So I got a 1g dsm and I'm looking to start playing with the tune a bit. My issue is should i pay the almost 600 for eculink v3 and non-eprom to eprom conversion or do some wiring an run the evo 8 ecu?

 

It's mainly a question of skill. If you have the time, patience, and electrical background necessary to perform and debug an Evo ECU swap, then it's a pretty good deal. Keep in mind, though, that you'll still need to track an ECU down, which won't be free. You'll also need an OpenPort cable, either 1.3U ($140) or 2.0 ($180), and you'll probably find you'll want to buy a copy of Evoscan ($20 with cable, $25 without), unless MitsuLogger or the DMA client are good enough for your purposes. Plan on $250-350 to convert (with ECU prices varying quite a bit), plus a significant investment of time and effort; check the threads both here and on DSMtuners for swap details and gotchas.

If you want a nicely polished product that "just works", you'd have a very hard time doing what ECMLink does for the money, and an even harder time topping the supporting community that comes with it. You'll literally plug it in and get to work. For some folks (myself included, in some cases), the time saved is more than worth it. (Notice that with the Evo ECU swap, you're typically going to end up about half-way to the price of ECMLink, regardless of how much it looks like you'll save.)

In the interest of completeness, there's also Jackal (or whatever the latest release is called; back in the day, it was called "DS-MAP"). It also requires additional hardware (a 1g EPROM ECU, an Ostrich, plus the usual items required for speed density). I don't have an opinion on the software one way or the other; the hardware is all pretty standard stuff. This isn't a free ride either; add up the cost of the ECU, Ostrich, and other components required to convert to SD (since that's the whole reason for DS-MAP to exist in the first place), and you're in the same ballpark as an Evo ECU swap.

There's also the option of something like Jeff O.'s reflash (again, requiring an 1g EPROM ECU; and, this is also something you can DIY) to compensate for the hardware you've added to the car (injectors, MAF changes, etc), and using something low-tech like an S-AFC to adjust the tune from there. It's not ideal (no independent fine-grained fuel and timing control, just a rather coarse dual adjustment), but it's very cheap, easy to do, and is a well-understood path. Evo-only guys would call this approach a painful hack; I (and a lot of old-school DSM folks) would call it old-fashioned and blunt, but effective.

And finally, you could always look around for a used AEM, Haltech, or other standalone, although the price will almost universally be higher; if you're already balking at the cost of ECMLink, you've probably already eliminated this choice.

That's my long-winded way of not answering your question.

 

dsmlink v3 all day man.

 

I already have an evo8 ecu from one of my friends who switched to AEM. Also i already have evoscan and a Openport cable. I'm just wondering which will bring more out of the car.

 

They are both proven to be great. There is a low 8sec car running dsmlink and AWD just ran high 8s with ecuflash so you can not loose with either.

Dsmlink is much more tuner friendly though.