Been to visit Artech-Tuning!

[chrismc_DC2]

I took a drive down to Artech in Guildford on Friday to have a chat about a Remap on my DC2.....

Met Romain who was very pleasant & took the time to stop what he was doing & sit down/talk through my options over a cuppa..most impressed.

Im pretty set on a eCtune remap now. Its ideal for my needs The ECU will need replacing for a P72 (i think) OBD1 along with an OBD2-OBD1 harness converter. Car will then get fitted with a wideband Lambda & knock sensor.

The eCtune system allows the chip containing fuel/ignition maps to be substituted with a real time emulator connected to a laptop.

As the car is then driven, realtime map info is displayed on the laptop & can be altered as you drive....timing/fuelling/VTEC point etc etc

Once the map has been tweaked on the road, it will be a trip to Surrey Rolling Road for fine tuning on the rollers & definitive before/after plots.

Finally the new map can be written to a chip using an Eprom burner & jobs-a-goodun!

Romain explained that the main achilees heel of the UKDM ECU (compared to JDM) is just how uber-rich (safe) the cars run in VTEC. Pulling fuel out of the map creates more power, especially when this is adjusted to cater for any breathing mods on the engine. A touch more ignition advance may be possible too, though the standard ignition map is pretty good.

After discussing my requirements for a smooth & progressive power delivery, VTEC will be lowered to ~5300rpm to remove any classic VTEC "kick". The eCtune system also allows VTEC to be disabled at part throttle/high RPM configurations. An ideal tool to prevent VTEC when cruising on the motorway for example etc etc

Other UKDM owners who have had ther cars tweaked have ended up with gains across the board...especially mid-range & low down (10BHP+). Peak power gains of 7-10BHP minimum were also achieved.

Shows that a proper ECU map to take into account any physical mods is a great icing on the cake mod & will extract the best from your B-series motor. Well worth considering if you have modified your car.....

On Surrey RR he'd expect to see standard flywheel power around the 170-175 mark (with my bolt-on mods) SRR use a Dyno Dynamics RR which always read "conservatively" to say the least. Romain said stock EK9's tend to produces 165-170fwhp....

When finished, peak power should be up very nicely past 180 with excellent gains in mid range torque/driveability.

I will update the thread as & when i get booked in.....

 

[EK9dan]

sounds nice mate. Do let us know how you get on.

 

[chrismc_DC2]

Will do...

Fingers crossed it "should" be a nice icing on the cake mod to fully justify the breathing mods costs

 

[ijwhiteman]

Sounds promising, please keep us updated mate,

Very interested.

 

[Vtec6000]

Have been reading good things about the eCtune software, alot of people tuning are switching from crome to this for mapping

 

[chrismc_DC2]

The eCtune stuff seems very popular in the States now & is certainly more affordable than a Hondata S300..

Romain has got a decent reputation mapping both eCtune & Hondata & has got some very decent results mapping both B-series & K-series motors..With mild mods I can't see any reason why a Hondata setup should liberate any more gains over eCtune, so thats why im giving it a go..

As with all aftermarket ECU's, the MOST important bit is finding a mapper who is competent with your chosen system, & Artech are the only approved guys in the UK (for now). Romain offers to map the car & if the customer is not fully satisfied he will return it to the stock ECU setup with no charge being made. A fairly good guarantee if you ask me....

Perhaps a viable alternative to an S300 & "Will-tune" for us "Suvvern" types! anyhow ??

Will keep you all posted

 

[blinx9900]

eCtune is similar to Hondata S200/Crome/Neptune etc...

Where as Hondata S300/Neptune RTP/AEM EMS/Apexi POWER FC/HKS Fcon are considered full stand alone with RTP and S300 barely being considered stand alone as both usually reuse some of the factory ECU boards...

Still good, there all good, it just depends what you want.

 

[EK9turbo]

Hey Chris, Romain sounds like a good guy, looking forward to seeing your results and hearing your feedback.

The emulation setup is what hondata used to use with the S100/S200 except theres less hadware with eCtune even compared to S100 flashes. As mentioned Chrome and some others use emulators too.

With eCtune its mainly the software your paying for as you dont get the additional harware (board incorperating microcontroller ecu/ram/nvram/transistors/usb connection etc etc) or all the additional features of the Hondata S300 in your case. Whether this be from comprehensive input/output control/functionality through to more intricate process based logic controls tat can be setup. This is also why eCtune doesnt have any current plans to release anything for the more modern cars ecu's like K or F series etc Honda engines.

Another example of this is where the Hondata can on-board datalog, from whatever condition or switch you want. Then this can be downloaded later. Wheres the eCtune requires use of seperate software from the main pro tuning program. Datalogging functionality in comparison as Romain will tell you is very different. Also if your car was tuned on eCtune then you wanted to datalog some kind of fault you were experiencing.. you have to remove the chip, (hassle unless you have installed a ZIF socket) then hoookup your emulator and laptop. then load the file into the emulator... exit that program then open the datalogger, connect then log it/make the car experience the fault againt and save the log file...then study until you've diagnosed your fault. Then you'd re-install the orig chip and ecu into factory location.

Although eCtune is a lot cheaper than Hondata, you've got to remember that your getting what you pay for. You dont get the daughterboard computer that you do with Hondata. I previously bought the pro licence and tested this a while ago to study its functionality and since have no interest in supplying it. eCtune or Chrome or S100 is ideal for people who wont need the additional features of a more advanced engien management system. Somthing to think about... if you have a real basic setup/pretty standard car... do you really need the best hardware on the market?

 

[chrismc_DC2]

Thanks for the info Will....very interesting

In my case, I think a decent eCtune remap should suffice as I have NO further plans for engine mods at all...& I certainly wouldnt have use for any of the more intricate features....launch control etc etc. If it turns out not to be suitable then Hondata will fit the bill for sure.

As I see it, my mods are pretty minimal really. I/H/E & thats it. I dont plan to crack open the engine & modify capacity/C.R or cams in the future, so the actual remap requirements should be relatively basic. My only "goal" as such is to maximise the output & driveability of the engine as it stands & give a JDM level of engine performance from a UK car, as the UK motors are a wee bit strangled as standard....

Like you say, Romain seems a decent guy & WOT dyno-plots only tell part of the story. Even a light tweaking job like mine is going to be a full day so he seems pretty thorough...

My old 16v Golf ran DTA & Jenvey 45's with a flowed head, hotter cams & 2L block (mainly built by Olly_EK9 when we were into our VW's & a credit to him) A remap on that was 6hrs+ with 2 guys working on it.....set me back over £600 Ended up with 193BHP/148lbs/ft peak on a DD RR though. Good for an old engine design & stock C.R.

That DTA EXP48 ECU was full of features i would never ever use though, hence my reasons for not wanting to go OTT with the Teg being so close to stock.

Will keep you all updated with a decent write-up as/when the car is done