Hey guys

I only have a limited amount of options for tuners in my area, literately 3 I beleive.

One of the guys is a Hondata Authorized tuner

The other will do Hondata but sounds like he hates it and wants to sell me a Haltech platiunum sport 1000 @ around $1500
he said he will tune it for free though if I buy the haltech.

What do you guys think? Haltech is obviously more $$ with that said either one is within my budget since he will tune it for free. The hondata tuner charges $500 and $100 for every additional Hour

 

i would take the haltech and run :D

 

Damn I just bought a new elite 1500 for $1400.

 

I mean, is this even a question? Hondata with a chipped ecu is about 500 new, no? That plus 500 for the tune brings you to the same price as the haltech, which is a superior ecu. Seems pretty clear to me

 

I can get a Hondata ECU for $600 (with BBG) + 500-600 for tune but no 1200 is not the same as 1500

Thanks for the replies guys I just dont know much about Haltech everyone always talks about hondata here (most the time), The Haltech guy really sounds like he knows whats he doing more so then the Hondata tuner just needed some moral support LOL TY

@99electron_blue_si
From what the tuner told me hes selling me the ECU for like 1100 or something maybe 1200 I forget but I also need to purchase a Wire harness that Cost like $400. I think the total price was like 1600-1700 I forget exactly

 

Oh...I read those numbers backwards lol (1500 for 1000 I thought :p)
Either way, Haltech is a much superior ecu, and the tuner sounds more competent as well so what's another 300?
Or you could just get hondata used and save a little more

 

Yup Agreed...just making sure the Haltech is better, as I know nothing about it....I Think its actually 1600-1700 with the harness and everything. But being that this particular tuner prefers it and its superior its the route I will go thanks again

 

i think the best routes are find a great tuner, and go with what they know

 

agreed, unfortunately I have no first hand experience with any of them. I have done what research about them as much as I can and the one this guy seems to be the best option for me

 

Wow. I never thought I'd see a question with these two in the same sentence.

I think its clear which direction to go.

 

If you go Hondata, I'm located in the Jacksonville area.

 

Hondata?

Gross

 

i know nothing of haltech but curious if its user friendly. if you decide to go that route. i favor hondata cause its something i know and can manage with.

 

We all like to be comfortable with what we know. But at one time or another, you weren't familiar with Hondata either.

So if you can manipulate Hondata, you can work with Haltech. You just may have to make adjustments in the order of things..That's all..just like anything else

 

I agree that you should use the engine management your tuner is most comfortable with.

The S300 is fairly powerful considering it still exists within the confines of the stock computer's capabilities. It's more than enough for 99% of "street cars" out there.

 

Hondata works very well with Hondas, especially ones that still has mostly stock sensors or plug & play sensors. It's easy for you to make changes in the future because of a huge number of users, and repair/replacement will be cheaper and easier, and it will be work well with most OEM or aftermarket distributors.

If you go with Haltech, you may run into an issue with aftermarket sub-par distributors. It may force you go upgrade to a coil pack setup; BUT if coil pack setup + T1 Trigger (or custom trigger) is something you plan to do, then the Haltech is the best choice.

The Haltech also requires much more tuner know-how to make the car drive and feel like the Hondata. It will make the power, but the way the car idles, recovers, fuel-cut under decel, timing retard for tip-in and tip out, fuel economy, etc.. would have no tuned values except for very raw figures.

If daily driving is a big portion of your driving, I would actually recommend a Hondata.

 

Very nice summation, Tony. I should have elaborated upon the fact that this decision is based upon purpose, instead of being vague and uninformative with my previous answer. My apologies to everyone.

 

Thanks Tony! so glad I checked back on this thread!

I apologize to everyone I also failed to mention my Purpose, this is a 100% street car, it will never see the track or AutoX anything like that.

