Chips?

[jayfotos]

Has anyone come out with a tuner yet for our VX's? I keep seeing amazing things with all these Hypertech etc. companies pushing out 40-100+ hp pushing a couple buttons.

Dam it, I want one!

Jay

[AlaskaVX]

Featherfoot.... paging Featherfoot.....

[Joe_Black]

Chip tuning? Forget that! Go for broke and put some real power under the hood with a performance ECU. If you're going to do it, do it right: Haltech ECU



.

[jayfotos]

That site does'nt realy say much, in a nutshell what does it do? Do you have to have a shop install it, anyone you know have one?

[Joe_Black]

It's basically a complete replacement ECU that works on a variety of engines and vehicles. Haltech is well known and has a great history. I used to install them on performance air-cooled VW engines with throttle-body injection back in the very early 90's. Had an old Grid laptop where we could tune the maps while driving the car.

It would be a pretty big job to exchange the ECU, but only from the standpoint of proper wiring. If you've got a good reference for the OEM sensors and harness, you're good-to-go. Then you set up a baseline map and start tuning. Usually it's best to find someone experienced with this and then best again to do it on the road before going on the dyno, so you've got your driveability worked out.

Then the sky's the limit! You can develop and save different profiles for whatever style of driving you want, and swap as needed. Daily driver for the weekly work run, more aggressive for sportier or competitive driving, torquey for off-roading... you name it!

It's a steep learning curve, and hits the wallet pretty good too. But Haltech makes a nice box that gets the job done. There's a '71 Opel GT that competes in our rallycross events that's a full-on rally car and has a Haltech box and injection. I would never equate reliable performance with Opel, but this one has it and a racing history to match.

If you're near an active sports track that caters to performance, stop by on a weekend and ask around the paddock for some enlightenment to modern performance engine management.

If and when I land a third VX, it'll get the model (or whatever the then current equivalent is) I linked to for a full rally build. w00t!


.

[MZ-N10]

Chip tuning? Forget that! Go for broke and put some real power under the hood with a performance ECU. If you're going to do it, do it right: Haltech ECU



.

ev11...mmmm.......now we can go triple rotary vx
________
Club Royal Condos Pattaya

[mbeach]

Standalones have great power capability (I'd choose the newer and more advanced AEM unit over the Haltech) but they require much tuning/dyno time, and they do not have the adaptive capabilities that the stock ECU has. The AEMs are coming close, but think of it this way:
If you tune on a 80* day, with 40% humidity at sea level, the first time you drive up into the snowy mountains, your car will run like poo -because the ECU is no longer there to "learn" the weather and make appropriate changes.
The bottom line is that standalones only tune for optimum performance that ONE day, at those EXACT conditions.

I've had far better luck with ECU reflashes. They maintain the stock driveablity of the ECU, but modify the fuel/air/timing curves for more aggressive performance (if desired).

My WRX had 3 "maps" on the stock ECU. Each one was toggled by pressing the rear defrost button at WOT.
1 -street gas map, 18psi, 304 whp.
2 -race gas map, 24psi, 362 whp.
3 -valet map, no boost, <3000 rpms.
The ECU was also configured to ignore some CEL codes (like burnt EGT sensors and missing O2 sensors).

The "cracking" of the Subaru ECU was accomplished by some dedicated nerds who saw the potential $$$ possibility in it. There doesn't seem to be that kind of market here in the Isuzu community.
The question is, is Isuzu's ECU an Isuzu product? Or could we find a suitable (or exact) replacement sitting in a GM parts bin. If it's a GM ECU, then we're in business already.

[Joe_Black]

and they do not have the adaptive capabilities that the stock ECU has.

???? They wouldn't work at all if they didn't adapt. That's why they use sensors for temp, pressure, speed, O2 input... that's all for the computer to deliver the proper timing and fuel charge for conditions. That's the whole basis for why computers in cars were developed! And you're absolutely right, if they can't adapt your vehicle would run only under a specific set of environmental conditions. Which is exactly why they do adapt.

My point is for a little more investment in time and money, someone wanting performance rather than hoping another will drop a custom chip in our laps can have it, now. Grass Roots Motorsports has an excellent article this month about this very thing, including going over installation (couple hours) and tuning (couple more hours) on a street car.

Again, if custom ECU replacements didn't adapt they'd be worthless. All the works teams, racers and performance enthusiasts wouldn't be paying for and installing them. Adaptability is the most basic feature of an ECU. The ones I installed and tuned over ten years ago had features just now appearing on OEM ECU units.

addendum: After looking over the AEM unit mentioned in the previous post I can certainly say it's not advanced at all over the Haltech unit. The AEM unit is a daughterboard which is piggy-backed with a stock ECU. The Haltech unit is a complete replacement unit. The AEM unit is limited to OEM ECU's that it can work with, whereas the Haltech is only limited by various engine configurations, which is addressed by the various models they have. Additionally, the Haltech allows "in-flight" tuning where the AEM unit is a static download/upload arrangement. Apples to Oranges folks.