2jz to BRZ engine management options??
 

Hello,

I am swapping a 2013 BRZ with a 2jzGTE VVT-i engine and I am curious what engine management options I have.

I have searched the forums and haven't actually found anything I would consider perfect for myself which is why I am making this post.

What do I want to do? I want the ECU to be a standalone preferably BUT I absolutely need CAN controls. I need no lights on the dash and I want everything OEM to work. ABS, electronic throttle, steering, tach, basically everything like the car was stock. I don't want a race pak and to have my dash look like a christmas tree.

I DO NOT need a harness. I have a good friend who is going to build me all the wiring with oem/proper plugs to make everything work I just need the management itself to be able to work with it. The MoTec M130 and M150 seem to be good but they are also pricey.

If anybody has made this work and has links they can share or advice I would be eternally grateful.

Also i'm not above reaching out to manufacturer's like LINK, Haltech, etc but would like some guidance before I go sending everybody emails or making phone calls and getting nowhere.

Thanks!!

EDIT: 11/28/17 - I ended up buying the PURE Automotive MoTec kit. It's plug and play and makes too much sense to ignore. Will start a build thread shortly so stay tuned for that.

Pure Automotive uses MoTec and keeps all factory can bus functions. Ask to get it without the harness, but I would get the whole setup from them if that's what I was looking for.

have you looked at the tablet dash's you can get different backgrounds and gauge selection to make it look like a normal dash instead of a racepack dash, or you can get the more expensive ones like aim or the new aem to work with standalones, most of them output their own canbus to communicate with aftermarket dash's and there is a few that output a signal to communicate with android tablet app's haltech and ecumaster are some of them.

a/c, speed, fuel level, coolant temp can be made to work through the standalone if decide to go that route. and there are some members that have been able to get powersteering to work with translators (rpm to frs/brz canbus language).

If you got the money motec would be one but you need to output its own canbus to the car's canbus... thats ontop of my head

also haltech are saying they are developing their canbus to work with the frs/brz. This is from their 2500 elite platform and they don't have a release date and Ive been asking them for over 2yrs now so who know's when that's coming out??

Pure Automotive will NOT sell without the harness. I am not paying $1000+ for something my friend can make for like $100.


I think you missed my main point, I don't want a racepak because I want to use all the stock gauges. A tablet won't actually help me be able to do that unless maybe i'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

And the news about Haltech is discouraging to say the least. MoTec is gonna run me way more than I planned for the ecu portion. And god knows how much tuning will be.....

I spent around $800 in connectors, tefzel wiring, tefzel shielded wiring, shrink tubing, etc building my custom 2j/frs harness. $100 will get you nowhere. We can’t sell just the ecu/package without the harness because the firmware is based off of a specific pin out to work. Also not going to give out the full pin out diagram that we spent countless hours figuring out. Hope you can understand why we only want to deal with entire packages. One person doesn’t wire it right and all of the sudden our “kit” is junk, doesn’t work right, etc. not worth the hassle. Also for what it’s worth, I’ve asked haltech to do a kit for the frs/fa20 for years. We even have a customer who is sponsored by haltech with his Supra drag car and still have gotten nowhere. So who knows what’s going on with that.

Your only real option is either Pure Automotive Motec Package, or dealing with some things not working. The Canbus translators Get you about 95% of the way there. Still a solid option. I have been running the MRS Canbus translator and daily drive my car for over 5000 miles now.

I have heard Emtron will also work with Canbus system, so you might look there.

I suggest the Pure Automotive solution though. They know what they are doing 120%

Edit: So I completely spaced when writing this. Pretty sure 2jz has no canbus, so a translator won't help you.

There was never a question of does Pure Automotive know what they are doing or not.

I am looking at options where I don't have to spend $6000.

Truth be told the whole CAN bus translator thing is a huge mystery to me. My original plan was to try and run an AEM v2. Could I still run the translators with an AEM v2 or is that just too barbaric in terms of management options for such a new car?

Thanks

EDIT: Looking into Emtron now actually

It has always been a target of my device to write code to support alternate ECU's. The documentation is out there. The biggest issue with using a standalone with my small device is that most standalones pick a 1000kbit baudrate instead of the factory 500kbit. The magic of only using two CAN busses and making the gateway function work is that the factory GM controller uses 500kbit.

