Just a quick question, as I have my ECU up for sale and I’m getting the impression I may have missed something on another site with regards mapping it, I may have been out the loop a bit so am genuinely interested. Are Essex still the only tuner who can map it (charlieX) or have others now cracked it.
Cheers.
I think Essex are the UK franchise of the charlie x ‘live’ map.
They have facilities in Liverpool but I think the Essex one is down at the moment and they have to hire dyno time elsewhere (happy to be corrected)
Personally I think it’s a plaster over a gaping wound.
If you want complete flexibility look at the new stand alone ECUs. Obviously I would say that having put my eggs in that basket.
That said, it has served the Lotus community pretty soundly to date.
which standalone are you going for?
Eliseparts. Ade have you heard anything about who’s cracked the OEM ECU. I can’t believe this thread is so quiet… 
Still only EA as far as I know, only other options are the standalones, I will only go that way if I exceed the ability of the OEM ECU or I can no longer get it mapped.
Mapping charges are similar whichever way you go, the only benefit of a standalone being the choice of mappers.
I’ve recently gone down the Essex route, how come you’re going the other way to EP ?
Euphemism? 
it’s one of the payment options
As Ade says really, mostly convenience and few other reasons.
I’m happy for Stephen to chime in as he has first hand experience with the EP one, but it wasn’t quite perfect when I bought the SSC one about 4 months ago.
Ade is correct, standalone has the advantage of anyone with experience being able to do it, but unlikely to cost much less for a RR. Having said that, Sam at TDI fine tuned mine by taking round the block whilst monitoring it on his laptop.
I try not to pile into these threads as I think they end up too commercial. I understand that the SSC one is very good and in 95% of scenarios will do the same job as the EP one.
The EP one does have a few advantages in that you have full DBW control (zero control with SSC) and it will run a sequential box \ paddleshift.
I suspect that the SSC one however has the advantage with cable throttle cars.
My view with all his stuff is ask to try before you buy, if the retailer is that confident in the product ask them to put their money where their mouth is…
Can you please explain in words of not more than two syllables what ‘DBW control’ means?
Obviously the SSC works my DBW ( I think I recall them saying 6 of the ECU pins are dedicated to it) . I presume by control you mean speed of response, what various pedal postions actually do etc.?
Drive By Wire - as there’s no directly linked throttle cable it allows the ECU to control non linear throttle openings.
Yes, thank you 
But, that wasn’t the question!!!
Hi Jonny,
maybe this can be helpful:
seems someone else is able to access and map original ECU.
When I was on the Karting day with Moomin there was a guy there that had just put a turbo on his elIse and had also been able to map his lotus ecu with a downstream unit … I forget what it was now tho :-\
Cheers Frankie. I was under the impression unlocking the Lotus ECU would be big news, it was mentioned on another site but that’s new stuff and interesting too. Something I read gave the impression it’s now common place here in the UK, which I doubt. Cheers
[quote=661]Can you please explain in words of not more than two syllables what ‘DBW control’ means?
Obviously the SSC works my DBW ( I think I recall them saying 6 of the ECU pins are dedicated to it) . I presume by control you mean speed of response, what various pedal postions actually do etc.? [/quote]
Yes, you can control how the throttle behaves, vary the response etc. You can’t do that with the SSC one as they bought an off the shelf DBW control system to get around the type approval minefield in Australia.
The EP one is based on a GEMS WRC board with fully configurable DBW control.
It’s probably less of an issue on a road car but we vary how the throttle behaves on a race car if its wet for example.
I think both are probably as good as each other to be honest, if you don’t have a car with traction control the the SSC one maybe has the edge if you want that. If you are going racing or want something with a bit more support and ongoing development then the EP option is probably better.
I found a nice little boost for DBW responce for my R8 from these guys…
The Matrix setup should do the job on the Lotus.