21 replies to this topic

[danny_]

I am looking at getting a Specialist components ECU for my 93 SPI rover mini.

Does anyone have one and wold like to share a bit more information about them?
I am more interested in the software for this and how are you supposed to mount this?

Any info would be appreciated, I have tried searing the forums but can't find anything in specific.

My mini is going to be a daily car so would this be suitable?

If anyone has any suggestions for other branded/ better ECU's for an SPI rover shoot away!

Cheers,
Dan.

Edited by danny_, 18 May 2011 - 10:44 AM.

[danny_]

Bump... Anyone??

Edit: Ended up buying one. Thanks for the help guys!

Edited by danny_, 19 May 2011 - 01:33 PM.

[kymummer]

Had never heard of it before seeing your post. It looks impressive.

I've only had my SPI for 10 months and it runs pretty well (at the moment). Since there is no chance of getting it serviced as an SPI where I live, I'd always imagined I would wait until the SPI system fails and then do the switch to carbs.

Now, I see there might be other options.

Keep us posted on this ...

[dma550]

Had never heard of it before seeing your post. It looks impressive.

I've only had my SPI for 10 months and it runs pretty well (at the moment). Since there is no chance of getting it serviced as an SPI where I live, I'd always imagined I would wait until the SPI system fails and then do the switch to carbs.

Now, I see there might be other options.

Keep us posted on this ...

Miniworld did a nice SPI update review of it, thought I was hard pressed to understand if the percentage boost was from the brain alone, or in conjunction with the other 1500gbp worth of updates.

[RayBoogs]

The ECU looks good! I would be interested to see how you get on with it! I was looking at one for my SPi, keep us informed!!

[Trick77]

I dont have one myself but i think the ultimate mini squirt may be a better option. Try this forum for advice

http://www.umsforum....bman.de/YaBB.pl

[danny_]

I have been having a few problems with the ECU
The car stalls for a second when you put your foot down on the accelerator after coming to a stop at the lights etc
idle's at 1800rpm when its set to 900rpm
It caused the car to stall at 80km/h and the car to lose all power above idle.
So much for plug and play tho i think the firmware was corrupt and now my usb interface is faulty so i have to send it back.

[johnK]

Hi, this is Simon from Specialist Components, as this is a public forum and we are not being shown in a good light in this thread, I would just like to point out a few facts about this customer's situation:

- We pride ourselves on our customer services and take this aspect of our business very seriously. In this case we replied to the customer's first email twice within 24 hours with help on working through the problems. I was on holiday, but John continued to help through the rest of that week. Then when I returned from holiday I took over from John. Since the first email, I have counted 14 detailed replies that we have made to help our customer solve the issues. You will appreciated with the customer being based round the other side of the world from us with a 12 hour time difference, email is the best method of communication and it is worth spending some time to ensure that there are no faulty parts before shipping packages around the world for no reason, as this costs a lot of time and money.

- All our ECUs are built in an ISO9001 certified manufacturing facility by robots and each board is thoroughly tested before it is shipped to us. We then program the ECU with the correct files and it is tested on our hardware engine simulator rig before it is sent to our customer. You can see from this that it is extremely unlikely that a faulty ECU is ever shipped out of here. In fact, with over 600 Typhoon ECUs sold now we can only point to this ever happening once in the past.

- Our wiring looms are also individually bell tested for every wire before shipping.

- You can see from the above that we are fairly confident that when our parts leave here that they are in fully working order, so we can pretty much guarantee that any issue at the customer's end is down to the installation, customer usage or customer's vehicle

- Unfortunately SPi Minis are now getting on a bit, even the youngest car is over 15 years old. The wiring was never the best quality when new and there are lots of issues appearing with cars having various faults relates to wiring issues. Replacing the ECU will obviously not fix this. We have sold tens of SPi kits now and have had several problem cars, but ALL the issues have been traced to either problems with the original car wiring or modifications that have been made by current or previous owners to the wiring, engine or throttle body. When these issues have been repaired our system has worked correctly.

- In this case, eventually the parts were returned to us and tested again (at no charge to the customer) and no faults found. I will repeat this - *no faults were found with any of the SC parts*. What we did find is that the customer had changed some critical parameters in the ECU from the supplied map. The main fuelling table had been modified and the ECU shut down timer had been extended, stopping the ECU from shutting down in the normal time frame. After explaining this to the customer, they said that they did not realise that the our Typhoon SPi ECU was programmable, which is rather the point of the kit. We took the time to save screenshots of our software showing exactly what modifications had been made to the map and explained to the customer what they had done.

- Ultimately the 'plug and play' nature of this system is that it will plug in to your car and without any modifications to the car, wiring or engine sensors the engine will start and run and can be mapped by the user. In this case and every other kit we have sold this is exactly what happened. Fit the kit and it will start and run, you then have the tools to remap the ECU with your laptop PC. A map is supplied that was made on a standard Cooper 63bhp manual transmission UK car and this is your starting point. Much like buying a new carburettor which comes with a standard jet and needle. It will run, but it won't be optimised for your engine. It is then down to the customer to go to a local rolling road and get the system mapped for their car, to take advantage of modifications etc. It is not in any way like a 'chip' upgrade that gives your standard car more power. It is a comprehensive standalone ECU dedicated for this application.

I hope that this explains a little behind this story and what we have done to try and help our valuable customer. In this case, I think that maybe the customer did not thoroughly understand what the kit was for.

If anyone has any questions or comments please contact me at SC by email or phone and I will happily explain further.

Simon

Attached Files

•  SPi_mod_2.jpg   248.27K   131 downloads
•  SPi_mod_1.jpg   59.54K   77 downloads

[ivanhoew]

blimey ! good answer simon .

[JSnowDude]

I've been looking at the options SC offer for an Spi mini cooper for a while now, definitely interested in what they have to offer.

The above response gives me extra faith in their products/services.

I'm currently umming and ahhing between the Spi Typhoon ecu and the spi throttle body upgrade and ecu. Ive got an Spi stage 1 works cooper so any thoughts on the two options would be appreciated.

[cian]

I have the mpi 5 port kit with the typhoon 2 ecu and it has been a transformation! Quality is second to none too! And they are always happy to help on the phone!

[Miniholic]

I've been considering the Typhoon ECU for my SPi, I already have a 44mm throttle body, so don't need the full kit.

A boost in performance would be nice, but improved emissions at MOT time would probably be the biggest benefit.

[minisilverbullet]

What are the performance gains?

[Miniholic]

Depends on the state of tune, probably not much on a standard engine.

More about maximising what you already have, as it can be mapped to cope with modifications that are beyond the capabilities of the standard MEMS ECU

[cian]

I was running a stage 3 setup along with cam n rockers and changing the ecu totally transformed it! Will rev to 6k and more power and bags more torque