ECU - which one is best
Turbo Mini Forums

Ok, got my pension lump-sum and I've got some "extra" left over - when I say "extra" I mean the the wife does not know about it (please keep it this way...)

So I'm looking for a good ECU for the project.

I'm not scared of a bit soldering, but would prefer a out-the-box solution.

I looked at the Emerald one, the Canems and Omex.

Ideally, it should work with the existing sensors and things.

Any suggestions?

I think you need to post up a good description of your proposed engine spec first.

There are quite a few of us doing things with Engine Management but there are several different approaches depending on how you are building your engine...

Turbocharged vs Supercharged, Port Injection vs Wet Manifold or Throttle Body, etc.... Plus the basic engine spec, 5 port, 7 port, 8 port ???

There are some very entrenched opinions dependant on how you are configuring the engine.

There is an awful lot of info in the "A-Series injection" subsection of the forum.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

i have an omex if i did another i would go for emerald just for the after sales

I run emerald and its a pretty simple piece of kit to use with straightforward software, aftersales is also fantastic as wolfie mentioned above.

If I was to do it again, i'd buy a DTA

decide how much/what you want it to do
then spend as much as you can afford

Decide what you need the ecu to do....decide on your budget....decide who will be tuning it....



And then you can start to decide what ecu might suit.

9.85 @ 145mph
202mph standing mile
speed didn't kill me, but taxation probably will

I've used Emerald and DTA, would buy either again. As much as I like Emerald I would have to say though that DTA's old E48 ecu (most basic one they did) even now has nearly all the features of the latest Emerald.

I've only ever used one type of ECU so cannot claim to know which one is best.

However, if you are planning on fuel injecting the 5 port, then your options are limited if you wish to use port injection.

DTA, Emerald, Omex etc are all good ECUs but if you are port injecting the 5 port, they do not offer the facility to time the injection. The guys using them above are either 16v or just ignition.

Canems is the only proprietory ECU that specifically deals with the issue of charge robbing in the 5 port A Series.

Your other option is Megasquirt using the very latest code that was developed by a TM member spefically for high powered and turbocharged A Series engines.

Edited by Paul S on 8th Jun, 2009.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

I belive Omex are currently working on siamesed port injection. I have seen one of there prototype throttle body and injector setup, not sure how far they got so far though. They are planning on using it on an autograss class 4 engine.

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