Anyone using an Emerald ecu?

[480bhp.com]

Is anyone using an Emerald ecu?

Whats the verdict, did you fit it yourself?

I'd be interested to hear any feedback on the install.

It's one of the options i'm looking in to at the minute, for now it will run a standard 172 throttle body, but with other changes in the future.
It's not going on an everyday car, but reliability is paramount.
not looking for a power increase etc (it would be a bonus if there was one) but it's more about getting away from renaults electrics and faults.

if it makes a difference the cars a 182

Thanks
Chris

 

[MAXIBOY]

stan at apd has fitted a few. only ever heard good things about them.

 

[Icarus]

Is anyone using an Emerald ecu?

Whats the verdict, did you fit it yourself?

I'd be interested to hear any feedback on the install.

It's one of the options i'm looking in to at the minute, for now it will run a standard 172 throttle body, but with other changes in the future.
It's not going on an everyday car, but reliability is paramount.
not looking for a power increase etc (it would be a bonus if there was one) but it's more about getting away from renaults electrics and faults.

if it makes a difference the cars a 182

Thanks
Chris

I'd say it was worth investigating why you are having problems with the Siemens stuff first. It's pretty bomb proof and reliable - certainly more so than most aftermarket stuff will be in terms of resistance to back feed, reverse voltage etc.

Changing ECU's for the sake of changing ECU's seems a lot of work for no gain to me, especialy as you'll never be able to replicate cold start performance of an OEM ECU with a relatively cheap aftermarket ECU.

You'll also have to bin the DBW throttle body, convert it to cable actuation and lose your TCS/ESP and cruise control/speed limiter as a result.

Cheers
M

 

[Mark One]

the above is sound advice IMO
If your interested in future upgrades (NA or forced induction) then it may be worth it, but as said, you'll be hard pushed to achieve similar driveability and reliability - especially if you choose to make the loom yourself.
Maybe better to save the cash and upgrade the management at the same time as ITBs?

having said all that - I do intend to run emerald myself

 

[480bhp.com]

Maybe i should have elobarated more, the car is purely a trackcar *with exception of driving it too the track)
it's fully stripped of everything including the dash, so there's no radio, no air con, no cruise etc etc.

so i've got a renault ecu thats interested in doing more than it needs too, monitoring airbags, brakes etc

To save any future hassles with dodgy abs sensors, emmisions lighting etc, it just seems a better option to wire it all myself (i've done about 20 kitcars so this doesn't bother me)

All the standard switchgear will go as have the clocks, so i'll be running spa gauges.

With 3 trackdays booked in the next 7 weeks and only 3.5 weeks till the 1st one, i was after a bit of information as to whether the install is as straight forward as it reads, i'd be aiming to have the engine fully wired and running by next weekend, then that leaves me 2 weeks to get it mapped and finish of the rest of the cars wiring.

Any info on the Emerald would be appreciated.

Thanks
Chris

 

[Mark One]

20 kit cars is far more experience than i've got, so i don't think i can be much help tbh. I think you'll be fine. Also consider OMEX management. The support is very good, especially for clios.

 

[480bhp.com]

20 kit cars is far more experience than i've got, so i don't think i can be much help tbh. I think you'll be fine. Also consider OMEX management. The support is very good, especially for clios.

i've looked at what the omex offers but it seems overpriced in comparison, k tec are asking over £2k, while the emerald is £580 +vat, yeah you have to build your own loom but thats no problem and sort the cable tb.

The only other thing is the emerald doesn't list any other parts/sensors to be required while the omex list quite a few, yep there included in the price but there's not £1300 pounds worth.

Id be interested to hear any opinions on the 2 in comparision ot one an other.

Thanks
Chris

 

[Icarus]

If you're going to go to all that effort then do a proper job and stick a proper dash in it rather than using SPA gauges or similar. A good dash will provide data display and logging which will be extremely useful for a track car, for example you could plot and record oil pressure and temperature over the course of a track day allowing you to monitor engine condition and if there is a requirement to look at oiling system modifications to ensure reliability and endurance.

You're also going to want to keep those ABS sensors. They are after all wheelspeed sensors which is exactly the kind of thing you want to log and in some cases utilise for launch and traction control. At the very least plotting post event wheel speed data will allow you to see where you are getting wheel spin and this coupled with an accurate track map will allow you to decide on a course of action to reduce this or live with it in the most lap time friendly way.

The emerald has a CANBus (albeit in the most basic fashion) which will feed an AIM dash. A Pista really is a cheap bit of kit but it'll do for what you want unless you're more serious about running the car than it seems. This is a much lighter, neater and more reliable solution than a bunch of gauges. You can make up a chassis sensor sub loom to carry wheel speed and if required damper pots and feed this into the dash.

