Its not SMOG legal, as in ... its not approved. Not sure what they mean by "smog stations might be confused" ... Its still OBDII compatible.

Its like saying its not CARB approved -- Not legal, but it might pass all the tests anyway. California is much more strict about these sorts of things than Virginia/Maryland. From what I know, as long as a OBDII scanner doesn't pickup any codes, you should pass in Virginia according to the new system.

As far as K-Pro being a piggyback / not piggyback. There's a huge difference between K-Pro and a Piggyback like E-Manage.

What E-manage does is modify the signals after the ECU sends them out. Its like a man-in-the-middle kind of connection. The ECU sends out the information to the engine, the piggyback then modifies this signal and then the engine gets the information.

The problem with piggyback ECUs is that like Bill suggested, the OEM ECU since its a "learning" ECU can possibly change things to undo what the piggyback has done. I'm not very familiar with how the ECU sends information to the engine but the piggyback modifies this signal so if its giving lets say like +1v to make a change to the signal, and the ECU is now giving -2v because its trying to fix something, the piggyback would need to either know to give +2v, or it'd need to be retuned.

The Hondata ECU isn't a piggyback, its a re-flashed ECU that allows for customized configuration of a lot of the paramaters. Basically, lets assume for a second that the ECU is a USB thumbdrive. On the thumbdrive, there's a program that is run which is the ECU. Hondata erases this data and puts in their own version of the software, a hacked version so to speak that allows you to customize a lot of the parameters.

A lot of OEM ECUs can be reflashed. Audis for example have reflashes for their A4 1.8Ts which increases boost and produces large gains.

The EMS has taken a lot of flack for being unreliable. I've heard people who track their cars say that the EMS has crashed on them and put their car into "limp mode".

I'm still questioning whether or not its worth the extra money to buy the Hondata for $1800 over the EMS which can be found for $1000-1300 depending on the model you choose. If there were a groupbuy for the K-Pro and the parts you need to bring the price down near $1500 I think the answer would be K-Pro, only because its closer to the OEM ECU.

 

Thanks Ryan.

It is my understanding after reading Hondata's thread that the only thing that wouldn't pass it would be a visual inspection of the ecu itself... Which in states that aren't as strict as California, wouldn't be a problem.

 

Yea thats the only thing that bothers me about calling this system a "stand alone" because it still uses a system designed and developed by honda. Hell it requires specific sensors and parts that you need to buy separately just so you can get the thing to work... The EMS on the other hand has its own software, and it doesn't matter what sensors you have... You can calibrate any sensor to work with the EMS... from what it seems with this system, you still need to satisfy the "honda" portion of the software with specific sensors to get it to function.

It just CANT be a standalone... and I guess you can make a very good argument that it is NOT a piggy back... so I guess you have to say its something in between. A very sophisticated piggy back system perse...

 

or a Honda-inspired standalone... per se

Either way, having another way of tuning our cars isn't a bad thing which is why I don't get the point of standalone vs piggyback.

 

Ehh thats kinda pushing it, lol Honda "inspired" ??? LoL


And again, my argument wasn't to make the hondata system seem bad or discredit it by any means. I just wanted to make sure that anyone reading this understood some specifics about how the system works. I wanted to get rid of any misconception or confusion about this system especially as compared to the AEM EMS.

 

There are plenty of other ways of tuning.

HKS FCon Pro (stand alone), Apex-i Power FC (stand alone), motec (stand alone), the list can go on and on. It's just a matter of finding a tuner that can work with that particular software/application.

 

it's a Programmable ECU. Can we get over this standalone vs piggyback issue now?

 

What the hell is all of the arguing about? The system is either a piggy-back or a stand-alone.

In the case of the S2000 KPro, it is a stand-alone unit. Until '06, the S2000 ECU wasn't flashable, which meant you were stuck with the pre-programmed fuel/air maps, etc. Under some of the arguments posted here, an '06 and up stock ECU would be considered a piggy-back system... hogwash! A piggy-back system can essentially be defined as a modifier to another system (such as an e-manage, which requires another ECU already in the mix). The AEM EMS is a stand-alone unit requiring no other ECU in the mix.

The KPro is a stand-alone ECU from a different vehicle that has had the flashable air/fuel maps modified to work with the S. It completely replaces the stock ECU and therefore is a stand-alone unit.

Hell, you could use an e-manage on an AEM unit... the AEM EMS would be a stand-alone controlled by an e-manage piggy-back. It's possible, but stupid.

Now, let's get back to more constructive BS...

 

The arguing is about trying to clear any possible misconceptions that might develop related to this product and to do so in a way that certain facts about how the product actually functions are brought up. This way people can make their own judgements about whether they want this product, and not be affected by the hype around the product when making their decision.

And again, the KPro is NOT a full stand-alone because it uses hardware created by Honda and relies on software created by honda. Those are facts I picked up from YOU all. It can't be a standalone because if you take away the Honda software on the ECU, the hondata system will cease to function. I won't even use the hardware portion of it.

I REITERATE...I AM NOT CALLING INTO QUESTION THE PERFORMANCE OR RELIABILITY OF THE HONDATA SYSTEM. IT MAY BE BETTER THAN THE AEM STAND ALONE EMS... BUT AGAIN IT MAY NOT. THAT IS SOMETHING ELSE THAT WILL BE ANSWERED ONCE THE PRODUCT HAS BEEN AROUND FOR A WHILE AND USED IN DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS.

 

well, Kpro has been around for some time and it has single handedly made the K series the most widely used new engine swap out there (I say new just because of how long b series swaps have been out there in relation to the k series, obviously there will be more b swaps)... This S2K-Pro is just another of it's "different applications"