Which ecu for jdm import mk1 1994 1.8
 

For most applications the common answer is Megasquirt, but I'm from the UK and it seems most local tuners are promoting me221.

I'm hoping to go DIY, but a complete paid for turbo install including ecu isn't out of the question.

I'm confused about the availability for aftermarket ecu for jdm cars. Can anyone help?

Around here Megasquirt is king.

We don't support non vendor ms2 knockoff junk (me221).

The non biased answer is to find out what your local tuner (who doesn't have to be an MX5 specialist) can tune and is familiar with, and pick that. If you are planning on tuning it yourself, have a look at the software, community support and existing install base who you can turn to for advice.

ME221 is the flavour of the moment with MX5 tuners in the UK, possibly because they are giving them big discounts to seed the market and get an install base. Adaptronic was flavour of the month a few years back, but now support for that has pretty much dried up. Megasquirt has been around for a long time, and I imagine will be around for the foreseeable future as well, and has a bigger range of people who are familiar with tuning it, as well as more community support.

The biased answer is that the folks from ME have had a chequered past on here with knockoff unlicenced megasquirt boards, so there's plenty of negativity towards them and their ethics. There's a thread on here somewhere which got a bit hostile but is probably worth a read - https://www.miataturbo.net/hydra-58/...p-hydra-91029/

Thank you buddy, that was super helpful.

No probs.

If I was buying a new ECU today, I'd go with MS3 - nearly all of the tuners who have 'totally switched' to ME in the UK will and do still tune megasquirt, and the level of community info / support is far greater than for any other ECU used on the MX5, especially if you want to get involved with tuning it yourself.

Whichever way you look at it, the install base for Megasquirt is pretty massive, and it's pretty mature product and it's well supported by third party addons - CANbus gauges, wideband sensors, digital dash units, android/iphone apps etc

BTW - back to your original question, there's not a lot of difference between EUDM and JDM cars ECU wise. You probably have less emissions gubbins to worry about (no EGR etc) but MS / ME221 / whatever should still work without issues - I'm running MS3 (and previously Adaptronic and even Emanage Blue) on a JDM RS-Ltd with no issues...

Cheers jonboy, that's been helpful.