Whats Considered The Best?

[Morbs 0]

Hi Simon, small world!

 

You're not going to put a h6 in your 205 as well are you?? Lol.

[Jolly Green Monster 51 1 Cars]

Hello Morbs,

 

In a word - NO lol

 

A gt30 would be nice though

[rallyeash 155]

DTA, KMS, Omex and Emerald seem the most common for pugs.

[Tom Fenton 1,525]

Difficult to define best, one mans best is another mans s*ite.

Have a play with software see what you get along with, I quite like the DTA pot box arrangement, it makes for quick easy changes on the rollers to each map site.

[Jolly Green Monster 51 1 Cars]

Yes the pot box stuff is great..

 

Simon

[petert 550]

DTA, KMS, Omex and Emerald seem the most common for pugs.

Over here it's mostly Haltech and Motec.

[Sandy 189]

I don't get the fuss over MoTeC, I've never found it very user friendly, it works fine for sure and one man's meat is certainly another man's poison when it comes to ECUs, but live mapping is slow and dynamic mapping takes far too long. It's always smooth but finding that edge that brings an N/A engine to life isn't generally possible. The hugely extensive compensations available may appeal to mappers trying to solve specific problems, with boosted cars etc, but you really don't have the time or control of the conditions to properly evaluate and adjust them fully, so on the maps I've seen from others, they are usually flat or disabled. On top of that all, it's expensive. I've done numerous JRE engines and others (such as dual VANOS BMW) on MoTeC and found it vastly more laborious than DTA (my preferred) and the engines didn't run any better for it, largely probably down to the speed and precision of live adjustment using the knobs with DTA.

OMEX I think is widely favoured, because it flatters the mapper. I find it smooths over a less than perfect map and the driver will rarely be aware of any holes. As an engine builder, I see an ECU that will highlight these issues preferable, because if something has changed physically and the maps aren't working as they should, I'd rather then driver notices and contacts me, so that we can deal with it, before it becomes a failure.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Sandy

[Jolly Green Monster 51 1 Cars]

Glad its not just me

[Simes 248 2 Cars]

I've got an Emerald - it was sold to me as good and has been great, does what I want.

Been mapped by Dave Walker a couple of times after some changes in engine spec.

Welcome by the way - seen you over on PH.

[stu8v 68 1 Cars]

I'll let you know how I get on with my DTA.

 

Hopefully to be mapped in the next month or so money permitting...

[petert 550]

It's not just mapping though, you need features that will make your 205 drive and behave like a modern car and integrate with other parts. eg A/C interrupt, variable trigger angles, oil pressure and oil temp limits etc.

 

I'd never do another XU10 that wasn't sequential. The gains in idle quality and midrange torque are too huge to ignore. Being a Haltech dealer I guess I'm biased, but it's hard to beat their value for money. The features I outlined in a previous response you get on a $1000 ecu. Do you get the same value for money on your local ecu's?

 

Motec definitely dominates in Australian motorsport. One reason is reliability. You can put a plug lead on an injector lead and not kill the ECU. Almost indestructible.

[welshpug 1,622]

currently $1000 aus is £600, which will only get you the standard units, Emerald's K6 is over £700 and that has 6 ignition and 6 injector drivers, the DTA S60 is nearly £800, the Omex 710 at a grand.

 

from what I can see the Motec M4 will do 4 cyl sequential but I can only find that from an American dealer on ebay for £1300, I can't find any Haltech or Motec dealers in the uk listing any prices.

[Anthony 1,000]

I suspect that it might be different on your side of the world Peter, but Motec looks to be very expensive comparitively over here in Blighty, thanks large I suspect to the insane strength of AUD compared to GBP these days.

 

From what I can tell at a glance, a Motec M400 looks to be broadly similar to a DTA S60 or S80 in terms of spec, but is well over twice the price. M400 is coming out at $3500 AUD whereas a DTA S60 is $1350 AUD. and a DTA S80 $1500 AUD. I've no doubt overlooked something as I only scanned the spec lists, and naturally they don't tell you everything, but either way that's a considerable gulf between them in terms of cost.

 

To a race team wanting the best, that difference might be pocket change, but to an average 205 owner, I suspect that's a huge difference to justify, especially as Sandy says if most mappers aren't even going to make use of some of the more advance functions. Indeed, for an average 205 owner fitting throttle bodies on a road/track car, a DTA S40 will do a plenty good enough job for a very reasonable cost (about $900 AUD)

Edited July 19, 2013 by Anthony

[alexcrosse 124]

Money no object... then Pectel.

