I thought it might make sense to have a separate thread to discuss standalone ECUs for this forum? I’m definitely interested in having the safety features.

One concern I have is how easy is it to learn and implement something like a Haltech for a DIY’er? It took me a long time to dial in my car’s drivability on stock ECU with long duration cams and I’d hate to start over again with that awful process. Also, if you need to be able to swap back and forth to the stock ECU, how much does that get in the way of a proper setup?

Who here is already running a standalone in a roadrace or autocross car? What is your setup? Did you set it up and tune it?

P.S. My current ECU setup is Tephra v7 SD with FreeFuel (flex fuel) with an Innovate flex sensor, AEM 3.5 bar map sensor, FIC 1650s, 450 pump, Buschur cams and separate oil pressure sensor into a Zeitronix ZT-2 with warning buzzer. Also, DIY audible knock buzzer in car wired to CEL. All self-installed (wiring and tuning) because all of the pro tunes I have ever had ran horribly in regular and part throttle driving, plus they knocked on track. Hundreds of hours spent in the Ecuflash forum to learn the stock ECU, but still have a lot to learn. I have also tuned newer GM stuff on HP Tuners. That was super easy compared to Ecuflash.

 

I've been hearing some good things lately about the more "affordable" MaxxECU.

I've been kicking around the idea of getting one for my Evo 10.

https://www.maxxecu.com/mtune

MaxxECU engine protections

• EGT fuel correction
• Lean power cut
• EGT power cut
• Rev limit
• Advanced warning and protection system
• Lambda fuel correction

https://www.maxxecu.com/products/plu...ishi_evo_eight

https://www.maxxecu.com/products

 

only up to evo 8 right now, i assume they're in development?

 

That's only what they have as "plug and play" They support the 9 and 10, but you need to make a custom harness.

 

That's the first one I've seen that has obdII functionality. It even has all the CYA warnings to make me think it can really do some stuff. Thanks, I'll be looking into that.

 

Yea, it looks really interesting.

After tuning VW/Audi/Fords for the last couple years, I would kill for JUST closed-loop wideband AFR tuning on the CT9A/CZ4A platform. Only current way is going aftermarket ECU.

 

All's we need is time oh and money lol. My m150 is still chillin in the box.

 

What extra sensor are you guys adding or thinking of adding? And what brand sensors should we be looking at?

Here's what I'm thinking of adding for extra logging

Fuel Pressure
Fuel pump voltage (the check rewire relay)
Fuel Eth Sensor (Eth % and Temp)
Oil Pressure
Oil Temp
Coolant Pressure
Coolant Temp
ACD Pressure
Brake Pressure (Drive inputs)

With the Motel having ACD run to it I'll have steering angle and wheel speed logging also.

For sensors, I was going to order a bunch of the ones ASL (Autosport labs) has. The pressure sensors are $75 for the 10bar and $125 for the 150bar (brake pressure).

 

I went with the ones on Motec usa's site aka milspecwiring. He had me get the Bosch knock sensor, GM AIT, oil press, fuel press, and LSU 4.9 to CAN. The LSU is fairly obvious where it goes but the rest I haven't a clue lol, where "do" all the analog sensors go to on this harness?. The remaining sensors will pull from CAN on the AiM buss to see how fast or slow it is at first.

 

I've set up a bunch of sensors in my Evo 10 for my RaceCapture Pro setup. It's worked really well for monitoring/logging the car on track and street. I mapped it out visually here:



I've since added another pressure sensor to measure crank case pressure. I also of course log Ethanol % into the oem ECU. All the oem ECU logging and external sensors combine into the Racecapture logs.

You can see some of the data overlayed in this video:


If I do go aftermarket ECU, all the sensors are there and wired for it.

Btw, here is where to get high quality cheap sensors. They have been working great for me. https://www.auberins.com/index.php?m...dex&cPath=5_23

 

Ive been told by the Haltech rep here that if you buy their WB1 wideband controller. Load the evo base map. set it to self learn and idle the car in the driveway for 20 mins it will tune itself. but i think id still rather take it to a tuner haha.

Sensors i found its important to buy reputable ones which give you a calibration table that you can put into the ecu.


Sensors i run are:

Eng Oil pressure
Eng Oil temp
Gbox oil temp
Transfer case oil temp
Rear diff oil temp (these 2 are because i have a flat floor so need to keep an eye on diff temps)
E85 flex fuel
Fuel pressure
Coolant temp
Inlet air temp
Wideband AFR
Coolant pressure
Manifold air pressure (MAP) (boost)

 

Wow…that’s a sweet setup for logging. I’ve stretched my Zeitronix stuff to its limits and that sort of setup would be the next logical step with the stock ECU, but for the fact that I’m now thinking standalone to have the safety intervention features.

 

How is knock detection with these standalones? I’ve had my Evo since 2004 and seen aftermarket ECUs rise in popularity and then die off in popularity for the Evo8, not only due to cost but also more people blowing engines on standalones than stock ECU because of poor tuning and unreliable knock detection. Is the knock detection still an issue to get setup accurately? Or maybe it’s less of an issue running E anyway.

 

+1 on this. Stand alone doesn't mean bulletproof. I was really into this evo 6 build and it was a real bummer when it blew up on the dyno running, you guessed it, a standalone ecu. You can actually hear the engine dying (detonating) during the tune, it's sad. This could be as much a cautionary tale in choosing a tuner as it is the hardware. A tuner that knows how to tune the stock ecu is almost by definition going to be familiar with the platform and what the 4g63 likes and doesn't. Contrast that with a tuner who might be an expert at motec / aem / haltech etc. that doesn't know squat about the 4g63 and just feeds it timing till it explodes.

 

Those guys had other issues going on that contributed to the engine failing. And I don't think they had any safety algorithms on. At the end of the day the ECU is really a tool and the person behind it is where the magic is. Standalones can always provide more than our stock ecu but taking full advantage of it is up to the tuner. We're just spoiled for now to have tuners in the community that really squeezed everything possible out of the stock ecu. I don't think it's fair to compare them to someone with less experience setting up standalones and especially if they don't use the additional features fully.

Same story with knock detection for standalones. It needs a lot of up front time investment to tune but it can be better to way better than stock.

I'm not trying to make myself out to be a pro tuner but I spend/spent a lot of time understanding and setting up things on standalones and stock ECUs (evos and BMW). 100s of hours. That's just not financially viable for most tuners so if it's not a high volume thing for them they won't invest the time to figure it all out on every setup. They make 90% of their money on a single dyno graph from the customer at the end of the day, not countless hours of setting up sensors, safety subroutines, additional sensor packages, math blocks (on the newer standalones), etc. My friend who's a professional tuner actually dislikes working on race cars and super trick setups because he will make more money tuning like 10 cars that are stock with bolt-ons for the same time investment.