PM responded

 

You know, I spent a lot of my time doing my best to avoid ecm tuning and for the longest time figured out how to adjust for just about anything with mechanical changes (and this involved everything from the ancient stock ecm in my ’83 crossfire car to the much more complicated ECM in my LT1 car as well as other brands…). Then I spent some time messing with aftermarket ecm’s (haltech in my brother’s car, DFI, electromotive…) and decided “this isn’t so bad, you’re a computer guy afterall,” and dove into the gm ecm thing.

Well, all this $59 and EBL stuff is just not worth it. I've tried the $58 and $59 stuff as well as a few assorted other GM ecm hacks. To be very cut and dry about it (and admittedly slightly oversimplifying things):
- I'm not sure why anyone would mess with EBL unless they are starting with a TBI truck and want to spend too much money on what's there. My TBI truck came with a '299, which wasn't that well documented, but the pinout is identical to the more common '747, so I swapped to that, that works, it’s simple and cheap. If I started there and needed more I’d go with something completely different. I spent some time trying to figure out what’s _really_ so cool about lockers (ebl in general) and really couldn’t answer that question
- $58/$59, this seems to be where people eventually go after a while messing with GM ECM’s if they go to a boosted setup. As much as people want it to be better than whatever gm ecm they're coming from, in the end it tends to be slow and clunky and hard to tune, I was never able to get it working as well as I had assorted different masks in the '165 that I started programming with.
- as far as GM ECM's go what I actually liked the best was when I was running 808 code in the '165 (probably one of the first times I messed with more than just a minor change here and there with a GM ECM). Sure, it was missing features, and I got a lot of feedback that what I was messing with with scaling the map tables to work with 2 and 3 bar maps wasn't going to work right (seemed to work fine as far as I can tell), it was the only ecm that acted totally predictably most of the time. If $58 or $59 worked this well but just added the features that the ‘165/808 was missing I’d wouldn’t see any reason to go with anything else, but they don’t, not even close.

The assorted masks that I’ve run in the ‘165 were really the only ones that reacted close to as predictably as the aftermarket ecm’s that I’ve tried (for a short time I messed with a ‘730 and the factory masks, that was probably close, but I didn’t use it for long enough to really know). If you’ve managed to get really comfortable with the GM ECM world (not easy, and I would argue that most that are, are pretty standoffish and not at all helpful to those trying to get there) you can make them work, but it’s a bit like pounding your head against a brick wall, painful and never quite right.

Currently I’ve built a megasquirt and been tinkering with it. Having done both the GM ECM thing and the aftermarket ecm thing, it fits somewhere in between, significantly closer to the aftermarket thing. Actually building it is not that difficult, If you have the physical skill to put it together, the technical end of doing it is simple, much more so than getting it or any aftermarket ecm hooked up and running. It’s not as “plug it in and it’s ready to go” as you’d expect it to be (which is mostly where it’s similar to doing the GM ECM thing once you start messing with ECM’s that weren’t originally in the cassis you’re working on), especially since it was originally designed to work on a TPI setup, you run into plenty of pitfalls trying to “just plug it in” even with an adaptor board. BUT, it does react totally as expected to tuning changes, you can start from scratch, quickly (say less than 10 minutes) fudge some tables together and start the car on the first or second try (I’ve had 3-4 day stretches with the gm ecm stuff where I couldn’t get the car started and wasn’t even starting from scratch, but from similar setup factory bins), the programming interface/dashboard is MUCH nicer than anything that I’ve used with the GM ECM stuff, and more importantly, even though it is open source it’s consistent… I don’t know why it seems like every definition file I’ve ever looked at to edit a GM ECM bin has some inconsistency, either something like some of the values in metric units and some in SAE or some other bs that makes it difficult or annoying to just sit down and do some quick editing.

You’ll get all sorts of arguments about processor speed of one vs what is coded for, that GM had much more money and time invested in their stuff to make it perfect and to take care of… whatever, it doesn’t matter. Most of us just want something quick and dirty that can adjust a couple of tables/maps, setup enrichment and a few compensations on and that’s it. At that point you have something better and more functional than a traditional carb setup.