I finally got in touch with the Hondata tuner thanks to this post

 

my opinion, great choice either way. itll get the job done and its really easy to use

 

Is this because there is less cells on the VE/timing tables or because there are no stock maps that the tuner can base the tune off of...causing him to take more time getting the car dialed in for power and (some) drivability?

 

Nothing to do with the timing tables

Stand alone ems have base maps but not every motor is the same or setup.

Throttle tip in is about 4 tables not just one bar you slide like in hondata.

Many other things that need to be tuned. Many advantages over hondata.

I Personally think my aem v2 drives a ton smother than on hondata.

Like i say tho. Hondata is preferred because of how easy it is to get one car tuned and another on the rollers.

Or if you like tuning cell by cell then i guess thats preference. Im a fan of boost comp tuning and throttle modifiers

 

The OP PM'd me, but I figured I should share the reply

The Haltech is a great system, since I am also a Haltech dealer/tuner and I have Haltech P2000's on two of my own cars (Supra and Evo 9)...

But for a Honda, Hondata has all its tables set up and tuned for a Honda engine, meaning that the ECU was built and designed to process signals from OEM sensors that has a certain resistance and get the best resolution and cleanest signals from them.

I would need to spend countless hours to map a Haltech to get the engine drive similar to a stock ECU on any platform / brand / make. That's just the nature of a standalone. It is only worthwhile when you deviate away from all the stock stuff and require greater means of engine control / auxiliary sensors / versatility of running a wide range of different brand sensors / coils / triggers / etc... So let's say you decide to run a set of 2000cc injectors, a huge cam that barely pulls any vacuum and want to eliminate the distributor, then yeah, it would be a Haltech standalone for sure.

There are a variety of tables that the Hondata has been pre-configured in the background, yet on a Haltech (or AEM), does not have these tables available at all. Such as a tip-in throttle retard / timer / TPS hysteresis which is very important if you have a very responsive engine or a car that likes to cruise at high RPM's. Without this feature, you always get that rawness/sensitive transition at very light throttle inputs during a highway cruise @ 75+ mph with Honda B-series gearing on a slight downhill. Good luck in getting any standalone to make it feel like stock and not do the jerky-jerk thing, unless you tell fuel economy to suck a dick and let the injectors keep running during decel. For one or two crank starts in really cold weather, or low battery/slow cranking starts, the Hondata will fire up like stock, whereas a standalone will pretend the engine didn't even turn over and go back to sleep.

Hondata also has fail-safe modes for errors for distributor (if CYP sensor fails, Hondata knows to run batch fire instead), failed O2 sensors will automatically disable CL, different closed loop O2 targets based on coolant temp, factory OBD-I diagnostics, etc.. these features are great to have on a street driven car in which no standalone offers. Even if they do, you will spend hours, if not, days to mimic and dial in these conditions seamlessly. Haltech only offers STFT and LTFT and O2 sensor response checks on their Pro-plug in models, but not for their universal units unfortunately.

With an AEM EMS V2, or a Haltech for that matter, you will notice that the signal inputs may not be as clean when using Honda sensors... Things like the TPS sensor, temperature sensor and distributor signals, are common signals that could actually be noisy or less clean when you run an aftermarket ECU. However, this problem can be solved if you choose to run higher quality sensors, or sensors that Haltech recommends (e.g. their own IAT sensor, custom hall-effect trigger, AEM SS or Kavlico SS sensors, etc..).

However, if your tuner feels comfortable giving you good customer support and would offer his best help to tune out any small issues or hiccups, then I would still choose the Haltech. I'd still choose the system that your tuner prefers and the tuner you have faith in The differences in the systems is not significant enough to gamble with another tuner that you do not trust.

Now that we've talked about your setup more, at your power level, I think you will find the stock distributor a weak point eventually if you decide to rack up a lot of mileage. Distributors require frequent maintenance at 500+ WHP, so I think coil packs would be something you want in the near future. Because of that, it would point to a Haltech

 

Great post but I didnt Pm you ......Thanks for sharing so much info tony