legacycentral bbs

Finally got a freakin job, and want to get some more power or at least potential for power to the ground. I really don't know TOO much about standalone ECU's, but i already have the R/T stage 2 chip(TD04, 440's JECs), and I don't wanna go to a piggyback (bad experiences with the RadioFlyer), so I'm basically at the limit as far as the stock ECU goes. I am having some issues with my car as far as idling goes, and I just don't feel like its at the full potential that it should be considering my upgrades. Sometimes it runs lean like there is a huge vaccuum leak, then it will just go away out of nowhere.

I am looking into buying a standalone ASAP. My buddy had an impreza with the Adaptronic E420c standalone, and he LOVED it, recommended it to me. I guess it basically "tunes itself" to your driving habits, altitude, and other variable changes the car may experience, also if you do a mod to the car, you don't have to go get it tuned, maybe just take it easy for a couple days and the ECU is constantly learning what is going on with the car.

Here is a link to the website, and the details for the ECU I am talking about: http://adaptronic.com.au/products/e420c.html

Once I get this, I can get rid of my stupid tempermental (sp?) IAC, and just stick to the sensors that I actually NEED, and have WAY more potential as far as injectors, turbo, etc.

Also, is this something I should have a shop install? My friend with the impreza installed his own and said he would help me, and tune it "close enough" to let the car do the rest of the learning by itself. Do I need a tune for those of you that know about this ECU?

I do realize that I can't just put this in my car, slap a HUGE turbo and HUGE injectors in and my car will be godly, but the ecu is obviously a very essential part to going the route i want to go with my car. After that I plan on doin the DOHC swap and building the internals. What else should I look into doing?
Thanks for any help and/or advice
Matt

Matt,

This is my opinion from my experience with the Link. Stand alones, I don't care who makes them are going to be much more involved. I don't care what your friend says or what the ECU company advertises, but you're going to have to play with them to make them work. Especially with these cars. The primary reason is because very little if anybody runs stand alone EM's on these older cars, so your knowledgebase and base maps are far and few. The "adaptive" tuning technique will likely get you in the ball park, but without more knowledge of the ECU, I can't say how close it will be.

From the info on their website, the ECU looks like it should have all the I/O you need for the car. It looks to primarilly be a MAP based ECU for load. Again....MAP based ecus will have some bit of change to the tune when a mod is made. Without knowing about their learning function, I question how well it's going to work.

Also....you wouldn't be getting rid of your IAC valve. You need that for the car to idle properly. You would also need to add an IAT sensor since this ECU is a MAP based ECU. Here is the inputs & outputs I've setup with my Link. With these setup, all the factory sensors and functionality are retained. I believe that ECU would support all the I/O I've setup.

http://main.experiencetherave.com/subar ... p_rev6.xls

Like I said above, I'm just cautioning you....going stand alone can produce some very nice results and give you a lot of configurability, but it can be very involved and time consuming getting everything tweaked just right.

Have you considered one of the Robtune ECU's?

+1 on the Rob Tune ECU but the caveat is you're once again dependent on one person for tuning (for the record, I'm VERY interested in getting a Rob Tuned ECU to replace my Rev chip!)

To add (I hope) to JC's comments, I can't stress enough how important it is to have a tuner availalble for your specific EM...not just someone who's 'familiar w/it'. I went thru two tuners on my Greddy install and still didn't get it right (and yes, it could've something w/my build - not the tuner's ability).

So, no offense to your buddy w/the Adaptronic E420c, but I highly recommend ensuring there is a dedicated person avl to tune your car. And note that there aren't any AWD dynos in the Spokane area - none that I've found anyway - and you'll need to tune on a dyno to get fine-tuned.

And since money is no object (right?) You already know standalones cost a LOT more than a piggy-back, cost more to tune (more parameters), and may require extra harne$$e$ for various this and thats. If you do tune it yourself or w/help locally, expect to spend hundred$ on gas money while getting it figured out.

The 'positive' side of a standalone, is you'll have to rewire your car, which means you'll know the condition of the harness and such......whereas w/the Rev chip or Piggy-back there could be an issue that goes undiagnosed.

Start learning tuning now, so you know what's going on when the car is getting tuned (yes, you can call me a hypocrite!).

And you do have an extra car to drive, right?

<Devil's Advocate mode>>>OFF>

I'd also suggest contacting 'kleinkid' as i believe he's running big numbers w/his Autotronic(?) and would be a good resource.

You are very capable of making this work, so don't think I'm saying 'don't do it'......just make damn sure you know what you're taking on!

