What After market ecu 4AGZE

[The Real Roadrunner]

personally for $1100 i wouldnt bother upgrading ecu.
Unless you want to have to keep your foot on the accelerater in the mornings to warm it up because a cheap ecu dosent usually have the capabilty to conrtol the toyota idle motor.

All i fit now is haltech, fair enough the are more expensive but after wiring up many different ecu's its like comparing apple to oranges.

Just my opinion.

Ever heard of a coldstart valve? easy to fit and gets rid of the unwanted low/non existant cold idle of most cheap ECUs, they come factory fitted on VL's XF's and a shiteload of other vehichles so are easy to get from a wrecker and only require an Ign on power source for wiring. hooking them up is as simple as a 13mm barb pre and post TB.

If you only fit Haltech now have you ever tried a decent ECU before?


I would also say that an Adaptronic 420 is a quality ECU at a cheap price, Whilst its not quite an SM4 from an adjustability/control perspective they are an extremely user friendly ecu that has many desirable options.

Cheers
Linden

[YLD-16L]

I sometimes wonder how well people setup ECU's with the comments that are generally posted on here, my Microtech on my 4AGTE started perfectly fine at temps down to -7 degrees just like it should have, simply turn the key it starts idling at 1350rpm and tapers down to 780rpm at operating temp - done. It also ran the 4AGZE it came off without any issues too.

Idled perfectly fine under any conditions I came across regardless of temps or electrical load. I never had AC though but I if I did I simply would have setup a standalone idle up valve. That's the thing with some of the cheaper ECUs, they lack the outputs/inputs and configurability, but hey, that's why they are cheap. You don't buy a Hyundai and expect Ferrari performance

I just removed my old ECU yesterday are about 5 - 6 years of good service to fit an Adaptronic so I can see what all the fuss is about and make use of some of the extra features I've started to need and that the old Microtech can't provide.

As noted the Adaptronics seem like a decent bit of gear for a good price and they'll control ISCV's of any sort I can think of, from two wire Ford style to the 6 wire stepper motors on Subarus. I'm going to try it initially on a 3 wire bosch ISCV and then later on a 5 wire Subaru stepper motor.

Also the act of switching the SC be annoying, especially with limited outputs (like the microtech). In the end I had to use two outputs on my EMS, one switched on at 3500 rpm (so the SC wasn't switching at high speed/flicking on and off through a corner) and one which switched on at less than 30% vacuum. This was as close as I could get to the factory setting without adding a delay circuit (like the factory ECU).

On a microtech you just use one output and set the rpm and vacuum switching points. Granted microtechs don't have any hysterisis built in but utilising two switching values for the one output seems to overcome any issues associated with that.


When choosing an ECU do your research, ask yourself what you want it do and find a tuner you're confident in. There are tales of woe with almost every ECU and for the most part it comes down to poor setup and tuning.

[TERRA Operative]

There are tales of woe with almost every ECU and for the most part it comes down to poor setup and tuning.

Number one cause of poor performance from aftermarket ECU's


It's what I find with the Microtech a lot. People want a cheap ECU, then don't want to pay for a good tune.
Then they bag out the ECU, when it's the tune that sucks, because they didn't do it right.

[feral4mr2]

There doesn't seem to be much love for the mega squirt on these forums, I'm interested to hear why that is from people who have used it as well as other aftermarket ECU's. it seems to be around 1/3 the price of most other ECUs and HEAPS more information and the convenience of DIY tuning at home.

so what do people not use them?

catchyas
Gerald

i have a megasquirt with all the extra's. it will be used on a 4agze, i just havnt got around to wiring it all up etc. (read: laziness).
there is quite a big following for the megasquirt overseas used on the 4age/gze engines, not as much so here in Oz it seems.

[Chrisso]

I would say unless you're confident with electronics, or have plenty of time to spend playing, an MS isn't going to suit. I've got one on a 4age I've been playing with for a year now and it's almost done. Admittedly there have been long stretches of inactivity, but given it's DIY troubleshooting can be a slow and painfull process. I would recommend buying/borrowing an oscilloscope too!

[punkture]

just got a quote, for lt10x, full loom, diagrams, 4xbosch single coils and igniter for 1295+freight...??? that seems awesome to me!

[the_random_hero]

just got a quote, for lt10x, full loom, diagrams, 4xbosch single coils and igniter for 1295+freight...??? that seems awesome to me!

