Engine management systems in development today will deliver more features and simpler operating parameters to make vehicle control even easier for racers and tuners.

Product development in our digital/electronic age happens at a rapid rate. The automobile was around for between 80–90 years before the first electronic engine control modules appeared in the 1970s. Now it’s common for even a low-priced, transportation-oriented car to have multiples of them, and their functions go far beyond the engine compartment. Thankfully for the performance market, aftermarket tuning companies have kept pace, devising ways to manipulate the OE systems or, for the ultimate in performance gains, replace them entirely.
We spoke with several of these companies to see what was on their drawing boards for future engine management system development. Some common themes emerged, many having to do with making these systems not only more capable but also easier to use.

A Lot in Six Months

DIYAutoTune of Gainesville, Georgia, was purchased by EFI Innovations Inc. in October 2023, and in the six months since it has “picked up the reins and continued the existing product line while putting a bunch of new stuff in development,” said Steve VanOrder. As the company name implies, many of its legacy products were aimed at the do-it-yourself racer, “those who have to get in there with a soldering iron before they even start their car.” Those kit products are still available, “but our focus recently has been on a more modern-style ECU, because not everyone wants a DIY-type kit. That’s where our Pro products slot in,” he added, referring to the line of AMP EFI MS3Pro systems. “These can be wired into pretty much anything” and are used across a wide spectrum of racing disciplines, “but I’d say about 70% of our MS3Pro EVO and MS3Pro Ultimate, our higher-end products, go into drag cars.” The plug-and-play versions, MSPNP and MS3Pro PNP, “are used in road racing and drifting.”
(AMP EFI is one of the product brands sold by DIYAutoTune, VanOrder explained. “And AMP stands for American Made Performance. Everything is still made here in the US. All our assembly happens right here in-house in Gainesville, Georgia.”)
He said the plug-and-play systems are also popular in low-cost endurance racing series because they’re budget friendly. “The easiest way to do it is to remove the factory computer and just put in a new computer, so you don’t have to completely rewire the car. You can easily spend a quarter-million dollars on a race car, right? But if you and three friends each put in $5,000, you can go Champ Car racing and be competitive. We really want to make it easy for people to get into racing.”

The company has long offered products for LS engines and will soon branch out to support “some of the other modern engines,” including the Coyote, Hellcat, and Godzilla, added Kurtis Warne. “We have a whole new ECU style coming out to handle just those particular engines. It will all be internal within the actual ECU versus a lot of external boxes. We’re trying to make it easier for the end user.”
DIYAutoTune offers a compact, entry-level version of the MS3Pro called the MS3Pro Mini, according to VanOrder. “We’re also working on another Mini ECU with a higher IO count. We’re going to call that the Mini 8, and it will be focused on the V8 community. It’ll be a low-cost entry into our higher tier product line.”
Branching out beyond engine management systems, DIYAutoTune recently released the DD-EFI, a digital dashboard “that communicates with the AMP EFI and MegaSquirt product lines,” Warne said. Available in 10.3- or 12.3-inch versions, the DD-EFI features a high-resolution screen “with a modern-type feel that has the splash-screen boot-ups they can customize. They can change the dashboards, and it will do all the on-board data logging for them. It gives a lot of the tuning sets that they’re used to having but is directly on their dash.”
In development from DIYAutoTune is a drive-by-wire controller, VanOrder explained, “something people have been asking about for years. Ours functions a little differently than the competition. I can’t really go into the details, but our primary concern is safety, safety, safety. I cannot stress that enough. We don’t want just a simple pedal follower system; we want something with checks and balances. We don’t want guys out on the race track having an issue and the system not go into limp mode appropriately. I  have seen some scary things happen on the race track when drive-by-wire controllers malfunction. We are taking our time to make sure we get it right.”

