as our 30+ year beloved FDs age various components are welcomed onboard.

i bought my FD in 1999 and it had a Pettit flashed ECU. later that gave way to the wonderful Power FC/Datalogit. combined w lots of other modules we thought we were in tuning heaven. Moore's Law of course marched forward and in prep for a 2013 Mile run i followed Emeril's advice and took it up a notch. it was time for a 2013 class ECU. one of the primary reasons was obtaining an Active knock system. the Power FC used an outdated knock sensor and only reported. newer ECUs used an updated Bosch sensor, actually two, and were able to zero timing as a response. i have benefitted from this 2 or 3 times over the years.

looking at the 2013 ECU options, i found 3 serious contenders, Motec, ViPEC/Link (the same), and Haltech.

Motec was the weapon of choice for most high dollar pro real racers. after buying the ECU you had to buy other modules to capture various needs. it added up to lots of $$ and lots of modules.

Haltech, at that time, had a quite dicey rep. lots of broken motors from errant spark events. whether true or not i didn't feel like speculating.

ViPEC was connected to Ray Hall. at that time Ray was a significant global turbo guru. ViPEC was mostly a re-branded Link. the V88 was the top of the line and it did everything. that's everything a fully optioned Motec could do at a friendly price. i bought the Vipec and wired it in. it is still shocking to me that my 2013 Vipec still does so much of what the newest Links do.

in Dec of 2020 my Vipec died. something in the "motherboard." by that time ViPEC had been rolled into Link. i knew Link well. (New Zealand). the new Extremex ECU had just came out and they made me a kind offer. it seamlessly plugged in to my harness and i was up and running. while the Vipec served me well, i was aware that it had a lot of features that i wasn't using, ditto the new ECU. i decided i wanted to take better advantage of the potential.

which finally leads me to the reason for this thread.

i found Evans Performance Academy.

if you are on a Haltech or Link or Motec or FuelTech or MegaSquirt you should also take a close look at EPA.

just as i fired my new Link ECU in Jan 2021 i found and bought the EPA G4X software course. i audited the 43 approximate 40 minute videos and reduced each to comprehensive notes. everything i needed to know in a move it along fashion. my new ECU felt like an old friend from the get go.

tech marches along and about a year ago the Link G4X software was replaced by G5. (wonder what happened to the X). i switched over and didn't think much about it.

recently i had been thinking about how many external modules we had been running and how so many had been absorbed by our ECU. which led me to think about my AI system. really it is just a pump some lines and a nozzle. yes there should be a filter, a one way valve/solenoid and a connection to boost.

i revisited the EPA site and accidentally ended up on the G5 portion. since i hadn't subscribed to the G5 i wasn't able to open the videos but could read the titles. and there it was... after a video on setting up your AEM, or other aftermarket AI system, the next video was "Advanced AI."

yes you can

then i noticed there were 133 G5 videos! i don't believe Jeff ever sleeps.

lots of really neat stuff... take some time and look at the titles of the videos.

you can peruse here:

https://evansperformanceacademy.vhx....raining-course

i realize that most on the board are on Power FC, many upgraded to the highly regarded Tweak option. good for you. most others are on Haltech. Evans has 82 videos on the NSP and 73 on the Elite. so you don't have to own a Link to benefit from Jeffrey's expertise.

Jeffrey also has a forum section. anyone renting or owning his course is encouraged to post a question. i have done this a few times and have always received a reply within 24 hours. the forum can also be searched.

as of right now no one on the board has any excuse for not knowing whatever they need to know about their ECU's capabilities or tuning.

i paid retail on the recent G5 upgrade so this is a totally objective recommendation..


Thank You Jeffrey
.. :

 

Yep!
I found Evans about 6 years ago.
It’s a gold mine of engine tuning and worth every cent!


Steve

 

My suggestion, at least for those of you who are deeper into a build or just in a thinking mode, would be to make a few lists. This is sort of like system engineering.

What do I want my car to do?
Drive to the store without getting pulled over for a loud exhaust,
achieve XYZ drag racing time or lap time
Go wide open throttle in 1st gear without roasting the tires
Idle stably when I turn the air conditioning on
pass an IM240 emissions test in California
etc

Then map out - what do I need to get there? Is it hardware, is it software (meaning - some kind of logic, like cold weather compensation for boost control), is it precise ECU tuning? Then map that into your ECU choices.

For example, idle stably with air conditioning on and not stall when the compressor cycles. Assuming you don't go drive by wire, you probably want an ECU that can control that with some robust idle tuning maps and idle air valve settings.
For example, passing an IM240 emissions test. That's where the emissions shop drives your car on a dyno while measuring tailpipe (pretty challenging for an old car). Power FC is probably going to be easier to make that happen out of the box due to retaining the air pump control system.
For example, control the factory sequential system. Power FC is going to be easier to make that happen out of the box. Stock ECU can do it if you don't delete too much stuff. Non Power FC will need some deep study as to whether the number of outputs and control logic is there.
For example, control boost by gear to reduce wheelspin. There are a few options out there, but Power FC alone isn't going to get you there, because even though it can send a duty cycle to a solenoid, its logic is fixed and doesn't include boost by gear.

What I'm saying is, you can buy something with all the functions and figure out if or how to take advantages of them, or you can plan out what you want the vehicle to do, and how an ECU can help get you there. It takes some specialized knowledge but that's what this forum, tuning training shops (I can recommend HP Academy as well, also NZ) and the various experts can help with.

 

They helped me with more advanced topics on my Emtron and throttle mass flow tuning, which I believe is the only motorsports ECU with this ability.