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Best Tuning Options for 2g GSX?

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RenleyX

Proven Member
97
1
Jun 3, 2014
Denver, Colorado
There are a few other threads on tuning a 2g but they are really old, like 4 to 6 years old :p

So, where are we at today?

I have a 2g GSX and I want to be able to tune the car

Is the best option still the dsm/ecmlink?

Would a evo ecu be better/worth it?

Other??

The car has a fully built engine with currently the stock turbo ( I am still looking for which aftermarket turbo to get me to 450hp)

What are your suggestions?


Thanks!
 
I say EcmLink hands down. You can just do so much with that tool.
 
I agree with the comment above. There is no better way to safely and easily tune your ecu by yourself than the ECMlink software. Keep in mind if your car isn't new enough to have a EPROM chip to enable you to flash a new tune to it, you can always have ECMlink socket your current non-EPROM ecu to be able to flash tunes to it with their software. It's very much worth the money.
 
If you're asking what tuning solution is the best, 99.99% of the time ECMlink should be the answer. Novices don't typically pick up an AEM EMS or an EVO 8 ECU and start tuning the next day.

With ECMlink, however, that's a realistic scenario. As far as tuning solutions go, ECMlink currently has good customer support. More importantly, it's the tuning platform with the greatest number of people who are familiar with the software and willing to help others in the learning process.

Are there other tuning solutions out there that are just as good, or better? Yep, sure are.

Is it the best tuning solution ever? Maybe, maybe not.

Is it the best tuning solution for the novice who doesn't even know what tuning solution to pick? Absolutely.
 
The best is one that works for you so many opionons here link for me my first tuning device and last anyone can figure it out with a bit of practice.
 
The Evo and H8(aka black box ECUs from the 98/99 GST/GSXs) are the faster, better ECUs. The 95 technology and the Motorola processors the EPROM ECUs use is downright archaic. From a power standpoint alone, the Evo and H8 ECUs are so far ahead of the EPROM it's not even funny. There is a LOT of information tuning the flashable ECUs, and you can make just as much power on them and learn them just as easily as you can ECMLink.

I am not an ECMLink nutswinger. At all. Since I've HAD a DSM I've been tuning with the Moates Ostrich, and played with the H8 ECUs as well. But as I get older, I lean more and more to ECMLink for a DSM if you're new to tuning. The amount of people that can help you with it, is staggering. If one forum is full of dicks, you can simply just go to a different forum or use the almighty DSMLink forums themselves. The people are great, they know what they're doing, Tom and Dave continually update the software and will help you out a lot. The sheer overwhelming support for it, makes it honestly a very....very hard option to beat. For 1G DSMs I own now and in the future, I'll be using Jackal SD and an Ostrich because it's what I know and it works great(despite the hater opinions I'm 100% that are sure to follow due to personal vendettas), but for 2G DSMs ECMLink all day.


TL;DR, you can't really go wrong with the Evo/H8 ECU and ECMLink V3. But the ECMLink will be way more supported.
 
OK. So while I myself have 0 tuning experience - I have a friend who tunes Evo's professionally. So if I get the Evo ecu then he would be able to tune the car with all his regular stuff and be familial with the maps and all?

Do I just need a evo 8 ecu? or is it a specific conversion package?
 
OK. So while I myself have 0 tuning experience - I have a friend who tunes Evo's professionally. So if I get the Evo ecu then he would be able to tune the car with all his regular stuff and be familial with the maps and all?

Do I just need a evo 8 ecu? or is it a specific conversion package?
I'd doubt if you can just swap an Evo ecu into a DSM, though I am not sure. I'd imagine the pigtails are different. Also, I'm not sure of the plug and play compatibility between the two ecu's. These are the things to ask about.
 
So there are a number of people out there that say the H8 ECUs are faster and/or better, the former very likely true just because technology has advanced in those years.. but given that as the argument, how do those particular attributes matter?

What will the faster and betterness of the H8 allow you to do that an EEPROM ECU would not otherwise? This, I've never been able to get a clear definitive answer from anybody.

Purely for example purposes only, does the EEPROM ECU only allow 800hp whereas the H8 would give you 900hp? Is it because the EEPROM cannot work above 8000rpm whereas the H8 has the processing speed to do all the necessary arithmetic to support 9000rpm?

Just curious if anybody has any quantifiable supportable facts on this.
 
I would recommend ecmlink due to the abundance of information available and the great amount of support you can receive by other forum members.
 
In terms of ease of use ECMlink is hands down the best. From what bit of research i've done, while the Evo 8 ecu is a better piece of hardware it is actually slowed down for use in our cars. Not sure how the table size/resolution compares to link but there are 1000hp cars running link, so anything halfways normal it's easiest to just get link, plug it in and go. There are plenty of tutorials and places to ask for help to figure out any issues you run into.

Personally I have not run into any issues that werent in some way caused by me.
 
So there are a number of people out there that say the H8 ECUs are faster and/or better, the former very likely true just because technology has advanced in those years.. but given that as the argument, how do those particular attributes matter?

