I'd wait for more testing, Gordon congrats on the feeature in SCC. Have you thought about motec m4 or m800?, it looks like you take alot of pride in your car and only use the best stuff.

 

So what is the current guesstimated delivery date, and is the unit released for the Supra/other vehicles yet (since they're coming first??)....

 

Latest I heard, is that it has been pushed back until June!!! Everyone has been waiting sooo long, now AEM has gone silent. Screw this, I'm going with a PFC with Datalogit or a Haltec.

 

My car is ready now. Seems like they have a hot product, but not enough manpower to get them debugged. I wish I knew what cars they are supporting now. Their list shows lots of Hondas and Acuras. I suppose Supras are first because there are more of them. My guess is if this is as good as I think it will be not only will there be lots of FD owners buying it but many people that have PFC, Haltech, PFS PMC and other ecu mods will trade them in for this. Just my opinion. I don't want to go another summer without my car so I'm in a quandry on what to do.

Ken

 

Ken, I hear you. Your car is ready and the weather is getting nice.
I want the AEM now, I can wait, but I don't want to wait till next freaking spring.
If I were you, I would contact someone with a good inside connection to AEM and find out the details on the FD unit.
With your setup, I would go Haltec if you have to wait too much longer. The Haltec is a great single setup, and you could have Dave setup the omp so you wouldn't have to add premix, then you could start enjoying your car much sooner.
Just a thought.
Let us know if you find anything out.

 

Who will be able to make a harness to hook up to a 1990 GTX Turbo II? I have been saying to hell with anything plug and play but after seeing some of this chat I am interested. Any info on integration would help alot.

 

What is a 1990 GTX Turbo II?

 

according to what jason said on the supra forum the order of release is supra, RX7, DSM, WRX so you guys should be happy you will get yours be for I get mine for my eclipse guess it will have to sit in the garage a little longer.

 

God some of you guys are easily impressed- - this is a nice streetcar system for impressing people-saw at PRI show- but certainly not state of the art stuff . At least its a step up from the archaic Haltec E6K series ECU.

 

On the supra forum Jason said he just signed off on the Supra's programming and should hit retailers quickly. So we are next. Hmm it took a extra 2 months to finish the supra. I wonder how long of a delay we have for ours?

 

FOREVER, FOREVER>

 

Jason

Any real estimate on when it will be avlialble for our cars.

Dave at KDR is tuning my PFS PMC.

I don't think I can wait.

Ken

 

dosent it seem strange that jason (aem) is on the supra forum often, but is never here to answer questions anymore? he said he was busy moving into a new house, but he's in the supra forum. he got us all excited about this ecu that he has supposedly been running in his own FD for over two years, and then he dissapears???

i dont understand why there could be so many programming issues and bugs to work out of a system that has been supposedly proven on a FD that has been driving and racing FOR OVER TWO YEARS!!! was he B.S.ing us or what? has anyone ever seen this 680hp FD run before? does anybody know what ecu he was running in it?

it was probably a haltech with an AEM sticker on it

 

Yep I saw that. How come he doesn't post here anymore. This thing may never see the light of day on an RX-7 if you ask me. I wish it wasn't so, but why has AEM gone so silent? If I don't hear anything in the next few weeks, I'm going Haltec or Power FC with Datalogit.

 

smart move glass man
i ordered my haltech last week. should be here tomorow morning

now i have a PROVEN system that I know will work the way its supposed to

 

Well, I've been keeping an eye on the AEM and PFC forums for a while now and I'm still trying to figure out which to buy. I'd like to do something in the next month, ideally, but would be willing to wait a _little_ longer if it were worth it. I just can't decide whether it's worth waiting for the unknown or not. And I'm not going to be tuning on this thing constantly. I just want to set things up at a dyno and then pretty much leave it alone until I make more mods.

Would anyone mind summing up why I should get an AEM over a PFC+datalogit? From what I can gather, if I went PFC I would lose...
1) Traction Control (don't care)
2) Knock Control (arguably too little, too late)
3) NOS Control (might be nice at some point)
4) Extra inputs (could be cool, but I probably wouldn't use them in reality)
5) On-board datalogging (would just have to use a laptop instead)
6) Less versatility in turbo control?

In return, I would get...
1) A tried and true, tested and reliable FC with a good support base....won't have to be a beta tester.....
2) Commander for monitoring things without requiring a laptop
3) Something now instead of later (maybe MUCH later)

Does that pretty well sum it up? Forgetting anything major?

Thanks

 

The upside of the AEM is that you can log ANY sensor the ECU reads. With the PowerFC, you can only read what the ECU sends to the Commander. It may not sound like much, but it might help down the line trying to troubleshoot some difficult problems.

 

Actually, I think the datalogit gives you the ability to log any of the sensors and up to 4 of your own inputs (such as a wideband), but I may be wrong on that. And you would have to have a laptop with you to do the logging.

