Hi Guys,

I have been talking a lot recently with a friend of mine who does drag races in his MR2 (770WHP) and he said if he was me the first thing he'd do to my mini was put in a stand alone AEM/Emerald ECU.

I have been reading online and seen something about stand alone ECU's + Mini = No gauges working inside?

I'm not going for a cheap old stand alone unit, it will be about £1K+ surely I will be able to program in all the gauges etc into it just like on any other car?

If anyone has experience with stand alone ECUs and mini give me a shout, note: I am NOT interested in Bluefin/1320 or units that require me to goto other people to program the ECU I will be doing all of it myself with the help of my drag racing friend.

Cheers!
Myles

Emerald are very good, and come recommended by quite a few race tuners these days. Best bet is to call an emerald stockist and they will talk you though what needs to be done ;)

Cant see gauges being a problem tbh

Hi Chris,

Do Emerald allow for the Body Control Unit (BC1) to control the gauges, air-con etc?

Myles

Never seen one a mini im afraid, as normally the std ECU is quite capable by all accounts.

But even if it does not work, then its a good start for custom gauges lol

Best bet as i said is to give a stockist a call and ask if they have done any mini's before, as im sure they would have.

Why do you want a stand alone ECU? Performance obviously, but what have you done to yours?

Well I have myself a good load of Innovative gear so I may use that if gauges don't work :D

I want a stand alone ECU for the same reason everyone else wants one: control
Getting timings etc perfect really matters to me and I don't think anyone (tuning companies etc) would spend the amount of time tuning the car that I am willing to.

My friend (Mark by name) has always programmed his own ECUs for all his race cars and is convinced to do it right you gotta do it yourself, he told me how on his MR2 an ignition timing difference of 100ms made a difference of 50-60WHP but to tune it to the level he has hes spend uncountable amounts of time working on it.

I just want the piece of mind that if I change a component (cam/head/manifold/cat/exhaust/CAI) then I will be able to tune it myself to get the most out of it and not have to get someone else who will charge me 100-200GBP for a reflash of some standardised image he has.

So far I have to add these into the car (bought):

GRS Charge Cooler MK2 (like the FMIC but allows you to keep the air-con and not cut bodywork)
Brembo 4-pot callipers with NITRAC 316mm discs and Carbotech XP8 pads
GTTuning Oil Catch Can
GTTuning Cold Ram Intake


On the todo list:

450-550cc Injectors
GRS Enlarged Front Radiator
Water/Meth Injection
RMW Head + Valves
RMW Cam
Janspeed/GTT Manifold (would ideally like a dual pipe exhaust through cat the whole way back but thats a lot of ££££)
Lightweight and balanced flywheel
17% S/C pully (possibly also a facelift s/c with teflon coated screws)


Now my thoughts are most, if not all of the above need an ECU retune - I wont be buying them all at once so that is £150 x the number of mods... I may as well buy a stand alone unit, especially with the Water/Meth in the mix...?

The stuff stand-a-lone ECUs can do these day is unreal. I even heard of one race ECU that monitored fual rail presure and automatically altered injector timing to compensate! I mean that could be the difference detween life and death for the engine! Also most of the higher end stuff suport launch control, boost control (turbo only), traction and even data logging.

TO get around the gauge problem i know of some cars where you can aloow the stand-a-lone to controle the engine and the car original ECU(s) to control everything else. just an idea.

@CHuntington - And idea of what units do that? I know that Vipec do one kit for piggybacking like that but cant find any... 1320's looks really nice though but i want to self map it.