Our new engine will be on emerald, any recommendations

 

I think Tabetha (off here) recommends someone for emerald

i think Chip can map Emerald too

 

Dave Walker obviously.

 

JKM

 

cool, thanks.
Spoke to loader and he said JKM,

Thats spot on as he is locallish

 

or even better get a better ecu..lol..cheers danny

 

Dave...

 

Deffo Dave Walker mines there in 6 weeks

 

quite a distance, JKM are locallish

see how we get on, cheers

 

Luca and I assume plenty of other have had their cars done there.

I've not heard anything bad said about them thats for sure.

 

given its his engine management...

I wouldnt consider distance an issue!

 

What ECU is better for the money then ?

 

Dave walker.

 

just about anything realy..dta,gotech and others..sometimes its worth spending a bit more to get alot more!! emerald has to be one of the most basic ecus iv ever seen..im not going to pretend im a top mapper because im not but im around alot of guys that are and they all say the same...if i was given an emerald for free id sell it for as much as i could and buy something else..cheers danny

 

Agreed on the "anything else"

I cannot name any ECU on the market today which springs to mind which I would not prefer to have than an emerald.

They work, but so doesnt everything else, and everything else does, and everything else does so without mapping software that is so horrible for road mapping.

And even for mapping on the rollers, where it works better, its still just not a nice product, just feels really ameteur to use.

Comparing it to an autronic for example, is like comparing a kia to a bmw, sure the kia works, but its just not a quality product.

 

Please don't think im sticking up for Emerald or that i know an awful lot about mapping.
But in what way's do the other ECU's mentioned above "perform better" than an Emerald apart from the ease of use for the mapper, which if you like me and take it somewhere to be mapped makes no difference what so ever.

I run an Emerald on my Pug 205(s16) track car, i got the ECU a bit cheaper as i know the chap that installed and services Emeralds rolling road. For the ECU, loom a set of hyabusa bodies off ebay and the mapping by Dave Walker stands me at £800.

My car made 192bhp and i now of quite a few people that have gone the jenvey-dta route and haven't made this power.

Im not saying its down to the ECU but if i had chosen one of the other's mentioned i don't think it would have made anymore power, do you ?

 

For a basic N/A application like that, I dont think you would see any advantage from another ecu really mate.

 

hmmmm... i was considering emerald last night, maybe not now lol
is it true that emerald will map your set up for a set fee, iirc about £300, wether it takes 3 weeks or 3 days?! if so it makes it seem a friggin bargin!
surely it can't be a 'good job' for that price?

 

Cheers Chip


Yes that's right mate, mine took about 7 hours, Dave has an awful lot of base maps so unless your running a one off set up he should have a map thats quite close and will just need tweeking hence the price, IIRC he wrote the Haynes manual about ECU's and mapping and also writes articles for Performance Car magazine. He deffo knows his stuff and ive not heard a bad word about his mapping.

 

If you are going to Dave, you end up with a good package as he is an excellent mapper who knows how to get the best out of the emerald.

If you arent getting him to map it too, its a less attractive option ECU wise.

 

couldnt agree more

 

The Emerald K3 is lacking in some features, and true you don't have to pay extra for features you don't want.
Let's just say some can talk the talk, others can walk the walk, and have been for years extremely successfully.
One thing I like is the whole approach, designed in house, built in house, mapped in house, any problems dealt with in house.
I would say probably 99% of "ecu problems" are not ecu at all but bad build of engine etc.
A certain mk 1 or 2 tina comes to mind recently, a V6 cossie lump, tuned, PRO built at considerable cost, just would not make the power, but ran seemingly perfect, came in as a virtual non runner.
Long story short this pro engine builder was paid I think £1.5K, to build this engine, and managed to get all four cams timing out, and not by a little bit either, we were amazed it didn't clout some valves.
I can tell you that Emerald go out of their way to help out, they are always mapping cars that are driven or trailered from other countries, a few weeks ago a Lotus Exige drove from Norway to be mapped, this is a fairly regular occurence.
Other people don't have a problem with Emerald, even this time of year the books are full, dave has even let people stay at his house that came from afar for mapping.
One particular engine built by someone famous took from 9am to 11pm to fix all the problems along the way that were NOTHING to do with the mapping, before the mapping could commence, another had a loom underneath that dropped onto a hot exhaust and blew the ecu, this was from Scandinavia somewhere, to be trailered back that night, so ecu fixed FOC loom fixed FOC, I can't see many offering this level of commitment, Emerald did not fit the loom or the plastic clip that melted being right next to a hot exhaust allowing the problem, but still helped out, as that is the way of the company.
Emerald have a little wait for the ecu's when ordered, but as they build more and more this is getting shorter, seems like not everybody sticks their head up chip's/or others arses and does what he says.
He is of course entitled to his opinion, and so are others.
tabetha

 

Tabetha, it was designed in house, but sadly not by anyone who actually understands software interface design.

Sometimes having more people involved is a good thing, as you actually end up with the skills you need, rather than someone muddling through doing the best they can.

You keep acting like you think ive "got it in for" Emerald with how you respond to my posts, but you never seem to notice me saying how good a mapper Dave is, or that you get a decent solution if you go to him for mapping, Im perfectly fair in my appraisal, my only big greivance with the system is that the mapping software was written by someone who is rubbish at designing software, thats nothing other than a fact, I have mapped most of the ECU's on the market and Emerald is just head and shoulders below the rest when it comes to road mapping a car!

 

does the emerald software have a screen something like this (see icons at top of page)

 

No it doesnt, it looks like this:

 

this is the reason why i was wondering about the conversion of softwares from GEMS to emerald, here is the very latest software from Gems, as you can see the titles they write for a lot of people and i from what i know emerald would not take this new version, though i have never seen that version you have posted chip.

 

god damn image resizer !

 

mark the version chip posted is emerald's own software.

i had my car mapped by dave walker.

it was not ofcourse anywhere near as much of a "proper job" like you get from places lke MSD when you give them the car for a whole week as ofcourse all the mapping is done ina few hours session on the rollers and its impossible to get it all fine tuned in this little time (coldstart for example, IMPOSSIBLE to do)

however all the bits dave "guessed" on mine were almost spot on! the only part of the map that was "tweaked" after than was a small ammout of part throttle stuff to smooth out some MINOR running gremlin and a minor tweak to the cold start.

all in all i was very impressed with the service and quality of dave walker mapping my old car BARGAIN price too, 200quid iirc

if i had unlimited funds i woulda taken it to emerald THEN to somewhere to MSD for a second map to get all the little tiny niggly little perfection bits done, but i just didnt feel it necessary after DW finished