August Fastrack out!

[lateapex911]

OPEN ECUs???

. There is a reason why Motecs are $2,000+ and Mega-Squirts are "do-it-yourself"... Have fun... "off the shelf" can be equated to "also-ran"... Your "bolt-in" ECU systems just aren't going to cut it guys... not anymore than the Wolf units could against a Motec... Have Fun...

[/b]

Devils advocate hat on...

Performance increase-wise.............
With Motec installations being quoted at $10,000.00, what does the buyer get?
With a Wolf installation, costing, say, $2,500, what does a buyer get?
With a Bosch ECU that costs $15,000 plus installation and tuning, what does a buyer get?

In other words, is there a linear ratio? Is a $2500 system only going to deliver 25% of the return of a $10,000 system?

Regarding input-

People spoke of this rule allowing them to come closer to those who could fit the $10K solution...and they were fine with the fact that they would not equal that system. Input indicated that the freedom to chose the level of performance that suited their time and financial concerns was important to them.

I don't think anybody thinks that a Megasquirt is going to outrun a Motec.

But people did have issues that there were cars out there running Motecs AND Megasquirts, but many were excluded due to verbiage.

[Conover]

It's all about resolution, you get more definition in your tables with the motec Vs. MS-n-S. BUT, there were guys out there with Motec in a box, and guys out there who we're screwed because they we're limited by the verbiage of the rule. And now those guys have the freedom to chuck the stock ecu in the trash and start with something that is a least tunable. Even if Megasquirt doesn't get up to the level of the Motec, it's a lot closer to it than a stock ECU with an econotune on it.

I offset at least one of you guys with my letter. . .

[Joe Harlan]

I do find it interesting that people think the new ECU rule will cost people more money. Those who are going to spend money to go fast have likely already gone out and spend considerable funds on a custom ECU that would work with the stock harness and case. For reference, it cost us over $10,000 for a customized unit that didn't really give us comlete control over all the functions we really wanted. Dyno time was considerable especially as the first few units weren't correct and motors either wouldn't start or wouldn't run. But it was the only game in town within the rules. We aren't alone, many had to do the same thing if they weren't willing to run the stock unit. Now there is a far wider range of units available, and for 1/10th to 1/5th the price, including dyno time. It cost money to have a chance of running at the front, this rule actually makes it possible for others to catch up at far less expense than others incurred previously.
Travis, years ago we dyno tested 5 different motors. All gave the same overall result: if the "standard" ignition system was optomized and functioning properly, there was no real gain (anything less than 2% generally is considered no gain as it often can't be repeated from one dyno session to the next, even with a computerized dyno such as the Superflow 901 we used). Our experience is that it's easier to live with because it's more reliable. But as a matter of real power gain, not if your current parts are correct and you've tuned it as well as possible (only possible to do this on a dyno in my opinion).
[/b]

Sorry Chris but lets face facts here. The cat was brought into prod as a spec car and the ECU was supposed to be part of those control specs. The fact that you chose to spend 10k working on was your choice in the type of car you chose. I have lots of experience with aftermarket systems and I can tell you 10k will be the small end of thepool when people really start blowing shit up. LIMITS LIMITS,,,,Just like the stupid control arm rules in Prod. Every time we increase the LIMITS we increase the cost of doing business and that will never change. The fact is that with the fastrack no longer in the shitty magazine 3/4 of this club will be blindsided by this whole deal and that is a shame.

That's not what the letters said. The ITAC asked about three options: 1) leave things alone; 2) try to put the genie back in the bottle; 3) open things up. I think there was only one letter that picked option 1, and a great majority picked option 3.

You might be comfortable with the current rule, but don't put words in other member's mouths.
[/b]

Josh, How many letters did you get? Total number?

Devils advocate hat on...

Performance increase-wise.............
With Motec installations being quoted at $10,000.00, what does the buyer get?
With a Wolf installation, costing, say, $2,500, what does a buyer get?
With a Bosch ECU that costs $15,000 plus installation and tuning, what does a buyer get?

In other words, is there a linear ratio? Is a $2500 system only going to deliver 25% of the return of a $10,000 system?

Regarding input-

People spoke of this rule allowing them to come closer to those who could fit the $10K solution...and they were fine with the fact that they would not equal that system. Input indicated that the freedom to chose the level of performance that suited their time and financial concerns was important to them.

