standalone opinion

[mr2_mk1.5]

ok so I've been researching different options for standalone setup. I'll start with what I have and what I want, I have an 86 mr2 with a 91 3sgte heavily modified, I'm currently running stock race prepped, balanced, crankshaft with rods and the rods are also resized. My pistons are 9.0:1 compression .020" oversized ceramic top coated, silicone side coated pistons. The head is mostly stock for now with a valve angle regrind job and port and polish. My exhaust is a tubular stainless steel header dumping into a GT3082R garrett dual ball bearing design, the intercooler is a water/air custom setup feeding into a custom sheetmetal intake. My fuel system is a walbro 255LPH with 3/8" fuel lines feeding a 9/16" top feed rail and 550CC injectors. What I want is a standalone that has an open ended software(it doesn't need to be sent away somewhere special to be programmed just need a laptop) plug and play doesn't really matter to me much, I want to run a coil on plug ignition system, staged injectors(550 primarys and 1000cc secondarys) plus have extra outputs and inputs for things like boost controller, water meth injection, etc. On top of the standalone I was wondering if anyone could give me a good suggestion for a water meth injection system and coil on plug system. Also I plan on using the factory cam and crank sensor in the distributor for synch just lock in the distributor at TDC. My future plans include high lift high duration cams (intake and exhaust staggered) shimless buckets, 1.5mm oversized intake valves, 1mm oversized exhaust, heavy springs and ceramic coated combustion chambers and exhaust runners. I also plan on 2 regulators for the fuel rails and a large fuel pump and possibly a twincharged setup with a gt40R turbo so I need something that can handle all of this and I was looking at AEM but all I kept reading about was issues like people going on their 3rd and 4th ignition in a year and waiting months to get one and failed water meth injection systems and tuning issues, etc I'm also not too favourable to an onboard MAP unless you can wire it to use an outboard style, thank you and sorry for the long post

[baktasht]

Hydra Nemesis from Welcome To MR Controls

By far the best EMS available for the MR2's IMO

[mr2_mk1.5]

ok, and that one can be hooked up to a laptop with no problems and the software is available for it plus what are your opinions for ignition and water meth injection

[baktasht]

yup, it hooks up to your laptop easy. Has great datalogging capabilities. Is easy to tune and is very flexible.

One other thing to note. If you are having a tuner tune your car, you really want to ask him what he's comfortable tuning on. Because if your tuner is not familiar with the standalone that you go with, then that's never good.

[mr2_mk1.5]

thats kind of a tough one the only dyno is 2.5hrs away from where I live and he says hes not sure he can even tune it because he usually does only domestic so I may have to base tune it and datalog the unit on a full boost pull and see what needs changing or tweaking

[baktasht]

Shoot an email to RickyB over at MRControls.com and he'll get you all setup with exactly what you need and point you in the right direction as much as he can as far as the initial setup and tuning goes. The support you will get from MRControls is unmatched in the world of aftermarket standalone ECU's.

[LeePeyton]

better than AEM EMS?

[baktasht]

Originally Posted by LeePeyton

better than AEM EMS?

IMO, yes.

[LeePeyton]

I'm just asking, I'm in the market for one soon. I've heard so much praise about the AEM I was just going to go big and go home.

[baktasht]

Originally Posted by LeePeyton

I'm just asking, I'm in the market for one soon. I've heard so much praise about the AEM I was just going to go big and go home.

I would highly recommend you talk to whoever will be tuning the car and see what they are comfortable tuning with.

[LeePeyton]

They said they were comfy with AEM. Same guy that machined my block and built....



^that's what 3500hp looks like

[mr2_mk1.5]

I'm not sure either but upon research the only good things from aem is their standalone and wideband, from what i read stay away from everything else other then sensors

[LeePeyton]

I was going for the stand alone EMS.

[Sang]

If you buy the Hydra Nemesis, you have to get it through Kris Osheim at KO Racing. Kris has exclusivity starting this year.