TD

Thanks for the advice guys. I do not have a second cat but I can get one if necessary. I've always heard god things about that ecu and the MAJOR advantage to that ecu is that there is a dealer locally. PTR injection sells this ecu, I would imagine he can install and tune it as well. I know it is spendy, but I think a standalone works serve me much better than the chip is, our a piggy back would. Once it is installed and tuned, there isn't much to worry about is there? I don't rashly know what to expect but I'm sick of the stock EM seeing as I can't do much more upgrading and its do picky anyways. And Josh my buddy didn't have an iac, he just blocked off the hole in the manifold with a plate. Not questioning you our anything, but the standalone won't control the idle as wel?

Something else to consider.....5-speed's lifespan.....I think you said you needed a clutch soon, too?

(P.s. Don't forget to proophreid your posts 1st. )

Ya I wil be doing the clutch and tuning belt and a few other things asap. Sorry I'm on my phone, with a shattered screen haha. Just trying to research and everything before I spend that kind of money though

I think the revtronix chip works pretty good. Now that I found another huge exhaust leak before the turbo and the car runs as good as it does I am pretty happy! My idle is good enough by no means perfect, but I am betting if I run a walbro 255hp it will be fine and the fuel trims will have more room to play around.

Check out your fuel trims and make sure ignition, and fuel wise everything is working correctly!

For me that involved seafoaming everything, dump 1/2 into the gas tank at 1/2 a tank, about 1/4 into the IAC valve, and a bit into every hose accessible. Drive it for the rest of the tank than, replace all the spark plugs and regapping to .035, installing them and going 1/2 a turn from snug, new fuel filter. Than reset the ecu. I also replaced the o2 sensor with a new bosch unit.

wtdash wrote:I can't stress enough how important it is to have a tuner availalble for your specific EM...not just someone who's 'familiar w/it'. I went thru two tuners on my Greddy install and still didn't get it right (and yes, it could've something w/my build - not the tuner's ability).

I can whole-heartly second and third this comment! I went through two tuners in Texas before driving to California to have the car tuned. The tuner needs to know the in's and out's of the ECU and how to tweak it to make it work.

wtdash wrote:The 'positive' side of a standalone, is you'll have to rewire your car, which means you'll know the condition of the harness and such......whereas w/the Rev chip or Piggy-back there could be an issue that goes undiagnosed.

You don't need to re-wire the car, but it does help in knowing the condition of the wiring.

wtdash wrote:And you do have an extra car to drive, right?

Agreed....don't even think of doing a stand alone without having a second vehicle to drive.

Mattheww044 wrote:Once it is installed and tuned, there isn't much to worry about is there? I don't rashly know what to expect but I'm sick of the stock EM seeing as I can't do much more upgrading and its do picky anyways. And Josh my buddy didn't have an iac, he just blocked off the hole in the manifold with a plate. Not questioning you our anything, but the standalone won't control the idle as wel?

Once the stand alone is installed and setup, it should be ok. If you do any modifications or other tweaks, it may need to be looked at. The one thing that may come up is if you tune the car in the winter, it may need some tweaking in the summer, or vice versa. Once you got a complete year of running with it, hopefully you'd be able to work out any bugs/tweaks based on ambient conditions.

As for the IAC....there's got to be some form of idle control. Even carburetors have something.

Did he switch to a newer style TB with the IAC valve in it, or possibly the electronic throttle body?

I have been really happy with the Haltech Sprint 500 ECU.

never heard of the Haltech, but like I said I'm really considering the Adaptronic since there is a local tuner and my friend knows alot about it so he could help me with the install and most other things.

Josh, I'm not sure what from of Idle control he was using, what your saying makes sense. He did have a wierd intake manifold that I hadn't seen before, but there was a spot for the IAC, but it was blocked off. I'll ask him next time I talk to him and get back to you.

Why is it not a good idea to be running a standalone on a daily driver? Do you run into alot of issues, (obviously it mostly depends on the car and its components) but more so than normal? Or is it more of the installation/tuning process that may take several days or even weeks to get "right" that I would need a second car for?

It's not necessarily a bad idea to run a stand alone on a daily driver, it's a bad idea to only have one car while trying to install, setup, and tune the stand alone.

It will take a couple days to install the stand alone, and at least a day to set the base tune. You'll need a couple days of cold starts to fine tune the enrichments, etc. Even after all that, there's likely to be some tweaking that you'll want to do after that. Stand alone's can yield some great power, but getting them setup just right takes some time.

i bought a Hydra Nemesis 2.6 but havent installed it yet. From what ive read they are a very good ecu.

Check out SLODRIVE's build journal to see what the Haltech is about.(near the end of the thread)....he did his plug and play and on a good budget.

I did a similar setup, except for running all my wires from the ECU to the engine and splicing at the sensors/actuators.

I'll definately check it out, but the only downside is I would have to drive about 4-5 hours to get to a reliable tuner. I don't know much about the tuner that's in my town, but he sells the Adaptronic ECU and tunes them as well so that is a major plus.