Finally, when you consider cost (and especially weigh cost vs features), I’m pretty sure it’s a no brainer. Again, from this perspective I can’t figure out why anyone would even look at EBL, and by the time you spend money on software, emulation or chips and programmer, the assorted tools specific to it that you invariably end up using… you’ve already spent as much to do the basics with a GM ECM setup as you would to be completely in with a MS II, and you have a setup that can do loads of things that the GM ECM can’t, at least without major changes and $ to the ecm (low or high Z injectors, odd numbers of injectors if you wanted to add auxiliary injectors, direct input/tuning using a WB O2, direct port fueling for N2O…)

 

wow, that's good to read. I must be a much better tuner than I thought, I've got a head and cam 406 tpi car running dead stock on 59. even thou its n/a and my buddy's converted lt1 running $59 much cleaner and smoother than it ever did on the stock tune. and its all stock besides exhaust. good to know. I think the step by step how to, along with the power point the 59 guys have put together as well as the starter bin section pretty much makes everything you said about hard turning, or not doing what you want it to do, kinda silly. but that's my .02

 

Still waiting on hearing from the expert how the EBL compares to the 730/749/427 ECMs, MS-I, MS-II, and the $8D and $58/$59. It sounds like both 83 Crossfire TA and I don't see why the EBL is worth the $350 compared to them.

Every ECM and bin has it's advantages for a given application and tuner. 83 Crossfire TA seems to like the MS for the simplicity and tunability. I like factory GM ECMs because they can control everything (wastegates, alky pump, NO2, E-trans, TCC, etc). MS-x just isn't there yet. I also like them because they are about 1/5 the price of MS-x.
RBob seems to like the EBL for its "?" features. I am hoping he will add in the unknowns.

If I had one car with and didn't run an E-trans then I think the MS-II is what I would be running if I just wanted to get it running and not learn how the code works. I would run the 427 ECM if I had an E-trans and force myself to learn the GM stuff.
If I had multiple cars then I would learn the GM stuff because of the 1/5 of the MS-x cost.

It all comes down to how fast and easy you want to get it tuned and how accurate you want it tuned. Everyone will have a different opinion and situation.

EDIT: And the people that sell stuff will push their product regardless.

 

I will admit that I haven't looked at the $59 stuff for a little bit, when I did the power point didn't exist.... I don't think that anyone will disagree about $58

To be fair, I might at some point repin the current car and give it a try. Since I have everything sitting around it really won't take more than 20 minutes or so

 

Mark,
Weren't the guys at delcohacking working on a boosted version of the code for the 808 ECM?

EDIT: Nah, I don't see where they added tables for higher than 1-bar

 

I barely have that in a complete MSII/PCB3 setup, and that money won't give me anything but the basic EBL setup.

I've got the MS setup to control everything in your list except the the 4L80, and I didn't see any gmecm setup that was going to deal with all that and the 4L80e, at least not without major work.

Getting useful gm ecm's for cheap seems to go in waves for me... I've had times that I couldn't get a 749 for less than $200, and then at one point I scored a box of 7 or 8 749's and 730's for $75... I'll tell you that locally you can't get them cheap at jy's anymore, they basically want 50% the cost of a new gm service one. It's actually cheaper to get a raman at autozone.

You nailed a big part of my deal right there. I deal with computer **** at work all day... when I get home I would much rather be welding, grinding or machining something. I just want my ECM to work, and the MS is so far the closest to that that I've found. So far it seems much easier to have a nicely running car with it, I mean, once I got past some wiring and other problems that weren't really the MS's fault, the car literally started and ran fine on the first crank, and tuning looks like it is going to be much easier than I have ever seen with any of the GM ecm stuff.

If my luck continues like it's going with the MS, I don't see me ever doing anything else for a project car. Spend 2 relatively relaxing nights slapping the thing together, repin the factory harness to work in about 10-20min, spend 10 minutes putting in the engine displacement and other info about the setup in megatune, have it generate a base map and have a running car.

I've never had a GM ECM swap be that quick and painless.

Although based on your comments, I guess I should give the 427 a look also... I don't know anything about it.

