Standalone ecu for a st205, Worth it? Options

[skogs]

Hi, a workshop is changing the engine in my st205, and they have given me an offer to change the ecu to a haltech stand-alone and remap it for a total of about 900£ extra. Do you think this will be worth it? They will be putting in a Spec stage 3+ clutch while they're at it.

[malpaso]

As offer it is looking really good (price of ECU and good mapping would cost 2-3 more). Still I believe you should ask few questions:

- is provider/seller reliable? For example if my current mechanic said "I have new ECU for with mapping session included for 1400€ (about equivalent of 900pounds)" I would be just staring with open mouth... Good ECU and mapping costs about 2500-3000 Euros. But if the same I heard from guy who worked on my car previously I would say "no" becasue for this price I would have from him only overpriced ECU (with probably suspicious history) with some base map he downloaded from interent. I am not saying anything about your seller now! I just met few people in my life so far and know that level of quality (and sense of quality) can be different. Price is not everything.

- Are you really sure it's all inclusive total price? I mean... price of HW and value of map is one thing but there is also another aspects. Like instalation of ECU to the car (wiring it). Plus I would expect there are needed some sensors to buy in addition for proper functionality (always is there something like this). Necessary wide-band lambda for air/fuel ratio measurement??? What ever... just came to my mind first. I would check this as well. Just to be sure.

- do you really need new ECU? Some say... if you don't want go above 300HP your stock ECU is good enough. You can keep many OEM parts on car and new standalone is just waste of money. That is what only you know the best what is your goal and expectations.

hope that helped...