splicing. The wiring diagrams are pretty straight forward since you are wiring off the ECU plugs. Being able to return to stock can be nice, but you get to the point where the sum of the parts greatly exceeds the value of the shell itself.