Which ECU Is Right For You?

There is a lot of confusion about what ECU is best and what ECU is more suited to a certain car or individual. Mapping the car or reflashing the standard ECU will vary from 250-2500+ so we kind of need to draw a line somewhere.

I am going to divide the topic into two categories:

1. EcuTek, which provides the technology to remap the existing standard car's ECUs this is commonly known as ECUTEK reflash/remap. Ecutek have been in the market for many years and their customer support as a company is next to none in the industry.

   • The whole process is done through the standard diagnostic connectors of the car. No direct access to the ECU is required, and there's no soldering, wire cutting or vehicle disassembly required. Reprogramming of the ECU can be performed in less than 2 minutes. No workshop is required. The entire process may be performed from the driver's seat of the car.
   • All factory parameters are left intact, which means the car will pass an MOT, and run even better fuel economy after the remap. Idle, cold start etc is all there. All we alter is the parameters that we need to alter to get to run more power. This method has a huge safety margin in it, and is also very quick.
   • Basically all the benefits of the standard ecu but with more power. So it is a win win situation.

   There are however some limitations to running such a system:

   • This system can't be mapped live. What that means is having heavily modified engines mapped with such a system will take 4-5x the amount of time needed to do the job with an aftermarket ECU.
   • This system is MAF based which also means that the limit of this ecu is same as the limit of the MAF sensor. There are boxes that will convert a MAP single to MAF but then again, the best solution will be to get something that has been designed to work with a MAP sensor in the first place.
   • The standard ECU has been designed with safety in mind which means it will not have some of the features needed for motor sport use. Such as antilag, some ECUs have launch control but this is very basic.
   • Again since this is not a motor sport ECU, it will not have any free outputs that can be used to run additional systems, like switchable maps, wi, NOS etc although a boost switch is available on some Subaru's.
   
   
2. Aftermarket ECUs. A quick glance at the customers cars and you will see that we can map most ECUs with good results all round. Personally I prefer the MoTeC system. It is the only aftermarket ECU for a reasonable price that I have come across which offers a two year warranty, and also run as close if not better than a standard ECU for day to day running. The on/off throttle response is certainly improved over the standard ECU. It will also allow you to run your choice of dump valves, cams, turbos, engine configuration etc. This is a MAP based system unlike the standard ECU which is MAF.

   The benefits of this ecu can be summarized in:

   • It will run all the factory sensors, so no need for cutting or soldering.
   • Better off throttle and on throttle response.
   • Can deal with pretty much anything. We are running our 1000bhp drag car on a OEM PNP M800 board!! So it works.
   • It has good boost control, especially when combined with an uprated boost control solenoid. Again we are running this on our drag car, with in gear boost profile and 4D boost mapping etc.
   • This can be mapped live which makes mapping complex engines much easier.
   • This will run closed loop lambda on part throttle and over run which means fuel economy will be as good if not better than the standard ECU. With a cat in the system the car will pass MOT tests just like a standard ECU.
   • The M800 has been used in production road cars such as the FQ400 so it can be mapped to be very civilized.
   • The M800 has the ability to run multiple maps stored on the ECU's memory. A typical use for this feature is to run 2 different maps - one for pump fuel, and one for race fuel.

   The main disadvantage of this system is obviously cost, it is 4x more expensive than a reflash.

   I normally recommend an aftermarket ECUs to all my customers that want a little bit more out of their cars, or have plans of taking their car beyond the basic mods of exhaust, filter and boost controller. If you want to modify your car in stages over a period of time, going the aftermarket ECU route will save you a lot of time and effort and will guarantee future results.

   I hope this helps.