So, in 2022, what are the pros and cons of running either Hondata s300 or Honda tuning suite? Looking for an OBD1 application for my JRSC setup, looking for reliability and daily drivability. I'm an absolute noob at this, so looking for some guidance.

 

IM USE HONDATA S300 V2 ON MY B20B AND IT WORKING JUST FINE...I JUST UP DATED THE SOFTWARE AND NOW IT EVEN BETTER THEN BEFORE NO PROBLEMS WITH HONDATA S300

 

I've used almost every tuning program created since early '98... they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I'm not a huge fan of Hondata, but only because the versions that I've used I found unintuitive to find certain settings.

Honestly it depends on what the person who is going to do the tune knows or prefers to work with. if you're going into DIY, find someone that is willing to help out and go with what they recommend.

 

Thats a really good point, I should find out what the tuner uses and just get that. May as well make it easier for them since they will be determining if my car lives or dies basically lol.

 

Verbatim my complaint. The layout sucks.

Speaking of Hondata updates, they are annoying too. They cost me 30 minutes because Hondata forcibly wanted to update the ecu in the middle of a tuning session. Sometimes Hondata won't connect until I give it internet. It complains its out of date, till it talks to the server and realizes its not out of date...

There is zero reason to pay for Hondata or Neptune anymore. Get a demon or another emulator, and run HTS. Way cheaper. More settings too.

If you want to make 500+hp aim for a standalone ECU.

Any competent tuner can tune any system. If they complain they can't, there's your sign, find someone else. In the end, all of the systems allow you to achieve the same thing. The differences are minor at best.

 

There is no longer any standalone OBD1 ECU for honda offered today. AEM stopped making theirs and support is dead. You need to pick either a burned chip or an emulator (it acts like a chip but you can datalog and conduct real time tuning (RTP) without even turning the car off to adjust parameters. Regarding which emulator to choose from there are several things to consider: price, support, ease of installation, software compatibility, and features offered by the chip or emulator: Your emulator and chip options come in 2 flavors: Hondata, and non-hondata (the original is the Moates Ostrich which is no longer available but was copied by various companies, and I'll refer to them all as Ostrich-type, or DEMON which is the improved upon version of ostrich).

1. Chipped ECU: the simplest, basically a socket that is soldered in along with a few other components, which tell the ECU to let an external chip control most of the engine functions such as ignition timing (normally done by the distributor on OBD1 believe it or not), fuel map, and a million other settings. A chipped ECU is not tuneable without removing the chip and re-burning it which is simple to do but very inconvenient compared to using a computer plugged into an emulator and changing a save. No datalogging for a chipped ECU unless you attach a bluetooth datalogger to the CN2 ports 2 and 4 I believe, which is actually pretty cheap to do. There are 2 types of dip sockets and a zif socket useable. Rounded dip socket (good for chips and emulators), square dip socket (mainly only good for chips), and square zif socket (quick release mainly for chips, and a zif can actually connect onto a round dip socket). Rounded is probably the best option for compatibility with emulators below... You need a chipping kit to install, don't do it yourself because yes soldering is easy but computer boards are more than just a solder iron and solder. And you need a chip burner and software (usually free) like Crome or Honda Tuning Suite. BMtune makes the cheapest chip burner despite being a scammy rip offy guy with longer shipping (from CAD), and Moates Flash 'n' burn software is free and easy to flash the chips with. If you dial in a specific tune and no longer need feedback that an emulator like S300 or others offer, burning a chip is a great affordable way to keep moving around your S300 or other emulator in different cars. Chipped ecus can be P06 or P28/P72 and they just need minor mods to make them compatible with VTEC, boost by gear, etc. It's $75-120 to get an ECU chipped, and I paid $75 plus 50 to get boost by gear and VTEC added. When people take their car to the tuner, they usually either have an S300 modded ecu (see 2. below) or they bring in a car with a chipped ECU with a base tune on it. The tuners use the dyno and modify parameters with an emulator like S300 or similar, then they reflash your chip with the new tune and you are on your way with the final product, often locked by the tuner unless it is chipped, in which case you can copy the settings on the chip and tweak yourself later.
2. Hondata: S300 $600 still today, the industry standard and easiest software to tune, the most-ish features, proprietary software forcing you to use it to tune the car, it's the apple of ECUs, proprietary and unnecesarily expensive. Also the socketing is unique and you'll pay more to get this installed. Like a LOT more. $1000 total including an ECU. For an inexperienced user, this software is BEST. I was able to street tune my Y7 with zero tuning experience by research online and realtime datalogging and feedback.
3. Hondavert S300, which is a knock-off clone of the Hondata S300 and works in both Hondata and Ostrich software (the tune is wiped when switching), making it very versatile but it has no external datalogging of inputs that I know of, such as analogue or digital (you'll need to repurpose pins like the ELD (electric load detector) or O2 sensor to provide inputs. This makes it very limited compared to S300 or other emulators, and limits ability to use things such as only using a wideband O2 sensor and a E85 ethanol sensor between the O2 and ELD ports. Thee o2 sensor and ELD port are the only options compared to quite a few separate input options. Still though, about $280 and pirated s300 software is useable, making it great to tune initially with Smanager, then you port your map over to a more complex software and eventually could burn a chip and replace the emulator in a car since you are done with tuning. Also this requires a standard chipped socket using a 28 pin round dip socket as opposed to the proprietary hondata socketing required in an ECU

