Well after quite a bit of work and listening to a lot of input AEM has officially released the Series 2 EMS.

As many of you have followed I had my share of complaints with the original AEM EMS. We also used it to set a hell of a lot of records.

I switched over to a few different stand alone ECU's to try them out and was impressed with each one for different reasons. The biggest of which was the quick starting and improved engine reving and throttle response. Along the way I also found that nobody had the perfect engine management. Each change new engine management had something in it I found that was wrong. The responses were the same, "Oh we must not have caught that or that's a glitch in the software we have to fix." The point is, it seems that nobody has the perfect product and they all have their own little oddities.

I got a call from AEM and they told me they had a few BETA boxes they'd like me to test and give them feedback on. I was more than happy to do so.

One thing you will find is that through the last few months of me trying new things I've always said whatever someone is most comfortable with is what they will like to tune with the best. Needless to say after thousands of hours of tuning with the original AEM EMS I was very comfortable with it.

I received the EVO8 and EVO9 BETA EMS's last week. First thing yesterday I wanted to get started.

I had VWJeff's car here and it was just being finished. His car is an EVO9. We got the car loaded on the dyno and I started tuning the new combination. The car had the typical jerkiness that I've blamed just about every component on the car for, at low rpm cruise. The start up wasn't good because the car had to crank so long before it would fire. The car ran well, don't get me wrong but these are things we've grown to accept rather than being completely happy with them. I finished tuning the car on pump gas and decided it was time to make the swap to the Series 2 box.

I spent some time at my desk working from a supplied base map and trying to get everything set up. Along the way some suggestions were again made for a few changes that I am happy to say are going to also be implemented in the new software release coming up shortly.

I plugged the new Series 2 EMS into the car, crossed my fingers and turned the key. INSTANTLY the car fired, like a stock ECU and it ran. I needed to make some fuel trim changes and once I had those made and the idle dialed in I turned the car back off. I waited for the ECU to go offline and hit the key again, INSTANTLY the car fired again. Very impressed. Starting/sync issue is fixed! The next thing I did was to just rev the engine and that too was an absolute night and day difference. Drivability was as smooth as silk, no more jerkiness in the lower RPM's at cruise. I didn't make any WOT runs as it got late in the day and I had a few questions about some features I wanted to get cleared up first. The WOT runs will come when this snow storm stops.

There is no longer an integrated wide band box available. All of the Series 2 boxes use an external wide band. The new external wide band kit is very nice, it's also small. The kit number is 30-2310, they are also very reasonable in price. The Series 2 will work with your existing wide band, you just have to set it up. In my case I was using an existing AEM Wideband gauge and that is in the Wizards, so it's just a click of the mouse to set it up.

For those of you familar with the original AEM EMS the change to using the new Series 2 will be very fast. I've only got a few hours in it and it feels very natural to move around in the program.

The MIVEC tables are also now correct. In the past the numbers in the talbes were "backwards", meaning a high number meant the car was closer to 0 and a low number meant it was closer to being fully advanced. That is no longer the case. Now 0 means 0 advance and 24 means 24 degrees of crank advance or 12 degrees at the cam (for example).

There are a lot of improvements in the new Series 2 from the looks of the program to the fixes that have been implemented.

We did a short video, hope you guys like it:

Buschur Racing w/ the NEW Gen 2 AEM EMS – Video – *CLICK HERE*

Thanks for reading.

 

hhuuuummm i may have to change my mind and pick up a new series 2 instead of picking up an original AEM off the board...

 

this is very good news

can't wait to see more testing

as always thank you for taking the time to make threads like this

 

Excellent

 

One of my friends just picked up the Series 2 for his Supra a couple weeks ago! Very excited to see more testing with them! The long cranking on the original is definitely annoying.

Password protected tunes seems to be another awesome feature that they have. I never really understood why so many people take their cars to get them tuned by professionals and then get home and think that they can tune the car better..

 

There is nothing better for me than to tune a car and then have the owner go in and change the tune, do you know why? I am then completely off the hook when it blows up! haha

I use to want password protection, to be honest, I don't think I'll even use it now.

 

Good stuff David! Thanks for taking the time to test the new box. Seems like AEM made some good improvements.

 

Thanks for using my car Dave! Has AEM given you a price on the unit.. Seems how I can't have the test box

 

I'm curious about price as well.

 

nice review

 

good point! In my opinion, if you have a car making three times or more the power it makes from the factory, even if it has a built motor, professional tune, etc.. It's not a matter of "if" something breaks/blows up, but when. Some people just don't get that I guess. Sure, there's exceptions but for the most part, if your car has been driveable for a few thousand miles, the chances are it's just the motors time. Nothing lasts forever!

 

Good news. I cant wait to see if there is a power difference or what happens at WOT.


-Em

 

Finally some hope for the new Aem, thanks for the testin DB

 

It will be interesting to see if AEM can offer some type of trade-up program to owners who have a V1 box. Not everyone wants to pay another 2k (MSRP) for engine management. Do all of the existing sensors work like MAP, IAT, and BCS? Are any new sensors needed? I would also be interested to see if the additional memory helps logging. This uses a USB interface also correct?

Great input so far.

 

..I'm kind of hoping some people throw up used ones in the next few months for half that price so I can snag one lol. I'm not cheap.. just on a budget