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maxiboy
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Best standalone ecu system

Post by maxiboy »

Thinking of going for a standalone ecu after the standard one has failed on my 156 Gta

no one of the alfa forums has quiet gone this far..

but as a standard one is £1400.00 gives me a large amount of money to play with..

anyone offer advice on system

been looking at G4, omex 600 and emerald K6.


any advice gratefully received
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Giuliettaevo2
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by Giuliettaevo2 »

Go ask the local tuner that has to map it for you what he prefers... Most ecu brands are getting close in quality. It's easier to buy a system with local support. Will save you from having to pay 'learning money'
Drive it like you stole it...
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by kevin »

Best system is the one who your mapping guy is familiar with and has base maps to get your gta going . You don't want some guy experimenting and trying to learn unfamiliar software on your prize motor . Many years I imported the " best " at the time called Haltech . It was a brilliant system cost a fortune but I had no experience with it and the guys who did my mapping were not very familiar with it either . I ended destroying a new motor .
Luckily in SA the best tuner there is an Alfa nut and has is own software now called Powermods so it your car ends up like factory . If you know your stuff and can do mapping you can get a close as dammit map from them and do finer rolling road on your own . However their is no agent here in Uk so if you cock it up and blow something you have to dhl one in .
Been in UK I would use what Adie Hawkins uses and get him to map your car once you have done installation . Ask him for a base map as he has done hundreds of Alfas . At least he is familiar with car and he will use knock sensor earphones when mapping . He knows exactly what the pinging sounds like on the 24v compared to the 12v . Guys unfamiliar with the Alfa won't pick it up so early unless their really good .
maxiboy
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by maxiboy »

Yeah local tuner yet to get back to me..

but Dave Walker who built the Emerald supply's the unit with a base map and although hes a few miles away not to far to take the car for mapping

has 30 years experience and is excellent.. only even considering the others if the local mapper might prefer them..

Emerald has all the options I could ever need even if I go individual throttle bodies in the future and multiple switchable maps if ever needed too..

will wait and see what the local tuner offers me tomorrow .. and give Adie a ring

thanks for your replys
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by Dennis »

Get the emerald. It's great (used it on my racecar) stuff and awesome bang for buck.
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maxiboy
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by maxiboy »

I have spoken to the local tuners hes happy to use emerald as he done a few on lotus units

have spoken to emerald about the fly by wire pedal and mapping it afterwards

mapping is 300 for as long as it takes to get it perfect pedal is doable so looking good
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by kevin »

Must also factor the cold start idle map which you do the following day so they will charge you again for dyno time .
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75evo
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by 75evo »

Autronic FTW. Everything else FTL :lol:

I think there was something called a Dick-tator EFI (I think JK had it), seemed like it would make unilateral decisions like "I'm going to not work today" and also tell you what to do instead of the opposite.

But seriously, I would go MOTEC if money was no object. Intergrate with their Dash and maybe other cool add ons.

Autronic is good too, Joe Beninca was in the UK a few years ago to test Euro emissions and apparently this ECU can easily comply. It's easy enough to tune and my ECU has been running flawlessly for 14 years now.
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by Duk »

maxiboy wrote:Thinking of going for a standalone ecu after the standard one has failed on my 156 Gta

no one of the alfa forums has quiet gone this far..

but as a standard one is £1400.00 gives me a large amount of money to play with..

anyone offer advice on system

been looking at G4, omex 600 and emerald K6.


any advice gratefully received
Keep in mind that factory ECU's of the last 10+ years can be involved in a lot more than just fuel and ignition control.
Cruise control, auto transmission, heating/cooling and vehicle security are just a few that spring to mind.

On top of that, factory ECU have massive amounts of calibration work put into them by the manufacturer. Cold start is 1 thing and it's obviously very important, but so is hot start, really cold temperature calibration, really hot calibration and altitude behaviour (best done with a mass air flow meter).
Unless you are using the car as a dedicated track car, then use a factory ECU and save yourself a lot of money and potential grief.
The factory Bosch ECU can be retuned to get every KW out of pretty much any road going car you can put together, so there is zero performance advantage there.
And properly installed aftermarket ECUs are lots of work to do well!
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by Jim K »

100% right on all counts Duk! Couldn't have said it better myself! :!:
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by 75evo »

Duk is right, your base engine+ecu is from a GTA, any aftermarket unit short of a top of the line Motec is inferior to the Bosch. There are so many CAN bus type interface add-ons that even if you are into lots of data acquisition and display setup, the Bosch system is still superior.

The reason I went with aftermaket is I had a shite L-Jet setup.

If Alfa had adopted the hotwire MAF base setup like BMW did in 1991+ I would still be using the Bosch setup today.

That said, to save cost get a 156 2.5 V6 and have it remapped. Used 156 V6s are no more than a few hundred quid, part the car out but keep the ECU and immobilizer.

Call Dan or Ned at Autolusso and the boys there will sort you out. They probably have the largest collection of Alfa junk in the UK.
maxiboy
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by maxiboy »

excellent.. well i have repaired the broken ecu so all is well for now..

have spoken several times to emerald just in case

and found new bosch ecus at around 700

just in case my repairs don,t last..

but for now will spend the money elsewhere

like the clutch thats just started slipping
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by kevin »

A lot of guys in SA keep the original gta ecu when going 3.7 but then they piggy back it with the powermods or the DASTEK unichip . Cheap easy way keeping all factory functions in the car and allowing you to tune for all extra capacity .
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by Greg_Sef »

I took the plunge on an emerald K6 unit. I am sourcing all the parts I need now and reading and studying every thing I can get my hands on. The ECU has a base map in it already from emerald to get me up and started.

I ran the car (3.0L S motor +) on a chassis dyno for a baseline with the modded Ljet and its short on fuel from 4500 up now, but it managed 220HP and 200 lb./ft. of torque while starving for fuel so I think there's a lot to be gained.

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maxiboy
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Re: Best standalone ecu system

Post by maxiboy »

thanks Greg .. would be interested in all your updates
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