you have perhaps already talked about this, but I'm french and I don't come every day on your forum ...

So :
I have a impreza MY00

For the moment, I juste have a little Power system .... and it's not perfect, because the max pressure is 1.6 bar !!!!!!!!

So I am looking for something which could be more safety...

First, I wanted to buy the Apexi system, but a few people told me that the only French who installs theses products isn't very good to tone them exactly !

Then one of my friend told me to look at the ecutek system

- Ecutek, if I have well understood, takes your Ecu, and change the programm, and you can buy the software to tune the ecu yourself
- The possumlink is a replacement ecu which is made to be tuned, and you can buy the knocklink and the lambda link to control everything. People told me that the possumlink wasn't as good at the genuine Ecu tuned by ecutek, But I saw the possumlink on the P1 I saw at the Nurburgrin (You don't know how lucky you are to have such fantastic cars !!! In france, there are no 3 doors impreza )

So can you give me your position about this ?

And excuse me for my bad english, but my last english lesson was 12 years ago (and shame on me, my mother was an english teacher !!!!!)

 

I am biased so I will just give you links for further reading. Note Ecutek at present is only for MY99/00.

www.ecutek.co.uk

http://www.ecutek.co.uk/tuning/aftermarket/ for a comparison between Ecutek, Link and Unichip

www.brdevelopments.com Link suppliers

http://www.mrtrally.com.au/performance/ See on line brochures and the Link manual is there with all the details. MRT are now pushing Ecutek now that they are the Australian distributors.

Original ECU board


Link ECU board


Note the differences in chip technology used. The orignal ECU uses a 20MHz 32 bit RISC CPU.

[Edited by john banks - 6/9/2002 11:19:46 PM]

 

Not being big on computer jargon, does that mean the link is crap?

 

And I'm biased as well....

A well tuned link will do just about as well (performance wise) as a well tuned Ecutek.

Ecutek, being a remapped stock ECU will be better at idle control and aircon...but the link is not far off these days.

I prefer to use the link, being able to map it myself, and it allows me to do away with that nasty MAF-sensor.

If I was a normal plug-and-play user I'd go for the ecutek....problem is I'm not.

/J

 

The both have advantages, the biggest avantage is the link does away with the problematic MAF sensor, which means you can run a pod filter right on the end of your turbo.

 

How can the link do away with the MAF??

 

John, if you are going to post comparisons you ought to post up the right version of Link, notwithstanding descrete/surface mount which is purely a volume related thing. You have actually put up a pic of a MY97/98 Link.

cheers

 

Link works on the speed density principle and uses the map sensor to define the Y axis load lines. The maf can therefore be completely removed for safe keeping once a Link is installed, same for MOTEC incidently. (guess no one would challenge the processing power of the M800)

cheers

 

Or the price

 

I believe SMT is established as being more reliable.

Sorry for the incorrect picture Bob - I can't keep up with all the versions of the Link - I posted the only picture I had which was from the Ecutek site. Do you have any later more recent ones you could post and I'll remove the erroneous one?

 

John you are such a fair person!

personally I think the ecutek is an excellent idea, but as I have said before I cannot map, and so would have to trust someone else to do it for me.

The only people I have allowed to touch my cars map are Mark and Bob (and sometimes Pat) and there is a reason for that.

Since they only map links motecs and pectels, that excludes the ecutek, which cannot control my engine anyway!

 

Adam M

True, and I hope people like Bob and John don't tire of the lack of search on Scoobynet leading them into groundhog days, or certain aspects of the 'community'

 

Hi John,guess I'd better send the correct picture and the correct technical info to go with it. Comparing apples with apples should see the Version 5 Link spec up there not the Version 4. Quite a difference.

cheers

 

Agree Bob, the Ecutek site mentions what looks like the 6 row rather than 10 row link so that should be corrected along with the picture. What about the "30 mins to start" - sounds high? In addition, do the later Links have charcoal canister purge, improved knock correction and diagnostic fault codes - do they trigger the CEL?

 

A question regarding the mappable version of Delta ECU...
Can you buy the mappable ECUTek-device at all not being a comercial mapper?

 

I don't think so. Although I think they should they don't feel they can support so many users technically.

 

John, I am not going to get into a mines better than yours debate, the people that know me well also appreciate my penchant for accuracy ... the MY98/97 ecu is not the Link to compare a MY99 onwards ECUTek !! That should be the MY99 version 5 Link, it doesn't matter a toss what has what, its all down to how its used. I have offered (and Steven has accepted) to provide the correct comparitive info IN THE INTERESTS OF ACCURACY nothing more. The Link can stand or fall on what it is ... there are enough of them in the 350 club I think.

Most of of the aftermarket programmable ecu's don't use the check engine light (not true actually I use it for a shift light)but as for the rest then in one form or another the answer is yes. The 44s has all of that (including its own "fault codes")Motec has its own set of fault codes ... not unique to Jecs.

People that know me also know that I recommend according to need not desire to sell something, I get as many mails asking for my opinion on ECUTek as I do about Link or Motec.

I look forward to seeing if the "adjusted" oem ecu is good enough to run my car at its current level of performance and tune, watch this space.

cheers

Bob

 

Bob I was just putting in some of the things from the comparison table since they could have been based on the old Link - the diagnostics thing was certainly not a swipe I agree a mine is better than yours is unproductive and a bit boring. I look forward to seeing how you get on - if the results are good will you be adding this to your product line up?

To me the big weakness of the Ecutek stuff is the MAF sensor. Also some of the lower level functionality that may be accessible through a standalone is not documented at present and therefore not adjustable - for example the 2nd gear half boost, the cold start part throttle 2-3000 RPM hesitations. In addition, assumptions need to be made as to when it will switch to low or high detonation compensation maps, or low octane maps. Also the degree of learning that goes on is also not documented. The majority of that 128 K is code space.

Do you think larger injectors could be used by just adjusting the main fuel map or do you think there is underlying code that would need to be altered?

 

Hi, there has to be an underlying value in there somewhere, the maps (fuel) are graduated 0-255, so 128 is roughly 50% of ?? something. Currently I can alter that "something" to adjust map granlarity dependant on injector size.

Certainly the maf sensor is the biggy, if it starts to get out of calibration then things can get a tad lean, one way of overcoming the knock compensation issue is to get brave and set the low and high maps to be identical ... there's a thought. The STi low/high fuel maps are identical so why not knock compensation maps.

With understanding care and consideration it should be possible to map for any size injector/turbo combination within the limits of the ecu, it would not manage big boosting uprated engines and certainly struggle with 2.2/2.5 litre engines but thats why we have Link's/Motec's/Pectels.

I'm interested in any product that allows me to achieve the results I want with a car, it doesn't matter what that is so of course I am interested. As with anything limits are self imposed by the design and base structure of the ecu and its programming, maps can be altered but the code is the code (so far).

 

My understanding of the JECS fuel map is:

128 ($80) is stoich and the value in the table is inversely proportional to target air fuel ratio, so 160 ($A0) is 11.8:1 and it switches apparently seamlessly between closed and open loop then using the MAF and its calibration table along with (I presume ) presumed fuel pressure and RPM to calculate injector pulse widths.

 

Thanks John, I presume that explains a lot

Richard

 

Yeah but dose it go fast