I don't think anybody thinks that a Megasquirt is going to outrun a Motec.

But people did have issues that there were cars out there running Motecs AND Megasquirts, but many were excluded due to verbiage.
[/b]

All of this coming from a guy with zero direct experience......I see a lot of I don't thinks in your statments Jake but the fact is you don't know.

[Charlie Broring]

Currently there are few IT cars racing with high dollar ECU's. I know a couple of the front running ITS E36's had them but this is not the norm in IT. Most IT cars get along fine with inexpensive mods and band-aids to the stock system. We have enjoyed modest rule creep on this issue This is part of the success of the IT formula, keep our cost down. and our rules relativity stable.

The new rule would make an after market ECU and a laptop mandatory for any front runner with electronic FI. I wouldn't give up that advantage if I want to continue winning. Implementing it is not cheap and if you do it your self it take a lot of time. I am sure I have 50-100 hours (maybe more) into learning how to, building, and installing a Megasquirt system. DIY Fuel Injection is almost a new hobby in itself. Spend a few hours reading the Megasquirt board and see for yourself.

Now Chris' perspective of this rule change being a good option to the $10K ECU in her Production Caterham is valid. But we are IT drivers are not Production car racers and few of us are running bucks up E36's. Most of us don't want to be big budget racers. Thats why we race IT.

I am against this rule change because it makes IT more expensive and less appealing compared to the 'Spec" classes. I'm sure a few IT racers will benefit from this new rule. They are probably the people who sent in letters to the CRB if favor of it.

Charlie

[dj10]

Currently there are few IT cars racing with high dollar ECU's. I know a couple of the front running ITS E36's had them but this is not the norm in IT.Charlie
[/b]

I for one am glad that the folks that have invested the big bucks on the their ems will not have to dispose of them. Making them switch back to the stock ecu's would mean they pissed a lot of money away. With that said, I'm just glad the current rule will be flushed down the toilet.

[JoshS]

Josh, How many letters did you get? Total number?
[/b]

50+. And lots of direct input through personal conversations.

The overwhelming preference for open ECUs received via the member input process was definitely a factor in the decision of the ITAC to recommend this strategy.

[lateapex911]

I have lots of experience with aftermarket systems and I can tell you 10k will be the small end of thepool when people really start blowing shit up. LIMITS LIMITS,,,,Just like the stupid control arm rules in Prod. Every time we increase the LIMITS we increase the cost of doing business and that will never change. The fact is that with the fastrack no longer in the shitty magazine 3/4 of this club will be blindsided by this whole deal and that is a shame.

Josh, How many letters did you get? Total number?


All of this coming from a guy with zero direct experience......I see a lot of I don't thinks in your statments Jake but the fact is you don't know. [/b]

Joe,

1-Why not actually answer the questions, as you have stated that you have the experience to know, and the actual knowledge?

2-People have been blowing expensive engines up with carb tuning and dorking with timing, via distributors and chips and ECUs for years. And they still can. How is this really that different?

3- Considering that this question was placed before the membership multiple times, and the response was very large in context of other issues the IT community has responded to, and the fact that the response rate dropped to next to nothing as the question was re proposed, I hardly think this issue was snuck under the publics nose, nor would I consider them "blindsided"

4- Please reread my statements in context. My single (not "a lot of..." as you state) "I don't think" fell under the heading of "input/responses from the public", which, by the way included letters from other tuners such as yourself.

Currently there are few IT cars racing with high dollar ECU's. I know a couple of the front running ITS E36's had them but this is not the norm in IT. Most IT cars get along fine with inexpensive mods and band-aids to the stock system.
[/b]

Charlie, I appreciate your points, but..

Perhaps you aren't aware of who is, and who isn't running what system. You speak of Volvos suddenly becoming faster now with the open ECU rule, but, the ones I know already running a full ECU system won't go a bit faster.

And if most IT cars are fine with inexpensive mods and band-aids to the stock system, then whats to stop them from continuing to do just that??

If I were to consider spending thousands (or hundreds or whatever) of my budget, I'd think I'd spend the money where it made the most difference, right? I think most will continue as they are now, and will do a cost/benefit analysis, and decide that tires or track time represent a better investment.

