HKS FCON IS vs APEXi Power FC vs Greddy Emanage Ultimate

[fadli256]

Hi guys,

I just want to get your perspective on these three ECUs'. Pros and cons, such and such.

 

[mrpham]

I would get something that the tuners around you use. No point in getting an awesome ECU if you can't find a tuner that is competent with it.

For me, the PowerFC was the best choice because it was easier to find a reliable tuner that does PowerFC.

 

[fadli256]

In Brunei we have an authorised HKS dealer and their in-house tuner, Ohura Shumpei (who has worked in HKS Japan and HKS Thailand) has marked impressive results with these three ECUs'.

 

[mrpham]

What's Ohura Shumpei's opinion?

I've only had experience with the PowerFC paired with the Datalogit software/hardware.

 

[fadli256]

I couldnt understand him... LOL!!

 

[LuPix_S15]

Just get Steve to fly out your end and map the Nistune... it's more than enough for 90% of us modders lol

 

[sx-si]

hks fcon gold is much better than power fc in my eyes
power fc is becoming dated
dont know about the e-manage but if its a updated version of the blue one i still wouldnt bother

couldnt recomend greg at pro-tuner enough

 

[craig8585]

Does Greg map Nistune?

 

[sx-si]

dont know
proablly as the tools for it are very cheap

 

[EMAGDNIM]

I recently had the fun on figuring out what ECU I wanted to use for my future ride and I settled on the Apexi Power FC. Right off the top the Greddy Emanage system is a pile of crap. Anything that I've read on or heard about first hand were that users wished they would have spent the money on something else. I talked to a few tuners in my city and the closest HKS tuner would have charged me a LOT more then what I was hoping (since he's the only real one in the city who can tune one). There were a few Apexi tuners who would be able to tune and were quite knowledgeable when dealing with Apexi ECU's.

It all comes down to the tuners in your area. Whatever they recommend I would use as it's more of a headache then you'd think after talking to a few of them. Anyways, I ordered my Power FC last month and it finally shipped a few days ago...

 

[mrpham]

For the best, get a Haltech ECU

 

[ichigo-300]

Greg at Pro-Tuner will map Nistune, I'm going to Greg to have my Fcon V Pro mapped (hopefully in December), heard good things about this guy. For me I wanted to go for a ECU with 32bit processing for the higher resolution and therefore a finer tune plus MAP operation, which left me with Fcon VPro and Haltech (There are loads others but these were the brands i was interested in).

This was a difficult decision as they both offer all the bells and whistles plus MAP operation, I was going to go with a Platinuim Sport 1000 Haltech but a super deal on a brand new Fcon ver 3.3 came my way so I went with the Fcon, the only thing that put me off the Fcon was the HKS Power Writter status needed to map them which limits the tuners available with the s/w.
But only recently Pro-Tuner got the Fcon power writter s/w which is great, plus I work in Oxted where Abbey Motorsport are based and they map the Fcon, still going to Pro-Tuner though

 

[DOM]

I think the ECU you choose will depend on your modifications you have and your budget.

There are several people who have been happy with a emanage ultimate (not blue) which convinced me to try one. When I had my EMU dynotuned by Greg (at Western then) it did achieve 382bhp. The general consensus was that the car could benefit from having a better ecu.

After running an emanage ultimate (EMU), with Z32 MAF, I decided to go with a standalone.

For some reason emanage ultimate just couldn't run properly without a MAF, although I have a Greddy map sensor.

My top mount tub sits up close to the front of the engine so the distance between MAF to turbo is very close which means it suffers from turbo blow back, which causes the engine to stall when approaching a junction. Although there is a anti-stall function, the car does not get to idle properly. So if your MAF and turbo are too close together then EMU is not the best option.

If you are planning to keep a bottom mount & MAF then the turbo blow back should be less of an issue.

I now have a Haltech E8 which is with Greg, at Pro-tuner now and currently we are not sure why it is not sparking. Something is weird, we know the Haltech is okay as it was sent back to Australia for tests . I have confidence that Greg will figure this out.