Get me a controller that outputs 500kbit CAN and I'll make a one of my controllers work for you. I've written code for a few standalones but they require a larger more expensive controller that has three busses to negotiate the gateway functionality.

Honestly though, just as a guy who has swapped a few vehicles and dealt with wiring issues, just pay the price for the proper harness. The Pure Automotive kit is great and complete. I understand saving pennies where you can, but this is a hobby where that can go very wrong very quick and lead to serious issues.

Saving pennies is not an issue. Saving thousands is. If PURE would sell me a kit minus the harness i'd probably be looking at it more heavily.

Does anybody know if there are good piggyback options to this? Like running the factory BRZ ecu to control the car and running a separate aftermarket unit to control the 2jz?

You can always put an external crank trigger on the 2J that has the stock Subaru pattern and wire the sensor into the BRZ ECU.

That is a good bit of money/time/effort though.

To be fair its not really us marking up a product to make a ton of money like it sounds. You are buying one of the best ecu's on the market period. If you knew how little we actually make on this whole package you would probably be surprised. We did everything we could to make a fully functioning package that doesn't require hours/days of testing to make work. We made the best possible solution we could, at the lowest price we possibly could.

We had a dual ecu (frs/gm) system in our first LS swap car years ago that was sold to us by a big named wiring/swap company. We put probably 100 hours into trying to make the factory ecu control stuff, never worked.

AEM V2 is old technology. At least try to do it with an Infinity. It sounds like you are trying to do this as cheap as possible, but still want every OEM feature to work without issue. Best bet would be to use Colins CAN device and try to work with him on getting it setup for your build since it doesn't require you to use a high end ecu for the engine control.

I totally understand and never made it seem like you were marking the price up much at all. The base price of the M130 is a lot, period. It is too fancy for what I need it to do, your wiring job is also too fancy. Our plan is to use OEM 90's toyota wiring to match the colors on my factory jdm 2jz harness so at the end we will only need to buy the plugs themselves and pin them correctly. This may not be up to today's standards but worked well in the 90's and is perfectly acceptable for me.

AEM v2 is very old, Infinity is also something I considered but i'm very picky about wanting some of the oem stuff to 100% work so AEM in general may not work. I am not trying to "do this as cheap as possible" If that were the case it would be very easy and i wouldn't be here at all. I am trying to do this as efficiently as possible. That includes both finished product working properly as well as not spending a lot of money.

I am pretty bummed that a dual ecu setup didn't work. Was this permanently a fluke and fully abandoned or is there still companies out there trying?

Still trying to get good info from Emtron.

well I've made a cheap 200$ tablet fit inside the original cluster, also the variety of apps available to run off the obd2/bluetooth might steer you away. Instead of the complicated look of a racepak with only a colour option these apps can be selected to run different background option, round gauges, analog, digital, logging capabilitys etc...

another great option with this is instead of cluttering your dash up with additional gauges, ex: boost,AFR's, oil press, egt,... you can instead display them on the tablet along with your speedo and tach.

Look up torque app, dash commander, real dash for ecu master or more. Theres also a video that explains how to setup the tablet so it comes on when power is switched on (tablet charging) and shuts the tablet off when using battery.

Im also doing a 2jz swap, and Im looking into the ecu master EMU BLACK with the bluetooth module and it will speak with the tablet. I'll post up pics when I get the chance and maybe you'll change your mind, this by far is the cheapest and best solution for me as I can select a wide variety of information to look at or not depending what I'm doing(tuning, casual driving, 1/4mile, ect...) and it's relatively inexpensive by the time I order a couple connectors, and sensors wire it to the EMU, the EMU itself is inexpensive compared to other standalons with canbus or obd2 outputs and having the ability to change how the dash looks without the additional gauges on the a-pillar or steering column will make it look simple inside the vehicle.

Like I mentioned to somebody before; as a personal preference, i'd rather abandon the project before not being able to use the factory interior of this beautiful 2013 BRZ. That's just the route i'm going with or I won't do it at all. Eventually i'll figure something out, even if, worst case I have to be the innovator of something. Which i'm really hoping not to be lol.