90s turbo stock ecu to a standalone - power?

So this follows on the heels of my necrothread on going from OB1-OBD2 and switching, instead, to a standalone.

Say you have a mid-90s Japanese turbo car...you pick what we're talking here, in my case its a SW20 MR2. 

If you ONLY change the ECU to a standalone - how much power can really be made?

I stated in another thread, ultimately I think I'll be going standalone in a few years, and doing so before a turbo upgrade. But I was curious - how much power would it make? No, Im not asking for exact numbers, but is a good rule of thumb 10hp? 20? Only 5?

I was just curious, thought I'd ask.

It isn't that a standalone will "make power" , but it will allow you to tune for more boost which is what will make the power you want.

A Haltech, some bigger injectors and a boost controller pretty much make your rods or headgasket the limiting factor

In reply to hybridmomentspass :

It'll allow you to tune how much air, fuel and your ignition. But if you have it running the same as a stock tune then expect stock numbers. A standalone without hardware upgrades makes sense if the current system sucks. My 190e for example, its ke-8jet. That E36 M3 sucks after awhile because of parts availability for specific parts like the EZL that likes to take a E36 M3. So, I'll be going standalone and getting a nice intake manifold and fuel rail injector setup.

You don't make any more power, you improve drivability.

Given how rich they run stock, you will definitely be able to eek out hp. I don't think 50hp is a crazy number if you raise the stock boost to around 12psig.

If you get rid of the 440 injectors and get some Supra 550s, you can probably safely go to 17 or so psig. Also get rid of the AFM in the process and free it up even more. 

I cant remember if the grpA All-Tracs run different injectors, but the grpA ECU I have is mapped to 17psig. 

Are you running the stock CT26?

Peabody said:

You don't make any more power, you improve drivability.

I disagree, the stock tune is quite rich from the factory. 

Back in the day when I was driving 80's/90's turbo cars,  we would do all kinds of stuff like adding cold start injectors, and do coolant temp sensor mods, etc. People would call me a hack, spend bucks on a standalone and not make any more power. That's the kind of thing I was talking about.

Depends on how the stock ecm may be limiting things. Able to change injector size, fuel, boost limit, timing optimization, etc. 

On the vw the chip tunes are limited to 630cc injectors and max out at mid 500s on race gas and low 400s on e85. I throw a pnp standalone on it, bigger injectors/fuel pump and make 100+ hp more. 
 

Bigger changes are in adjustability around max power, driveability, boost/traction control, etc. 

Peabody said:

People would call me a hack, spend bucks on a standalone and not make any more power. 

Yeah, if you go standalone you need a good tuner that knows what he is doing and can adjust both fuel and timing. Otherwise you end up with either less/same power or a blown engine, maybe both.

Instead of hoping to find a  good tuner, I'd spend a lot of time on the MR2 boards to find out what they do and see if anyone is willing to share their development- even for a bit of money.  

IIRC, the MS boards have a place where they share tunes.

Once you have that, then you can find a skilled tuner to fine tune a good start that already has work in it.

In terms of how much?  Who knows.  All Toyota was doing is dealing with the compromises- keeping the exhaust cool, making sure the engine does not knock, etc.  A knock sensor set up would allow you to be a lot more free with the timing- which really helps exhaust temps on top of adding combustion efficiency.  

Since it's a turbo, they will certainly lean to the rich side to keep things cool.  

You asked in the other thread to take data- I'd start with that first, and record the crap out of the current set up.  That will tell you what Toyota did, and where you have leeway to make more power with just fuel adjustments.  

And before you start turning up the boost, I'd nail down the fueling with the base boost.  

In reply to alfadriver :

3SGTEs have factory knock sensors, so that is already there for him. 

Did this to an audi turbo motor.  Had CIS, went with a standalone and no mods to the motor.  It was a bitch to tune, no dyno just seat of the pants and playing.  The shop told me that the elimination of the air flow meter would let it breathe easier and it should net about 20 hp from that.   I had several tunes, a light one that got me close to 30 MPG on the highway and a power tune that was fun.  

Before you decide consider a compression, leak down and oil analysis.  I know nothing about your motor, but if you start playing with stuff make sure the internals are up to snuff.

With no other changes at all, on a stock engine you might squeeze 5 hp or so out with some good dyno time. The main point of the standalone is to allow tuning for other changes, particularly boost level and injector size. And on a 3S-GTE, removing the vane type air flow meter is around a 5 hp gain by itself.

