Anyone have new opinions on brands for full ecu replacement? (1 Viewer)

[dogfishlake]

Just checking to see of anything new had happened for ecu's for the 80. Most were "wire on your own" as of a couple of years ago with the exception pf Wolf from AU. Not much feedback on that one though. Haltech has been highly regarded, but not sure if they are wire in or plug and play yet. Just trying to keep the topic alive. Very shortly here, we are going to all be faced with a rebuild and the Toyota ecu is obsolete. I am tempted by both the 1fz-fe rebuild+turbo or the ls swap. If it is a turbo upgrade, a stand alone ( with a bit of boost) is a decent idea. Stock rebuild is fine, don't get me wrong but more power is always fun. Just typing out loud and seeing what is cooking.

 

[bahamasair]

The haltech elite 2000 is perfect for a boosted cruiser but is still a self wire deal. I'm in the middle of swapping mine to sequential ignition using the Ls coils, I also have a different manifold with a 92mm throttle body with LS style tps and iac on the way so the self wire setup would have worked out better for me anyway.

 

[shocktower]

Mega Squirt/ Micro Squirt company, sounds really good with good forums and great CS

 

[dogfishlake]

The haltech elite 2000 is perfect for a boosted cruiser but is still a self wire deal. I'm in the middle of swapping mine to sequential ignition using the Ls coils, I also have a different manifold with a 92mm throttle body with LS style tps and iac on the way so the self wire setup would have worked out better for me anyway.

That's a great point. Doing the coil conversion and switching from MAF to MAP, etc. just makes sense if going for upgrade anyway.

 

[dogfishlake]

Mega Squirt/ Micro Squirt company, sounds really good with good forums and great CS

I have heard others suggest MegaSquirt as well. It seems confusing but really it is just a matter of learning I'm sure.

 

[scottryana]

Getting the engine to run is the easy part. But with the Toyota ECU completely out of the way you are going to be looking at quite a mess. Think of all the things that tie into the stock ECU that not a single standalone touches. Auto transmission control, 2nd gear start, lockers, cruise control, and on and on. To make things work the easiest way, people have been wiring the stand alone in parallel with the Toyota ECU. I don't know anyone yet that has completely removed the Toyota ECU and replaced it. That is going to take a lot of work to have a fully functional truck.

 

[bahamasair]

I agree. I'm leaving the stocker for trans control etc until I get my manual transmission then I'll likely look at getting rid of it.

 

[dogfishlake]

Getting the engine to run is the easy part. But with the Toyota ECU completely out of the way you are going to be looking at quite a mess. Think of all the things that tie into the stock ECU that not a single standalone touches. Auto transmission control, 2nd gear start, lockers, cruise control, and on and on. To make things work the easiest way, people have been wiring the stand alone in parallel with the Toyota ECU. I don't know anyone yet that has completely removed the Toyota ECU and replaced it. That is going to take a lot of work to have a fully functional truck.

Forgot about that. The upside is that it makes the parallel setup kind of easier to install? I assume you just do all inputs to both and then only use the output from either the new ecu or stock ecu to the points each needs to control, correct? If that is, it would be great to see a "semi" stand alone for the 80 wherein one would keep the stock unit but add in via splitting plugs, a parallel unit. This isn't Jeep (like an ***hole, everyone's got one) world so probably wont happen for the 80 I suppose.

 

[shocktower]

Getting the engine to run is the easy part. But with the Toyota ECU completely out of the way you are going to be looking at quite a mess. Think of all the things that tie into the stock ECU that not a single standalone touches. Auto transmission control, 2nd gear start, lockers, cruise control, and on and on. To make things work the easiest way, people have been wiring the stand alone in parallel with the Toyota ECU. I don't know anyone yet that has completely removed the Toyota ECU and replaced it. That is going to take a lot of work to have a fully functional truck.

Lockers have their own ECU, and doing diesel swaps you still need a ECU, to shift, it has been done, by many, I feel the Micro/Mega squirt is a great option, because of all the forums with knowledgeable, people and great customer service

 

[A2ShedsJackson]

I'm not crazy about the MegaSquirt since it's not open source. MegaSquirt - Wikipedia
I've been looking at making more ruggedized version of the rusEFI hardware and keeping their open source firmware. rusEfi
It supports running in closed loop mode now. And since you have source you can tweak anything you want.

I have a stock 94' that I've been tempted to get swapped over to my own ECU. I haven't decided on weather I'm going to keep the 1FZFE or move to a supercharged V8 of some sort.

 

[A2ShedsJackson]

rusEFI has come a long way in the past few years. I'm currently doing a conversion of a GM LZ4 V6 to rusEFI. After this is done I'll be converting my '94 with 1FZ-FE to rusEFI. I'll get rid of the distributor and use wideband O2 sensors. I'll post a howto for this when I am done. The '94 also happens to live in a place where it is exempt from emissions testing.