 

6/half dozen... you're taking what most people consider the reasonable approach... that's never stopped me before, 90pph injectors in a throttle body at 25 or 30 psi will feed most of what people around here are running, as will a decent blow through carb setup. In general, 2 TBI injectors will run less than 8 big port injectors

I wish I had access to the jy's that you guys seem to... next someone is going to tell me that they have a load of 'vette parts at the jy also.

one good source for injectors are early '80's ford TBI/CFI setups, they usually came with rather large low Z injectors, which would work fine with a MS. the only thing to watch out for is that they're a little shorter than the typical port injector.

what's a volvo cupler?

 

I had some troubles with code $59 to start but it was mainly getting idle to work and my lack of experience in tuning a speed density system. I came from MAF so i didnt fully understand the 730 and SD.

Once i figured out some tricks in $59, I got my idle pretty good. Lots of fine tuning to do like free revs and cold starts and some driveability areas for best mileage/etc but the WOT tuning was fairly straight forward. Main thing was start with the quasi mode off and enable the closed throttle VE table for idle. Work those til it idles where you need it to and then go back into the big VE map and scale values from there. Pretty simple looking back at it, but I was new to tuning on this system.

Starting with Dig's 60lb base bin thats on code59.org, i scaled it down for my 80 lb injectors and it started working. After awhile I actually took a 730 L98 bin (i think ZZ4 crate motor bin from moates.net) and copied that VE table into the code 59 bin and scaled it again to get a much better looking VE map or curve if you will. That helped tremendously and from there on out the car was driveable and only minor tuning needed.

I cant complain for the money I spent. FAST would be nice but this is getting me buy right now and running 9's at over 140 with a totally wrong converter in the trans tells me its working. Time will tell tho. Got some motor issues to work out such as oil leak/turbo drain issue that may be from too much backpressure or might be overworking the small compressors. Hard to say but the tuning part seems to be ok at this time.

 

Last time I looked the MS-II still wouldn't do the coolant fan, TCC, A/C, CPP control. The MS-II is geared more to a stripped down EFI control. You can have alky control, NOS, etc. Not all at the same time though. The output pins are limited. I think in the new versions they will add more inputs/outputs. With the code change to "C" instead of assembly it opens all kinds of doors for programmers to add stuff. There are lots of "C" programmers and everyone tends to run from assembly code. I don't blame them. With "C" you can program 100 times faster. MS-x will only get better.
I don't see E-trans to come for a long time though.

I could see that coming years ago. I bought a bunch of them back then. Once I learned about the 427 ECM features I picked up 4 of them cheap with the various 305/350/454 memcals. You can still get them cheap from the JY.
I made a 3_bar boosted version of the $0D code, but I don't have enough test time on it yet. Eventually, I would like to run all my junks on this code. The 427 ECM has two injector drivers like the MS-II so you can run giant injectors for boost and run alternate back fire at low pulse widths. I still don't get why MS-II code has adapted this fueling change on the fly yet.

You need to live in a place where it gets cold in the winter. Around here you can only freeze for so long in the garage making turbo setups and then actually like being in the house hacking at the code.

It used to drive me nuts at the DIY forum with all the misconceptions about doing a 730 to 749 swap. People used to have a hard time from the get go because of incorrect wiring pin swaps. Reality is that only 3-5 pins need a swap with saturated injectors. So, many people would start off on the wrong foot by moving a pin incorrectly. Then they would think it was the code. Not saying it happened to you. Just saying there are a lot of fairy tales of swaps and what tables to change.

Basically like a 730/749 ECM with a few less pinouts. It has hardware for E-Trans control. Has two injector drivers for P&H. A simple jumper wire inside makes it do Saturated injectors.
The bin is 64K in size, has all kinds of room for more code and free RAM ready to use. I have mine running off a stock 1_bar and a diesel 3_bar MAP sensors. This gives 1-bar accuracy not in boost and 3-bar when in boost. The 3-bar diesel doesn't do much 1-bar sensing so the 0-5 volts is mostly as boost resolution. Yeah, geek stuff........hey it gets cold around here. Gotta keep busy doing something.