Sounds like AIDs to me. What sort of person would WILLINGLY put a Microleb on their car when there are MUCH better alternatives out there for similar coin?

[gerald1]

i have a megasquirt with all the extra's. it will be used on a 4agze, i just havnt got around to wiring it all up etc. (read: laziness).
there is quite a big following for the megasquirt overseas used on the 4age/gze engines, not as much so here in Oz it seems.

Yeah most of the websites about it are all over seas websites. Still there is HEAPS of info about it with large forums and a heaps of activity on them. They seem to have been used in a large variety of applications and people seem to be willing to help other MS users out.

I think the chuckster uses one and oldcorollas is big on them. apart from that I havnt seen much on toymods about it.

I would say unless you're confident with electronics, or have plenty of time to spend playing, an MS isn't going to suit. I've got one on a 4age I've been playing with for a year now and it's almost done. Admittedly there have been long stretches of inactivity, but given it's DIY troubleshooting can be a slow and painfull process. I would recommend buying/borrowing an oscilloscope too!

I am planning on using one on my 3t-c... well 3t-e when its done :-D I will have a month or so in the summer while im not at uni to set it up. that is install the EFI gear, wire it up and tune it. Hopefully I will be able to find the MAPS for it and then tune it from there. I am not confident at all with electronics and it will be a huge learning curve, but there is no other way of learning this stuff other than doing it. Why do I need an oscilloscope?


my question still wasnt really answered. Why do people dislike them, what features do they not have compared to other ECUs?

[TERRA Operative]

Sounds like AIDs to me. What sort of person would WILLINGLY put a Microleb on their car when there are MUCH better alternatives out there for similar coin?

Drag racers, rotary powered cars, rotary powered drag cars, The fastest N/A drag car in Australia (2nd fastest in the world) etc etc.

It's a race oriented ecu, but we successfully run them on a number of Mazda 323's, including that one mentioned above, that also picks the kids up from school.

[YLD-16L]

Sounds like AIDs to me. What sort of person would WILLINGLY put a Microleb on their car when there are MUCH better alternatives out there for similar coin?

This is why discussing ecu's is generally a waste of time as it just attracts retarded comments like this

Care to spell out for punkture exactly why his decision is a poor one rather than just make a completely useless statement?

I can guarantee you I could have let anyone drive my car with the old ecu and start it from a cold start and they wouldn't have known if it was a Microtech or a Motec unless they saw the ecu itself. Yes they are a basic ECU and I can go into the details of this if need be but they do work perfectly well IF set up correctly.

...and for the record no I'm not a Microtech fanboy but I can see them for what they are and in many instances they'll be more than adequate for many people.

[YLD-16L]

Yeah most of the websites about it are all over seas websites. Still there is HEAPS of info about it with large forums and a heaps of activity on them. They seem to have been used in a large variety of applications and people seem to be willing to help other MS users out.

I think the chuckster uses one and oldcorollas is big on them. apart from that I havnt seen much on toymods about it.



I am planning on using one on my 3t-c... well 3t-e when its done :-D I will have a month or so in the summer while im not at uni to set it up. that is install the EFI gear, wire it up and tune it. Hopefully I will be able to find the MAPS for it and then tune it from there. I am not confident at all with electronics and it will be a huge learning curve, but there is no other way of learning this stuff other than doing it. Why do I need an oscilloscope?


my question still wasnt really answered. Why do people dislike them, what features do they not have compared to other ECUs?

I've not used MS so I can't comment on them but if your question is about why people would dislike them I am guessing it would mostly come down to the complete DIY nature of them turning many people away from what I can imagine.

Plenty of people on here are advocates for them but only a small percentage of them seem to be actually running them (i.e. got past the construction phase).

Why would you need an oscilloscope? Well it'll make life a hell of a lot easier when it comes to configuring your igntion triggering settings and would be invaluable for any fault diagnosis in the set up phase.

[Chrisso]

The construction section is easy, I'd never touched a soldering iron before doing it. As YLD-16L said, an o-scope helps significantly with tracing faults and setting up the ignition trigger, which is what I'm doing this weekend.

Settings and options wise, they're pretty flexible, but MS2 Extra is probably the better option. The link below is the features comparison list between MS1 variants, MS2 original code, and MS Extra codes.

http://www.msextra.com/ms2extra/MS2-...l.htm#features