Hi there guys
Just acquired FD. The car came with a really old version of FC and I am thinking upgrading this thing to Haltech and ditch the FC.
It currently has sequential turbos and I will keep the them as long as they go bad. As for mod, it doesn't have much, greddy intercooler and RP fuel pump, exhaust and that's it. Mostly in stock form.

I was looking at haltech and looks like 1500 elite doesn't support sequential and was wondering if I really need to upgrade to 2500 elite.
My ultimate goal in modding is reliability with balance so I don't need anything too extreme.

Any word of advice would be greatly appreciated

 

If you plan on running the twins sequentially, you'll need the 2500. You could get by running twins in parallel on a 1500, but parallel twins kinda suck in comparison so unless you were just doing that temporarily until upgrading to a single turbo then I'd go 2500 and keep them sequential.

Skeese

 

Why can't the 1500 do sequential twin turbos?

 

^ You need the extra I/O of the 2xxx series to run all the req'd solenoids/precontrol of the sequential system. Your choices then come down to the 2000 or the 2500, both will run sequential. I went with the 2000 because esp. at the time, I didn't need the extra features of the 2500 but still wanted sequential action. If I were to do it again I'm not sure I'd make the same choice, as now that I'm learning more about everything, some of the features of the 2500 are pretty enticing. You'll have to decide for yourself whether its worth the extra ~$400.

Haltech's comparison chart may also be helpful.
https://www.haltech.com/ecu-selector/

 

I'd always advise erroring on the side of having too many I/Os instead of two few. Having gone from stock port sequential twin to semi peripheral big single in 6-7 years I can say you don't always know where you'll end up with the car in time, so its worth having the spares and ability to expand as needed. I've got the 2500 and am likely going to need to add the expansion box on top of it to add back the oil temp/pressure inputs I lost with the DBW conversion.

Skeese

 

^^^ this is good advice.

 

Don't the 1500 and 2500 have the same # of inputs? They both have 10 analogue inputs, and 4 pulsed inputs. Were you referring to using the extra ignition and fuel outputs for other things? I feel like OMP + DBW automatically kicks you into "I need the I/O box" territory regardless of which one you pick.

 

The extra ignition and injection outputs can be used for other things which means you get 8 more outputs with the 2500 over the 1500. I personally run the 1500 with DBW, but I had to delete my OMP to have space for everything I needed. I would recommend a 2500 because it's not too much extra money over the 1500.

 

$500 isn't a small amount of money, so I'm just going to use a 1500 and an I/O box so I can do DBW and the OMP and have a couple left over. If there were more inputs I'd definitely go 2500.

 

The I/O box is $350 and the 2500 can be had for ~$400 more than the 1500 so you don't save anything by going with a 1500 and expansion box by the time you buy the stuff to make make the separate harnessing needed but you cap yourself with what you can run. The OMP can be driven using only the 4 stepper/DPO outputs on A31-34 along with a single AVI for a feedback signal, so you aren't really losing anything you need there other than a single AVI as most people need at max 1 stepper output to run for boost control should you have a really unique application that required that. DBW requires you utilize AVI 2/3/4/5 for the app/tps sensor inputs and both B25/26 for the DBW drivers, but at the same time with DBW you don't need AVI10 for TPS and if you use the onboard map sensor you gain back AVI 9 that is most commonly used for external MAP sensors. Point being, you can't really rep that as a savings not justification for doing so by necessity for DBW and OMP functionality.

On a 1500, its not as easy because the output channels are limited since there aren't additional injector/ignition outputs. My second fan trigger and tachometer are both driven by reallocated ignition outputs A7/8 that would otherwise need to be DPOs which I'm currently otherwise out of due to fan 1/ staged auxiliary fuel pump/boost control and the stepper inputs that could be used as DPOs are all consumed by the OMP.

So....if you aren't saving any money by going to the 1500 and an expansion box, why would you not just buy the 2500 and give yourself the head room a flexibility to do whatever is needed and avoid the additional wiring loom needed for the I/O box?

Skeese

 

Interesting, I thought all the injector and ignition outputs were dedicated on the 2500. Also, there is in an inherent latency on the I/O expander, so the 2500 would be a better bet.

So to clear things up, the 2500 has the same amount of inputs as the 1500, but gives you 8 additional outputs to repurpose.

 

See, that's what my understanding was too. I didn't realize I could actually repurpose those unused ign/inj outputs for things like the OMP. In that case, the 2500 does make more sense.