An Emerald will run the engine with decent enough accuracy for the most part. You only really need 4 sensors to run an F4R if using cable actuated throttle body and throttle position as primary load, those being throttle position, crank position, ECT and AT. Assuming you want to maintain the VVT then this is a simple digital output which you can base on engine RPM. There is no reason why you can't retain MAP sensing as well though if you are retaining a single throttle body/plenum setup, you could add a BAP as well if you wanted to do a proper job and were planning on racing up some hills ;-) Emerald will do closed loop fueling IIRC so a single wideband will allow you accurate AFR control. I would very much want to keep the DBW throttle body as it allows you to do clever torque reduction and transient control stuff that does have massive uses in a track car.... on an Emerald you're going to have to dump that though.

The biggest potential failure point of any car, be it road or race is the wiring looms. Spend time here getting it correct and it'll pay dividends. I'd want to put a bulkhead connector in for the engine loom to allow rapid engine out if requried and I'd strongly recomend the use of decent spec connectors throughout including potting the TPS, Coil Pack and ECT/ACT sensors and running a sealed connector rather than JT's/T's. Go on AS the lot, a 36 way AS bulk head connector and six or seven four/five ways aren't that much and nothing looks more serious on a track car than Mil-Spec looms

Cheers
M

 

[Icarus]

An Omex 600, which'll run a F4R quite happily is 650quid'ish IIRC. Emerald and Omex are very, very similar in terms of accuracy, reliability and control. Emerald does have a big advantage in having basic CAN functionality IMHO. If you have 2 large to spend on an ECU then you're into Pectel/Life/Basic Tag/MM territory and what you can do with those will quite honestly melt your head ;-)

For dash's either an AIM Pista from Dataspares at £1300'ish or a Pi Omega D2 GPS at circa £2K. A D2 GPS has, as the name suggests, a 20hz GPS reciever for very accurate track mapping - it also means you can use speed based math in your post session anaysis without needing to use wheelspeed. Although wheel speed logging is always preferable! D2 also has the advantage that you can use Toolbox for analysis if you want to splash out and therefore use the same kit that Brawn and RBR are using to anaylse your data.

Cheers
M

 

[Mark One]

OP - omex (600iirc) is pretty much the same price as emerald. Ring omex direct or speak to GDI and ask for a just ECU price (or one with a self assembly loom)

Icarus - just one acronym too many there for me! - AS bulk head connectors? More info/links please.

 

[Icarus]

AS = AutoSport. I.E. Deustch Autosport connectors. Used on aircraft, space ships, missiles and proper race cars ;-)

Cheers
M

 

[shiftspark]

Blimey Icarus, you know your stuff cant wait for the super cup inlet !

 

[Mark One]

AS = AutoSport. I.E. Deustch Autosport connectors. Used on aircraft, space ships, missiles and proper race cars ;-)

many thanks.

 

[FlamingMonkey]

AS = AutoSport. I.E. Deustch Autosport connectors. Used on aircraft, space ships, missiles and proper race cars ;-)

Cheers
M

My mate wired his surround sound system in his house with these badboys

 

[Andy GDI]

If you need any help with ECU's give us a call, we are more than happy to talk through costs and options over the phone.

Or you can arrange a visit to discuss.

Omex 600 will happily run a F4R Clio in boosted or NA trim.

we can also drive the Race Technology Dash2

http://www.race-technology.com/dash2_2_31.html

system via a converter box direct from our serial output link which will provide :

1. Air Temp
2. Air pressure
3. Battery
4. Fuel1PW
5. Spark Adv (map) or Spark Total
6. RPM50
7. MAP as Load
8. Coolant
9. Lambda2
10. Throttle
11. Lambda1
12. Lambda target

Andy
Omex/GDI

 

[c7borg]

Hi there, I'm running or should I say planning on running an Emerald ECU on a relativity standard 172 engine. It's actually a phase 2 engine with a phase 1 throttle body with a considerable shorter exhaust (see picture below).
I bought my ECU from ebay last year and when I finally came round to connecting to it via the comms cable - I couldn't! I've sent it to Emerald so I'll keep you updated with the progress and my experiences on this post..
But so far emerald have been very helpful giving me additional troubleshooting guides and later versions of software(despite not buying the ecu directly from them). Looking at the latest version of the unit they seem pretty full featured for the money especially with the adaptive mapping. I have quite a bit of confidence in it, as the person behind it (Dave Walker) has wrote a book about Engine Management published by Haynes and is also the technical editior for practical performance car magazine and I have always found his coloumn "walkers workshop" very upfront. I'll stop here as I sound like a fan boy

 

[mbarnes]

i dont know much about any of the above, but i know i love the mil spec connectors. my mates 106 has them as described above, feeding through bulkhead.

 

[activ]

My 172 cup is featured in Walkers workshop in this months (April 2009) Practical Performance Car.
I have been running an Emerald ECU for 6 months now and only have good things to say about it.
One of the best things that it has is three switchable maps, so you can have a fast road map a trackday map an a economy map and switch between them while driving.

 

[Neal 182]

One of the best ECU's around my mate has one on his supercharged 106 he also has a westie and is on about have a Emerald put on that as he hates the ECU that on there at the min