I was looking into stand alone engine managment systems and i was wondering if any one has experience with them. which are the best? how hard is it to hook up? thanks

 

I have a DTA E48 in my race car. Putting a Stand-Alone in and getting it tuned is not something I recommend for a Novice Mechanic (like me), unless, like me, it's for a non-daily-driver.

Having said that, the DTA E48 works ok, and is one of the cheapest stand alones out there.
The cheapest is a collaborative 'open source' effort called the Megasquirt.
There is also the FAST and TEC units that people have had alot of success with.

It just depends on how much you are willing to spend.

 

exactly how expensive are they? i was looking into getting one but i want it to be somewhat reliable.... i have plans for a turbo system but i want somthing thats more ajustable than a piggyback unit. do they just use the crank sensor for timing or is it more complicated? i want to eliminate all the stock crap so....

 

The Megasquirt will run about 500.
The DTA E48 will run about a grand.
The better ones (probably what you're looking for, more "plug and play" than "plug and pray") will run 2000+

And that's just for the computer. Some of your stock sensors can be used, depending on the computer. Other sensors will need to be purchased and "fitted" to your application. As an example, here is a picture of my crank position sensor setup for my DTA:



Other angles:
http://www.azchatfield.net/miscpics/_private/new1.jpg
http://www.azchatfield.net/miscpics/_private/new2.jpg

And there is alot of wiring involved (obviously).

 

thanks for the info. by the way thats a nice setup you have! are all the brackets custom billet pieces? i can tell by the looks of it that you have a pretty mean car. hey if you have anymore pictures of how the ignition and fuel system are set up that would be cool.

 

The brackets I made myself... I picked up a block of aluminum from a local salvage place and cut it out using a bandsaw. With the exception of the CPS (in the pictures above) everything else looks pretty much stock, as the DTA can use most of the stock sensors. The only difference is all the wires run back to the DTA instead of the Stock ECU.