Plugging and Playing with AEM’s Series 2 ECM and B-Series Coil on Plug Kit

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Our solution though, must allow us to have our cake and eat it too.  Not only do we need the correct air fuel ratio and ignition timing at 8,500 RPM, Project EJ cannot suffer from cold start issues at 6,000 feet above sea level.

The AEM Series 2 plug and play EMS completely replaces the stock ECU while leaving the stock wiring harness and all of the stock sensors in place. With the Series 2 EMS, we gain infinite control over timing and fuel maps and at the same time, gain a slew of useful features that the factory ECU simply cannot offer.  Flat-shifting, traction control, boost control, and data-logging are amongst a few of the features.

For the same reason old guys love carburetors, I love aftermarket stand alone ECU's.  If you can make the leap and follow the learning curve, stand alone ECUs like the Series 2 EMS are easy to adjust once you completely understand the changes you're making.  To lessen the learning curve, AEM offers phone and forum tech support as well as courses on how to tune their systems.

Even better, the AEM Series 2 EMS also comes with a pre-loaded base map so getting the engine running is just a matter of unplugging the stock ECU and replacing it with the AEM Series 2 EMS.  The pre-loaded base map may not be spot on but serves to get the engine running and to a dyno where it can be fine tuned.  The base-map is actually much more than just a base-map; the map comes pre-loaded with correct table values for all the stock sensors and the hard work done for things like warm up enrichment, cranking settings, and idle settings which really cuts tuning time down.  Pretty simple, right?

Well, normally yes.  However, in our case we complicated the matter.  Just slightly though.  As we installed the AEM Series 2 EMS, we also decided to ditch the factory ignition system in favor of AEM's B-series Coil On Plugs (COP) conversion kit. This is MotoIQ after all and here, we don't settle for mediocrity.

Now if you know Hondas, you'll know that the stock B18C1 ignition is no slouch, so why did we ditch it?  We opted to use AEM's COP conversion kit for one, to eliminate the stock igniter that can plague the B-Series with problems.  Although a huge benefit of the AEM COP kit is its reliability, the main reason we upgraded to this COP kit was to gain an increase in spark intensity and spark duration.

With a higher static compression ratio, the air fuel mixture is packed together and squeezed more tightly.  This ultimately increases the resistance the spark faces when it makes it leap from the center to ground electrode.  It simply comes down to more molecules to traverse.  This is the same reason why turbo charged engines often need to run smaller plug gaps.