[mr2_mk1.5]

I kind of like the aem because they include pinout for all the extra inputs/outputs and theres something about the box for the harness on the hydra and the internal map sensor has me cringing because they do fail and then you have to run a vacum line to the trunk.

[karl]

in your case i would look more at the AEM. a lot of tuners hate the hydra, mainly for the UI. you're more likely to find a tuner anywhere who is ok with the AEM, but doesn't like the hydra.

AEM's sensors are all off-the-shelf parts from other manufacturers that have AEM stickers and abhorrent prices attached to them. MAP sensors are cheap. i can't fathom why people still pay more than $50 for a map sensor. i can get anyone a plug and play 3 or 4bar for $50. point i'm making is to some research, save some $ and some headaches.

make sure your tooner knows what he's doing too. i've seen a lot of high HP supras on AEMs that can't idle worth sht, and will kill the battery before they'll actually start up in temps below 60*F. last dyno day i went to, the majority of the DSMs and EVOs idled at 2k and STILL had to have the throttle blipped constantly to stay running. that is piss poor tuning, period. any idiot can tune for WOT. make sure your guy can tune the idle/partial too.

if you're going for big numbers, you might want to reconsider coil-on-plug as well. a GM wasted spark coil will decimate any COP unit for spark energy. there's a reason GM used them on their indycar engines.

[mr2_mk1.5]

from all that I've read, I don't see how that actually is, on wasted spark you still have to jump the plug on the cylinder thats on the exhaust stroke adding more resistance and wasted energy, also with wasted spark you still have spark plug wires which add resistence. But lets take one quick look at things here, GM was really the main pioneer of wasted spark and the main purpose of it was to add more stability to the ignition system, for example running 8 cylinders on one coil and a distributor was murder on the coil and wasn't very reliable at high rpms so they brought out the wasted spark system which replaced one coil/distributor with 4 coils and a crank/cam sensor, but now with coil on plug technology you replace the 4 coils with 8 coils and no wires so the spark literaly has to jump only from spark plug center electrode to ground and only on one cylinder so all the power the coil generates goes to the cylinder rather then having some lost to wires or another cylinder, the reason i can see for indy cars still using wasted spark is because they don't use extremely high boost, alchol fuel and its cheaper

[CJMR2T]

The main problem with COP's is they over heat and loose charge ability due to this when used in long time duration like road racing. This is why you dont really find them in road racing except in lower classes and showroom stock. You wont find an LMP car with COP or probably any GT1 or GT2 car for that matter. The other problem that is really seen except maybe if your running 40 or 50 psi is they cant produce as much charge amperage to light off due to thier small winding size. This is why Top Fuel cars still use magneto ignitions.... cause they can get 40+ amps out of them and thats whats need to fire off the mixture in them....

Everything has its ups and downs or positives and negitives, and everything is a trade-off for something else...

[mr2_mk1.5]

ok, I never found that in my research, so would my best option then to be run wasted spark mounted to the valvecover with modified plug wires and if thats the case what is the best coilpack to use and also if I ran that route it would save me money because then I'd only have to buy a 2 channel module because I was planning on using an m&w unit

[CJMR2T]

Im just saying to stay away from COP, if you dont like WasteSpark, you can run a CPP setup (Coil Per Plug) with really short HT leads (i.e. GM LS engine's).

I personally have had the best of luck using Bosch HEC coils. Either HEC715 or HEC716 depending on if you want male of female terminal HT lead ends.

If you don't mind running wasted spark (especially for the cost saving like you mentioned above), you can run 4 of the HEC coils with them wired in parallel thus creating a wasted spark config. Doing it this way, you'll be able to keep all the HT Leads the same length by placing each coil directly adjacent to each cylinder where as if you were to use Dual Tower coils (typical waste spark coils) you would end up with 2 short leads and 2 longer leads.

I gained my liking for the Bosch HEC coils after seeing the Audi R10 LMP cars running them before they changed over to the TDI desiel engines. (and just about every other LMP car and many GT1's for that matter).