^ I spent an hour when I first put ms1 on my 95 gti. I made a plug and play adaptet to a stock ecu that had the best file I could get. Made 3-4whp from down low to around 5 at peak mostly timing related. Past the 6200 rpm power peak the ms1 killed it making 15whp more at the 7200 rpm limiter. Big change was control of afr after peak to lean it out to a reasonable 12.8:1 from low 11s. 

Depends on if what is holding you back is ECU programming or mechanical and how much headroom the engineers left in the systems when they built it.

Regarding true standalone ECUs:

OEMs spend 1000s of hours fine tuning the fuel, spark maps, wall-wetting, cold start, hot start, partial throttle cruising, and on and on. A good tuner only gets you close in that he hands you back a car with fuel and spark set for reliable power, and little else. It'll idle, but just "okay." Expect it to act truly OEM only after another couple hundred hours of your own time adjusting, testing, adjusting, testing, over and over. Been there done that with an AEM Infinity ECU running a turbo K24 in my Midlana build. It did end up very "OEM" in operation, but it took months of fine-tuning.

Slippery said:

Given how rich they run stock, you will definitely be able to eek out hp. I don't think 50hp is a crazy number if you raise the stock boost to around 12psig.

If you get rid of the 440 injectors and get some Supra 550s, you can probably safely go to 17 or so psig. Also get rid of the AFM in the process and free it up even more. 

I cant remember if the grpA All-Tracs run different injectors, but the grpA ECU I have is mapped to 17psig. 

Are you running the stock CT26?

Actually, my engine is the gen3, so it's got the 540 injectors, CT20b turbo, larger throttlebody (if I remember correctly). Other things, possibly. Plus there are some bolt-ons like intake, IC, exhaust, downpipe 

I was asking out of curiosity. Again, im not there yet and WONT be there for a while. But I just started thinking about things and thought I'd ask. 

It has been my experience that you can broaden / flatten the curve and or extend the curve further up the RPM range. It is my understanding that many manufacturers back in the 80s were very conservative with the tunes at the low and high ends due to the quality of fuels being wildly different around the world.  Modern fuel is much better and much more consistent so you can tune closer to the edge with much less risk. NA cars can be faster because it makes optimal power for longer in each gear not because you are making more numerical power. You just get the same power longer.  944s fall on there face around 5200. Going to a stand alown you can run them up to 6800 with little if any power loss. All because the stock ecu pulls timing and goes rich above 5200 or so.
 

 This was what lead me to figuaring out how to put a stand alone into a stock DME box. The hard part was figuring out the signals being  sent by the factory speed and reference sensors. Everything else was simple. Then it was just tuning. 

kb58 said:

Regarding true standalone ECUs:

OEMs spend 1000s of hours fine tuning the fuel, spark maps, wall-wetting, cold start, hot start, partial throttle cruising, and on and on. A good tuner only gets you close in that he hands you back a car with fuel and spark set for reliable power, and little else. It'll idle, but just "okay." Expect it to act truly OEM only after another couple hundred hours of your own time adjusting, testing, adjusting, testing, over and over. Been there done that with an AEM Infinity ECU running a turbo K24 in my Midlana build. It did end up very "OEM" in operation, but it took months of fine-tuning.

This, definitely.  Installing and then tuning a standalone gives you a completely new level of respect for OEMs.  Mine runs well now and idles nice, but I'm under no illusion that an OEM tune on the same engine wouldn't be better in every respect.

I enjoyed the process, but it's not for the impatient.  

In reply to NorseDave :

At one point in my early days of ecu tuning I considered putting a manual choke on a efi car. Then I realized that the laws of physics did not work that way.  So then I considered a 5th injector  that was part of a weird turbo kit that added the injector.

Cold start has to be the worst part of tuning.  Basicly one try every 24 hours. So frustrating!!!  I remember a guy that put an in line heater thing in a cooling line to try and mitigate cold start issues.  

In reply to dean1484 :

FWIW, lift the hood, and use a fan to blow into the engine bay- we would normally do cold starts every 8 hours.  Works pretty well, but makes for a very exhausting really cold development trip (as you don't get a lot of sleep).  For the hobbyiest, you should be able to get two starts a day with good data.

And use a WB sensor that is nice and warm and ready to go.  You can use a good one to really tune the crank quickly.

A lot of the 1000's of hours spent was to be robust to every kind of powertrain that will be made- so you had to cover the limits of manufacturing the best you can.  For the most part, one can do a remarkable job on a fully warmed up powertrain and make it run really well- but it's the start and warm up under varying conditions that takes the most time.

