AEM Engine Management System New Release

[Chris B]

AEM will be releasing their Engine Management System version for the Viper this December.

We have used the EMS (Engine Management System) in our Supra's / Civics / Eclipses / S2000's / 3000GTs and RX7's for the past 2 years and the results are amazing. We've made 1,000rwhp Supras and nearly every other version of the EMS have the driveability of a stock Toyota Camry.

The AEM is a complete stand alone. You pull your stock ECU out and replace it with the AEM EMS. Then you simply connect your lap-top to your EMS to program it. You have complete control over fuel / timing / 2-step / nitrous / boost for turbo'd Vipers / knock control, etc. You can see the output of every sensor in your car and can datalog for hours. You can read more about it on AEM's web-site and you can also download the real software for free and check it out. Click http://www.aempower.com/product_ems.asp for more details.

We have one of the best AEM tuners in the world and fly him around the world nearly every day to tune our AEM customers. The Viper is the next car to come on AEM's release and we will be taking pre-orders for them as well as putting together a package deal for everyone who's interested. If you're interested in pre-ordering or have any AEM related questions, feel free to contact us anytime. We typically buy the entire first run of production for newly released versions so we'll have a lot in stock.

Take care,
Chris.
[email protected]

 

[BYT U L8R]

OK, I'll ask...How much?

 

[Mike Brunton]

Their website says the MSRP is $3400 and some change, and their price is $2400 and some change, but it looks like they are doing an introductory price (even though it says clearance) of $2200 and some change.

 

[BYT U L8R]

*DELETED*

 

[Bugeater]

If their production release is december, I assume they have already past the testing phases. Which leads my next question - what power increases have been found in N/A and boosted apps?

 

[FE 065]

Ahh, I'm not sure about this part:

"We have one of the best AEM tuners in the world and fly him around the world nearly every day to tune our AEM customers..."

So it's $2200 and then I have import an expert? How much is that??

 

[Mike Brunton]

The thing about the AEM setup is it is absolutely NOT something the DIY'er can do himself. no way, no how. You NEED to tune your car on a dyno, and spend probably a day or more doing it. You can adjust everything - up to and including fuel vs. boost, fuel vs. vacuum/MAP, spark, off-idle fuel/spark, fuel/spark vs. temp and lots LOTS more.

It's not something you can plug in, grab your laptop and drive around adjusting until you get it right. It really needs a pro and a dyno to get any sort of benefit.

I dunno what a dyno + skilled operator costs for a day, but I would guess... maybe another $1k-1.5k to really tune it right? Just guessing.

 

[1TONY1]

Let me know when it can reference off of a w/b o2.....then I will be interested. Sounds very similar to the vec2 but for more $$$.

 

[FrankBarba]

Is this product going to be available for Gen 1 ?

 

[kverges]

Thanks for the info; are you a site sponsor? I take this as advertising, which I thought would go hand-in-hand with site sponsorship. This is your first post, though, and I am not sure your familiarity with AEM in other cars makes you a Viper expert. I might go more with the Viper tuner who learns how to use AEM's stuff. For example, there is no knock sensor on the Viper stock setup, so tuning has to be done very carefully.

And any engine management can be done by the DIY'er, IF, big IF, you are careful and pay attention to what you are doing. With WBO2, you also don't need a dyno, just a track or deserted streets and use the datalogging. Good datalog software will even interpolate hp & tq with car weight, cd, and tire diameter.

This sounds like a VERY exciting product, though for more radical engine mods, like forced induction, N2O, or crazy cams & rpm. I would not expect huge gains with mild mods, though.

 

[Supercharged Vipermad]

Please excuse any delay in his replies. Hopefully, site sponsor details are being covered to ensure we do right by our true (and official) site sponsors who advertise here. Thanks for your understanding.

 

[Chris B]

To build the map yourself from scratch would indeed be very difficult. AEM comes up with a fairly well tuned base map configuration to start with. They do considerable testing on a few Vipers to get everything working right. We take it one step further and iron out nearly all of the driveability issues that plague many stand-alones. Once these base-maps are developed, the end user can make fuel and timing adjustments themselves very easily.

Here are some references:

forum.aempower.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=4091&highlight=horsepowerfreaks

www.supraforums.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142862

honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=646979

We're also listed first on AEM's web-site and we have several AEM certified tuners.

P.S. I will gladly sponsor this forum. We sponsor around 15 other forums. Please email me the details. I apologize for getting ahead of myself here.

