Engine management for new trackcar project

Hi,

a friend of mine is currently building a quite uncompromising Impreza for track use.

It will be running a ej22 2.35l engine, EFR6758 Twinscroll Turbo and full suspension etc.

Attached you'll find two pictures of the car.

I'm currently planning his engine management including dash and logging.

I'd like to get some input and thoughts on which route t go and what to consider etc. as it will be my first comprehensive engine management project.

Currently we're thinking of:

Link G4+ plug in ECU

Innovate LC.2

Oilpressure, Fuelpressure, map, EGT, IAT, oiltemperature (for engine and maybe also differencial) and knock sensors

OEM ECTsensor and coils

Plex SDM 500 Dash and Logger display

I'd appreciate every hint, advice and thoughts on what to optimize and which I did forget.

Project is 100% privately financed, so it still needs to be cost efficient and not overkill.

Many thanks in advance!

Alex

That certainly looks like a ground up build!

With the Link plug and play you'll need to consider the limitations of the looms, you'll have an expansion loom which will allow you some extra sensors but it doesn't have an on board EGT controller and only extra 1 temperature input from the stock loom.

It might be more worthwhile spending the time on a more comprehensive ECU from their range such as the Thunder which has on board wideband controllers and on board EGT thermocouples (x2), G meters etc etc, or to save some of the private budget and go for the Fury which has an onboard wideband controller, no thermocouples or G meters or if you already have the innovate LC2 then you could go for a Link Xtreme which in the UK, unsure about Germany, is on a major price reduction.

Another reason to go down the wire in option would be to allow simplification of the engine loom and also ditching a decade old OE loom which will have been moved around a lot possibly causing breaks in it somewhere.

The pluses for plug in, quick instal and start up, it will monitor/log 100 possible channels with activation from various inputs, it saves on wire in time and the cost of looms.

I agree with Chris that you may limit yourself with a plug in ecu

I would look at the Fury, has on board lambda and enough inputs etc to run pressure sensors etc and 4 Temp inputs, you can also use spare AN Volt inputs for temp inputs.

As for the EGTS I would look at getting a EGT To CAN module from the likes of PCS, Haltech or HV Electronics. Most of these can run 4- 8 Thermocouple sensors.

I haven't used the Plex dash, I have used the Motec dashes and Race Technology Dash2Pro a lot. How does the plex compare to the Racetech?

Many thanks for your thoughts and tipps!

He has never wired in a complete ECU and doesn't like electronics - that's why he is shy of using a wire in ECU. I think I can handle that, but haven't done it either and he live to far away from me - I don't think this is a job that can be done on a saturday evening :-) Nevertheless - your arguments are convincing.

I've been comparing different ECU's and found the Ecumaser EMU as a great bang for the bug ECU. It has lambda and dual EGT controller and even a map sensor onboard.

Do you have any experiance with them? Any downsides?

Agree with the rest here. Dont limit yourself with a plugin on a trackcar. You will most likely want to wire up several switches and trimpots and want to add functions to the car as you develop the car. Would be a shame to buy a new ecu when you could just have futureproofed this aspect up front.

Wiring doesnt have to be that hard. If you want to use your old harness you CAN with a wire in ecu as well. If you feel it is up to par that is.

Just buy one of theese things

https://www.google.no/search?q=sti+patch+harness&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0h46b3OTPAhVBtCwKHQiKA6QQsAQIHQ&biw=1199&bih=679&dpr=1.4

and cut of the end you dont need and just crimp on the new ecus plugs. Making your own patch harness.

In addition to the Link ecu suggestions (i would go with the Thunder between those for futureproofing) i also want to suggest (and recomend) Emtron. This is a high end ecu targeted at motorsport applications that is extremly versatile and configurable. If you can imagine a function you can most likely find a way to do it with it. Then again the same can be said about Link`s.