 

Cheap ECU needed then go for MBE or DTA.

 

distributor > megasquirt.

Edited July 19, 2013 by alexcrosse

[Tom Fenton 1,525]

distributor > megasquirt.

 

[Sandy 189]

You can do the DTA S40 a huge dis-service by referring to it by price, as I've tried to illustrate, I see a huge range of engine applications on all the main systems, I don't choose it on price and I can honestly say I've never seen anything that runs cleaner than our best DTA equipped engines. If it's a game of top trumps, even the basic S40 has highly sophisticated and adaptable Launch, Shiftcut, Boost control by gear, Idle control and so on and although we've extensively tested various sequential injector configurations on various systems, we've never seen a significant improvement (on the engine dyno or in car) over semi sequential and wasted spark S40. I've seen much better improvements from carefully staged twin injectors on batch per bank, still on the S40, or by changing the injector type/size!

 

It's all well and good saying one system is better than others etc etc and making it sound like it's an objective judgement, but ultimately it is subjective; because the quality of the mapping and the overall engine/installation package will dictate the end results far more. One of the MoTeC equipped engines I referred to earlier was originally done by (allegedly) one of the top UK MoTeC mappers and it didn't take me long to make huge strides forward with the Inlet/Exhaust cam phasing maps over what he'd done. So what hope does a relatively small budget 205 owner have of getting a decent job done if a £3500 ECU/loom/mapping job hasn't been done thoroughly?

Edited July 19, 2013 by Sandy

[welshpug 1,622]

one of your recent 220 ish bhp TU5's still pulls 40+ mpg on S40 doesn't it Sandy?

Edited July 19, 2013 by welshpug

[Sandy 189]

It does and Paul Gardner and Tony Dolley's circuit engines use about 30% less fuel per lap than their previous ones from a well known Peugeot specialist, Will's is similarly better than his old GMC motor on fuel and they're all going quicker! It may seem trivial in a short race car, but when Combe announced the races would extend from 12-15 laps, alot of other people had to fit bigger tanks. But ultimately that's just a side effect of running crisp and clean, which is what I find so much harder to get on other systems.

[clen666 2]

Are there any good books on mapping?

 

I have an s60 (car not built yet though) and wouldn't mind having a play around with the software, just wouldn't want to mess anything up.

 

How do people get into mapping, as I know a lot of people don't want to share their tricks and secrets?

[Sandy 189]

Dave Walker's Haynes book is a reasonable start and gives a grounding on alot of the basics, it's Emerald based as you would expect!

[stu8v 68 1 Cars]

A bit off topic but what do people use for a tacho convertor as I believe the std tacho will read wrong with the DTA.

[petert 550]

I would assume the DTA has a 0-12V square wave output for the tacho? In which case, all you need do is bypass the filter on the tacho circuit board. This topic has been covered many times in this section.

[Vili 17]

Are there any good books on mapping?

 

I have an s60 (car not built yet though) and wouldn't mind having a play around with the software, just wouldn't want to mess anything up.

 

How do people get into mapping, as I know a lot of people don't want to share their tricks and secrets?

 

I mapped my own car. I started from zero and I'm still learning. First I read all the conversations and how-to-topics I could find in the internet. It was pretty laborious, but that's how I got the general picture what I should be doing and what could be the possible pit falls.

After that I just started to trial and error. Initially I had some trouble making the start map and managed to burn all my four coils by adjusting the coil "load" times. In the end it was a problem with my laptop. Before I figured that out I had lost 2 weeks of time, four coils, two ignition units and two sets of spark plugs. I was prepared to pay some learn money so I was fine with it. In the end making the car start was very easy. Making the car idle nice in all situations can be time consuming. Difficult part is making the ignition advance map which I still couldn't do from scratch. Fuel is easy if you have wide band lambda which you should!

One thing I used to help my ignition mapping was recording sound from the knock sensor and doing real time FFT-analysis to see if the engine was knocking. Basically it's just a modern version of old plastic tube and earmuffs.

I also exported (rpm, throttle%) data from the ecu to excel to calculate approximate torque graph to see how the engine reacts to changes in the maps. This also helped to develop my exhaust manifold and pipe.

Learning how to map is very time consuming but also very rewarding. It is just nice to look at the data after making changes in the car and realize that you should add 5-10% of fuel to upper rev range. Then do some runs, export the data and see how the torque curve has changed.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Vili