For others though, no band aid is possible, and those people now have more options.

[Joe Harlan]

50+. And lots of direct input through personal conversations.

The overwhelming preference for open ECUs received via the member input process was definitely a factor in the decision of the ITAC to recommend this strategy.
[/b]

50 WOW for SCCA maybe a big response but not a true sample. Wait until the new rule book comes out and people see this for the first time and tell me you got a fair response....


Jake you aren't even sharp enough to see who your responding too.....I know how much effort goes into making either system work.

[tnord]

actually.....according to my memory from collegiate statistics, 30 is an adequate sample size assuming the sample set is a fair representation of the population as a whole.

[dickita15]

6. The engine management computer may be altered or replaced. A throttle position sensor and its wiring may be added or replaced. A MAP sensor and its wiring may be added. Other existing sensors, excluding the stock air metering device, may be substituted for equivalent units.

7. Wires and connectors in the engine wiring harness may be modified or replaced.
[/b]

When this was discussed before I understood why if we could not go back to stock ecus then getting rid of the inside the stock box should be deleted. I figured not having to make the system so small would be cheaper. I just do not understand why the new sensors and the open harness rules. How is this not going to increase performance? How is this not going to upset the balance?

[Joe Harlan]

actually.....according to my memory from collegiate statistics, 30 is an adequate sample size assuming the sample set is a fair representation of the population as a whole.
[/b]

Yea and to think you paid for that information. As I said once the other members figure out how badly they just took it in the ass there are gonna be some upset folks

[tnord]

Yea and to think you paid for that information. As I said once the other members figure out how badly they just took it in the ass there are gonna be some upset folks
[/b]

ya know what? shove it harlan. go have a ding-dong and get your head on straight.

in case you forgot, i'm on your side on this. for as much as you know, you're being about a uselful as that curly brown lump in my front yard left by my neighbors dog right now.

[Joe Harlan]

ya know what? shove it harlan. go have a ding-dong and get your head on straight.

in case you forgot, i'm on your side on this. for as much as you know, you're being about a uselful as that curly brown lump in my front yard left by my neighbors dog right now.
[/b]

To bad I forgot the smilely face Travis you would have seen my comment about you paying was kidding...But its ok I can deal with the fact that your as frustrated as alot of us and get by the fact that you called me dog shit. This whole deal is dog shit. Have a nice weekend and forget about all this stuff. The ITAC will soon be flooded with requests for comp adjustments and free carburators just watch. I already wrote mine.

[Knestis]

Respondents self-selected and the process that got them the information necessary to even KNOW to respond is biased, so sampling rules are way out of the window. Give that up. BUT in my experience, 50 responses to something that Club Racing asks members about is a pretty darned good response.

As usual, some of the key actors have dived back in here in a stunk up the discourse but all shrieking aside, this proposed rule doesn't allow anything that isn't already possible, in terms of the ECU. The rest of the allowances follow the philosophy set by the already-in-place "stuff anything you can afford in the stock box" rule, which is internally inconsistent and arbitrarily restrictive in a respect that ONLY makes it more expensive than it might otherwise be.

If we weren't going to go back in time and put in place a more restrictive rule, this is the best answer.

If the new rule makes someone faster, it's ONLY because they didn't want to spend the bigger coin to optimize their systems under the old rule. If you were counting on limited budgets to prevent that technology from creeping onto the grid, all you were doing was reserving that advantage for the truly bucks-up. If they weren't playing in ITB - and they generally haven't - that's an accident of a bunch of individual choices and priorities - NOT the result of some clever plan. If you REALLY wanted to maintain that status quo, there would have been more than one of you write a letter supporting that choice.

K

[Bill Miller]

Older cars are getting outclassed by technology. Opening the rules for this technology just outclasses those cars even more... [/b]

You said a mouthful Raymond.


To those that say this rule is no different than what's allowed now, except for the stock ecu housing, there's an old saying about ears and rain.

I'm surprised no one has brought this up.

free ecu + new sensors + modified harness = traction control.

And please don't come out w/ the 'prohibited function' argument. If they can't police a stock ecu now (wasn't that the whole justification for opening up the internals to begin with?), there's no way they'll be able to police traction control w/ an open ECU, added sensors, and a modified harness.