When it comes to EMU i personaly think they are ok for the price but i find them a little to basic to really tickle my interest. No REAL (3d table) individual cylindertuning for ignition or fuel. No individual cylinder knock gain. The highest you can PWM a fuelpump (for example) is 255Hz. No general purpose RPM limiters (might want to limit rpm based on fuelpressure for example). Just to name a few shortcomings. As i said its not bad. Just to basic for me. And certainly to basic for a dedicated track car in my opinion. But it IS a popular ecu with good reviews though. _But i guess it depends on needs and the factor of understanding what you get with it, and probably more so, what you dont get with it. Buuut again.... Thats just me.

I've not had personal dealings with the full standalone EMU but a few friends jumped on them when they came out and have since moved onto something more robust and capable. I've experimented with their piggy back system and it went in the bin after a day, far too many big claims that they couldn't live up to.

For wiring as Kickerzx has said you could buy a patch harness and wire the standalone into that initially then expand on it easily as there will be spare inputs/outputs available.

The above suggestions are all great. The key elements you need to consider are first and foremost the budget - This will define your shortlist of products. Once you have a shortlist you can then decide what features are 'wants' and which are 'needs'.

With the prevalence of high end time attack builds in magazines and online articles, it's easy to think you need to log a million channels before you think about starting the engine. While that's certainly the ideal scenario, if the budget doesn't allow for this, you can get by with a pretty limited set of data - You just need to weigh up what's most important.

Personally I think the best money spent is on data analysis and in particular a logger that has the ability to do track mapping. You can learn so much about your driving and how to improve it from this data, particularly if you can get a pro driver to put down a reference time for comparison. More often than not I'd suggest that your time improvements will come from the driver rather than the engine.

Hi Grex

I've done exactly such an engine setup at the beginnig of the year. EJ22, Efr6758, Link G4+, Link Race Technology Dash and alot of sensors.

Result: 525PS @ the crank 620Nm, 1,6bar @ 3600rpm. A fantastic setup!

The car won the whole season in Austria Hillclimb, class E1 and get 2. over all categories. He even missed one event and get this great sucess.

I'm located near to Friedrichshafen, you can contact me if you like. I'm doing alot of Time attack and race cars and are building an even more extreme impreza ;-)

https://youtu.be/9m-89BVa7VA

The funy thing, it's an imprea wagon! ;-)

Regarding Plugin or not. I wouldn't be to concerned about. They Plugins even have more inputs than a Furry on some cars, because Plugin's are based on the Xtreme board. On most installs there are enough I/O's on the excess connector. Otherwise you can often connect sensors to the OEM harness, from devices which are no longer used. For example MAF input or EVAC output. On top of that some dashes can not only receive data, they can send also sensor data down to the ECU.

Anyway first thing is to do a a priority list and setup a buget, as Andre mentioned.

If you like I gladyl help you on every aspect of the electronic setup and calibration.

I've seen both - EMU and Link upclose and in all honesty, steer clear of EMU. The cheap price is attractive, but the Link software is at a whole different level than the EMU... They're working their way up there but personally, I still consider it in the same bracket - or slightly above - the "budget racers standalone" like Megasquirt and the likes... It might work out for you or it might not, but a few months ago I've really limited myself to providing customers with only 2 things options - Link and MoTeC. Link for those that either don't have the budget and really don't need the super advanced stuff and motec for the "no limits" people.

The main suggestion however from me is use what you are comfortable and familiar with. Whenever I get asked the question "which ECU should I choose", I provide the same answer - The one that your tuner is most familiar with.. A badly tuned motec Will still perform worse than a well tuned EMU.

Thanks for all your thoughts on my topic!

I guess we will definately stick with the Link ECU. I have the most experience in tuning them and it seems to be a competitive product. As I had no experience with EMU etc. I wanted to check if there may be a much better setup worth stepping into it.

Data acquisition and analysis is one of the things we focus on. Especially providing those simplified to the driver, that he is able to keep an eye on his engine health and driving capabilities.

@Adrian: I've already tried the EFR6758 on my 2l STI with stock ECU doing 1,6 bar at ~3400. Nice turbos ;-) and thanks for your offer. Same for you - no need to do it over my customer.

Regards

Alex

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