New Construction Phase

When we asked him about new products in development, Mark Honsowetz of the Edelbrock Group in Olive Branch, Mississippi, said the Edelbrock Electronics Category “is currently in a new construction phase. We are reviewing the capabilities and features of all our existing EFI products and how we could fill voids and demands in the current motorsports industry so we may develop new products that offer our consumers an advantage on the race track. The wheels are in motion, and we are excited to announce a completely new product line in the very new future.”
One challenge the company is facing is “supply chain constraints on the semiconductors and components used in our ECUs, which has made it difficult to continue developing many of these ECUs,” he added. While the company finds the “best channels” to “fill the void left by many of our sunsetted EFI products,” Edelbrock still offers its Pro Flo 4 and Pro Flo 4 Plus EFI systems, “which are capable of 800-plus horsepower and are popular for sportsman drag racing classes.”
Honsowetz said the Flo 4 Plus EFI product line “provides the traditional Pro Flo EFI simplicity with additional VCT, ETC, alternator charging control, knock control, and many other advanced features for more modern engine platforms like the Chevrolet LS, Gen III Hemi, and Ford Coyote. CAN communication has opened a whole new window for expanding a more basic EFI system into a powerful network of ancillaries like dash displays, transmission controllers, power distribution modules, and data analysis tools.”
Technology is changing so fast, Honsowetz said, that “especially with EFI systems, it has become more difficult to provide advanced products that provide an IO platform for most any application or class of racing and are supported with a simple and intuitive supporting software.” Yet “simple” is just what Edelbrock customers are asking for, he noted. “Edelbrock puts a lot of emphasis on simplicity. We want to provide EFI systems that make the conversion from carbureted applications or for new builds an easy, enjoyable experience. The accompanying E Tuner tuning app is compatible with most Android and Apple personal devices, and it provides simple setup and tuning and eliminates the necessity for expensive additional calibrating and dyno sessions.”
While steering clear of speaking specifically about new Edelbrock product, Honsowetz said in general “racers can expect ECUs with improved ignition and fuel control, programable IO features, and simple, programable PID and algorithm control for additional power adders. More control over engine power adders and accessories is all part of the power management game. Reasonable cost, reduced product footprint, and simple expansion are also all in the near future.”

Easier to Use

The goal of making its engine management systems easier to use came up several times when we spoke with Richard Shumack of Haltech, which is headquartered in Wetherill Park, New South Wales, Australia.
“You’ll see that with our new Nexus Rebel LS for example,” he explained. “It’s very easy for someone to set up and get running, whereas previous Haltech products needed a fair bit of configuration, even with base maps available.”
Designed specifically to support Gen III and IV LS engines, the Nexus Rebel LS features eight pre-configured ignition and injector outputs, two user-definable analog voltage inputs, engine position inputs dedicated to the crank and camshaft, a dedicated Haltech CAN Bus network, and Wi-Fi and data logging onboard. The ECU is sold with an engine harness kit, and it can be set up either using the Setup Wizard in the software or through Haltech’s new Haltech Connect app.

That app was the result of another of Haltech’s goals, Shumack said: “Expanding what we do. Our customers love our engine management systems and are quite vocal in their desire for us to expand our range. In the past, Haltech only made EFI controllers. Now we also sell dashes and PDMs (power distribution modules), and the list of things our customers want to do with dashes and PDMs is always expanding. Previously people just wanted to drive fans and pumps, but now that we have a light sensor in the dash and a PDM that controls headlights, we want to be able to make the headlight function automatic based on ambient light.
“People are always adding more sensors and want better ways to check the health of their investments,” he noted, so Haltech is developing “more data logging and viewing options. And there are always requests for more complex functionality or higher levels of system integration.”
Shumack said racers can expect future Haltech products “to get easier to use. We understand that our customers enjoy all aspects of their vehicles, not just driving but also building, upgrading, and maintaining them. We want to be right there with them for the entire journey, so our aim is to make the Haltech process of install, setup, and running the best user experience we possibly can.”

Instant Live Tuning

Located in Torrance, California, near Honda’s US headquarters, Hondata got its start some 25 years ago in New Zealand when Doug Macmillan and Derek Stevens “wanted to do things to our own Hondas,” Macmillan explained. The depth of its experience with Honda products has enabled Hondata “to do things that no one else is doing” in the realm of engine controls, he said, including the ability to tune the Civic Type R (both the FK8 and FL5 as well as the Integra-S DE5 platform) literally on the fly. Instant Live Tuning, a software update the company released in February 2024, gives tuners “the ability to adjust fuel, ignition, cam angle, and things like that” while the Civic is on the track, “because there are some things you cannot do by re-flashing the computer. Some of these things have to be done while the car is running.”