Take Care,
Chris.

 

[kverges]

Excellent and good to hear! I agree that the average joe would have quite a time trying to get a base map, especially diveability matters such as tip-in throttle enrichment, cold start and that kind of thing.

 

[Russ M]

Let me know when it can reference off of a w/b o2.....then I will be interested. Sounds very similar to the vec2 but for more $$$.

It can and does.

And the price for the Viper unit includes dual wide band setup with sensors.

Comparing a Vec 2 to it is like comparing a civic to a viper, they both have 4 wheels and an engine right?

Mike,

On a typical car when there are no problems encountered the unit can be tuned in under 10 total dyno pulls.

I have seen it done.



As far as tuning goes once the unit gets released I will be able to refer people to local tuners AEM has a list.

NO need to fly anyone anywhere, and if you must fly someone in I can have some of the people that designed the damn thing available for that.

 

[Fishtail]

The AEM sound like a nice product. I'd like to read more about it just for the heck of it. More new things for the Viper
-Lou

 

[Chris B]

I hear a lot of people say "just tune it on a dyno". I hear a lot of shops with dyno's tell their customers just that. All these people end up getting is a car that is tuned under WOT conditions.

There are so many things to tune and no way to accomplish those on a dyno. And many shops do not tune for the following: cold start, hot start, tip in, decel fuel cut, accel fuel, fuel economy on cruise, etc. etc. etc. If I got a dollar for every person that blew $1000 on a shop that claimed they could tune their AEM on a dyno then called us and said their car won't start or hydro-locked or died in traffic or died at an intersection I'd have a lot of $$'s.

We have a dyno here but only use it as a base-line for before and after shots. The main problem is the dyno doesn't load the car the same way the car is loaded on the street. When we've got a car dialed perfectly on the street and then strap it down to our dynojet the A:F will be off by as much as a full point. So it makes dyno tuning almost worthless.

We recommend starting with a very defined basemap that has all of these situations accounted for. We will be including this base-map with our AEM sales. That will make the car run incredibly well and allow you the option to fine tune if need be. We will also fly to your door and tune your car to perfection if you so desire. Or if you're in the Northwest near Portland, OR, you can stop by and check out our facilities.

If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us anytime. The tuning is done by our service department TorqueFreaks parts sales is done by our parts department HorsepowerFreaks.

Take care,
Chris.

 

[Chris B]

As far as tuning goes once the unit gets released I will be able to refer people to local tuners AEM has a list.

NO need to fly anyone anywhere, and if you must fly someone in I can have some of the people that designed the damn thing available for that.

If you call AEM and talk to Jason Siebels their lead programmer, he will often refer you to Sean McElderry, our tuner. Also, if you go to AEM's web-site for distributors we are listed first.

Sean is considered by many the best tuner in the world. We work very closely with AEM as it benefits them greatly to have us fly around and make peoples car run flawlessly. They often send us out to tune high end cars making well over 1,000rwhp.

There are many cities with local shops that claim they can tune the AEM. If you want your car to run perfect you might want to read the testimonials I posted earlier on this thread from people that have already had their car tuned at a local shop blew a lot of money, then paid far less to have us make their car run perfect.

Our goal and AEM's goal is to make you very happy with your car once this is installed.

Take care,
Chris.

 

[Newport Viper]

I think I would need some flow out here!

 

[Russ M]

As far as tuning goes once the unit gets released I will be able to refer people to local tuners AEM has a list.

NO need to fly anyone anywhere, and if you must fly someone in I can have some of the people that designed the damn thing available for that.

If you call AEM and talk to Jason Siebels their lead programmer, he will often refer you to Sean McElderry, our tuner. Also, if you go to AEM's web-site for distributors we are listed first.

Sean is considered by many the best tuner in the world. We work very closely with AEM as it benefits them greatly to have us fly around and make peoples car run flawlessly. They often send us out to tune high end cars making well over 1,000rwhp.

There are many cities with local shops that claim they can tune the AEM. If you want your car to run perfect you might want to read the testimonials I posted earlier on this thread from people that have already had their car tuned at a local shop blew a lot of money, then paid far less to have us make their car run perfect.

Our goal and AEM's goal is to make you very happy with your car once this is installed.

Take care,
Chris.

Chris,

If I want my car to run properly I will have Jason or John tune it, but thanks for the offer.

You are going to find it very difficult to convince Viper owners to just jump on board your ship because you suddenly decided to get into the Viper market.

