This may be a re-tread of an old topic but at the risk of getting flamed or at least being told to go read the old posts (which I did) what is the best choice for an aftermarket ECU.

I've read that the Power FC is the preferred choice for FDs, but I have also read that the final say is really up to the tuner shop and that one should go with the ECU which their shop has experience with.

I'm in the Los Angeles and there are not many reputable rotary places to choose from here. I plan to do mild mods staying with the original twin turbo set-up. But the only place I trust to work on my car does not work with Power FC, their preference is the AEM.

Are there FD owners out there with an AEM set-up? Ideally I'd like to compare the Power FC with the AEM if someone has that information. Alternately, can someone familiar with the SoCal tuner scene suggest a good place to do Power FC tuning on a FD?

Thanks!

 

Both are good. The AEM has more options and is much better for tuning above 20psi.

 

Neptune Speed in Huntington Beach can tune with the Power FC.

 

Depends on the application, power levels, and what you want to do with the car. A lot of the AEM Guys have had problems in the past with faulty CPUs, and took AEM Forever to replace all the stuff.

I, personally, would trust a Power FC over an AEM For a street car. For anything more, i like Motec or HKS V-Pro.

There are so many Power FC and HKS F-CON V PRO tuners in so cal these days too.

-Neptune speed can tune Power FC
-Blast Racing Service in Orange can tune Power FC and V PRO
-XS Engineering Power FC and V PRO
-SP Engineering Power FC and V PRO
-My friend Aki who is here in the USA who owned Garage Bomber in Japan can tune both ECUs.

I am sure i can think of a lot more good, reputable tuners who can do it (these come off the top of my head for rotary tuning). It is not cheap though.

 

AEM if it works as advertised. PFC in my experience. Every piece of electronics I have purchased from AEM has had problems:
ECU -wouldn't read the FD CAS, they told me to update, it crashed, they sent me a box of new chips for the board
CDI Ign -don't get me started on the 3 I had . . .

 

haaa...you do still exist! I see your still chipping away at things...


PFC...had mine for 5 years or so no issues.

 

any are fine as long as you have a tuner for them. find a tuner and get their preferred ecu

 

Power FC all the way.

Like others mentioned i also received an AEM and the car wouldnt start on it, after spending hours on the phone with tech i sent it back and it was supposedly something bad with the unit, they sent a different one (so they said), car still wouldnt start so i sent it back and got my money back. Bought a used PFC from a member and have had no problems with it. Get the datalogit too though it makes it so much nicer.

 

I've had the AEM in my car and its worked fantastic after the upgrades AEM has done. The latest AEM ecu's are flawless. Look at the power I put down with it. No Power Fc is doing that. Not cutting on the Power Fc, because it is great. Im just defending the AEM.

 

Thanks for all the great responses. I very much appreciate the feedback. I gather that there were problems with the early AEMs, which may have been resolved. It also appears that the AEM offers more features and perhaps higher sensitivity. This would explain the substantial price difference.

BTW, the new ECU will need to be tuned for M2 cold intake, stock twin turbos, Efini Y-pipe, M2 large SMIC, 1250 secondary injectors, and 3” diameter high flow exhaust. I’m keeping the air pump and would like the car to pass CA emissions. Except for the exhaust, the other parts are not on the car yet.

The list of PFC tuners in Orange County is a great help. Thanks a bunch Miata mx5. I’ll have to pay a visit to Neptune Speed and talk to them about the PFC since I already got the other sided of the story from Tri-Point. XS Engineering looks pretty good as well, but they don’t seem to be an exclusive rotary shop.

I’ve got one more question about the PFC. Does it come with the base maps for the FD already pre-loaded straight from Apexi? Judging from the responses, both the AEM and PFC seem to be plug-and-play. Would this allow me to run (drive?) the car before finer tuning?

 

I'm the lucky one I guess... I've got #0026 (early aem) and haven't had hardware issues with the box, not once. I've had/used E6K,Wolf3D & AEM... I'm sticking with the AEM as I've had almost no trouble with it at all. In fact I'm running an AEM on the DSM drag car (it too is serial number #0026..strange ;p).

It took me about 15mins to set up a boost-comp map in my FD and antoher 5mins of highway driving to reach 10psi & so on. Though I'm sure a PFC owner could find a like-map for their setup, my was from scratch (using my own Ign map).

Again, I've only helped out with PFC, never tuned or ran one but for my likes.. AEM does the job.

on the note of being able to drive the car ASAP without `fine` tuning... visit the AEM forum, read/understand the idea of "boost comp" tuning and you'll be able to set up a map for your car in no time. after you master the AEM lingo and junk, it wont be too hard on you.

btw... i think the amount of compensation-adjustments that AEM offers is overwhelming but if you RTFM you'll be able to fix hot & cold starts like no one... more so than the PFC, however, the PFC might be the better route if you're not looking to dive into an EMS and learn... A buddy of mine is reaching the limits of his PFC and now wishes he had an AEM and spent the time with it back when.

 

the pfc can be run on base map; however, it's got some questionable splits. I'd guess the stock AEM map is similar -- rough around the edges.

 

pfc ftw!

 

Hi Guys! First post for me as I couldn't help noticing engine management inquires. I'm also in the middle of a VR 93 FD build. In regards to the AEM ems to which I'm quite familiar with ( equipt on my R33 GTR & NSX ), Aem's ems for the FD's has just finished many revisions due to the fact that one of their enginners is a FD owner and was highly motivated to revamp this system. He has perfected that ems. I myself have held off from purchasing anything until I got confirmation of this. My GTR had a Power FC but was later removed due to it's limited capabilities. As for tuning, there are quite a few people who know the AEM system very well or you can call AEM and get a referral.

 

rene motorsports in L.A does tuning for power fc . here goes a link to his website
http://www.renesmotorsport.com/