Race Dynamics : The tech review Now how do you review an ecu that sits behind the dash and can hardly be seen.
Even better how do you review a piece of hardware that depends on the tuners skill to make it perform to the best?
Frankly it is as simple as saying if it can help better the performance limitations put in by the stock ECU before one can say that it works. Well so here is an independent review of the ECU in the point of view of my car and how it has helped transform it to what it is till date:
Build 1) Turbo with Stock ECU, Internals, Fuel System
about a year and a half ago I started tweaking around with the car and added a turbo just for the kicks and started a project that I wanted to run for a while and have fun. Very soon it turned around that to go over 6 PSI i would have to do a lot more before I could be satisfied with what I had.
Key limitations faced by the build:
1) Lack of fuelling on the top end: Injector sizes too small
2) Heavily retarded timing on the stock ECU
3) Could not have it reliable over 6PSI
Tried adding larger injectors and took it speedrun and it rocked.
Build 2) Upgraded Injectors and an e-Manage
Managed to hit upto 12 PSI without a problem, but came to a roadblock with having better control when I added a cam on the ignition front, ran this build for about 6 months and was quite happy with it. However like they say the boost has to go up.
Added an upgraded turbo went to Chennai and lost to Karthik's NA car due to 2 key reasons:
1) Excessive wheelspins at 12 PSI
2) Insane torque steer
3) Missed a gear
So here we go again
Build 3) Forged setup with upgraded turbo
By that time Race Dynamics came out with the RD 601 with full support for a turbo setup and I called him up and asked to put one of it on my car. So last year end I shifted to a RD ECU, got Karthik to give me a base map so that the car ran and got the software to tune the car myself. Took me about 15 days to get the hang of the ECU because of its open loop approach and my limitation of not using my stock ECU any more hence had to tune in the dark as I did not have any reference of my stock ECU to help support it. Wiring in the ECU and the install took about a day and the tuning has been going on since till I stopped about 2 weeks before speed run.
now the most amazing experience: Almost wheelspun all the way to the finish line this speedrun and still managed to better my last years timing at 18 PSI.
Also was almost a second quicker than last year at 10 psi. Wish I had some more moolah to have been able afford a clutch and new slicks. (however I am ready for the next one)
Now here comes why:
Karthik upgraded the map sensor to 1.5 bars due to my incessent ranting on wanting more and we took out the car on my base map to about 21 PSi.
Then I brought it down to 18 PSi with my boost controller and it held all the way to the redline (8K RPM)
So now what is so great about it:
1) On such high boost levels one would require the fuelling and the sparking to be on the dot and it was.
2) Voltages to be well managed, which it did
3) To be able to hold boost at WOT without a problem: Which it did again without a miss.
4) and the clincher with voltage problems in the grounding in my dashboard.
Hmm it is pretty close to any worldwide ECU out there.
We have since used the ECU in some more cars and have come back with very satisfying results with the installs and have never had a chance to find an error on the installs.
Would however love to have closed loop operations to be made available for turbo cars with target afr's and a wide band as a permanent option on each car and with the newer option of the UI, datalogging, launch control and valet mode it just keeps getting better.
So you guys at Race Dynamics listen :
"You guys are headed in the right direction and keep the good work going"
I am sure I am not the only one to voice this opinion but hundreds others out there using your ecu's.
Last edited by Psycho : 1st April 2008 at 13:48.
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