Opinions on the Electromotive ignition system

I know that a member, Fred, had a former generation and was disappointed, but I wonder if anyone has looked at or installed the new TEC3 system.

A local high-po tuner here says it is the cats whiskers and he had 5 vehicles in his garage at the time getting it installed or was installed.

It gets rid of the opti which is good. I'm concluding that I may need to go to an after market system based on my limited knowledge and ability to tune with LT1 Edit.

FAST is another alternative as well and that seems to be well regarded.

Opinions?

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1997 T/A WS6 Con

383, ATI Procharger D1-SC @15#, relocated MAF, FLP's, Borla, Kenny Brown DD SFC's, Hal's, SLP-Springs, STB, sway bar, shifter-Lou Salzano SS, 5-point chrome roll bar, ZR1 rims, KTRE 12 bolt 3.73's. etc etc.

Best 12.30 @ 121.79- "Traction.....we have a problem"
527 RWHP / 570 lbs.

I was also under the impression that Electromotive had perfected the "Opti eliminator" and was offerring it with their new Tec3 system. Turns out that while it's in their catalog that it does not exist and they have given up on it. I suppose you could use it in "bank to bank" mode anyway though.

The system itself is great. A friend installed a Tec3 on his supercharged 5.0 Mustang race car and I helped him install it, tune it, and dial it in. I am very impressed with the system. OTOH, like all other aftermarket engine mangement systems you would have to give up the MAF sensor and I think the MAF is a great thing for a street or street/strip car. I think the stock PCM with various add-ons can handle all but the most radical combos. You just have to resign yourself to changing an Optispark now and then. And at ~$3K the Tec3 is far from inexpensive.

Rich Krause

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'95 Z-28 383: Vortech, nitrous, etc.
AIM: rstevenkrause

[This message has been edited by rskrause (edited September 15, 2002).]

Well, you can make the system work rather well by still using the high and low res signals from the opti to feed the PCM. This will eliminate the "out of phase" problem the SDI had. As far as I can tell so far, this is the only shortcoming of it. I am using mine with the crank trigger feeding the SDI, the opti feeding the PCM then the PCM in turn still controls timing. I've tried to look at it many ways but any way I look at it I still like the fact that I don't have the high voltage in the opti crap anymore.

Ryan

Originally posted by 97TA-WS6-Con
I know that a member, Fred, had a former generation and was disappointed, but I wonder if anyone has looked at or installed the new TEC3 system.
.

I assume you are refering to me. I was never disappointed with the Opti-eliminator/SDI.

What I was disappointed with was the fact that after going back and forth with E'motive for about a year, in a real good "give and take" on my install and experience (I actually drove the car to Manassas, showed it to them, got a tour of the facilities and provided them with a lot of photos), they just decided to start ignoring me, and stopped responding. They promised to solve the bugs... hard starting, phasing problems... but they never did. They were always too busy with "other projects". The system ran well, even with the phase problem. At WOT, with high duty cycle on the injectors, you aren't going to see a lot of difference......

Hi Fred

Actually I read all your previous posts on the topic and I know that you were not "upset" but that I know things were not 100% resolved.

I'm not sure what you meant by "At WOT you will not see any difference"

As compared to what? Tec 2 vs Tec3? Stock PCM vs TEC 2/3? versus FAST? Not sure I understood that comment.

BUT lets make it simple. Based on your experience, is TEC 2/3 the best system for your needs or, if you know, for mine (Blown 383 with 15#'s)

Should I be going with FAST?

I think what he means by you won't notice at WOT is if the injectors get synched out of phase. Once you hit nearly 100% duty cycle, everything runs together and it no longer matters if the injectors are out of phase or not because the fuel is getting in the cylinder.

I have heard they never did get the system to work correctly on OBD2 cars; I just noticed yours is a 97.

Ryan

I have an OBD1 conversion. Is that going to make a differance?

Again, appears another clarification is in order.

I have never run an Electromotive engine management system.

I ran the Opti-Eliminator/SDI.... a simple replacement for the OptiSpark. My comments regarding the phasing of the injectors, and lack of importance at WOT (as correctly interpreted above) was based on comparisons of the stock PCM/Optispark vs the stock PCM/O-E/SDI. Same 24# injectors on a bolt on motor. Not very demanding.

My current setup is MoTeC M48PRo fed with the Opti high and low res signals, with 8-channel IEX ignition driver and 8 LS1 coils. In that setup, both individual cylinder injector timing and spark timing are fully programmable. Injector phasing is extremely important, and I run the equivalent of 74# injectors to get the duty cycle below 70% at 800HP on the juice.

Thanks Fred.

Sure sounds like a nice setup.