Yeah I'm done with the HYDRA it's getting removed soon. Now I have get another EMS for the MSM it would seem to me that there are two real options here and I have some experience with both.

option 1 AEM EMS-4 I helped a friend do a initial setup and tune on a subie the AEM software is super easy to use.

option 2 run a megasquirt 2 or 3 there is tons of support on the forum for MS setups. I have built a MSII before I built one for my truck (89 chevy c1500 w383/700r4) it worked great but I never tuned it past initial setup because my truck got broken into and they stole a 10 year old cd player, old 6x9's, edelbrock alum water pump, MSII, and some other things that were laying in the seat.

Anyhow Savington since you sell AEM EMS-4 have done an install and setup on a MSM or NB with a FMII at TSE? I'm looking to replace my HYDRA soon.

We replaced a malfunctioning Hydra 2.7 with an EMS-4 last year, yes. I don't have a PnP harness available for it yet (we hand-built the harness for that particular car) but it is doable.

There's a PNP EMS4 on your site, or am i just not savvy (haha see what i did there?) with the definition of PNP in that context?

Trackspeed Engineering

I won't be driving my car again until mid april is a PNP harness in the works, I have a motor build coming some what soon I can wait until then and just do a custom engine harness ether way. If you get a PNP harness I might do the switch early.

I don't have one specific for the MSM yet. It's a completely unique adapter harness, so it's probably the last one we'll release.

How hard is it to adapt a NB harness to MSM I'm fairly crafty with a soldering iron?

I've seen in a thread on here somewhere where Stephanie, Reverant and (someone else) were talking about the MSM using the same header as the NB2, but its something like 4 wires change locations. So "sounds easy" but I can't find the post that outlines it, so I can't say. One of those folks or Sav would have a much better handle on that.

Quick google search turned up this: MSM ECU connector

Thats all I think it is is stuff moved around in the harness I might have both pin outs on my computer so I guess I might be able to answer my own question.

I'm almost that stupid apparently !
 

I bought my Hydra 2.6 new , my " free " upgrade to 2.7 after shipping from Canada and upgrade to "gamma" so I could have Vvt control that i already had with the 2.6 was just north of $500.00.
What pisses me off are the features I've paid for, twice in fact that still don't work. Can you say EBC ! This is despite it being advertised as being fixed , twice .
The complete lack of documentation is the other thing that I find completely unacceptable .
Jeremy has done a pretty good job supporting me with the Hydra but I don't want to have count on him . Give me complete documentation ! And I'll happily deal with it myself.
Hydra's manuals are a bad joke at best , there still isn't a finished manual available for the 2.7 . How a product like this could be released to the end users without a complete manual is beyond me.
I have no problem paying for new features or real upgrades but I think the features I've already paid for should work as billed. Is this too much to expect?
I'm really beginning to feel like an unpaid beta tester.
I can't afford to change ECUs this year , but if FM/hydra don't get the EBC working this spring ,I'm going the look hard at my options this next winter.

I see that Leafy has informed Jeremy that at least the two of us have figured out how easy it is to make the 2.5 software work on Win7.

Hehe. Yeah my room mate pointed out that he got that email on his iphone while we were watching top gear a little while ago.

Ah ok, i just saw MSM as an option on your site. Definitely let us know when it's ready to be released! :)

Probably... i know we hate talking about this sort of thing on this forum, but i adapt old FCON PNP harnesses from MKiii Supras and FC RX7s to work with MX6s. Not terribly hard.


"Unpaid beta tester" is exactly why i don't want to upgrade.

The whole "Well you have this capability on your current ECU, but we're going to make you pay again to unlock it" is utter bullshit.

This is a company that seems to stay in business by force-feeding Koolaid and then shitting all over their existing customer base.

The product has to be REALLY GOOD to get away with that, and the product is NOT really good.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Fred. :(

The pricing they charge for upgrades (Should just be updates/fix what didn't work before) is outrageous as well.

I was going to send him step by step instructions on how to do it last night, but i was shitty enough that it probably wouldn't have been a constructive email.

And i LIKE Jeremy. He's a nice guy. I like all the guys up there. I just fucking hate this garbage product.

They're kind of in a shit position. The Hydra was a pretty good unit at the time when FM first started selling it. And honestly their current business strategy was par for the course back then. Heck Motec still uses the same business model, but companies like Haltech have gotten away from it. AEM still advertises their ecus as having all features and maps already unlocked, a relic from a bygone era. They cant just drop support of it and stop selling it, because it'll alienate their current customer base even more, and they might even have a contract/agreement with Hydra. And what else would they pick up? Motec is too expensive, Haltech is almost as hateful to use, TSE is already doing an AEM EMS4 setup, plenty of people already do Squirts. No one is going to buy adaptronic. All the cosworth/mclaren/bosch choices are WAY WAY WAY too much money too.

To be fair the 2.7 version does work pretty well. I've got a reasonably good tune on now , drivability is good ( not OEM good but not bad at all )
My problems have been fairly minor compared to some folks :
Inconsistent starting ,eventually traced to sequential spark with a NA Cas
Cold start was becoming an issue last fall just before I put the car away for the winter . Jeremy's new cold start settings seem to have helped that.
Most of the things that have bit me in the ass , stem from my not understanding how a setting or map actually works because ....... Wait for it ....... There's no $@cking MANUAL !
Next ,I'm about to go back to square #1 as I'm about to pull the motor to put in a built NB unit. Stay tuned .....

Why the Adaptronic hate? Apart from the shitty joints on the adapter boards (which are now a thing of the past anyway) they seem like a really decent unit. The Australian support is epic, not sure what it is like in the US though.

MoTeC have an offering similar in price to Haltech and the other big players, but the "optional extras" can make it quite expensive. The MoTeC features usually work fairly well and the logging is awesome.

In the states the cheapest I can find a new motec is $2600 when looking quickly M4.

This is some painful stuff to read. Anytime anyone even mentions considering getting a Hydra I'm going to point out this thread. I can't understand why FM bothers with them anymore.

Once in awhile with the MS2 I'd get a touch cranky, feeling like things weren't quite well implemented. But 98% of the time it's been fairly flawless, and sounds like 100x the product the Hydra is at 1/5th the price (literally).

MS3 Pro looks like a good feature / price trade off and I know we have good ms3 support here. Could probably get close maps and let pro tuner get the rest of the way. 2.7 is hugely better if you are running high impedance injectors like ID. Logging over CAN is finally there.

Currently it is working well for me but the idiosyncrasies with the Hydra, insane cost and problems really make it a hard sell. They only with 2.7 implemented firmware flashes and basic features from. 1999 Motec or 2002 Haltech. With 2.6 I thought I had been transported to early days of EFI with all the problems that should not exist in a mature market product.

I've used Hydra 2.5/2.6, so when I say that WARI is the worst piece of tuning software I've ever used, it should really mean something.