Vi-Pec ECU V88 & V44

[Hooman]

After months of research i have finally chosen what ECU im going to purchase for my ED9 CRX Turbo setup. It's a Vi-Pec V88
From what I've researched and been told from ppl using it, it is great.
If anyone knows it or uses it please let me know what u think. Also could i ask what those who have bought one how much they paid fot the V88 or V44?
Cheers
Hooman

www.vi-pec.com (http://www.vi-pec.com/)

[Hooman]

not sure why this was moved.....under the technical heading it states ECU's. And this ECU is not specific to the civic or CRX.
????

[fatboyz39]

We are using a Vipec V44 plug and play unit. Great ECU. I've moved on from hondata S200. Engine runs much smoother. Its our competitive edge :P

[CRXer]

any basemaps with that jimmy,or did u have to start from scratch?

ur prob lookin about $2k+ for V88 dude,& i'll doubt u'll ever need anything more than the 44 provides + i dont think the 88's are plug & play for honda at least.

[Hooman]

so vipec have plug and play for obd0 CRX or are they obd1??

[Slaz]

Look at the Link ecu's, they are the ones who make them. ;)

[CRXer]

nah man,no obd0,be cheaper for u to plug & play onto a obd1 conversion harness than tryin to wire that mess in.

if your not going racing & need every last fraction of a second off your times,theres much cheaper solutions out there,that can keep u happy.

[fatboyz39]

any basemaps with that jimmy,or did u have to start from scratch?



Yeah i think there a few base map floating around.


so vipec have plug and play for obd0 CRX or are they obd1??

Plug and play for OBD1 ECU. So if yours still a OBD0 then run a conversion harness.


Look at the Link ecu's, they are the ones who make them. ;)

They look similar aye. Shame they dont share the same software.

[Hooman]

nah man,no obd0,be cheaper for u to plug & play onto a obd1 conversion harness than tryin to wire that mess in.

if your not going racing & need every last fraction of a second off your times,theres much cheaper solutions out there,that can keep u happy.

This CRX is not my daily so hope to hit the track with it, want to do it right the first time and save on stress later on.......

[CRXer]

if budget aint a problem for u then,u have lots of options.

im just saying going to the extent of ecu's like these is overboard for a street driven occasionly track driven car,that isnt fighting in some sort of racing class for no1 position.

if u do want to get serious,then the vipec/link/(little bit)autronic whatever u want to call it,is a good budget option & very capable.

u just have to make sure,your preferred honda tuner could be bothered with it & that the plug/play 44 is able to read your 16tooth dizzy,but if budget aint a problem then none of this should be either.

[Hooman]

I am budget conscious, and will be looking at a V44 more seriously. Cheers for your comments

[iced]

heard good things from the vi-pec but what makes it able to run a car smoother than hondata?
Well i think Jimmy/bensons (fatboyz) civic is runnign ITB so i guess the tune is done with TPS vs RPM instead of MAP. So to get ITB running the best you need an ECU where you can fine tune tps vs map.
Jimmy maybe you want to fill us in on how the car is tuned in terms of MAP or TPS vs rpm.
So in that respect getting it too run nice will be a bitch on its own.
But other than that, from my experience the time you put into a tune is proportional to how smooth it will drive. and by that i mean things like throttle pump, async throttle amongst other things.
Of course when it boils down to outright grunt and flexibility of an ECu the vi-pec will come out on top.

But if you are going turbo route then id be hard pressed to go past oem chipped solutions such as Hondata or Neptune since you'll probably be installing a 3BAR map sensor or other which these ecus can cope with. Or is it a particular feature that the vi-pecs have that you cannot get with even an s300 or Neptune RTP?

im not dissing vi-pec or other standalones because im using an Adaptronic standalone tuned myself running 3bar map on a turbo setup in my car so i know a thing or about the inner workings of how to setup an ecu.

I aint dissing anyones setup or anything so dont get the wrong message.
We all want the best for our cars so im just chiming in on the discussion/

[CRXer]

u can make the hondatas run smooth,its just that nobody bothers on the s100/200 cos it'd be painfully slow not being able to real-time update

[iced]

u can make the hondatas run smooth,its just that nobody bothers on the s100/200 cos it'd be painfully slow not being able to real-time update

very true which is why there other options of honda chipped ecu which will give RTP :)
ie s300 and neptune.
i cant imagine a standalone EMS not having real time programming.
it would drive you through the wall!

[lookingforboost]

the bisiness partner that left autronic started vipec so they are basically the same computer i have been told by a vipec stockist and they were quoting 2250-2500 tuned and installed for it but i cant remember what model i can try and find out for you if you want how much it was to just supply?

[fatboyz39]

u can make the hondatas run smooth,its just that nobody bothers on the s100/200 cos it'd be painfully slow not being able to real-time update

They are real time update?