People like DC have been taking AEM classes and I am sure they are going to be doing a big part of the Vipers.


I was just at AEM today, the testing on the Viper unit is done. They are now waiting for the finished circuit boards to come back. If everything goes well with installation and finished product testing we will have an AEM unit under the Christmas tree.

 

[Chris B]

Chris,

If I want my car to run properly I will have Jason or John tune it, but thanks for the offer.

You are going to find it very difficult to convince Viper owners to just jump on board your ship because you suddenly decided to get into the Viper market.

People like DC have been taking AEM classes and I am sure they are going to be doing a big part of the Vipers.

No problem.

I would prefer it if you would ask Jason Siebels or Kirk Miller @ AEM about us before you post the negative slant like you did. We're in this business to help everyone with AEM EMS's and have been working with AEM for several years now.

We tune AEM EMS's every day. I'm giving you guys some great "Group Buy" pricing that you won't find elsewhere with free basemaps. I would really appreciate it if you would ask them about us before any more derogatory comments are made.

Thanks
Chris.

 

[Russ M]

Chris,

If I want my car to run properly I will have Jason or John tune it, but thanks for the offer.

You are going to find it very difficult to convince Viper owners to just jump on board your ship because you suddenly decided to get into the Viper market.

People like DC have been taking AEM classes and I am sure they are going to be doing a big part of the Vipers.

No problem.

I would prefer it if you would ask Jason Siebels or Kirk Miller @ AEM about us before you post the negative slant like you did. We're in this business to help everyone with AEM EMS's and have been working with AEM for several years now.

We tune AEM EMS's every day. I'm giving you guys some great "Group Buy" pricing that you won't find elsewhere with free basemaps. I would really appreciate it if you would ask them about us before any more derogatory comments are made.

Thanks
Chris.

I just read my post and didnt see any "derogatory" comments, but if you like I can come up with some.

Sorry that you feel my attitude should be more positive towards you but last I checked you had 6 posts on this forum, and all of them were related to making money of the Viper comunity.

We have some great tuners on here, who have been working hard to gain our trust over many many years. And it is my feelings that they should be the ones profiting from this not your self.

 

[1TONY1]

RussM and horsepowerfreak, I asked the o2 question before and was told it does not reference off of a wideband o2. My experence with this is with the f.a.s.t./Speed Pro systems. I tell it I want 11.6 a/f and it makes the corrections to hit 11.6 if it needs to. Is this the way the AEM will work ?

edit: I did find some info, looks like one wideband not two ???? Keep talking, you have my attention.

 

[Larry Macedo]

I hear a lot of people say "just tune it on a dyno". I hear a lot of shops with dyno's tell their customers just that. All these people end up getting is a car that is tuned under WOT conditions.

There are so many things to tune and no way to accomplish those on a dyno. And many shops do not tune for the following: cold start, hot start, tip in, decel fuel cut, accel fuel, fuel economy on cruise, etc. etc. etc. If I got a dollar for every person that blew $1000 on a shop that claimed they could tune their AEM on a dyno then called us and said their car won't start or hydro-locked or died in traffic or died at an intersection I'd have a lot of $$'s.

We have a dyno here but only use it as a base-line for before and after shots. The main problem is the dyno doesn't load the car the same way the car is loaded on the street. When we've got a car dialed perfectly on the street and then strap it down to our dynojet the A:F will be off by as much as a full point. So it makes dyno tuning almost worthless.

We recommend starting with a very defined basemap that has all of these situations accounted for. We will be including this base-map with our AEM sales. That will make the car run incredibly well and allow you the option to fine tune if need be. We will also fly to your door and tune your car to perfection if you so desire. Or if you're in the Northwest near Portland, OR, you can stop by and check out our facilities.

If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us anytime. The tuning is done by our service department TorqueFreaks parts sales is done by our parts department HorsepowerFreaks.

Take care,
Chris.

We're in the process of purchasing the All Wheel Drive Dyno Dynamics Dynamometer simply for the reasons Chris gave above. Aside from Viper and Ferrari, the Porsche, Audi and Lambo stuff we're tuning, it'll fit the bill quite nicely since it's the only dyno capable of front to rear bias without destroying transfer cases or viscous clutches. We have (5) Dynojets in our area, so if someone wants raw inertia numbers, I'll simply drive to one of their facilities. Our biggest drawback regarding low speed and part throttle tuning is the dreaded Orlando traffic.

