Best piggyback ECUs for budget n/a mapping?

[Anonymous]

Given how long engines have lasted with a whacking great turbo charger strapped to them and pushing out upwards of 250bhp, I think you'll be okay at 160bhp  s;) s;)

Well, you may only get 290,000 miles out of the engine as opposed to 300,000 but I'm sure that's worth living with.

[kentsmudger]

Given how long engines have lasted with a whacking great turbo charger strapped to them and pushing out upwards of 250bhp, I think you'll be okay at 160bhp  s;) s;)

Thanks! I know that there are turbos fitted to these engines, but I have no idea of the work involved in achieving this. Turbo discussion threads go right over my head. And way over my budget  s:roll: :roll: s:roll:

[Anonymous]

The TTET runs about 190-200bhp and you can bet that there's no way Toyota would have put their stamp of approval on it if the kit lead to dramatically shortened engine life span. Given that, personally I would say that 200bhp is the unofficial no-damage limit on the engine.


No quoting me on that, though.  s;) s;)

[ChrisGB]

I think you also need to understand the BHP does not give you a good 0 - 60 time, it's a combination of torque and BHP - torque being your main consideration for the kick up the backside you are looking for.

You should ask the question - how much torque is being produced and whereabout in the curve is it's max   s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

Rob.

The relationship between the two is quite closely tied. An engine with good midrange and standard levels at the top will feel good when you are driving in lazy mode, letting you scull around in the midband. With an engine like this, the car feels like it runs out of puff when properly extended though. This is typical of an engine where the gains have come from the chip with few other mods. Torque on the 1zz engine falls off quite quickly as the revs rise. Going for mods that increase torque further up the rev range, the car will pull more strongly at the top end, or will feel like it revs out more freely. This gives the car a more sporty feel in that to extract a good chunk of acceleration, the car feels right when you rev it. Ultimately, a car with 145bhp at 6500rpm and 140lb/ft at 4500rpm will be quicker than a car with 155bhp at 6800rpm and 130lb/ft at 4500rpm when you are stroking it gently, but use all the revs, the more powerful car will go quicker. Of course if you can get good mid and top end torque, you have the best of both worlds, but that costs lots. ECU alone is going to give good midrange results with moderate top end improvements. In terms of ultimate acceleration, the BHP number is a better indication than the torque figure. In terms of driveability, the torque numbers mean more.

Probably worth asking these questions too -

Is there anything on the downside of these mods?
How does the engine like being tweaked up to 150-160 bhp?
How long can a daily driver last on this level of tuning before internal bits need upgrading?

I have been cautious so far only looking at intake and exhaust tweaks and a little on the handling side, aiming more at removing limiting factors on the stock car, rather than forcing the engine out of it's 'comfort zone'.

There will be potential downsides. Certainly, with the PPE setup I have, noise is an issue. Also, I did not see much gain in the midrange (though it feels like the new exhaust has fattened the mid up a bit, will know for sure on Saturday). A lot will depend on how the tweaking up has been achieved. ECU modding on these cars is mostly about ignition advance. If you have a piggyback, it seems the stock ECU pulls timing back and you should just be able to tune for max safe advance without undue stress to the engine. If your tune is too agressive however, knock can really stress the engine in a big way if the stock ECU does not pull advance. With my PPE setup, cylinder fill was such that at higher revs, all advance added was immediately compensated by the ECU, so there was no top end gain to be had. This is where a stand alone unit has its pros and cons. Pros is you can extract more power, cons is that you can suffer knock with duff fuel or poor tuning. Extracting 150-160bhp should be comfortable assuming you do not increase knock or increase rev limit. Stock internals need upgrading if you are going to increase rev limit by a useful amount, so for example, you may end up with stage 2 cams, upgraded valve springs, retainers and main bearing bolts for a rev limit of 8,000rpm.

How you drive it / let it warm up before thrashing it etc will have a greater effect than NA tuning within the stock rev limit. However, it should also be noted that certain induction systems will mess up the AFR, and if you run too rich, this can kill the cylinder bores pretty quickly.

For my money, if I were doing an ECU mod only, I would go E manage for cost and availability of tuners.

Chris

[kentsmudger]

Is there anything on the downside of these mods?

(... loads of good stuff...)

Chris

Cool info, thanks!

[Anonymous]

The relationship between the two is quite closely tied. An engine with good midrange and standard levels at the top will feel good when you are driving in lazy mode, letting you scull around in the midband. With an engine like this, the car feels like it runs out of puff when properly extended though. This is typical of an engine where the gains have come from the chip with few other mods. Torque on the 1zz engine falls off quite quickly as the revs rise. Going for mods that increase torque further up the rev range, the car will pull more strongly at the top end, or will feel like it revs out more freely. This gives the car a more sporty feel in that to extract a good chunk of acceleration, the car feels right when you rev it. Ultimately, a car with 145bhp at 6500rpm and 140lb/ft at 4500rpm will be quicker than a car with 155bhp at 6800rpm and 130lb/ft at 4500rpm when you are stroking it gently, but use all the revs, the more powerful car will go quicker. Of course if you can get good mid and top end torque, you have the best of both worlds, but that costs lots. ECU alone is going to give good midrange results with moderate top end improvements. In terms of ultimate acceleration, the BHP number is a better indication than the torque figure. In terms of driveability, the torque numbers mean more. Chris

So running with 168 BHP and a fairly flat line of 150 lb/ft max of torque up to 7200 RPM is a very good compromise then.  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

How you drive it / let it warm up before thrashing it etc will have a greater effect than NA tuning within the stock rev limit. However, it should also be noted that certain induction systems will mess up the AFR, and if you run too rich, this can kill the cylinder bores pretty quickly.

Chris

Yep - this is probably the best bit of advice you can be given - the same for any car really.  s:D s:D  

Rob.

[ChrisGB]

Of course if you can get good mid and top end torque, you have the best of both worlds, but that costs lots. ECU alone is going to give good midrange results with moderate top end improvements. In terms of ultimate acceleration, the BHP number is a better indication than the torque figure. In terms of driveability, the torque numbers mean more. Chris

So running with 168 BHP and a fairly flat line of 150 lb/ft max of torque up to 7200 RPM is a very good compromise then.  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

It seems pretty reasonable to me. Personally I would prefer 140lb/ft flat held all the way out to 6800rpm, but without forced induction, our cylinder heads really struggle to get this kind of top end breathing.