 

I don't know about everyone else, but I do most of my JY shopping on the web listed JYs. I rarely go to the local yards anymore. I can get it cheaper shipped to my house for a yard 1000 miles away. All the local yards usually want 2x the price.

There was a guy on ebay recently selling new Bosch P&H 51 #/hr for $17 each and $10 to ship as many as you wanted. They didn't have the pintle caps on them. A set of 8 refresh parts was $20 shipped. So for about $170 you would have a set of injectors good for 600 - 700 FWHP at stock pressure. Pumping that up like the TBI injectors will put them over 800 FWHP. Couple that with a TPI intake that no one wants anymore for $150 and you have a decent boost fuel setup.

 

I just looked and there are about 30 GM 427 ECMs with MEMCALS in MN and OH all for $15 each not shipped.

EDIT: The only bad part is that you need the two connectors also. Rosesandwrenches.com used to have them for about $5 each but they seemed to not be around anymore. Maybe someone on ebay has them.
Also, the $8D/$59 MEMCALs were discontinued and prices are though the roof. A new one cost more than an MS-II. Another reason why I like the 427 ECM.

 

I’m using fan control, TCC (you use one of the outputs that by default runs one of the indicator LED’s to use as a shift light or TCC just like on the GM ecm’s), I’m not sure what you need for ac, maybe idle air, that can be done now, and I’m not sure what cpp is unless charcoal cannester purge- I’m sure it can be programmed but I haven’t even thought about it, I need the room for turbo plumbing and the car is registered as a classic so it doesn’t have to pass emissions tests (for that matter, it would pass without).

That was the reason that I made the deal on the box of 8 ecm’s that I mentioned… doesn’t’ mean that someone could do it now.

Not sure that I get what you mean

I grew up in Buffalo, currently in MD (DC metro). I’m not postitive, but a lot of the time it seems like it’s colder here, just much less snow. OTOH, we got some snow a couple of weeks before Christmas and we’ve pretty much had it on the ground since then, I still have snow out on the deck, had to make a path to the grill, since we’ve been in a 30* during the day/teens-twenty’s at night pattern for over a week.

That said… my garage is heated, but also overloaded with stuff so I can’t get the car in the garage (been accumulating good stuff like a Bridgeport, and I got a lathe for Christmas)

Naw, I read all that before I did it and decided that I’d just grab a pinout for the 165 and 730 and then the 749 and made my own pin swap chart. I seem to remember that took less than 20 minutes, including pulling the maf wiring out of the harness and making a new map harness. That part was a piece of cake. Really, what it amounts to is that I really feel that the amount of work the whole way around is too great for the results, it’s not that I can’t do it or didn’t get the car running.

Does it do both 4L60 and 4L80e? from what I understand they’re significantly different.

OK, you just hit the part that was one of the frustrating parts of the GM ecm stuff for me, the “there’s plenty of room to add stuff” but no real information about how to do it (that I’ve seen). Maybe I should find some time and give you a call, just to shoot the **** about this stuff, maybe you’ll change my mind, or at least get me thinking about it in a different way. I like the idea of running 2 maps… I decided that I didn’t like the onboard map in the MS so I added an external 3 bar and am using the onboard for baro correction.

Yea, long ago I found that I can get most things cheaper on ebay then I can at any of the local JY’s, and in the mean time they keep bitching about how hard it is to stay in busness. More than once I had something happen like “I need a balancer for an early 80’s 305.” “yep, I have a good one, like new sititng here for $15””$15… OK, I’ll be by there in a few minutes.” I get there, “I would never sell this thing for $15, I want at least $50, normally it would be $65…””**** you, I can get a new one cheaper…”

Heh, I hate working on a TPI, too many gaskets and crap… It’s funny, if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t really care one way or the other, so it’s got it’s limitations and advantages, just go with the advantages and work around it’s limitations. I have 2 TPI cars and probably enough parts for 2, maybe 3 more TPI setups in boxes… I just don’t want to run them.