[tnord]

You said a mouthful Raymond.
To those that say this rule is no different than what's allowed now, except for the stock ecu housing, there's an old saying about ears and rain.

I'm surprised no one has brought this up.

free ecu + new sensors + modified harness = traction control.

And please don't come out w/ the 'prohibited function' argument. If they can't police a stock ecu now (wasn't that the whole justification for opening up the internals to begin with?), there's no way they'll be able to police traction control w/ an open ECU, added sensors, and a modified harness.
[/b]

and people have traction control today.

i'm against this change, but many are using invalid arguements to try and prevent it imo. if you go back and read through the old threads about this, you'll see that the original intent was to allow chips/reflashes ONLY and not the current status quo we have today.

the main justification being used is that only certain cars are now able to fit standalone units inside the stock housing, so we should just open the whole thing up. personally, i think it's rediculous that a poorly written rule is being used to justify further allowances, and from my seat in the bleachers, is the very definition of rules creep.

the secondary justifcation being that it's getting more and more difficult (esp in the new ITR) for cars to operate in race trim. certain vehicles automatically go into limp mode when one of the wheel speed sensors/ABS is removed, top speed limiters come into play, factory traction control systems...etc. THIS is valid, but from what i remember, these problems can be overcome with chips/reflashes that are available for the majority of vehicles being raced. and for cars that don't have common aftermarket solutions, these issues can still be overcome if you find the right guy and give him a proper check. for these cars to get max build it will cost them a bit more, which is unfortunate, but it should be part of the decision making process in choosing a car to race.

further in the future we may be forced to completely replace the ECU, but i don't believe that situation exists today, and that we should attempt to write a rule to allow chips/reflashes only as the original rule was intended and give it a chance to work before we go asking the majority in IT to spend thousands in order to maintain their current finishing position for benefit of the very few who are having issues getting their car to run properly in race trim.

[Bill Miller]

and people have traction control today.


[/b]

Names? Cars?

Would love to hear more about these people/cars.

[tnord]

Names? Cars?

Would love to hear more about these people/cars.
[/b]

iirc....our resident expert of everything has already layed out how it can be done with current technology without too much complication. something like a limit for RPM gained/sec, and when that limit is exceeded the ignition is changed in some way....retarded back for less HP, cut out, or whatever....it doesn't seem all that hard to do.

even if i knew people who did this, i wouldn't oust them in this context. i doubt there are very many cars out there using it today, but however many it is, i would expect that number to increase with this allowance, regardless of legality.

[lateapex911]

The new rule would make an after market ECU and a laptop mandatory for any front runner with electronic FI.

Charlie
[/b]

Actually, no.

In doing research on this issue, I made lots of calls, and one of them was to a very fast car that runs at the front of the ARRC regularly. His ECU? Stock, as of a few months ago. He's experimented, he's got reasonable flexibility , but so far, he's found the stock solution with his other mods to be perfectly sevicable. I discussed the possibilities with him, and he indicated that he wouldn't spend significant money on further ECU work unless he found an inexpensive option that improved performance. As he feels that the avaiable performance increase for his car is very slight, the preferrable option must be very cheap.

[lateapex911]

I don't know anything about the computer side of cars, other than the Volvo above can now get more power and i still can't change anything to my car... do I get a weight break since all these computer mods that help others don't help me?

[/b]

Not that on track performance matters.....but....you've been racing against a Volvo with a full on ECu for awhile now. Did you notice the sky falling? I think not.

People are happy how the rules are written now.
[/b]

Yea? Thats a pretty bold statement, if you've bothered to read the threads here, you'd know that this issue is anything but one sided. Certainly you can't draw the conclusion that everyone likes the status quo based on even this site. But our input, which inlcude, as an option, leaving things alone, elicitied less than 2% support!

[IMO YOU (ITAC & CR keep opening up rules for things that you don't understnad and con't govern, thus whipping your hands of responsability to understand and figure out a way to govern. Older cars are getting outclassed by technology. Opening the rules for this technology just outclasses those cars even more...[/b]

Tell me, and this goes for other detractors as well, exactly HOW this rule is going to result in your older car being outclassed? Remember, the existing rule, in place for years now, has allowed full ECU replacement, AND it's allowed use of sensors listed in the new rule....and, be careful here, as the cars...in your class, are as old, or, even older than your car.