The first use of Instant Live Tuning that was brought to Macmillan’s attention took place in March at the Global Time Attack Super Lap Battle at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas. Matthew Rushton of REDRAGN Racing said his tuner, John Pierro of FK8 Tuning & Development, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, had tuned Rushton’s Civic to “a healthy 547 whp on the dyno,” but he planned to be trackside in Austin and use Hondata’s new software to “maximize the car’s tuning in a real-world competition environment.”
“A dyno is a necessary part of the tuning and racing procedure,” Macmillan pointed out, “but validation on track is absolutely essential, because there are conditions on the track that you will not get on the dyno.”
“John brought two laptops and utilized the cell phone hot spot, Hondata Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi service at the track to access live data during my on-track sessions,” Rushton explained. “As my entire build was fresh and had never seen the track, we needed data! Through the use of Hondata’s Live Tuning feature, John was able to make real-time changes to the tune as he monitored everything from temperatures, pressures, and even wheelspin. Having access to live data allowed the tune to be tailored to local altitude, temperatures, fuel, and hundreds of other variables in order to safely maximize performance. Adjustments were literally being done during actual laps to help improve lap times and make traction control seamless and invisible to the driver’s senses.”
Rushton’s lap times improved by seven seconds during the event, and he finished second in the Enthusiast class. Macmillan acknowledged that tuning likely wasn’t solely responsible for the quicker laps, because Rushton and Pierro “were shaking the car down in a bunch of different areas.” Rushton himself gave credit to Pierro’s “extensive knowledge of the FK8 and FL5 platforms” as well as the “amazing features of the Hondata tuning platform” for his results.
“This highlights the deep control we have over the Civic Type R computer,” Macmillan said. “We are recoding the computer to do all sorts of useful things.” Right now, Macmillan is in the midst of adapting some of Honda’s newer ECUs to run flex fuels. “We’re recoding the computer to understand when we put a sensor in the fuel line, and it reads flex fuel content and feeds it to the ECU, it will on-the-fly adjust the performance, altering ignition and injection duration based on the ethanol content.”
Using an alcohol-based fuel like E85 “is like having an in-cylinder intercooler,” he pointed out. “You spray the flex fuel through your DI injector, and as the flex fuel evaporates in the cylinder, it pulls the temperature of your charge down.” The lower efficiency of E85 versus gasoline limits its viability in endurance racing, “but in shorter races, if the sanction bodies allowed it, flex fuel is a good option because your engine runs cooler with higher octane.”
The day we spoke to Macmillan, the new flex-fuel system was undergoing testing in the SEMA emissions lab. “Our goal is to get 49-state approval for our flex-fuel system for Hondas. We focus a lot on 49-state and CARB-approved products, as it gives our customers and our dealers a choice,” he continued. “By doing that, we can help keep the EPA off our dealers’ backs. We tell our dealers to make sure they have our CARB-approved and 49-state approved products on their website, so if the EPA happened to look, they can see they offer emissions-legal stuff as well as race-only stuff. We’re providing options so that our racing products aren’t seen as the devil incarnate. You can have clean, green, and fast.”

Tuning Reliably and Consistently

When asked about new products in the pipeline, Derek Morley of HP Tuners in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, played it close to the vest. “We are constantly developing new products to excite our customers. We are continuously exploring and developing systems to control varying powertrain systems. Watch this space.”
HP Tuners recently went through a major introduction with the launch of its CORE ECU and VCM Live software at the 2023 SEMA Show. CORE is HP Tuners’ “debut stand-alone engine management solution,” a company source said, in support of GM LS applications. Among its key features are fueling control for up to 16 injectors (enabling flex fuel control) and sequential injection, support for up to eight coil packs, dual throttle body support, two built-in lambda controllers, internal data logging, three CAN Bus networks and ethernet connectivity, nitrous control, traction control, and turbo boost control.

VCM Live is the latest version of the company’s VCM software that’s designed specifically for the CORE stand-alone ECU. It “combines diagnostics and calibration elements into a single, user-friendly interface,” the source shared. That interface is entirely new when compared with HP Tuners’ existing VCM Suite and enables live tuning and data logging in real time, among many other features.
“The customer is asking for ease of use with their new systems,” Morley said. “We are concentrating on specific engine releases, which includes defining templates and calibrations, making it easy for users to start their journey and expand their tuning capabilities.” The new CORE system “has the functionality to allow an enthusiast to extract greater performance reliably and consistently.” CORE is LS-only for now, but more applications will be coming soon.
Morley also said HP Tuners is “closely monitoring the latest trends toward EV and hybridization, and this is in alignment with our strategies over the next few years.”
What can racers expect from future engine management systems? “Machine learning is becoming more prevalent,” Morley said. “Expectations from the consumer are that these systems should have a degree of plug-and-play and the ability to self-calibrate to a base setting.” The fine tuning, he added, would be done “by an experienced calibrator thereafter.”

SOURCES

DIYAutoTune
diyautotune.com
Edelbrock Group/FAST
edelbrock.com
FK8 Tuning & Development
fk8td.com
Haltech
Haltech.com
Hondata
hondata.com
HP Tuners
hptuners.com