 

[Russ M]

RussM and horsepowerfreak, I asked the o2 question before and was told it does not reference off of a wideband o2. My experence with this is with the f.a.s.t./Speed Pro systems. I tell it I want 11.6 a/f and it makes the corrections to hit 11.6 if it needs to. Is this the way the AEM will work ?

edit: I did find some info, looks like one wideband not two ???? Keep talking, you have my attention.

Tony,

I dont know how else to put this, it comes with a DUAL WIDE BAND SENSOR setup!

Russ

 

[Chris B]

Good question... The AEM has several ways adjusting the A:F based on wide-band feedback.

The first one, which we don't use very often is called auto-mapping. With this, you program in the target A:F based on engine rpm and load. We will typically program in around 11.5:1 under WOT situations, 14:1 on idle and 16:1 to 17:1 on cruise for economy reasons. Then you drive around and the cells in fuel map table will slowly change as you pass through them a few times until they get to the desired A:F ratio. We don't usually use this feature because it doesn't work as flawlessly as some of the other standalones out there, but it does work quite a bit better than it used to. I also don't like to do it because I don't like to take the chance of the computer doing something I don't want it to.

The second method which we do use on every map is O2 feedback. We first tune the car with O2 feedback turned off. We do this by adjusting the values in the fuel map. We also use boost compensation (which I'll explain later) which makes this much easier. Once we're pretty close, we'll program the O2 feedback table with the target A:F ratios. Now when you're driving around, the computer is always using your fuel map but at the same it is doing on the fly adjustments to the fuel map based on your feedback settings towards your goal.

We use boost compensation (especially on turbo'd and supercharged cars) to add or subtract from our fuel map. When using boost compensation, the fuel map ends up looking exactly like a torque curve with the peak fuel setting corresponding to the peak torque value. Then much of the fuel map has the same values all the way up and down (on the load axis). This makes it really easy to tune and allows for nearly perfect A:F ratios in all gears.

Another thing the AEM does that is fantastic is it will allow you to program your own knock noise table based on engine rpm. There are a lot of things that make vibrations that the computer picks up as knock. Some might be real detonation, but a lot of the noise is simply shifting gears, a turbo wastegate opening, etc. etc. What we'll typically do is run some good gas like C-16 race fuel and leave the timing somewhat conservative. We'll then datalog the knock sensors. Once we have the raw knock values for the car, we'll modify the knock noise table to be right above these values. This tells the computer if you ever see a knock sensor voltage above this amount then it's probably detonation. Now we can program what to do if indeed we do see knock. #1 we pull out timing. You can program how much timing to pull out and how long and how fast to put it back in. You can also program a certain percentage of fuel to inject. Detonation can often be eliminated by injecting extra fuel. Once these are set, we can start advancing the timing to increase power until we do see some knock. then we can back it off a bit.

The AEM also has a built in 2-step where you can program it to not only pull spark, but pull timing as well. This 2-step can greatly increase your 60 fts. With boosted cars we've seen as much as 22psi built on the line.

One thing that we take very seriously is never running lean under WOT conditions. The AEM shows your injector duty cycle all the time. It allows you to make cylinder to cylinder fuel trim adjustments as well as overall fuel adjustments. We datalog the injector duty cycle and when you get past 80% injector duty cycle we typically recommend running larger injectors. On my personal car we went from 550cc injectors to 720cc to 850cc to 1000cc and we ended up hitting 85% injector duty cycle at 70psi of fuel pressure so now I have 1200cc injectors in it.

If you are running turbos you'll never need another boost controller. You simply program in the w/g duty table and turn w/g feedback on and it will allow you to control boost perfectly through the AEM. You can also advance timing quite a bit in the turbo spool up area to reduce turbo lag.

The newest version of the software now has traction control. It will pull out spark when traction is lost to maintain traction. If you do have turbos you can use speed based boost control to also prevent wheel spin.

There are a lot of fuel trim adjustments that are in tables that you typically won't have to mess with once they are set up. Like fuel trim based on barometric pressure, intake air temparature, coolant temperature, even battery voltage fluctuations, etc. These when set properly you can simply leave alone.

You will also have complete control over your idle speed. This is typically programmed against coolant temperature so as your car warms up your idle goes down.

There are a lot of other really cool features. The great thing about the AEM is it has literally thousands of options. The downside about the AEM is it has literally thousands of options. These take some getting used to but once you figure them out you can really uncover hidden power in your car.