I had (mostly still have, but have grabbed some of the parts for other stuff) an injector flow bench and used to flow and even modify injectors, so I have most of the normal parts floating around in my “injector box.” If I saw that I probably would have grabbed a dozen of them. FWIW, I used to be a firm believer in running injectors a lot closer to their limits, but not anymore, I don’t think I’d count on 8 of those feeding any more than about 540-550hp boosted. I ran into a few cars that were very happy at WOT and at the dragstrip, and just couldn’t be tuned right in the midrage and for transient response. Turned out that even though the injectors were fine for WOT, they weren’t big enough for PE and AE around the torque peak.

The connectors are the parts that I got hung up on also… I just wasn’t able to get them the last time I tried, and the cheapest local JY started charging I think it was $2 or $3 per pin if you cut the connector out of the harness, they kept saying since it made the harness worthless.

I have a friend that works at a gm dealer’s parts department and he got me my last couple of memcals, I believe he said that gm wasn’t making them anymore but he was still able to get them.

 

It can do a 700R4/TH350/TH400, 4L80E, 4L60E, and manual trans.
The bin has constants to set this. The E-trans depends on the year. They played with 3-4 shift PWM and TCC PWM changes so it requires the right year bin for the trans. installed.

Are you running a mechanical speedo because the MS-II doesn't handle the VSS and elec. out to speedo?

One JY wanted to change me $10 per connector. I told them to keep them. The other guy at the desk said just give them to him. WTF, it's a 199x truck that they are junking anyway. Not like anyone wants the harness.

Injector size: I had to play around with my MAP AE to get fuel in quick enough. The MAP AE is sync fueling and is quicker than TPS AE (async) at mid to high RPMs. That could have been the problem you saw. Most people just play with TPS AE and it is too slow at RPM. Low RPM and off idle it works fine.

I think the ebay seller with the 51 #/hr P&H injectors for $17 was "1bigginger". You need to buy pintle cap kits and upper o-ring and washers. Take a good look at them before you think about buying.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ford-...item2eaa42c0df

 

here's what the 808 guys have been upto. http://delcohacking.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=356 I have no idea why you'd care since its pretty much the same "so called" slow usless ecm that ebl uses. which no one has explained why using that slower ecm is a bad thing, seems to me if the code is simple enough to not bog it down. who cares.

 

Ha ha, totally different ECM. The one they are using is faster than the ebl base ecm. I would tell you why the slow ecm is bad, but then people would start saying "that is false" without backing it up. If you don't understand the benefits then it is a "who cares" for you.

 

I always thought the 808 is just a 165. since the 808 map code runs in a 165. I know some stuff is different because they can mod the board and get fast data out of it, but how much better is it, if the same code runs on both? I really don't know

anyways, here's all I'm saying, if no one will explain either way, then how am I or anyone else to find out?
buy both and see which is better? we are all ready bitching and price, so that's not going to happen. here's where my .02 comes from about who cares how fast it is, I've owned and tuned a old gen 6 accel on my boosted tpi car and my buddy put bs3 on his 2000 ls1. other than being able to fire the coil packs. I sure as hell didn't see any big deal about all this fast ness. I was told it was the fastest stand alone out. it ran fine, but made for a shitty daily driver ecm, just like my old accel did. it just plain lacks ve maps for different things, like cruise with a 6speed falls very close to idle rpm. it just had a nice windows interface and autotuned. on a note of why the ebl guy hasn't come in her selling his product, arnt you the same one giving him **** about selling stuff when he's not a vender, now you wonder why he's not in here pimping his stuff. again this thread is wack. and I've also never seen a post anywhere by him saying ebl is meant for port injection cars, just that if you want it. he can do a port mod to run them. I don't recall a single person with it done. the OP has a tbi car, no tuning stuff what's so ever and wants to build a turbo with 300ish hp as a goal. I still think the smart and easest way to go for him, is to order up a ebl, get it running on the stock car to get his feet wet into tuning. and then start building a turbo kit. when and if he ever runs into the ecm/tbi limiting him, just unplug it and post it up forsale. it will move for almost all of what it costs new. by then he will know enough about tuning know which way to go next. be it stand alone or diy. I know what I learned on my old dos based dfi, still helps me tune. so I would think ebl would be even more so. telling someone that's never touched efi stuff just dive right in, strip the car down and build a msII for it, or 730/749/427 is just plain wrong. since you also would need to pretty much build the whole motor, from heads, intake and fuel system, then may as well ditch the 305 block and build a 350. at the hp numbers he wants, what's the point of spending all that money? there just plain isn't any. it would be cheaper to sell the car and buy a tpi car to start with. which if we are selling cars, unless he's stuck on a 3rdgen, then you can pick up ls1 z28s for less than 5k around my part of the country. which make his hp goals stock and with untouched drivablity. so watch out for your cheapest route, it may lead you down a road to rethinking your whole project. I have a buddy like that. all the rest of this crap always leads me back to my thinking that some kinda drama went down in the diy world, in the past. to many people always seem to post like feelings have been hurt in the past. but no one will talk about it... I feel this thread is more about that, then the easiest, quickest, smartest way to turbo a tbi 305 car.

