pmhellings

Meanwhile, my Hydra is working well.

Paul

Lokiel

I think you've missed the point of this thread completely.

Hint:
If you're considering buying an ECU today, purchasing a Hydra is NOT advisable given that its future is questionable.
If you already have one, FM will support its tuning but there may not be any more updates to the hardware/software/firmware (which shouldn't bother you if your setup works well - just like your toaster, who cares if the manufacturer no longer exists or how old it is if it does its job).

Keith@FM

iTrader: (1)

I prefer the term "mature product"

pmhellings

I was considering the FM 221 as it is a Flyin' Miata product. I'm glad that there is an alternative at a lower price. I recently bought my Hydra for exactly the reasons you point out. Who cares if there are no updates if it works well. If you want to go through the inevitable growing pains of a new ECU, that's fine. Meanwhile, I just installed the latest firmware from the "Dead Company".Even the beloved Megasquirts have lots of issues as evidenced by the forums, but they have a legitimate place in the Turbo Forum as they are a well functioning, for the most part, product.

There is something to be said for a product that has been completely developed and will continue to be supported. This is not a thread about FM221 ECU's or Megasquirts.

If it was intended to be one more thread bashing Hydras then, perhaps you are right, I missed the point. But if it was a discussion of whether or not Hydra was a dead company, then I guess I was merely trying to contribute.

Paul

achervig

Got my FM221 yesterday, here's what it comes with, plus a bunch of files sent electronically. Won't be installing it for another couple weeks but I'll follow up when I do.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

No case?

codrus

It goes in the OEM ECU case.

--Ian

mgtmse01

I can testify to Hydra reliability, I have been running one since 2011 and I have only had 1 issue with timing that I think was caused by me skipping an update. I emailed Jeremy @ FM and he wrote me an update and the problem was promptly fixed. Besides that, the unit has been trouble-free.

Matt Thorne

Do you actually have any experience of the FM/ME221 or are you just here for the warrior points?

It's OK of course if you are just bashing away at the keyboard, just means once you state it, you're opinion can be labeled as inexperienced bias going forward, which is what it comes across as anyway....

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

ME221 = Matthew's Engineering 2/21 ? Are you the progenitor or just a fanboi?

Matt Thorne

Motorsport Electronics 221

Yes I am the hardware engineer - we were a trader on here when we first released the ME221, but because of MS fanboy-ism that runs rampant on this forum, we decided against renewing our trade status - we sell 60+/month in the UK now since all of the respected MX5 tuners switched to the ME221, so when I see literal slagging off of the ME221 before trying it, I think its only fair to call it into question....

Your comments on my skills are an exact example of that - I wonder what I did to wrong you? funny though

Cheers

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

You do know we are two different people, right?

You will likely be able to mark 18psi's return to this thread by you not being able to find it again. But me? Not so much.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Dear sir,

You got banned for spamming/advertising without being a sponsor, don't try to twist the truth. I just checked right now since now you created a duplicate account and I can technically ban you permanently for breaking the rules. In fact, it was Braineak that banned you, not me, but now you got my attention so I promise you this is going to be really good and entertaining now.

Now then, I'll answer your question: I am a friend of the person who was WORKING AT FM ON DEVELOPING THIS STUPID PIECE OF JUNK, and at the time, it was pathetic. I've also helped quite a few people troubleshoot crappy problems that should not have existed, so again, when I say it's mediocre I mean just that and it's the truth. Maybe you fixed all the crappy issues by now. I don't know. But don't you dare come in here and spout your stupid nonsense acting like we're MS fanboys and hating on your simply because you're a competitor.

I've tuned or at least fiddled with LITERALLY just about every single ecu for a Miata at this point. I have no preference or allegiance, I use what works best or what's easiest to work with and has good support. Same goes for most/many here. We don't care who you are, if you make a good product you'll get lots of community support here.

So I'm gonna give you one last chance to stop being a douchebag, and start over, before I permanently ban you and any other duplicate accounts you ever make. You can spout your nonsense and deny all the issues your ecu had and how roughly it started on any other forum, they'll probably believe you. But not here. We're not clueless children here.

Matt Thorne

Indeed this is interesting, so in the interest of fairness, would you please care to elaborate, in a nice bullet pointed list the array of issues that you have seen with the ME221?

I think that way I can confirm if we indeed have fixed said 'crappy issue' or if we have simply pretended it not to be there... Again, any links to where I have denied issues would also be very helpful - apologies if I have I simply cannot remember, links/quotes would be helpful.

Without this evidence, I can't really do alot to refute the claims and as it being "A stupid piece of junk" would then be just your opinion, without even so much as anecdotal evidence - the ignition and fueling accuracy as well as update speed are superior to MS3 - we will be doing back to back testing and having it independently verified very soon, so unless those areas of an ECUs functionality are not important to you, then so be it - I await to hear in what other regards the product lacks features.... of course if you wanted to try one out to really get an idea of what you're dealing with, then happy to look into send one for you to evaluate - thats' the scientific method anyway- I would want to see your issue list first though, as you can imagine if we have missed something obvious (that none of the top tuners in the UK or FM have found either) then we had better get on and fix that ASAP!