Take care,
Chris.

 

[DChan415]

RussM and horsepowerfreak, I asked the o2 question before and was told it does not reference off of a wideband o2. My experence with this is with the f.a.s.t./Speed Pro systems. I tell it I want 11.6 a/f and it makes the corrections to hit 11.6 if it needs to. Is this the way the AEM will work ?

edit: I did find some info, looks like one wideband not two ???? Keep talking, you have my attention.

I've used the autotune on the TEC 3 computers and it works pretty well. The AEM unit has the feature also.

 

[Larry Macedo]

Can you adjust individual cylinder balance, Chris?

 

[Paolo Castellano]

Chris, this AEM system seems to be a cost effective alternative to the Motec system some people pay quite a bit of money to have. It seems to me it does most of the same things. I am glad someone has produced such a fine product.
You had mentioned there is no need for a boost controller with this stand alone. Is it possible to regulate the amount of boost in each gear and for the AEM to be able to learn the boost curve in each gear like the AVC type-R? How about high and low boost settings? Also, does AEM make any kind of a digital dash that could show all the vital signs of the engine like wide band O2, Dual channel EGT, Fuel pressure, oil pressure and temp., coolant temp, boost, etc......? That would be bad-ass! I have been amazed how easy my friend who has a turbocharged Miata can calibrate and adjust all kind of things on his Miata. We just drive around and tune whatever part he wants to. How many aspects can this system datalog at a time? I really like the idea of the dual channel wide band O2 and how the CPU can maintain a constant target AF. Sounds very promising! I cannot wait for the release!

 

[1TONY1]

Hpfreak, Thanks for the answers. I have really been spoiled by my f.a.s.t. system. It is on a centrifical s/c car and when the correction factor (based on w/b) is at zero, I can spray a DRY 100 shot of no2 and it still easily hits the target a/f. Can the aem take up that much slack/mis-tune on your second method ? I will look on the aem site to see if there are sample maps etc before any more questions. Just this week I was talking with f.a.s.t. about how to set up their system on a Viper.....I think I can do it but it will take two ($$$$) systems and is certainly not plug and play. thanks,

 

[Chris B]

Yes, you can make individual cylinder fuel adjustments. AEM will typically do this for you for a standard Viper and those settings will come with the base calibration. You can, however, run EGT probes in each cylinder, datalog those and make your own adjustments.

The AEM has a wastegate duty map table to regulate boost. When you program this, you are programming the duty cycle of the boost control solenoid. You program this on a chart where the x-axis is rpm and the y-axis is load. This enables you to make boost control absolutely perfect. If you have large turbos and your wastegates drop a few psi of boost as your engine gets to red-line (which is common), you can compensate for this by increasing the duty cycle as you approach red-line on the X-axis. AEM also has a wastegate feedback table where you program in the desired boost and it will modify the wastegate duty map you just set up to make it nearly perfect as you do several pulls. In regards to gear based boost control, AEM does speed based boost control which allows you to set up target boost levels based on vehicle speed. The boost control solenoid does not come with the AEM, but we sell it with our EMS kits. We typically run an Apexi AVC-R boost control solenoid. You can get away with a GM one but it is very small and it will be harder to get the boost dead on.

You can program a switch that you can mount anywhere to go from low to high boost settings. You run the switch into a switched input in the AEM and base the boost settings on that switch. (i haven't done this yet but I believe it is possible)

AEM doesn't have a digital dash available yet, but we do. It's $400 and will show you 10 of the parameters at all times. It's a green screen very similar to the AVC-R which shows various parameters.

That's awesome about your FAST system adjusting quickly enough to respond to a 100 dry shot of NOS. With the AEM you simply program a second fuel map (for the nitrous), and run a wire to your nitrous switch. I wouldn't expect the ECU to learn the nitrous curve very fast. I would start overly right on the second fuel map just to be safe. The way the ECU learns (with automapping) is you program in the number of times it will pass through a cell before it makes adjustments. If the values of repeatedly off, it will begin modifying the fuel map. This might take a few pulls and I wouldn't recommend trusting it (especially with NOS). With the 2nd feedback method, O2 feedback, the ECU will attempt to immediately adjust the fuel while it is still inside each individual fuel cell on the fuel map. Once it jumps to the next fuel cell it will use that value and begin adjusting from there. So if you make a hard quick pull it can go through the cells pretty fast and with this method you still run the risk of going lean if your fuel map is too far off.

Take care,
Chris.