EMU Failures...

[Ed_FMS]

Hi All,

Joined just so I could share some info on this. I've come into a lot of stick over the years with the damn e-manage ultimate, and never really explained other than to customers who asked why I don't don’t like them.

Firstly I was the first person in the UK (that I know of) to get the EMU when it first appeared. I had one on back order and as soon as it was available I had it in my hands for testing. On paper it looked amazing at the time, proper monitoring, full fuel control more sensor inputs etc.

Initially I had it installed in my car controlling Nitrous- the lot. and it seemed to work. Then one day on the way home from an event the car played up and the EMU failed. In this case it was components touching the side of the case. Greddy had tried to stop this by using tape but it had worn through. It died at just over a year old. I then got another and this time greddy had machined the case away, and moved the components where this touched, firmware versions had also updated and for the most part it was ok.

So by this time I had already fitted loads of the blues to anything with an engine. Starlets, Micras, Pulsars, Evos, MR2s, Charades, Mazdas, you name it really. I even tried in non jap things with some success like Renaults etc. The EMB were reliable and predicable and slowly people began to want the EMU instead, and then the trouble begun.

The thing with the EMU is that there is NO USA or Japanese support the offical UK importers knew much less about them than me. Greddy USA/Japan didn't respond. So when the reliability problems started I was left trying to fix them myself (background is an electronics/mechanical engineer by the way). Hardware issues were fixable about 50/50. Blues were around 90% repairable. I would repair the EMU when the components would fall off (I mean what the hell?!!!) and replace components when people did things like jump start their car (backwards doh) and kill them.

What I couldn't fix was the unpredictable software problems. Firstly ignition control was sometimes irratic. When dynoing I would see sensible timing figures. However for some unknown reason the car would then on the road test stutter and show impossible timing figures, of like 200deg advance (clearly the engine would not run with this and so it was software problems) this made me totally loose faith in their ability to control ignition safely.

It didn’t stop here either.

Sometimes the EMU would fail entirely to see injector pulses coming in. I ran some tests on a customers car and could measure the signals right INTO the main processor within the EMU, BUT it still wasn’t firing the injectors. Sometimes power cycling the unit would make it work again - this was a COMPLETE nightmare as often it would be fine on the day and then start causing problems for the customer days later.

There was nothing I could do to stop this - as again it was software. I tried different firmware and in some cases that appeared to cure it. Other times I had to tell the customer to try a different EMU (customers almost always supply parts)

The strange thing was this mostly was only a problem on the starlets. I had some of these problems once on an MX5 turbo, but not on any others - and to be fair I quickly stopped recommending them.

I'll say this again however - my background is in electronics design at component level, I do a bit of software but not much and all of my bad experiences above was probably on 30-40% of the EMU's I worked on with starlets over the years – to a business that not acceptable – you can't work with a product where there could be that much of a chance of a problem occouring.

I had (but its a long time ago now) built up a log of data and issues which I had hoped to present to Greddy, with lab-style documentation on it, but I gave up on this and moved away from the EMU, as it was wasting too much time.

As for engine failures, I had one which was possibly EMU related, although indirectly, and that was a cracked piston skirt. Unsure of the exact sequence of events behind this, but never had a complete engine meltdown due to EMU failure.

So, hopefully this may or may not be of use to some, and may explain why some people think Fusion/Me don't know what I'm doing (far from the truth) so I now try to put off people considering the EMU. Frankly something like a megasquirt or other PNP is a MUCH better idea.

If anyone here has any questions relating to the above - let me know. Anyone who knows me will know I always am happy to help where I can - although I don't get on forums much these days.

So just remember EMB = sucess rate of 99+% and I've tuned a few hundred of these since they first appeared. - ONLY failures I've had are injector drives from wrong injectors used.

EMU = sucess rate 50-70% - not nearly good enough to recommend when it involves tuning a car where the $### lands on you if it has hardware troubles - past bitter experience.

Also finally the EMU is damn expensive now - totally not worth the price.

[aidanep71]

Have you had any experience with the latest versions of the emu have they solved these problems

[Corey]

There is 100's of people with Starlets who have/had the EMU with no issues at all.

[Ed_FMS]

Have you had any experience with the latest versions of the emu have they solved these problems

Not sure to be honest. I've had too much trouble now with the EMU that I simply don't want more hassle with them, customers should NOT be the guinea pig, and its not my job to test out stuff I'm unsure of on anyone elses cars except my own.

The irony of this post of course is I did a base map on another starlet today with EMU. For the sake of balance I'll update with more info once its done.

[Amjad]

Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience with us Ed!

[turboloon]

chris carson from ireland recomends the emu above emb,as they're shit,and chris has done loads my own included until i went power fc,and i had no problems with mine either..,but i have heard of the standard ecu 'over riding' the piggy back ecu's..

[triple j]

Starlets dont have any problems with the stock ecu trying to make corrections over the piggyback, some other cars do but u can use an 02 clamp that clamps the 02 voltage to whatever u wish throughout the hole rev range so u can tune without problems. am using emb a few years now with no problems i think its very reliable, have a megasquirt ready to go in here but i will miss my emb.