What are the aftermarket ECU options on my MY15 STI?
 

As some of you may know, my humble MY15 new shape WRX/STI daily upgrades have snowballed slightly.

Car is fully forged and mildly tuned on the original VF48 currently with an open source map making 334bhp & 420lb/ft. Drives just perfectly.

Have all the parts to take it to 450bhp very soon so have been investigating mapping options and ECU's if required.

Syvecs version S7 was released this week and will be available in 5 or so weeks time, but as much as I want a Syvecs ECU even the old S6 version is coming in so much more than I'd ever expected from Scooby Clinic it's laughable. I will probably still have to go down that route, but was wondering if anyone else had any suggestions worth looking into?

Was told by Richard @ FB he couldn't open source map my car, even though it's currently open source mapped by the previous owner Jamie @ Evotune who is himself a Syvecs installer & mapper. But to be fair, at 450bhp I would be better off with a better ECU than the standard one and wouldn't really want open source.

Don't think Link 4 do an option for my car and I don't think Ecutek do either from what I'm finding.

Pretty certain Bludgod has mapped one on ecutek I think. Forged with an sc46 iirc, might be worth giving him a shout to see what he thinks if it was/wasn't ecutek he used

Cool, thanks mate, will do. :thumb:

Don't know about Link, but Motec do stuff for our shape now.

So that's a choice of:

Open Source
Ecutek + Racerom for things like speed density mapping etc.
Motec
Syvecs

Haltech probably do one also?

the initial problem with the more recent car cars on opensource was whilst you could somewhat read and edit the map the logging was pretty dire so it was hard to check for things like boost error and knock corrections etc. so I can understand why a lot of fellas say they won't do it.
Time has passed though and the opensource community has pushed on, currently you can do a fairly reasonable job on opensource with them but the ecutek racerom is still better in my opinion on these dual AVCS equipped ones.

Your cars likely running the AZ1L100K rom (or something close to that) - on ecutek racerom you get:

• Map Switching
• Per Gear Boost
• Per Gear Rev Limits
• Launch Control
• Auto Blip
• Flat Foot Shifting
• Speed Density

The speed density setup is fairly decent, but remember the MAF setup on yours will read a fair bit more air than the older maf used on bug/blob/hawks especially with a larger maf tube.

At 450hp I don't feel you'd be pushing the limits of what ECU can cope with, but if you after the magic antilag button when switchable pops and bangs won't do the job then yes aftermarket ECU is for you. Downside of that is that link don't yet do a plugin for it so really your looking at a fairly thick bill for syvecs and sensor pack etc. to get it all running as it should.

Hello mate, thanks for the reply. In the last 24 hours I've been doing a lot of reading up on this and I too agree that EcuTek is a viable option for my car. I've never been bothered by launch control or anti-slag personally as it's just a faster way of killing components on a car that I use daily to transport my family around. I want it do drive nicely every day yet have power for the times it's just me in the car and an empty country road.

Have to say that the current open source map by Jamie @ Evotune is really good and I have no issues at all with the car or the way it drives on this ECU, but obviously I'm stepping up in power again and want to make sure I'm controlling the engine with something suitable for the job.

My issue is that all in the older S6 Syvecs ECU setup on my car with Toucan display will cost £5k all done by the Clinic. Now £5k for essentially and ECU map on my 450bhp daily that will never ever be used on the track just feels like a waste of money and overkill. If other mapping options for my car will cause running issues or problems for the car in any way and Syvecs is the only option to give me a daily I can drive and not worry about then fine, I'll pay the £5k and get it done, but to me it just seems like massive overkill.

I've read that some after market ECU's need far more work to set up and get running right as they have cold start issues, hot start issues etc until all is trimmed, tweaked and time spent to get things just right. Where in contrast the standard ECU provides better cold start than any aftermarket ECU straight off. If the processor in the standard ECU can cope with my power levels and tuning requirements with a better software to process then it may be the way forward.

I do want to look into EcuTek RaceRom as a viable option for my car and secondly Syvecs. Just need to justify to myself if Syvecs is really worth 10x the cost.

I was quoted 3k for the Syvecs S6pnp with all sensors flexfuel & toucan brand new from JTinnovations,

You could possibly save a few quid sourcing the parts yourself

I am also running beyond 450bhp in my Stock ECU & Engine Blob, with very few issues on the older 16bit ECU, the later ones were more capable still.