Non-Hondata Ostrich/DEMON types:
4. Cobra RTP $240 ish and best imo except no built in bluetooth and works on ostriche, has ethanol and knock sensor dedicated support, analog and digital inputs, real time tuning support with CN2 ports 2/4. works with rounded dip socket, and flexible with how it connects to the cn2 port since a wire connects it, rather than the S300 versions which press down into the CN2 socket and require specific fitments. Has audio and analog out for knock sensor noise. Cobra RTP comes in two flavors, mounted directly on DIP socket, or plugged in with a ribbon connector and external box to the ECU. If you were to repurpose a chipped ECU, you could get a Cobra, and the only soldering you'd need to do is adding CN2 datalogging ports, which is the easiest thing you could do. That's why I'd recommend this or the Snake for repurposing a chipped ECU.
5. Snake EMU $200, about as good as Cobra and has built in bluetooth and many analogue/digital input capabilities but runs DEMON so better than Ostrich in some ways and possibly considered better than Cobra. However the CN2 ports 2,3,4 require a specific female socket soldered in. Unique and specific to snake, unlike the Cobra RTP. Also installs in 28 pin rounded dip socket. See above Cobra chipped ecu repurposing comment.
6. ECU Tamer $240, bluetooth not included, no inputs like analogue or digital, why bother when snake and cobra are cheaper or same cost and better? Installed in 28 pin round dip socket. Proprietary bluetooth datalogger not included. Proprietary CN2 port plug as well but it's wired in unlike snake, hondavert and S300 so easily jerry rigged.
7. BMTune RTP aka BMulator $185 ish with very limited features but cheapest. I recommend staying away from my own experience. However BMTune makes a very affordable chip burner. CN2 datalgging plugged in with wire so easy to do.

Other than the hondavert which has a lot of features being supporting hondata and non-hondata software, the cobra RTP or snake EMU is the best for it's price and features despite not working with hondata software. I believe the bin files can be drag and dropped like a USB drive on the cobra. $240 ish, has many built in features including ethanol and knock inputs as well as digital and analogue inputs, making it a direct competitor to the S300 except on the ostrich side. Behind that one, the Snake EMU and ECU tamer tend to be quite popular, although Snake is better than ECU tamer for obvious reasons (cheaper, built in bluetooth, plenty of inputs, etc).

Personally, based on reputation and my own experience, if you cannot afford the real deal S300, I would choose Cobra or Snake and stay away from the Hondavert knock off. that is based on my well-researched position.

