These last couple of weeks Ben, an engineer from Pi Research/Pectel, and I have been living and breathing 2008 Subaru Impreza STi. The Cosworth EC Pro is designed by the brains at Pectel UK (a division of Pi Research and sister company of Cosworth) for Cosworth. It is exclusively sale and use in the North American market so all you guys in Europe will not be able to purchase or use it (for now at least). There are enough differences between the European market STis and North American STis to make it a very impractical adaptation. For you Americans though, you will soon have the absolute most powerful plug-in ECU available in the world. Yes, I am making that claim straight up. You can’t really call me arrogant when I’m simply reporting the truth. It is designed by the people who bring you world class motorsport grade engine control technology (Pectel) and engine technology (Cosworth).
Understanding Ben’s English accent is a whole different thing entirely. I get about 80-90% of it now after two weeks, but there’s still a lot of, “What was that?” After Ben says it again, sometimes there’s another “Huh?” Learning Brit slang is fun though. The good thing is that we get along well and have common interests. After all he drives an R33 Skyline and likes Nissan RB engines. Imagine that right? The guy who used to be the senior engine development engineer for the Subaru World Rally Team (Prodrive) drives a Skyline with a 500hp RB25.
The EC Pro development is going well. It’s not easy since the 2008 STi is full of chassis electronics and CAN stream data, but the car is driving excellent now. What I can say is that the base map the ECU will come with will be very good for a true “Plug and Perform”. Ben and I are handling all of the driveability details so all you professional tuners have to do is the fun part (dyno tune and collect $$$). In fact, the EC Pro even drives most of the factory smog devices. Of course you will have the option to disable these controls and use them for more important things such as _______________ (fill in the blank with almost anything you can imagine an ECU can do). For more details on the EC Pro, click here and scroll toward the bottom.
By the way, the EC Pro is not meant to directly compete with piggybacks, Ecutek or the COBB Accessport. All of the aforementioned definitely have their place and cost far less than the EC Pro. The EC Pro is targeting the crowd that requires the full power and complete control of a complete stand alone ECU, internal logging, expandability with a motorsport dash and additional sensors (thermocouples, temp/pressure sensors, strain gauges, linear pots, etc.).
This has been our office for the last two weeks.
You think Ben knows a little something about Subarus?