when the software hangs, drivers go bad, and widebands don't work... that really doesn't have to do with what i don't or do know. that's more quality control than anything. i had an aem wideband compared to a dynojet wideband... and there was a significant discrepancy.

i don't hear of many problems like this on the evo box, so i'm fine with chalking up my previous experiences just to aem being a new product at the time. but it really doesn't have anything to do with me.

but back to the issue at hand, its really clear as day for anyone who's used both aem and motec on who aem takes design cues from. from the way you've setup your datalogger, to your pdf files, it's obviously a knock off...

but after all that the top tuners are still running motec... at the exception of your own factory drag car. why is that? it can't possibly be because of marketing? motec doesn't push their products anywhere near as hard as you do. most professional race teams have degreed engineers on site, and if motec was all hype they'd see right thru it.

 

Yes, both were tuned properly, the aem car was later taken to shawn church who is a top honda tuner and he made no more additional power on top of my original tune. and drivability remained essentially the same. The owner of the car got fed up with the aem and quality control issues and sold the aem for a hondata. This car was running ITB's. And while the AEM is advertised as alpha n capable on the software version we were using it was obviously not well thought out.

problems were... throttle hanging... inconsistent a/f thru out different gears... in alpha n mode... the load scale still read in vacuum/psi... even though it was reading off tps. wideband would read lean even though the mixture was clearly rich... then out of nowhere without provacation it would read correctly rich... then alternative to going back to a false lean reading. without even adjusting the map.

To compare... my shop car is a m800 running alpha n and ITBs and toda vtec eliminator camshafts. the drivability on this car is excellent. i am not even running map compensation or setup the gear compensation simply because it is not needed. never had a problem with hardware or software.

I am not aem certified. But I have tuned multiple 10 & 11 sec street honda drag cars, and collaborated in doing a 400 whp mustang dyno EVO, which has survived extended time attack sessions. I also have tuned road race hondas that see extensive track time w/o failure. i did beta testing for FAST (formerly speed pro) electronics on their windows software, and was one of the first Hondas to run Speed Pro. And I have been tuning since 99.

I have attended a motec seminar by chris brown.



this is a picture of my personal street/race car. it ran 11.74 @ 124 on street boost setting of 1 bar. this car is built to push over 30 psi, but i haven't had the time to go back to the track. my wire harness is built with raychem and dtm connectors.

 

hey efi.what u think about the autronic?

 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the problem is with your dynojet O2 not the AEM. The AEM sensor calibrates directly on top of the Horiba Mexa 700 Industry standard, the dynojet reads about a full point leaner.


I use both all the time. How is it a knock off??? There isn't too many different ways to do datalogging and PDF files are the norm these days!

They aren't the top guys are Matt hartford, and steph, both run AEM as well as the guy who won the championship (Matt Scranton). Not to mention there are several teams looking to switch from MoTec this year! Several independant racers already have. Call Extreme motorsports and ask Sean what he thinks of the MoTec he took off of his car to run the AEM! The ones that have them for the most part had them long before AEM had their box out. I should also mention that AEM only makes plug n plays, the teams we work with are using boxs for a 99 civic and making them work!

Jason.

 

It wasn't properly tuned or you wouldn't have had these problems. I have never heard of Shawn Church, so I wouldn't call him a "Top Tuner" He may be excellent with some other units, but again, if you don't know the software.....your already lost....learn it.

You didn't have it set in alpha N you still had it set in TPS, and it was defaulting to throttle base because there was no pressure sensor. Plain and simple a setup issue!

That's the way it works when the values entered in the cal are correct! A tuner issue, not an EMS issue. The Motec is a very capable unit is should run correctly, if you put it in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use it, it will run like crap.

It sounds like you have experience, so surely you can understand the difference between a system that doesn't work, and one that isn't tuned correctly!

Jason.

 

shawn church (church automotive testing) tuned erick's racing all motor civic coupe. it was the first all motor honda running in the 9's, and did it consistently. but i don't expect you to know that off hand since motorsports is a big place.

yes, the names you've mentioned are A list guys, but they are in the drag race world. but, im also interested in aem proving itself in world challege, imsa, group-n, daytona prototype... ect... basically motec's mainstay.

like i said before i don't think that AEM is crap. better or equal to motec is what i have problems accepting. AEM obviously works to an extent.

on the wideband... when i tested the motec plm against the dynojet they were near spot on. when i run my m800 wideband against the same dynojet, there isn't hardly any difference either. i can accept that the particular aem wideband was bad... it got sent back three times to aem. before the guy just plain gave up on it.


this is a post from your forum which describes the exact problem i was having. this is with software 1.03, same thing i was using. i switch to tps load like he did by unchecking speed density. i remember i searched thru that software... and there wasn't anything that had to specifically pertained to "alpha n". Not in the help files either. Not even in your 1.11 help files.

i found a post from JP (aem engineer)

this is exactly what i did. you can't blame me for this one.

on features... motec vs aem...

your datalogging software only does 3 graphs at a time... motec can do 6.

and on individual cylinder trims you are wrong. motec is 3d. exactly like a standard main fuel or ign map. load on y axis, rpm on x axis. your trims are 2d.

if price is the only thing holding back EVO guys on the M800, it isn't as out of reach as Jason makes it out to be. If you seriously want one, I can get it.