It would be nice to let you guys know and even recommend a Haltech ECU but until mine is running I cannot say anything positive right now. It has become a very consuming install. I just hope it’s worth the trouble.

 

[GUEST_JDM]

no offence to any tuners in your area's but apart from the emanage almost every ecu has the same tuning set up, eg you have a scaled ignition map, a scaled fuel map and they are the only things you need to tune a car! the only difference is other brands have more features for cold start in built boost controll and quicker cpu's. The Apexi Fc is like the old 486 computers of the car world, really old infact if any one has even an 95 nokia phone that has a faster processor (yes that is true) but the reason people like it is the fact its simple it doesnt have 900 features that you can play with and its well known ecu. It has a really slow refresh rate (think of it like the old LCD screens that kind of blured when you had fast images on it) from memory its 500 rpm, when motec has a 25 rpm refresh rate. So what that means is you will have a faster more stable car if you use a ecu with a lower refresh rate. I changed from an apexi fc to a wolf 3d and had a gain of 22 kw no extra boost and the tune was only a quick one compared to the 15 hours we spent getting the tune perfect on the apexi. Im not saying the apexi didnt work well i just wanted the extra things like traction controll, boost controll, anti lag and launch control just for the wang factor really even tho i do track my car and i do use the launch control and anti lag.

 

[GUEST_JDM]

I think the ECU you choose will depend on your modifications you have and your budget.

There are several people who have been happy with a emanage ultimate (not blue) which convinced me to try one. When I had my EMU dynotuned by Greg (at Western then) it did achieve 382bhp. The general consensus was that the car could benefit from having a better ecu.

After running an emanage ultimate (EMU), with Z32 MAF, I decided to go with a standalone.

For some reason emanage ultimate just couldn't run properly without a MAF, although I have a Greddy map sensor.

My top mount tub sits up close to the front of the engine so the distance between MAF to turbo is very close which means it suffers from turbo blow back, which causes the engine to stall when approaching a junction. Although there is a anti-stall function, the car does not get to idle properly. So if your MAF and turbo are too close together then EMU is not the best option.

If you are planning to keep a bottom mount & MAF then the turbo blow back should be less of an issue.

I now have a Haltech E8 which is with Greg, at Pro-tuner now and currently we are not sure why it is not sparking. Something is weird, we know the Haltech is okay as it was sent back to Australia for tests . I have confidence that Greg will figure this out.

It would be nice to let you guys know and even recommend a Haltech ECU but until mine is running I cannot say anything positive right now. It has become a very consuming install. I just hope it’s worth the trouble.

Haltech ECU'S kick ass alot of guys use them in aus

 

[LuPix_S15]

I'd love to have an 'anti lag' feature on my ECU but decided not to go for this as I was worried about the turbo being killed within a few months?! :wack:

 

[Adam L]

I've seen what anti lag does to MAR M turbine wheels. You'de be talking weeks if not days

 

[LuPix_S15]

Yep - World Rally Team budget I do not have lol!!! :wack:

 

[TurboAL]

As said Apexi power FC are old hat. ideally for a ecu you want ignition control for IAT,

Ecu that are popular on the market are haltech as mentioned, VIPEX, Link and motec (think theres a relation bewteen Vipex and link. Same designer involved on both???). Although these are going to cost you more as i don't think these are direct plug in devices. But once set up worth the investment in my opinion.

Anti lag is going OTT. But i think water injection should be a feature on a good ecu.

 

[GUEST_JDM]

just putting another 2 cents out here but once i did all the home work the wolf 3d v5 kicks almost anything for the price including haltec's all the figures are so much better, it has so many dam aux imputs its a joke boost control the lot www.wolfems.com ive got alot of inside info on the hole wolf vers haltec thing ive had to deal with there tuner a few times and heard some random stories one involves a race boat and the guy from wolf putting the wolf ecu in a bucket of salt water and tuning it while fully submirged just to prove how good there build quality is lol.