 

true, this isnt an easy thing to do with no knowledge with efi side of things..but neither is doing a twin turbo setup. Its gonna take alot of research to learn what is needed to do it all properly. From motor build to designing and building the turbo system, the EFI aspect still needs covered. Its not a bad idea to start with stock motor tuning first to get feet wet.

If thats the case might was well do the TPI swap and convert the harness over while you can and learn that before atempting the motor build/turbo build.

If it was so easy to do turbo builds for these cars, then we would see more kits available for them. Not sure why that is, maybe the tuning thing turns people away. 4th gen kits are most popular since those ecms easily handle boosted applications.

 

In the end it really doesn't matter because the OP is never going to turbo his car. I see lots of these post about wanting to do it and 1 out of 100 actually take on the project. Like Orr89RocZ said, there is so much to learn before worrying about the engine control. More power to him if he uses a TBI setup with EBL control. If it were me and I only had the option between a boosted TBI setup and a Holley carb setup. I would take the Holley.

I never got an answer on that........maybe you know the answer.......can we put links for our companies in the signature even though we are not a TGO supporter?

 

Dont worry guys im in the process of geting this build underway its just taking me longer than expected.. alot longer.. ill let you guys know how its comming out when i get closer to taking pictures.

 

To help understand the EBL, there is no need to purchase any other equipment for tuning it. The EBL Flash has an on-board flash chip to hold the calibration. No burning chips, no swapping chips, the ECM goes back under the dash and out of the way.

The data logging and calibration flashing is done over the same interface cable (included with the EBL). Flashing in a new calibration takes but seconds, it is that fast.

Data logging, again it is fast. The EBL sends 17 frames of data a second. This includes the eight ADC channels for external devices such as WB's, fuel pressure transducer, accelerometers, and so on.

The ECM code and the What's Up Display (WUD) work together. There are functions placed in the ECM code to enhance features in the WUD. The trip display, automatic VE learn, sensor diagnostic display, knock retard display, analysis features and graphing with 1/4 mile calculations are all standard with the EBL & WUD.

The EBL ECM is full featured for engine control. Spark control (distributor or DIS), EGR, TCC lock/unlock, TH400 kickdown, CCP, fueling, then items such as DFCO and lean cruise, 2-bar MAP support, MPFI support, wet N2O support, digital dash support (x-fire and MAF Corvettes). The list goes on and on.

What the EBL/WUD does is to bring the ODB1 GM ECMs into the modern age. It is an integrated system that all works together. The ECU/XDF is included (and supported), data logging is included, documentation is included, it is a complete package.

83 Crossfire, it would be worthwhile to take another look at the EBL. It has evolved since the very first release. Note that the EBL is not for everyone, but it covers many different engine configurations. And upgrading from a stock GM ECM and even a new install (retro-fit) to the EBL Flash ECM is easy.

RBob.

 

I was talking to someone the other day that is doing a retrofit. He mentioned the EBL and I said it would be worth a try. It sounds like it has all the features of the MS-II so it is a toss up between that and the MS-II.
What is the cost of a complete EBL unit ready to plug into a harness for a 350ci MPI intake? Just a plug in and go setup....no fishing around at the JY for an ECM.