 

i think the autronic is great. it is easy to use, but lacks certain important features if i were to build an ideal evo. the trims individual cylinder corrections are 2d like AEM, this is no big deal, but what is important that's missing is the ability to ramp boost vs speed. i think this feature which is present in the AEM and Motec would go along way to preserving drivelines. the autronic has good injector drivers, they will run 1600cc bosch injectors. the software is also extremely stable. the autronic has also proven is durability in various forms of motor sports.

if you run a cam with increased duration and lift that necessitates upgrade valvetrain your car even with autronic tuned perfectly will still experience some drivability issues. this much is expected. run a race cam, and the engine will behave like a race engine. motec and aem would have similar results.

cold start and idle function correctly, but again... if you run wild cams it won't be the same as stock.

 

In the cae of Motec vs AEM you really do get what you pay for.

But I'm in no way disparaging AEM. For the uninitiated DO YOUR RESEARCH! Indentify your actual needs!

 

The funny thing in this thread is that everyone is comparing features of the AEM EMS Pnp with the Motec m800. The Motec Pnp is based on the m400. Many many less features. As of right now there is one Motec EVO PnP box in the USA. It is in one of our cars sitting at Motec right now being tested and fingered out. Basically it is the EVO 7 PnP and they are making shure everything gets along with the EVO 8 nicely.

The Motec box has some nice features over the AEM EMS. But it all will add up to about triple the cost of an AEM EMS. All that extra money does very little for a street or drag race guy. We are looking at it for an SCCA Pro road racing car with very few limits in the budget. SCCA only allows mods with in the stock ECU box and AEM does not have an option for that just yet (Jason, poke Romero in the eye about that will you?) Since the EMS is complete overkill for 90% of the guys that are buying it now, paying three times that amount for the Motec and all the keyboard racing over it makes me laugh.

What is it about EVOs that makes people want all the Tommy Hillfigger and Gucci parts... just because they are there and can be bought. Motec and the AEM EMS both have their happy place.

Mike W

(and can someone resize that huge pic up above there :-) ?

 

amen brutha

 

He's right! were you using the fuel map throttle, or the standard fuel map???? I bet the standard fuel map!

Jason.

 

So you are saying you always get what you pay for......o.k.,, so when you buy a ferrari 355 you are getting what you pay for! You do realize the more you manufacture of a part, the better and cheaper you can make it....right??? This is the case with the AEM. AEM sells more EMS units in one month than MoTec will sell all year! It's pretty obvious why it is less expensive. You think that because it is on drag cars it isn't as capable as one that is on a road race car? Try a street car, way more demanding than either of the other two, and AEM has more units on street cars than any other manufacturer....period! The box really isn't made of gold you know! You are getting ripped off!!! Surely there are some electrical engineers amongst you that can tell you how much a board and box costs to make! AEM makes more, and can make them more cost effectively because of it!

Jason.

 

In this part of the world the MoTeC PnP is based on the M800, not the M400. The PnP has fewer I/O compared to the gold boxes but functionality-wise they are the same.

 

so efi autronic or aem?

 

i haven't used the aem on an evo, so it wouldn't be fair to make that judgement. i'm willing to accept that there's things i don't know about the aem box. the aem periodically updates its firmware giving it better functionality, and i don't use aem on a regular basis.

i'm still comfortable in saying i perfer motec over aem, but i know that's not your question.

it comes down to what region you live in, and what kinda of tuners are in the area or if you intend on tuning it yourself.

if there is someone aem trained around your area, the aem seems like a good deal. it has tons of features.

if you want to learn it on your own, the autronic is easier to learn. if you buy the lm-1 innovate wideband you can map the car using autotuning. the autronic is extremely straight forward to use. if this is your first stand alone with some guidence you can tune it yourself.

the aem on the other hand can be tricky, and if it were my first standalone, i wouldn't feel comfortable tuning it myself. the aem from reading this board seems to be extremely tuner dependant, but that makes me wonder... who really can do a good job since this thing is very complicated?

on my particular experience with the aem... we we're doing something fairly complicated.. individual throttle bodies... which required me to build a complete map from scratch since there was no basemaps... and in the end the car ran acceptably, had no cold start or idle issues... but it never ran perfect... not even perfect in the sense of a street car with race parts which gives it some slack in the drivability area. this was after putting in a lot of time with the system and 2 dyno sessions. Before the owner came to me he had already gone to the dyno once on his own, but had even worse luck. Keep in mind... the owner of the car is a degreed mechanical engineer from a respected engineering school in california, and i myself had already tuned many cars, on motec, speed pro, and autronic... and we still couldn't get it 100% figured out.

But your aem application will be a lot simpler. you have a basemap to work from and a community of evo aem users to draw experience from.

i just unfortunately had a bad experience with aem early on, and that has biased my opinion.