Some of you may remember that earlier this year I owned a 1992 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution: a car that, in the few times something wasn’t broken on it, was pretty swift.  I took part in a few drag tournaments here in Okinawa with it, gaining a 2nd and 3rd place trophies.  It was also pretty good in “unofficial” races, but that’s a subject for another time.

One of the final modifications I did to the car, and one I was probably the most excited about, was changing the ECU to a tuning/datalogging setup called ECMLink.  Formerly this was known as DSMLink and had a sizable following in the States with the DSM folk.  I had been asked by the makers at testing and reporting back on the system and how it worked on the early Evos before it hit the market.  I did quite a bit of testing before my car met an untimely demise and now ECMLink has been released for Evo I, II and III owners around the world.

Before I chat a little about ECMLink, I’ll run through its main features, courtesy of the ECMLink website:

• Injector and deadtime compensation
• Fuel and timing adjustments using our extended tables
• Rev limit control (launch, NLTS, and full engine rev limit)
• Dash gauge control (on platforms where the ECU has control over a dash gauge)
• TPS dial-in, idle switch simulation
• Narrowband O2 simulation (so you can log A/F ratio from a wideband *and* run normal closed loop operation off the same signal)
• Anti-lag during launch and between shifts
• Knock sensor adjustments
• Solenoid tests, fan control, fuel pump control, and a variety of other miscellaneous functions
• DTCs – check and enable/disable various trouble codes
• Input manipulation (log aftermarket sensors on ECU inputs while disabling the factory use of those inputs)
• O2 feedback adjustment (so you can account for variations in feedback control caused by wideband sensors)
• Throttle tip-in adjustments
• Airflow smoothing
• Airflow compensation (to run other Mitsubishi MAF sensors)
• Adjustable long term fuel trim control points
• Open loop thresholds
• MAP sensor support

Although initially a little concerned about how ECMLink would compare to my older Ostrich/Tunerpro/Pocketlogger combination which I was very fond of, those fears were soon subdued by the sheer magnitude of what this hardware/software combination could do.  Requiring just a couple of small soldering modifications to the ECU in order to add a socket for the new chip and move a jumper, everything fom then on was controlled through the OBDI socket next to the driver’s right foot.

While there is nothing wrong with the Ostrich/Tunepro setup, it was always a “best effort” solution to tuning for the people that didn’t want to go for something like a PocketFC or the Haltech/SDS standaone setups.  What I mean by that is that the Tunerpro software and Pocketlogger was never made with the early Evos in mind.  Tunepro had features on it that people wanted (e.g. the ability to log data on their Evo), but which wasn’t really possible.  And Pocketlogger was made for DSM cars which meant that, while the important information was loggable, not all of the variables corresponded to what they should be.

In contrast, ECMLink (or ECMLink Lite in its current guise) was made for the early Evos.  And I can say this as I was someone who used both systems and tested them out fully.  You can take advantage of all the features the ECMLink software has to offer.  This includes not only the usual things like setting up injector deadtimes, fuelling and ignition timing etc, but also supports the GM-MAF, and even a MAP sensor so you can get rid of the MAF sensor completely.

Personally, one of my favourite aspects of the setup was the datalogging ability.  You could log almost any aspect of the car’s performance, for analysis later.  From the logs you could se exactly what points on the fuelling and timing maps you were hitting at what rpm, so you can make minute adjustments to the car’s tuning to maximise performance.  There was also wideband logging support through something called “narrowband simulation“, which I will leave the product’s owners to tell you about.

Lastly, although definitely not least, is the support available for this setup.  DSMLink has been going for sometime and has a huge members forum where people can post their logs for support.  While testing the software and hardware, I posted logs up and people pointed out number of issues with my car that I needed to iron out, and which I would have never known about otherwise.  The knowledge there is invaluable and people are very keen to help analyse your logs and reach your car’s potential.

The only downside I noticed in the setup when I was doing initial testing is that fuelling and timing changes could not be done “on-the-fly” (i.e. with the engine running).  In this aspect, the Ostrich setup was more favourable, although there was talk about adding this feature to the final release of ECMLink.  Am not sure if that was done in the end though, and would only be the icing on a very tasty cake.

Am sure this sounds like sales spiel, but rest assured I am not getting any sort of kickback on this!  I just like to make people aware of when I find something they may find beneficial to their cars, and this is certainly one of those cases.  Thomas Dorris and the other folk at ECM Tuning have made a heck of a product in ECMLink, and at $345 it is very affordable too.  If you want any other info about the setup, please get in touch with them at ECMlink.  Tell them Dave Webb from Japan sent you – hopefully they won’t send you any abuse in response!

Tags: car tuning, Cars, cd9a, CE9A, dsmlink, ecmlink, evos, mitsubishi lancer evolution

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