ECU Chip

[Ginger pig]

Hi everyone,

Anyone using one of these?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333975562724?hash=item4dc27ea9e4:g:eDIAAOSwxmdgheM6

Tempted by the price but concerned about reliability...

Cheers

Mark

[DaKa]

The price is good, but when I saw this Ebay sellers' other items for sale I did get a little confused.

They do have 2 other lotus parts for sale including a rare hub that I'm sure someone on the forum was looking for recently.

 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333619999800?hash=item4dad4d3438:g:LloAAOSw6~Je3k4F

 

 

[MrDangerUS]

He has 5 of them. That's little bit puzzling.

Price is good! Ask if he gives any warranty.

[Ginger pig]

Cheers guys, Talking to the seller ATM.

Mark

[Erikl]

I have been looking at these as well.  In for updates. 

 

Have you guys heard that SW Lotus is developing a stand alone PnP ECM for the 4 pot turbo cars?  Very interested in the price and capability this unit will have.  Supposedly in testing now.

I would like to add a turbo with a little faster spool that wont run out of breath (*not looking for loads of power) but I am concerned that the stock based ECU wont be able to keep up.  Possibly causing lean areas in the map that result in -boom.

 

[Escape]

I know @swindon_alan was trying to reverse engineer the ECU. I gave him my old burned one to experiment on, as they're so rare. I don't know how far he got before his untimely demise...

Filip

[Barrykearley]

10 hours ago, Erikl said:

I would like to add a turbo with a little faster spool that wont run out of breath (*not looking for loads of power)

Have a chat with turbo technics and consider the S181

[Jacques]

Interesting read.

I'm advocating for that - a bit faster spooling turbo that won't run out of breath on the top. Meanwhile, I did install a rebuilt Sp300 turbo and despite being bigger that the stock SE item from 1990 model, it spools faster and does not run out of breath (with an added pump and fpr plus the right Sp300 ecu.

Then I read all sorts of things with the modern scroll ceramic ball bearing turbos. Now, I want to point out that I have no personal experience with them, so it's just readings, of which one should be a little cautious. Anyway, the modern turbos are so fast, allegedly, that the GM ecu item cannot work with that speed. Hence a new ecu setup.

I know there are many contributing factors, but that was the sum of some of the readings I found.

Was that some of the same findings you did Erik?

Kind regards,

Jacques

[Erikl]

Interesting - the S181 from TT is only 575 GBP ~ $700.  I sent an email.  Is that a direct fit?  Is the tuning going to be a challenge or does anybody offer a chip that works with that Turbo?

 

[Barrykearley]

I’ve an s181 on mine - direct fit no issues 👍

[Erikl]

By the way - my pricing mentioned above - turns out is from 2010.  Did not realize I was looking at a very old document.  Was not able to edit

[cammmy]

Personally, I would never consider something as drastic as a turbo upgrade without either standalone management or a flash tune developed for the specific combination you are running. These cars only have a narrowband o2 sensor and the readings are ignored at WOT anyway, so you really are chancing it (not to mention ignition timing requirements).

I went full standalone on my GT3 and I highly recommend it. I now have wideband o2 in addition to all of the other advantages. I got 280bhp on the stock turbo and then 290 with vernier pulleys (though I lost a little at the bottom end for that) I now run a GTX2863R which does have a higher boost threshold than the stock turbo but is much more capable. I'm at 320bhp as my injectors are at the max duty cycle I'm comfortable with.  The turbo should do around 400 but I want tougher transmission internals and an engine refresh before I explore that.

Edited June 8, 2021 by cammmy

[Erikl]

@cammy which stand alone did you go with.

Was it the SWLC prototype?

You r set up is making me drool.  Does it run really cool also?

 

 

[cammmy]

I went with an MS3/X with 4 bar MAP sensor:

https://www.diyautotune.com/product/megasquirt-iii-ems-system-with-ms3x-expansion-v3-57-assembled/  (Though I used a DIY kit.)

When it comes to choosing an ECU, first, find a tuner you trust and then see what they will tune with. You can easily lose any savings you make on an ECU in tuning time because it takes them longer, or the only people who work with that ECU are more expensive. That happened to me.

This was before I upgraded the turbo:

 

[snowrx]

I went the same route as Cammmy, a solder-it yourself  Megasquirt MS3/MS3X kit with all the options, and then a twin scroll EFR 6258 turbo on an Alunox manifold.

Even when not looking for high power levels, the flexibility, features and options of a modern stand-alone ECU and wide-band 02 control are worth it in my opinion.

However tuning can be time consuming. Getting it drivable and ripping down the road is easy enough, but all the fine points of cold starts, acceleration enrichments, tuning closed loop fueling, idle and boost controls are a challenge that frankly I'm still perfecting.

[Erikl]

Yeah I am not sure I am up to the time commitment to getting it tuned my self.  Maybe I will check with a few local tuners and see if they know the MS3 really well.

[snowrx]

There's lot more ECU options these days than when I started, just make sure the tuning software comes with it and your tuner doesn't lock your tune to where you or another tuner can't adjust as needed in the future. There will likely be more sensors you'll need to add for various features.

Look at the options you might want and see if the ECU will handle them without add-ons or extra cost; eg auto-tuning from your wideband, maybe sequential injection, on-board datalogging, low impedance injectors, dual baro inputs, coil on plug ignition, dash outputs etc.

A popular ECU should have a good online forum to support it.

[RobinB5]

I bought and have now installed one of the above ebay chips. Best purchase I've made in a long time. A much more refined drive with power laid down much earlier and just keeps on coming. It's not only more powerful, but so much 'smoother' (can't think of a better adjective). Less jerky when toddling along in low revs as well. Nothing has exploded or caught fire yet, is all I can say about the reliability

[sailorbob]

Probably a bit late for this now but I would be wary of any chip that states it's suitable for an SE, S4 and S4s. The S4s has quite a different volumetric efficiency than the SE and S4 (up to almost 13% in some places) and the fuelling will be off because of this.