Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Monty Gets a New ECU

Heinz, the Ecumaster EMU Black is a fantastic ECU, you chose well

But it's only as good as the guy calibrating it, so I'm really pleased to hear you've found someone good to map your Lotus. To be honest the original people who couldn't get it right must have been amateurs learning on the job at your cost, the EMU Black software is excellent and very easy to navigate but you do need to have experience calibrating aftermarket engine management systems to get the best from it.

I'm still recording logs for the 'Autotune' feature and I haven't calibrated the ‘Virtual Dyno’ yet either, but I have to say the Fiesta ST150 base calibration the UK Ecumaster agent Greg at Road, Race & Rally gave me free of charge is already excellent. To understand it better and to help me learn the software I've been reviewing & deconstructing Greg's calibration, I’ve been doing this systematically feature by feature and setting by setting over the last few days, a calibration autopsy if you will.

To support my learning further I discovered there's a wonderfully helpful feature in the EMU Black software that allows you to directly compare calibrations side by side, it even highlights the differences between the two calibrations in a table format. I’ve used this to compare my own speed density calibration with Greg’s which immediately pinpointed some minor errors in my own work, “every day is a school day” as they say.

It's not often these days you get more than you were promised, normally it's the other way around, but in this case Greg at RRR has exceeded all my expectations. Initially he told me he was giving me a basic adaptation of a calibration designed for Mk6 Ford Fiesta ST150 running on individual throttle bodies, however now I've forensically deconstructed the calibrating it's obvious he must have spent quite a bit of time creating something way better.

What he gave me for free is clearly a bespoke Speed Density calibration for Monty with a VE table that's already driving minimal lambda correction, literally the only issue I had after collecting the car was a propensity for the engine to stall at junctions, but only after a rapid 'brake to a junction' deceleration event.

I initially fixed this with a small adjustment to the base idle on the throttle body but have now built a new calibration using the software using the multiple features within 'Idle Tuning'. As an example of just how good the EMU Black software is, the range of options just within 'Idle Tuning' is outstanding, in addition to the normal IACV duty table for warm up correction, and operating temp idle target we would all expect as a minimum.



There's a lot more than that, for example there's 'Vehicle Speed Correction' to lift the idle above a defined road speed, and even an option to increase IACV duty based on IAT which is really helpful for hot starts and improving idle stability on a heat soaked engine, because as we all know the density of air decreases as the temperature of that air increases so dialing in some extra IACV duty vs IAT is a super useful feature to have.



In terms of value for money the EMU Black PnP scores again, with any other aftermarket ECU you’re looking at spending at least 20% more on the ECU alone, typically you’re then into paying for the loom on top of that, finally when it’s all installed you’re looking at £600 for someone to build you a half decent base calibration so the whole exercise could easily cost you £2,500 - £3,000.

By comparison, I paid £1,250 for my Plug & Play EMU Black including the Bluetooth EDL-1 Logger and the latest Bosch LSU 4.9 wideband lambda sensor, the installation literally took 10 minutes and required no additional loom, Greg then threw in his excellent base calibration for free to sweeten the already excellent deal. The whole thing worked out at least half the cost of any other aftermarket ECU I looked at, and best of all the installation leaves any Morgan looking indistinguishable from how the car left Pickersleigh Road when it was built.




Overall, and admittedly as an early review of my Morgan Plus 4 PnP EMU Black, I really couldn't recommend it highly enough, the service I received from Greg at Road Race & Rally has also been fantastic, most importantly though the results are a wonderfully smooth driving and powerful engine.

Just 12 months on from buying Monty at auction he's now a massively improved Morgan with sorted handling, improved backdated cosmetics, and a noticeable increase in performance too, with a nice WW1 leather trunk strapped to his rack and with just one week to go, Monty is more than ready for his second Le Mans adventure.