am thinking of getting a piggyback system for my car any suggestions?

 

Save your money and wait........

 

True... although my sig said otherwise

Gibbo was happy with his.

But I am looking for the Motec, have a seminar and fine tune it myself.

 

I just happen to know an ace Motec tuner as well

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

PM me Hymee if the tuner lives near me or you are talking about Dr. Phil

 

That is a yes and a yes. He often goes interstate to tune customers cars.

 

oh... I am so waiting for Motec to bring out the M800 to suit RX-8.. or is it out, do you know Hymee?

 

I would say save your money, there is no real improvement from the ECU upgrade, I have found mine was the placebo effect.

Wait until you want FI, otherwise spend you money on lightened fly wheels etc, I wouldn't worry about the ECU at this stage because the improvement is marginal only about 6KW at the wheels, but in my opinion that is nether here nor there.

 

I'm glad you put your opinion, Gibbo. A wise suggestion.

We got some improvement out of the "TSI" piggy back, but decided to shelve it until FI. We didn't feel the improvement was worth the outlay at the time.

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

Don't you hate it when Hymee announce something in a paragraph that does not actually tell you anything. It is like one of those teaser from my favourite stripper. :p

Do I have to pay $50 bucks for that :D

 

Apexi Power FC !!!!!

Anything else and your throwing your money away.

Pro of the PFC........

Plug n Play
Has Optional hand controller for montoring
No Labout cost apart from Dyno time
Support is great
FC-Dataglogit can unlock advanaced options
Value for money

Haltech / Motec - Waste of money on a road car as the PFC does it for 1/3 the price

 

But it doesn't do anything. That is the whole point. There is not really anything much to gain from ANY piggy back until you are starting to look at serious mods such as forced induction. The stock computers have a pretty good tune in them, since "G" came out.

Taka - I thought I gave you 2 straight answers, for 2 simple questions??

Cheers,
Hymee

 

The Power FC isn't a piggy back. Its a full stand alone ECU.

For the RX-8 you'd expect to be able to tune the following.

Ign - Leading
Ign - Trailing
Rev limter
Fuel

Which would be pretty easy to get some extra power just bby playing with the timing and increasing the Rev limiter to 10,000 rpm like what the renesis first came out with.

Advanced options would be the intake flap controls etc etc etc.

but you will of course get more power and better results with a wizzer on the side. But its simple Automotive theory. Air/ fuel / Spark

 

OK - The thread is about piggy backs.

Secondly - theory is OK. Nothing you have said is wrong, in theory. Some here have the practical experience as well. The AFR's might not be ideal in the stock ECU, but the practical experience is there are some gains, but not a lot available, in practice.

I don't think the Apexi Power FC or any "full" ECU such as a Motec, is a panacea on an aspirated engine.

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

Yes thats true. But as stated before the Mazda RX-8 has extremly good tuning so me personally I wouldn't touch the ECU until your get some FI.

But i'd go PFC if I did change ECU

 

I think it is all fair comments.

All mods (SO FAR) is spending for upboosting the owner's ego, not really for the car (not in a big way anyway). :p

Modding is about fun... about squeezing the extra from a very good car. Let just have fun. :D

 

Leaving aside the performance enhancement or lack thereof, isn't an equally (if not more) important issue that of more 'open' access to ECU functions that may be available with a third party ECU over the proprietary factory computer?

One of the issues that worries me with current sports cars is whether any can ever become 'classics' given they have relatively 'closed' ECUs and rely on on-going access to systems such as Mazda's WDS to be maintained.

 

Not really liking the sort of driving that has the 8's tail hanging out my concern with going a replacement ECU is losing the traction/stability program.

I enjoy great twisting roads and have fun driving them but I like the added benefit/security this system provides, especially in the wet. Mazda have done such a good job of hiding it in the background I never feel hindered by it at all.

Most other cars I have driven with similiar systems tend to have programing that's a little to eager to cutout any fun you were having!

With a piggyback you can at least still retain this system.

 

Isn't the TC/DSC run on its own PCM ?

 

If that is the case then I am suddenly interested again!

 

This is an issue, but in 15 years time we'll be able to clear all fault codes, re-program our ECU's and not have any reliance on a Mazda supported diagnostic system as our suitably enhanced pocket pc's will do it all.

More of a concern is whether we'll have any fuel to put in the tank.....

 

No. The PCM controls the engine power if the TC kicks in and communicates rpm and other data to the DSC control unit. TC/DSC is not stand alone...

 

I am not so sure. sco and Hymee will correct me, but the tool they are working on simply scans and logs output and has no effect on input other than to clear fault codes in easily writeable code registers; it will not reprogram the ECU. That is going to be pretty hard to do unless you can somehow get access to the source code of the ECU. My understanding of the delay in Motec, Apexi, Haltec and RE-Amemiya getting replacements to market is because they basically have to reverse engineer the OEM ECU by trial and error-- painfully slow

 

Reprogramming is what Hymee ultimately wants to achieve.....there's a lot of water to flow under the bridge yet. There's a few years to get this sorted before Mazda stop supporting the RX-8.

 

Then I doffs me lid to 'em...