I've been thinking about stand alone options for our LT1s. My roommate is a well known tuner in the Subaru world, and we've always talked about tuning my car, but never truly looked into it. I'm talking FAST or AEM style systems.

We talked last night about the LS1 computer swap but if I was going to spend that kind of money why wouldn't I just spend the money and do a stand alone so eventually when the car sees the bottle and/or a bigger build in a few years I can have unlimited tune-ability.

I'm looking for general knowledge and/or a point in the direction to find said knowledge.

 

The LS PCM is one of the easiest and most detailed management systems ever created. That will get you farther than you ever plan with a car.

The coin you spend on that would be almost equal to an XFI system. Considering you have to buy the XFI box, dizzy and wiring harness.

 

why not just use tunercats or tuner pro, and an aldl cable

 

True, but if he ever decides to sell the car he can take the XFI system with him to his new car.

 

You can take the box, not the harness.

 

I have been thinking of trying ViPEC on my LT1. I have used it on other cars and it is a really great ECU. It already has the LT1 trigger setup in the software, just would need to be wired up from a fying lead harness.

Any standalone will be light years ahead of a stock ecu or LS ecu retrofit, especially if you are going with one or more power adders.

 

Dollar for dollar the Ls1 pcm conversion is the best value!
If money is not a problem and you NEED more options the FAST XFI is the SHIZ

 

I appreciate the information.

The reason a stand alone system peaks my interest, like I said before were the features and tune-ability. Eventually the car will be sprayed, multiple maps can be setup and changed with the click of a button. Being able to run a NA map one minute and within 5 minutes being able to run a nitrous map is VERY appealing to me.

I'm still just doing research, seeing as I have no money to do this currently but one day it'd be pretty interesting.

Does anyone have any links or more information on the LS1 computer swap?

 

If you plan on keeping the car go FAST XFI. You will never have to worry about engine management again. I love it. Not to mention free software updates when they improve on it.

 

Do a search for EFI CONNECTION.


I dont see why the LT ecm is shunned so much, it works pretty good.

If you have a streetcar, I see no reason to drop a LOAD of coin on a standalone.

Even with nitrous you can get ignition boxes to control timing externally. And boost can be controlled the same way.

Unless you have a racecar that goes 7000 plus rpm and need multiple stages of nitrous controlled. The factory ecm can do a good job.

Get a second hand laptop, buy a cable, spend $225 on Tunercats and Datamaster to log and get after it...OR

Use Tunerpro and freescan for free.

 

im with fastfatboy,

only way i would spend the money on a stand alone system is if i were going to build a pretty hot car, with alot of boost or multiple stages of alot of nitrous and at that point i wouldnt be using the lt block/platform anyways, plus at a point you have to add roll cage, if i were to go real fast on the street i would just build a tube chassis car and go with a gen1 sbc with the xfi.

from what i see of the tuner cats and tuner pro, it'll do exactly what you want. you can have multiple files and swap them in and out if you want to.

 

A good standalone has all the window switches, timing retards, 2 step launch controls, progressive nitrous controls and WOT switches you need to spray a car the right way built in to it already. This is not to mention the data logging on most standalones is at a MUCH MUCH faster rate (actually providing useful information @ WOT) and the tuneability and flexability is nearly infinite compared to the patches and tweaks you have to use if you want to try to do things with the stock ecu.

Stock ecu or LS ecu swap are nice to tune for bolt ons or fairly mild all motor setups.

 

Just for reference, which systems have all these systems "built in" including a datalogger. And what are the prices for these systems with all the peripherals to make it all work?

 

I tuned my LT1 with Tunercat went through a few different combinations of heads/cam etc. over a 3 year span. Last spring I did an LS1 swap complete motor not just the EFI connection conversion. Now I am using HP Tuners and I can say that there is three times the amount of tables to play with in the LS1 pcm compared to the LT1 and the speed the pcm runs is much quicker. Reflash in 30 seconds compared to an eternity with the LT1 or Real time tuning if you wanna pay the extra. There is also a way to have a dual flash in the LS1 pcm that would allow the N/A tune and Nitrous tune available without having to have the laptop hooked up and reflash. I've never played with any aftermarket ones to know them so I can't comment on that.

 

I was thinking of the Vipec I mentioned earlier when I posted. It is ~$2k. It will work with stock stuff or whatever you want to put on it (8 coils 16 injectors 2 turbos 3 kits, whatever). It is pretty standard stuff for alot of the standalones I play with on other cars also.

I haven't tried FAST or Big Stuff (seem to be what alot of folks here think about when they hear standalone) so I am not familiar with those but, I have banged my head against the wall wasting time tuning forced induction on stock LS ecus.

 

DFI... don't need their spendy wideband kit anymore, you can wire in almost any aftermarket unit, like the AEM I have. Best bet is to get a used system.

 

Big stuff 3 is superior to fast and dfi imo.

 

In every way but the price.

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I've heard the FAST system is a great system and is capable of doing all of what you listed.

I haven't heard anything about the Big Stuff 3 or DFI systems.

 

IMO I would just go with the LS1 pcm conversion. Gets you away from the opti, don't have to machine your intake for a distributor and honestly, its not much more expensive than going Megasquirt which people regard as one of the cheaper but still good standalones. There's a steep learning curve with HP Tuners but its not bad once you really start messing with it.