The Standalones do take alot longer to setup tho and no doubt will take alot longer and maybe a few visits to get perfect.

Thought i would edit this as saying "very few" issues is misleading, i have zero issues as far as ECU and control of it all goes, I just wish i didn't have to reflash between V-Power & my Ethanol maps, but i am sure the later ECU can take multiple full maps so you don't have this problem if you choose funny fuels :)

you don't if you can find someone to map it with twin maps on carberry - then just fill up with ethanol and flip the switch to go to map2 and off you go.



yes it should be, I was only saying that the fella who didn't want to map it likely hasn't got his laptop up to date.

I can't see what running issues you would have for the mods your planning. The standard ECU opensource or ECUTek is quite capable and you'll still be within what the MAF can cope with so speed density isn't even a requirement yet meaning you can maintain your original cold start/cruise ability etc. with minimum fuss once the new injectors/intake are mapped in.

Yes in some ways an aftermarket ECU is "more work" but only if you are starting from nothing - obviously with a few cars done in the past your mapper will already have a rough idea where they want things to be and what and where to adjust to get things right. Yes it's possible you'll still need a tweak for cold starts or some other scenario but you could say the same on a stock ECU remap (opensource or ECUTek) depending on how much time was available for mapping and what mods were fitted.

For your power goal, stock ECU will do the job and drive like a standard car - yes a Syvecs will do it better as there will be more fine grained control in them, but if you don't feel the need to cut your laptimes by 10ths of a second you may not fully realise all the benefits it has to offer. Best advise I can give you is to talk with your mapper and see what their thoughts are and what they feel they can get you the best results with.

You can always do the mods you plan and see how you like it on stock ECU ?

If unhappy you can always make the leap to Syvecs at a later date,

The only additional cost would be the 450bhp opensource map, which if you were happy enough with could save you that 5k bill,

Personally i would see how i coped on stock ECU then if you do swap you can let us know what if any differences you noticed :)

Thanks again for the feedback. Everything I have purchased for the car has been the best I can possibly buy (regardless of cost) for the power level I'm aiming for with the intention of making sure the bottle neck in the system that could cause lag and affect driveability are ruled out as much as possible and the end product is as good as I can make it. If there would be a noticeable difference in the way the car drives with Syvecs compared to EcuTek then fair enough, but if it won't make a difference under daily real world driving then I'm relatively happy to go for the cheaper option.

I'm inclined to agree with Smurf and go for EcuTek RaceRom now on standard ECU and maybe at a later stage upgrade to Syvecs.

Although if I don't do Syvecs now I probably won't do it later! :D

for the 450 I'd still go with ECUtek over opensource myself - the license and remap cost is still much smaller than the hit for syvecs and you'll have the extra features there if you want them.

Agreed, that was my choice too.

Yes that's why i need to Re-Flash my rom for V-power to Ethanol,

I run the ECUTek which isn't capable of twin maps on my year ECU,

Sure there are now apps & displays that would work similar to the Toucan as well

on a 16bit car, carberry is the way to go mr, you should look into it. map switching being the main feature for you but also the boost control is a little nicer and you can go speed density if you need a bit more flexibility. With you already having your 2 maps to switch between you've got 90% of the work done already!

I believe on the RaceRom you can now use the rear O2 sensor position as a fuel flex sensor so you can get the map to auto adjust for fueling?

yes flex fuel is available for the 32bit cars - but for 16bit cars (bug/blob) carberry has 2 complete maps you can switch between along with a host of other nice things like much bigger tables for fuel/timing/boost etc.

Have you looked into the simtek ecu's? I believe that mark @ thwaites has been having good results from them although I'm not sure if they do it for MY15. simtek is likely the way I will be going with my hawk if i keep her.

My problem is i use Andy Forrest as my tuner and he only uses Ecutek,

Car has behaved great on Ecutek tbh,

I did get a carberry map done by another tuner and while the Launch Control was far more aggressive almost 0.2 quicker 60ft it just didn't drive well unless full throttle.

I know that is down to the tuner & not the ROM, but it put me off trying anywhere else,

In a perfect world i would be able to just copy and paste the AFP maps into a Carberry ROM but as you say table sizes and axis change so not quite as simple as that,

I'm not sure the Simtek is the best choice for an every day road car as it doesn't support push button start without wiring changes and doesn't support ABS either. It's normally more track focused.

Your right there isn't a Link G4+ for your car yet , they haven't even started developing one.