Thanks to all who have posted here. 

This is a great community of very smart car folks, and Im glad to be on here and get info and advice from folks.

Yall have a rad week!

hybridmomentspass said:

Slippery said:

Given how rich they run stock, you will definitely be able to eek out hp. I don't think 50hp is a crazy number if you raise the stock boost to around 12psig.

If you get rid of the 440 injectors and get some Supra 550s, you can probably safely go to 17 or so psig. Also get rid of the AFM in the process and free it up even more. 

I cant remember if the grpA All-Tracs run different injectors, but the grpA ECU I have is mapped to 17psig. 

Are you running the stock CT26?

Actually, my engine is the gen3, so it's got the 540 injectors, CT20b turbo, larger throttlebody (if I remember correctly). Other things, possibly. Plus there are some bolt-ons like intake, IC, exhaust, downpipe 

 

I was asking out of curiosity. Again, im not there yet and WONT be there for a while. But I just started thinking about things and thought I'd ask. 

The Gen3 is a great place to start.  It ditched the AFM for MAP.  It was also way underrated on power.  You probably already know, but it is intended to be run on 98 octane.  The CT20 is a great turbo, but there isn't much overhead for additional boost.  Mine made 292hp at the wheels right out of the box.

Tyler H said:

hybridmomentspass said:

Slippery said:

Given how rich they run stock, you will definitely be able to eek out hp. I don't think 50hp is a crazy number if you raise the stock boost to around 12psig.

If you get rid of the 440 injectors and get some Supra 550s, you can probably safely go to 17 or so psig. Also get rid of the AFM in the process and free it up even more. 

I cant remember if the grpA All-Tracs run different injectors, but the grpA ECU I have is mapped to 17psig. 

Are you running the stock CT26?

Actually, my engine is the gen3, so it's got the 540 injectors, CT20b turbo, larger throttlebody (if I remember correctly). Other things, possibly. Plus there are some bolt-ons like intake, IC, exhaust, downpipe 

 

I was asking out of curiosity. Again, im not there yet and WONT be there for a while. But I just started thinking about things and thought I'd ask. 

The Gen3 is a great place to start.  It ditched the AFM for MAP.  It was also way underrated on power.  You probably already know, but it is intended to be run on 98 octane.  The CT20 is a great turbo, but there isn't much overhead for additional boost.  Mine made 292hp at the wheels right out of the box.

Different countries use different octane rating systems,  98 RON is roughly equivalent to 93 AKI (what we use here in the US).

In reply to hybridmomentspass :

If restricted to Japanese cars I know next to nothing. 
   British,  American, German  I've learned more.   The advantage of the aftermarket ECU's is the ease they can be adjusted.   British  ECU's are really terrible with regard to parameter changes.  ( timing,  fuel mixture). 
      Stock for driving on the street  it takes a lot of work to get aftermarket ECU's to run as smooth, idle properly  and deal with various inputs such as weather, A/C, cold starts, etc.   The factories spend thousands of man hours sorting things out. 
    On the Microsquirt I still see people adjusting and switching things around years later.  And That is " self learning".  
    For racing where such things don't matter  there still seems to be a fight getting things even close, to where you can put the car on the chassis Dyno  and have it pull clean enough  to understand what is happening.  
       
   However it does things that the stock system can't, and does it with a few simple keystrokes. 
    Example timing!  On a Jaguar v12  to adjust the timing. The distributor has to be taken 1/2 way apart.  A blind adjustment made. Then the distributor gets put back together,  the engine restarted. And timing checked  ( the timing marks are on the bottom of the engine).  Plus the most the distributor can be adjusted is 3 degrees.   Any more requires pulling the distributor and  moving a tooth!!  
    I have my own distributor machine and can easily change the advance / retard curve   Early distributors have advance later distributors  only have vacuum retard.  So I'd have to go with several modified distributors.  Each one requires about $600 dollars worth  of new parts* to make them work. * the Hall effect sensor board is over $300 alone and there are 2 different styles used  plus the later twin rotor  style.  Then the vacuum advance/retard unit is often leaking or just destroyed.  Plus the rotor  is rarely in good shape. Finally often distributor caps are found badly carboned up, cracked or broken. 
    Eliminating them is possible with the Megasquirt pro. And going to coil on wire or on plug system. 
  Then timing is simple keystroke and each cylinder can be adjusted as needed. 

  Using a Megasquirt pro  adds costs but also saves costs.  With very little Potential power gain without other changes.  But it allows faster adjustments that will make getting the tune to its peak  relatively simple.