I only wish I did it sooner and did not waste my money on flashes. Dont get me wrong flashes are great if you want a quick cheap tune. But if you will be doing constant upgrades you cant beat the AEM for the money.

 

Agreed. I went thought two flashes and an AFC before I got smart and bought the AEM. But, like silverEVO8 said, you have to like messing with your car pretty much constantly. I enjoy messing with it and learning something new about my car everyday

 

I'm definately considering upgrading to EMS soon but i have a few questions
1)is the cold start problem common for people w/ changing climates?
2) Can that be fixed by tuning when it's cold?
3) If so, would the tune then act up when it gets warmer out?

Thanks for the help guys

 

Love my EMS

 

1) Yes
2) Yes
3) Yes

Good luck! Like is being said.. If you love to tinker with your car it's great; tons to tinker with. If you want to tune it and forget it, you'll be very dissapointed. Yes, it can make big power. Yes, it is easy as pie to blow your engine up. As with everything there is a trade off. Be sure it's what you want before you drop the coin though.. cuz it's a long road back once you start.

 

how come its not good for the "tune it and forget it people". Does it need regular retuning? Sorry i'm a newbie to ems tuning lol

 

Very simple. The stock ECU is several orders of magnitude better than probably any stand alone for handling all the diveability of the car. The satnd alone ECUs like the AEM allow you to adjust all or nearly all the parameters of the engine but are not quite as good or programmed as well as the stock ECU for cold/hot starts, part throttle operation, idle control, A/C and other loads and a ton of **** that the stock ECU controls extremely well.
OTOH, the stock ECU wont allow you to fine tune the WOT function of the car or to fine tune mods such as bigger injectors, more air flow, cams, higher manifold pressures, etc. The AEM EMS does a passable job of controlling all those functions that the stock ECU does, and it's quite good for high horsepower tuning specially with lots of mods, but it's nowhere near as good as the stock ECU to maintain a "stock-like" day to day driveability. Yes, it works and if you know what to do, you'll probably be very happy with it. If you can't tune it yourself you'll curse the day you installed it. There is no way it'll work for you without plenty of glitches. If you want the car to run like stock, you need to leave it with the stock ECU and use piggy back computers and/or reflashes to tune for your mods.
Any time you hear the words "will (fill in the driveability blank) better than stock" connected with any engine mods, run like the wind!!!

Just my $.02 (based on multi-$K expensive experience)

 

would you be able to save one setting on the ems for warm weather and then get it tuned during cold weather and just switch between them as needed?

 

Frankly - I have found the cold start on the AEM to be a real sticking point. I have spent countless hours upon hours working on it and it really still seems to be lacking - keep in my my car is very highly modified. However - on most customer cars - which are mostly much closer to stock - I am able to get the AEM running very well indeed. With AEM tunes, I do spend at least several hours on each tune but I have a lot of practice with tuning Evos now and I am getting able to dial them in fairly well. It remains to be seen how well the AEM equiped Evos deal with the super cold winter air and zero degree starts. Anyone who tells you there AEM equiped evo runs like a "stock car" is smoking something or is not really being honest about the situation. On the other hand - I've seen many VTA BOV equipped evos out there that ran worse than AEM running evos and the owners did not seem to mind.

Its like the analogy that some other guy posted about the really hot looking sexy girl. If she has a fantastic *** and she enjoys sex you may not mind it if she nags you to death and demands lots of expesnive gifts all the time. The same holds true for evo owners who seek loads of power - many of them are willing to throw driveability into the trash can to get the most power.

The sad reality is that on a stock tirbo the reflashed ecu and piggy back stock ecu equiped evos are making nearly as much power as the stand alone equipped evos are and they dont have any of the driveability issues associated with stand alones.

For example - the fastest stock turbo car in the US 11.50 (Curty Brown) ran a AEM tuned by Dave Buschur and the fastest reflashed stock turbo with a reflash is 11.7 with a of 11.8 and 11.9 behind it. The AEM gives a small advantage but most of it comes from removing the mass air flow meter and being able to run more ign timing.

I just wanted to mention BTW the HKS F-CON V PRO ecu which really amazed me with its fantastic near stock like driveability. However - it has its own drawbacks - it does not have knock control and its not end user adjustable.

I remember my old WRX which had the LINK stand alone ecu.

It took me basically two solid months working on it almost every day to set it up. I was able to win the 1st annual East Coast Subaru Shootout back in Sept of '02 with a 11.88 @124. It was a lot of work to dial it in as I had done an engine swap of a STI JDM C Spec motor into my US WRX - BUT after I spent all that time and effort thereafter it really drove on a dialy basis for several months through the winter till I got rid of it for an evo with NO issues and I never had to pull out my lap top even once. The key was leaving the tune on the rich and safe side and very conseravtive for daily use. The problem was that with such a conservative tune much of the stand alone whp advantage is left on the table - if you understand what I am saying.

The AEM can be an amazing and wondeful unit for those who enjoy playing with data logging and ecu adjustment which just so happens to be one of my favorite things to do.

I remember back when I got my first stand alone and installed it myself - it was a TECH II. To me is was sheer joy driving about for hours with a car that could barely run or hold an idel and trying to learn how to tune it using a POS narrow band 02 sesnor and reading the plugs! Most sane people would not want to turn their brand new $30,000 car into a learning project. To me it was one of the best things I ever did, and figuring out HOW to tune it wound up teaching me how to tune. Comparing that outdated Tec II to the very modern and state of the art AEM is like comparing a '57 chevy to a jet plane, BUT - something all ecus share is that they all work on the same basic principles. Once you learn the basic principles and methods then learning a new system is really just figuring out the key strokes and functions.

 

I agree The AEM will make the power I have not had any trouble with the drivability of the car it idles perfect. Now I do live in Florida and the coldest it gets it about 40 degrees for one week. I have had my tach needle sticking a little but it does not bother me.

 

My tach needle sticks a bit and its not a big deal - it does not effect the ecu operation in any way. Hopefully they will resolve that but its a minor annoyance.

 

Silver who did your tuning. I am considering having AMS do a AEM on my car. I was wondering if in the colder months could you send data to AMS on the start and they tell you what to change to get start up better.

 

Martin at AMS is very gifted at AEM tuning - (I know I watched while he tuned my car and learned a few tricks from him) - I am 100% confident that he can resolve any AEM issues

Still - its never going to be as smooth as a stock one - IMHO

BUT - you have a point - the 0300 code is annoying (having spent the past two full days trying to figure out a way to defeat it for good)

 

i just got done doing a 2 day class on the EMS at AEM. the ecu has so much flexability. i talked with one of the head tech guys and told him about the cold thing he did say take a while to dial in but i can be. the thing is you have to wait for the car to keep cooling down to really get it dialed in.. i have a very good cold start calibration in my ecu the they worked on personally i do live in warmer temps socal. i have a pretty much stock calibration.. if anyone would like to try it out let me know. this is NOT a full on tune it's just a start up calibration.

 

Having owned one, attempted to tune it, had it professionally tuned... modded.. .had to have it professionally tune again.... modded...and car is out of tune again,

having enjoyed it when it runs right and hated it when only a tuner 2000 miles away could solve a problem...

My conclusion is that it is great for race cars (or cars constantly changing set ups) and for tuning wizards ...........and not for me, EVER AGAIN. It works great, but its not for me.