“We want to make the ECU programmed accordingly,” Strader says.
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There is a progression when it comes to these electronics.” We can change how the idle is controlled. Let’s say you have a table set up and you want it to function a totally different way, the higher-end stuff allows you to change how the tables work. With something like the Holley stuff, there’s no pay wall, but you don’t have as much customizability to begin with. You’re not paying for any upgrades, and we can set the cars up the way we want to set them up. The beautiful thing about those are everything is unlocked. “We typically use Emtron SL and KV series controllers. Then, you have race applications and more serious recreational applications where a more rigid-style controller is useful that has an aluminum housing. “The Holley stuff is a great, great product, and it’s a big step up from a stock ECM for the DIY crowd. “When you get into super extreme rigs and environments, you want something that’s a robust housing that can take abuse and vibration,” says CBM Motorsports lead tuner, Joshua West. The enclosure itself is also a limit when you get into more extreme applications. Options like these from Holley are great for street car conversions and mild race applications, but they do have their limits as well in terms of tuning, controls and customization. Companies like Holley and FuelTech and some of these other large companies are starting to make it easier for the end user to make the swap.” “What you’re really buying is an all-in-one sort of turnkey solution rather than having to piece together and cobble together a sensor from over here and a widget from over there. Now you can have the option to use any size injector, use more than one injector per cylinder, switch to turbocharging, and do automatic electronic wastegate control so you can do boost control strategies, add nitrous, etc. “They offer what you would call a plug-in kit, which includes an ECU, a wiring harness and all the related sensors that would all just plug right in. “You can’t deny what Holley has done in the marketplace, which is have things like their Terminator X packages, their HP and Dominators, which have an unbelievable amount of capability for the price point,” he says. While some of those changes are due to advancements of the actual computer, a lot of it is the technology that has advanced in manufacturing and being able to mass produce some of these parts at a lower expense. Now, an average $1,500-$2,000 ECU has capabilities that would completely overwhelm a 10-year-old ‘high-end’ ECU that might’ve cost $6,000-$8,000.” “It used to be that you’d have to spend $10,000, $15,000 or even $20,000 to get into systems that could do multi-cylinder injectors, multi-injectors per cylinder, individual coils, drive-by-wire throttle bodies, variable camshaft control, dual lambda control built into the ECU, integrated boost and nitrous, and traction control all in one box rather than having to have separate boxes. The problems, however, start when you want to change something with the engine. The information that’s stored in the memory contains all the variables and the data required to run the engine as it was in stock form.
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Tuning with a factory ECU typically involves what’s called re-flashing. “There are some available products in the marketplace that allow people to go in and make some changes, but they tend to be very limited in scope – both in what makes and models of vehicles are covered, as well as what things you can actually change because of the limitations of a factory ECU.” “I think the biggest struggle that happens is when people want to make engine modifications, but they want to keep the original factory ECU,” says Ben Strader of EFI University. In many performance applications, the stock ECU just isn’t going to cut it, and unfortunately, many people don’t know they are limiting themselves in terms of tuning capability or maxing out what the stock ECU can realistically accomplish. Not only do you need to understand what it’s controlling and able to control and how to tune everything to work for your needs, but you have to also ensure the ECU you’re using with your specific engine makes sense for the application.