I am not interested in advertising the ME221 on here - you have no worry of that occurring again, we have no need to.

Awaiting your response...

PS becuase of an experience from an internal tester during development - that is idiotic - ask MS how they got on with MegaTune/MS1 back in the day - DEVELOPMENT is just that - rate the product on its release, not its development - common sense (to me anyway!)

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Yes, it is/was my opinion. Everything here is a matter of opinion of members/tuners. It's a forum.
Look through some of the threads linked above. Search around for troubleshooting threads of your product. Why would I go through the trouble of doing your job for you?

PS: I've never gotten any discounts on MS, I've never got any sponsorship, heck I never even got any sort of special attention or support aside from the community support here.
When my multiple MS units had issues, they were all publicly discussed here. All the mistakes, screw ups, errors, everything was always called out. I never hid any issues.
Same goes for just about everyone here. There is nothing to hide. All the issues are public knowledge.
So to say we're all MS fanbois on this site is getting really old and was never true.

Matt Thorne

And how many issues have ME ECUs had? Seriously? We have had maybe 5 in for RMA in 3 years!!! And 3 of them were due to BETA FW issues that were ran at users won risk, fixed, FOC, under lifetime warranty - and you call our ECU junk??!! That is my position on this... Even the guy Elior whom you link to on MX5nutz stated how the customers car is now running 'OK' despite the fact we did NOTHING to the ECU apart form he added a diode to change the idle drivers action t match our later versions.... wow

This is the funniest bit really - we time an time again get told on the phone by customers how they have searched high and low and not only can they RARELY (if ever) find anyone with an issue with our ECU, they see nothing but stellar support and happy user in the end. We have had ONE person require a refund and that was from the very first batch of hand built units - 3 years ago now! You being ONE user had MULTIPLE MS failures! Maybe you should give the ME221 some praise for that instead of, like I said, hating on it from an Ex FM employee who was involved with ALPHA testing of the FM variant in its INFANCY!

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Maybe you should read this thread in it's entirety before you go cherry picking posts and crying about unfair judgment of your unit? It was/is a discussion.

We're past that now. The guy already bought one, and promised to document his experience. We've all agreed to hear him out and no one here is hoping for failure, on the contrary, we're hoping it's better than what we remember about it from before.

If he comes back and says it's all great now and works perfect, has no issues, and the interface is easy to work with, do you think we're going to deny him sharing his experience?

Matt Thorne

I agree that yes, time will tell - however - you cannot deny that for some reason you have been a naysayer since day one - if a product comes along that is adopted well by the tuners in the UK, is it fair to call it a piece of crap? Is it fair to say that to any company without first hand experience? You're welcome to try one out and give feedback, and who knows, you might find it really easy to get on with - I ahve eben tuning ECUs for 15 years - we took the best from the best, Link style layout, MoTeC/Syvecs accuracy, Haltech customizability, VE based fuelling etc and created an ECU that delivers for a good price (in the UK the ME221 is only £550inc VAT so its alot cheaper than other ECUs with alot more features) and we get abused for it? Really?

What is it specifically you remember from before? With those points presented I can address them, and we do always welcome feedback regardless of its source as it only goes to making the product better in the long run for everyone

Matt Thorne

You see this is the issue - you present the argument for it being "crap" but are unwilling to present sources.

The one I see, that Elior chap, customer ended up fine and you can see from the MX5Nutz postings how it ended for him - he said he couldnt get idle right, yet the issue was not the ECU, not if EVERYONE ELSE can tune it - we offered help every step of the way, as usual...

Apart from Elior there was this one on here - turned out to be a starter motor issue after braineack jumped in with his "helpful comments" (Me were subsequently thanked for the help...
: https://www.miataturbo.net/ecus-tuning-54/me221-87465/

So present your sources - telling me to "google it" is no way to present a point - ti wouldnt work in court, so why should it work here? You stated a claim, back it up...

18psi

iTrader: (76)

I've used various MS units over the past 8 years, they've been around before you were even in the business of ecu's. Don't try to compare your company to theirs and compare all your "lack of issues" to their "issues".
You've not been around long enough to make claims like that. Only time will tell how your ecu/unit will do, and no amount of PR and self-praise from you will change that right now.
lol again, I'm not doing your job for you. The issues we heard about are posted here.
Being an ecu builder I'd hope you have the brainpower to search forum(s).

You can use the "innocent until proven guilty" approach all you want, it's really not doing much to show people that you've got a good product on the market.

If you don't care about being a vendor here, then why did you make a duplicate account? Why did you come back?
If you're selling these like hot-cakes, why would you care about the opinion of a group of guys on some insignificant Miata site?
Why are you so mad?