Think I'm really leaning toward the PFC+datalogit at this point. Would love for someone to play devil's advocate and try to talk me out of it though.... As expensive as these things are, I really don't want to have to do this but once!

 

Well, I'll explain my reasons then.

I like the ability to do the entire fuel map via graphics rather than one cell at a time using the Commander. If the datalogit allows changes to the fuel map, the software will have to be written too.

I like the idea of a digital dashboard (having guages on the laptop as you go).

I like being able to connect to the ECU without a secondary box to hide or plug in. I'd like to run a serial line under the carpet to the passenger seat so I can plug in a laptop any time.

I like the idea of controlling everything through the software. I don't know if any software for the datalogit/PFC would do that.

It may be possible (I don't know) to be able to tell the AEM to change the way the turbos are handled, so a switch might be added to tell the ECU to go from sequential to non. I don't know about this.

I *hate* the idea of having a Commander. I don't want to mount it and I don't want to plug it in all the time. I'm a computer geek, so I always have a laptop with me, so I just plug into the serial cable I mentioned before.

PowerFC doesn't control the automatic transmission and EGR (I'm in CA), and I don't know if it can handle the A/C.

The AEM can datalog (if I remember correctly) one hour without external connections. Great for short track sprints, but able to get in enough laps to make sure everything is up to snuff. It'd be hard to have a laptop sliding around.

Since AEM is releasing this for all kinds of cars, you could (a) take your car to any tuner that knows AEM's box, and (b) if you had (for example) a Honda Civic with an AEM, you could use a single laptop to control them both.
----
Downside:

Timing. No one knows when they'll release it.

It will be new and may have some glitches.

It's a little more money.

If you don't have a laptop, you've got a problem.

 

Thanks a bunch richelesro, that's exactly what I was looking for. I read the posts for both systems, but unfortunately I didn't start a list of pros and cons while I was at it. So now I'm just going from memory and wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything major. You definitely brought up some good points.

In defense of the PFC/datalogit, it's my understanding you can do everything via the software (including switching between the two settings via an external switch) so you don't even have to have the commander anymore.

Another thing I just found out yesterday is that the datalogit can do the "pre-spooling" where you dump a lot of gas and retard the timing and have the combustion take place on the turbo to force them to stay spooled while stopped. I remember that was initially supposed to be another advantage of the AEM.

I'd say if you have an auto, you're right about the AEM being a much better choice.

Thanks again

 

There is no supposedly about it, if you are so concerned just ask Ari, he has been pitted next to me several times. The reason I haven't been on this forum, is because I have not been getting the replied to thread e-mails, I have been on the Supra forums. I can't give any dates on release, because it is not my decision to make.

Jason.

 

ok, its not within your power to set a release date, but can you tell us what the hold up is? is it a marketing/production issue, or is it a software issue? someone posted an e-mail from somebody at AEM that seemed to indicate there were some problems with beta versions of the FD system. i'm just wondering what the nature of these problems were?

i thought that after running the system in a FD for 2 years, most of the bugs would be worked out, and it would be easier to get a FD version to the market place before the supra unit....

i waited 2 months for this system to be released. in those 2 months i paid $1200 in insurance premiums on my car. that insurance money would have been better spent on a haltech, at least then i would have been driving and enjoying my car.

i'm not trying to tell you to release a product that isn't ready yet, i'm just a little upset that i wasted so much time and money waiting for something that you led us to believe was very close to production.

 

Subj: RE: AEM Delivery for FDs
Date: 3/29/02 2:18:03 PM Central Standard Time
From: KMiller@aempower.com (Kirk Miller)
To: LUV94RX7@aol.com ('LUV94RX7@aol.com')
CC: JSiebels@aempower.com (Jason Siebels)

Our current target release date is the end of May.

-----Original Message-----
From: LUV94RX7@aol.com [mailto:LUV94RX7@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2002 12:11 PM
To: Jason Siebels; Kirk Miller; KDROTARY@enter.net; info@kdrotary.com
Subject: Re: AEM Delivery for FDs


I hear you got the Supra version into production. Any estimate on the RX-7
version????

Ken

 

cool doea anyone know when the universal will come out?

 

The universal system I believe is scheduled for release next week. As far as the RX-7 unit goes, it is strictly a demand led production schedule, and right now there is a lot more demand for the Toyota, and Mitsubishi cars. The Mazda has had no "issues" it is mearly getting it to production. The fact that I have had one on my own RX-7 for several years, doesn't mean we will sell more of them than any of the other vehicles. So far we have hardly taken any orders for the FD. We initially had alot of inquiries for the FD ECU, but hardly anyone has placed orders. So it's kind of a catch 22 scenario. We can't ignore the several hundred hard orders for other vehicles, and push ahead a box that might sell 20 out of the gate. IF you feel you must go with something else and can't wait, I can't do much about that. What I can say is that there is nothing on the market that can touche what this unit can do. IF you are going to wire in a Haltech because you can't wait, you may as well buy our race system and wire that in. It will be available next week.

Jason.