BE WARNED THAT HONDA TUNING SUITE DEFAULT SETTINGS WANTS TO MURDER YOUR ENGINE. I HAVE NEVER SEEN A SOFTWARE PROVIDE SUCH A HORRIBLE DANGEROUS BASE TUNE WITH SETTINGS SELECTED SO YOUR ENGINE WILL BLOW UP. DO NOT USE HTS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. THIS IS WHY S300 IS MORE LIKED, MUCH EASIER TO USE. CROME is outdated and limited features. That said, I know how to use it and do like it and find it simple and easy to use but you need to know what ALL settings do and change them especially if you want to tune a car that is basically stock that you want to behave normally.

 

Some good info above, something to note. Moates is back in business and offering their catalogue of products for the OBD1 Honda ecu .

Demon 2 RTP ( with or without Neptune License ) , Burn 2 , hulog and ostrich 2.0 are all back in stock .

It's great there is plenty of options now. With HTS and a RTP , hard to look back .

Something else to note, even though direct PNP ecus havent been plentyful since the AEM EMS 2 days, most of the guys offer PNP harness.

Link ECU's does still offer a PNP board for quite a good price , haltech offers patch harness .

 

It's good to hear Moates came back. Thanks for the updates.

Yes, S300 is becoming less necessary now that HTS and RTP emulators are out there, I don't like Hondata as a company because they make a crappy COP kit and still sell it for $100 over better brand ones like Burton, and because they charge $600 for an RTP when all the others are under $300, and require proprietary software. It is a good product and easy to use, but unless you get a good deal not worth. Also the bluetooth is incredibly shotty on my v3 compared to any datalogger bluetooth module.

 

Agreed. Unless you plan to run the S300 absolutely as base - with no add-ons, it quickly swells to costing just as much as a Link plugin or other entry level standalones (and the Link is quite powerful). That being said, I find BT "logging" to mostly be a toy and I'll take wired logging via USB or CAN over it any day.

 

So... @ruinedxjake pray tell. Can you post what bad engine-blowing settings in the base tune to be aware of/change before getting started with Honda Tuning Suite? Thx.

I've checked ign./fuel maps, set my boost cut, rev limits look good. Cold cut in place. I'll be using the b18c1 base tune in HTS, but like I said I've looked it over and don't see any red flags ATM.

I'm coming from a decent amount of self-tuning experience with Crome and Neptune - not yet blown an engine.

 

The main issue I have had is some settings not saving correctly and the default base map being very lean. This lead to me identifying it with a wideband and just making a map myself.

0 = this should be a conscious decision for a tuner/user to make, won't kill but important to know what it does and no information and set by default is concerning
1 = this may kill your engine if left as is and not actually considered/modified

Based on a OBD1 B18C tune:
1 - rev limit by default for B18C set 500 RPM high at 8550-8600 RPM
1 - fuel map in my experience can run way too lean for a basemap if you have a fairly free flowing intake/exhaust like I did.
1 - I have found that the closed loop manipulation tends to not save and will go back to either closeloop narrowband or open loop settings. If it goes back to closeloop narrowband the car can run very lean when it tries to idle.
0 - knock sensor disabled by default - almost never necessary after properly tuning, but for a base tune if you did have a knock board you should care to not get knocking prior to tuning.
0 - Injector test disabled by default
0 - disable O2 heater - close loop operation set improperly by default, either set open loop or closeloop by default correctly
0 - Disable VE correction - affects the MAP while driving various speeds based on assumptions of air flow
0 - VTEC engagement point 500 RPM low for B18C, N/a to your B18B1

There were more issues I identified while tuning, I cannot remember them at this time. My favorite thing I love to hear is when a tuner who learned on their own tells other newbs they can't figure things out and will break their engine, don't even try. Like i said I love the program for being free, but Smanager was way more user friendly and just like I learned to reload, I learned to mess with cars by watching and reading online then trying myself. You should be okay and I'd be happy to review your file if you message me.