What will the faster and betterness of the H8 allow you to do that an EEPROM ECU would not otherwise? This, I've never been able to get a clear definitive answer from anybody.

Purely for example purposes only, does the EEPROM ECU only allow 800hp whereas the H8 would give you 900hp? Is it because the EEPROM cannot work above 8000rpm whereas the H8 has the processing speed to do all the necessary arithmetic to support 9000rpm?

Just curious if anybody has any quantifiable supportable facts on this.

^ Well said.

I don't think anyone can say much about the Evo ECU's other than they are a cheaper alternative.

Installing that sure is a lot harder than plugging in Link and changing the firing order of your wires.
 
Use that black flashable ecu in there. Its awesome and works great. Cheaper, faster, and pretty cool. People all choose link for the support that comes with it, it seems, but id say stick with what u have and learn it.
 
Again, you say it's faster, but what advantages does that attribute have over a conventional 2G EEPROM based ECU? It's faster. Ok. We'll take that at face value just because the technology is newer. Why does that make it better?

I think where this is going is.. if you have to ask the question about what tuning solution to use, you're better off using the one that is the most user friendly. I think most would agree that's ECMlink.
Otherwise, you would have done the research already and chosen one with a certain amount of enthusiasm, whether it means you have a steeper learning curve or not. Either one will do the same stuff in the end. Neither one will save your butt with a bad tune, though.

However, I will present another view:

If you plan on doing the work yourself and prefer something easier to step into, go ECMlink with the proper ECU.

If you're happy with handing it off to somebody who has more experience in another application, don't plan on learning it to modify parameters, and you can have them make changes every time you need an adjustment, go with the H8.

If you're happy with the friend doing the initial tune to get you started, but have a willingness to learn how to do it yourself even if it means a little more work overall, go with the H8.
 
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OK. So while I myself have 0 tuning experience - I have a friend who tunes Evo's professionally. So if I get the Evo ecu then he would be able to tune the car with all his regular stuff and be familial with the maps and all?

Do I just need a evo 8 ecu? or is it a specific conversion package?
Why not learn and gain the knowledge to tune yourself, than link will be your best friend!
 
The H8 Ecus are faster in the sense they can log at a higher sample rate than the EPROM Ecus. This lets you tune more accurately because of more data readily available. This is not the case with Ecmlink since it replaces the stock EPROM unit and I believe it's logging rate is up to 300 frames/sec
 
"Best" would be a stand alone like AEM. Most practical would be link.

For your goal of 450hp just go link v3 and dont even worry about it. It will be far more than adequate for goal.
 
The H8 Ecus are faster in the sense they can log at a higher sample rate than the EPROM Ecus. This lets you tune more accurately because of more data readily available. This is not the case with Ecmlink since it replaces the stock EPROM unit and I believe it's logging rate is up to 300 frames/sec

Indeed, a legitimate answer, thank you.
Now all we need to know is the response rate of all the sensors feeding information to the ECU and max delta per time interval, and this can potentially become a benefit. After all, no real point in sampling 500 times per second on ECU level when a particular sensor cannot respond that fast to changes in environmental conditions as interpolation will only take it so far. In those instances, you're working off the same values for multiple consecutive frames anyway.

When it comes down to just logging for tuning, though, does it really matter that you can get 1500 samples per second as opposed to 300? In what instance would higher sample rate above a certain threshold -- lets go with 100 samples per second -- be beneficial and allow you to do more?
You might get more accuracy at any particular deltaT in the log, but since tuning is done by interval value and interpolated by the ECU itself, any specific sensor reading sampled 5x more (example: 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, 1.03, 1.04 instead of 1.01, 1.04) would not make significant changes in your target value.
 
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Use that black flashable ecu in there. Its awesome and works great. Cheaper, faster, and pretty cool. People all choose link for the support that comes with it, it seems, but id say stick with what u have and learn it.

I have that black box but when I installed it in my 97 gsx it Gave me misfires and had to take it out again?
 
Now all we need to know is the response rate of all the sensors feeding information to the ECU and max delta per time interval, and this can potentially become a benefit. After all, no real point in sampling 500 times per second on ECU level when a particular sensor c
When it comes down to just logging for tuning, though, does it really matter that you can get 1500 samples per second as opposed to 300? In what instance would higher sample rate above a certain threshold -- lets go with 100 samples per second -- be beneficial and allow you to do more?
You might get more accuracy at any particular deltaT in the log, but since tuning is done by interval value and interpolated by the ECU itself, any specific sensor reading sampled 5x more (example: 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, 1.03, 1.04 instead of 1.01, 1.04) would not make significant changes in your target value.

Yeah you're absolutely right. All tuning that we do to the ecu is still based off the data the ecu gathers from its sensors, which are still very much limited.
Regarding your example, I think at that point with the extra data we see, we become the ecu since our ecu can't use this extra data but we can. Honestly though our input to try to compensate for whatever changes we see is still limited to the interval interpolation. So I think you're asking the wrong question because your point is right. The question we should be asking is what is absolute maximum sampling rate the ecu can actually utilize. This I do not know but I'm sure everyone will agree a higher sampling rate is always better.
 
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