Thoughts on the XeDe?
 

Read all about it but just looking for opinions?
The dyno charts they put out don't look like the XeDE did a whole lot, am I wrong?

http://www.bellengineering.net/Pages/products_Xede.html

Does the XeDe compare to the EMU, link, hydra, ...?

You mean like the Mazdaspeed 3, where it only gained 66hp and 80lb-ft of torque at the wheels?

xede cant ditch the maf, that ones a big problem in my opinion.

Holy junk! My bad didnt see that one. I retract my previous statement!

there was talk about it be able to run without a maf in the future, plus i think it would probably get almost any miata where they want to be

I spoke with Stephanie at length re the Xede. Seems like an impressive machine. The unit itself is $1k plus $200 for a pnp harness. Will run 440s or 550s on a 1.6. They are working on an afm replacement map (she said it would be ready as time permits, they were working on some temp compensation stuff). It will run boost control. It will autotune (I think they call it "smarttune") with a wideband.

Obviously, it's a piggy and not a stand alone like Hydra, Link, AEM, Tec. Thats good or bad, depending on how you look at it. I don't believe it to have any knock features (logging, retard on knock, enrichment on knock). Also, something in its temp sensing isn't fully evolved (Steph asked me if I had +/- 20 deg swings in ambient when I drive).

I was fully set to try the Xede out on my car, when I thought it was $1k. When I found out that the harness is an upcharge, and the unit is $1200, some of the other options didn't look too far away. AEM for $1200: Extremely capable, but limited support. Link for $1800: "Polished" but really maxed out, just old technology. Hydra for $2000: Not as refined as the Link yet, but much more capable, should yield 10% more power than Link. Probably about the same as the AEM, but with a lot of support.

The Xede can use a a MAP sensor.

I know it's an old topic but I've been running Xede now for ~6 months on Bell S3 in the '00 and can offer some insight. Xede does somthings very well, map editing etc all easy although the units displayed are a % of the change it's going to make to a pass thru signal so maps have values that don't translate to real values (such as pulsewidth or ontime and degrees of timing are an offset of what the car is already running) although you get used to this when tuning. Bell doesn't support MAP sensor yet... sigh I've only asked them 50 times and volunteered to be their guinnea pig, they do have this on the 1.6 but they don't advertise it. Dual map is very nice I have a red switch in the dash to go to a hotter timing map (and after adding boost solenoid) bigger boost w/possibly WI added to this later with a relay. Install is EZ, tuning = pretty EZ, lack of Temperature awareness is obnoxious although I believe they're working on that (I have winter maps and now summer maps - which could also be put on the map select switch if desired). Xede support is via Bell (Stephanie) whom is reasonably knowledgeable and if they can't solve it the problem goes to Shiv and he's pretty decent to talk to. There are extra I/Os on it for WI and Wideband O2 integrates and now O2 smartmapping (auto adjustments based on WO2 feedback). The software is decent about what I expect, I'm running w/550's which makes hot startup annoying every now and then (when the OEM ECU kicks in cold start when the car is not really that cold) and can oscilate the idle though I've gotten rid of that issue for the most part. Would I go this route again.. for the money - probably, if not the Xede I'd take a serious look at the hydra or Squirt it but that's a whole nother class of ECU. With Xede expect CEL to stay on forever.. Getting it inspected is a PITA but possible. Generally CEL is due to P0300 or high idle(which I turn down for inspection) which I pretty much assume plagues Turbo cars with big injectors (drive w/o boost for 30mins and you can pass inspection).

WOW. A lot of info! Thanks for the insight!

I don't like the way the Xede 'controls' larger injectors. It's not like the EMU which passes the injection width through the ECU, but just scales back the MAF voltage pre the OEM ECU to 'trick' the OEM into thinking there is less load. There's a whole lot of tuning to do there!

The EMU seems a better buy, as you have the MAF scaler if you want it, but can also drive injectors independently.

Phil

This is a good point xede does scale pre ECU per the trick you mentioned and doesn't do individual injector control, I believe it can do aux injector control but most can handle that function. When you get it from Bell it's preloaded for the application but if building a custom setup this may yield a fair amount of tuning to get it right - I had to do quite a bit of tuning even with the preloaded maps. I'd love to find a source for the actual dev side of xede info.