Best Standalone Engine Management System?

SaturnSpeedster

Wrench Pro
Points
16
Location
Bartlett
Car
1997 Saturn SC2
Hey, I have a 1.9L I-4 DOHC engine with 135whp.
What is the best Standalone Engine Management System out there/which would you suggest?
N/A car switching to Turbocharger.
Thanks!
 
There isn't a best as such, maybe one of the high end motecs but that's big money. My advice is to choose who you want to map it and get whatever they prefer. You don't want to buy DTA for example then find out you have to travel 600 miles to get it mapped or adjusted every time you make a change.

A pants ecu mapped by an excellent mapper will be better than an excellent ecu mapped by a rubbish mapped.
 
I am no expert on ECUs, but for a car with your power I would have thought the cheapest you can get that is fully mappable would be fine. No point in paying for bells and whistles you will never use. The Emerald K6, for example, is a good, reasonably priced (but not the cheapest) unit at £595 and will do everything you want.

http://www.emeraldm3d.com/ecu/emerald-k6-ecu-generic-373.html

Dave Walker has been around since God was a boy and what he doesn't know isn't worth knowing.

This isn't a sales pitch as I am not using an Emerald. There are many other ECUs around that will do the job.
 
I would have thought a Dastek unichip would easily fulfill your needs, start off with the basic ecu, then add a boost module when you fit your Turbo, you also have the ability to control nitrous and launch control for example
 
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Yes, I will be getting an electronic boost controller as well.
I also wanted to make a note, just to clarify, that 135whp is N/A with only a cold air intake and full header back exhaust.
I am going to get the stand alone once I purchase all the turbo parts, and upgrade pumps, injectors, filters, and internals.
For nitrous control, couldn't I use a separate controller from the company that I get the nitrous kit from?
 
Yes, or one from Cold Fusion, NOS or Wizard of Nos to name but three. A decent after market ECU will also control your nitrous.

Would it be better to use a separate controller or the built in one in a stand alone system?
I know the standalone system with built in nitrous controller would be more simple because you wouldn't have to deal with a bunch of separate controllers, but I was just wondering your opinion (maybe one has more functions over the other or something).
Also, is there a standalone that has built in fuel, ignition, nitrous, and boost control all in one package, that factors in both rpm and load as well as others?
 
You can get an ECU to do anything it just needs enough processing power and the ability to do lots of different things.

The main difference between basic ecus and good ones is processing power .
The more "bits" you have the greater the flexibility .
Put simply when working out the fueling an 8 bit ecu might go up in stages of 500 rpm and 16 bit might go up in 250rpm stages . Same with say the fuel count being set.
That means a 16bit will be four times more adjustable . This doesnt make it 4 times faster but gives a much smoother power band.
there is also a practicle limit to how much adjustment you need . Only on a seriously tuned engine will high processor power be any use. On say a punto with a few mods any aftermarket ecu will probably work fine
Second difference is how many maps the ecu can store and how many add in gizmos it can cope with ( such as launch control , extra maps for racing fuel etc )
Lioke all tuning you only need the ecu to do what your circumstances demand. Anyting much over and its wasted money
 
Are you in the US mate? If so then Megasquirt might be the best one for you, realatively cheap and also a lot of knowledgable people use them here and in the US, and it is a US based company. Not sure if people use Emeralds or DTA's offerings on that side fo the pond. Not sure what my pick would be though..... then again would my choice of cars need one?.... probably not...
 
Are you in the US mate? If so then Megasquirt might be the best one for you, realatively cheap and also a lot of knowledgable people use them here and in the US, and it is a US based company. Not sure if people use Emeralds or DTA's offerings on that side fo the pond. Not sure what my pick would be though..... then again would my choice of cars need one?.... probably not...

Yep, I'm in the US. Megasquirt is a name that I've heard tossed around a good bit, so I know it's popular over here too.
 
MS is avaliable as a kit form or already built but tbh building it from kit form is really good fun. There is loads of support out there for it these days and lots of mappers will map it if you don't want to map it yourself. Hardest part is creating a base map from nothing but again, there are loads of base maps already out there nowadays.
 

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