[fatboyz39]

the bisiness partner that left autronic started vipec so they are basically the same computer i have been told by a vipec stockist and they were quoting 2250-2500 tuned and installed for it but i cant remember what model i can try and find out for you if you want how much it was to just supply?

I would think thats a V44 plug and play and tuned. V88 ECU alone will cost about that much.


heard good things from the vi-pec but what makes it able to run a car smoother than hondata?



We would of spent at least 20hours tuning the hondata. So the map was pretty good for the engine. We would of been happy when we installed the vipec if it would match the performance of the hondata tune. After tuning the vipec, the motor makes more power @ 50%, 70% ,80%, 100% throttle. Wont disclose any numbers but it made some good gains. Yes it was tuned on TPS. With the vipec you can control the air-fuel ratio better.

The tuner will need to know how to setup the cold idle, accelerator pump and etc.

[CRXer]

They are real time update?
u might be right jimmy,todays laptop specs & maybe a decent emulator,u might just get it thru,but id imagine most people fine tuning an S200 didnt have the equipment to do it,so couldnt realtime.

ITB's is not a real good comparison on an s200,theres no TPS based tuning option,so trying to do it on MAP is hardly gonna give good result. Theres also no single cylinder trim of any sort on the s200,again very limiting. Shoulda tried an RTP or s300 jimmy.

does the vipec do atmospheric correction?
ure gonna need it when u head up to wakey jimmy,its floating 600m above a sydney based tune via TPS.

[Hooman]

the bisiness partner that left autronic started vipec so they are basically the same computer i have been told by a vipec stockist and they were quoting 2250-2500 tuned and installed for it but i cant remember what model i can try and find out for you if you want how much it was to just supply?

That would be great if you could

[Benson]

If you have the money to spend and do this right the first time, Vipec is a good ecu to start with it. Ill choose the V44 over the V88, simply because you wont use all the options that V88 provides to an average person.

In regards to wiring, if its not a daily driver, why not just hard wire it into the car. There is a plug and play adaptor for ob1's and 2's but not so sure about obd0.

Yes as jimmy has said, the results are proven on our engine combo, making more power over the hondata. Both ECU had the same amount of time with the tune.

The other good thing about Vipec is that, you can wire your wideband sensor to the ECU and calibrate the a/f figures that you want the car to run. I.e 14.7 on idle and cruising. The Vipec will automatically change the a/f ratio base on the wideband output to give the a/f ratio desired.

[iced]

Any good ecu can accept wideband to run closed loop o2. Wideband is good if you want the closed loop to shoot for AFRs a narrowband cannot read.
But if you just want to shoot for 14.7 you dont need a wideband. narrowband does the job for 14.7. i got mine to shoot for 14.7 all the way to 85kpa at low load. Gets real good fuel economy. Save the fuel for the real bootful. Saying that I still got wideband as well for datalogging, tuning and just to keep an eye on things.

Australia is good at pumping out really good aftermarket EMS.
Theres plenty of good options out there.
But one feature that I like is 2step launch control. More suited for boosted setup on the strip.
Another budget ECU that gets my vote is Adaptronic and is abit cheaper but no plug and play option for Civic. Also has quicktune/autotune so it can help you put the tune on the ballpark quicker. But with quicktune which Im sure vi-pec has too, just get a rough basetune of 12AFR and run quicktune with target AFR you want with a wideband connected and it will pull the fuel trims back. Regardless saying that its always good to closed loop in low load to get good fuel economy anyway. Same reason why the old Microtech have crap fuel economy. Because they didnt have closed loop o2 and the tuner will have to tune it richer so it wont overshoot lean.



Hardwiring can make things messy later if you change ecus by any chance or return to stock. If a plug and play loom doesnt exist for that ecu you can use a blank female connector and make one.

[lookingforboost]

That would be great if you could

whats the motor you want to fit it to?

and do you want it to plug into the loom or just a flying loom on it?

let me know and i'll get onto him before he goes overseas :thumbsup:

[Hooman]

the motor is a turbo D16A8 Aus spec. and yes can i get the obd1 plug in loom price also.
Cheers

[Hooman]

any news?

[lookingforboost]

V44 with map sensor and air temp sensor as a board that goes into the standard ecu casing you are looking at about $1850

i am just waiting to find out if they come as a plug in for the obd1 loom

is that what you wanted a plugin for a obd1 loom yeah?

[Hooman]

my car is OBD0 but am considering converting to OBD1 if it's cheaper than wiring the ECU separately

[lookingforboost]

they can come with an OBD1 plug in and a OBD2 plug in i didnt ask if there is an OBD0 plugin not sure if there will be.

if you get the plug to change it to a OBD1 it will just plug into that like a factoy ecu you wont have to do any wiring at all :)

[Hooman]

cheers for your help.