Im building a 5.4 modular twin turbo setup and looking for a good engine management system. So far I like what im reading about the post 2012 Holley dominator system. I know guys running fast too but they told me they dont offer dual wide bands. For a street strip car id like to have both banks monitored. Keeping the stock pcm to run gauges and the 4r100 transmission. Might change to a gm transmission later. Local tuner didnt like it until I told bim that holley added v.e tables to their software. So, anyone having any luck running the dominator efi?

 

I have worked with both. FAST can run dual widebands by just routing the second wideband into the analog connector.
Holley has just worked out the mod engine trigger pattern I believe. The HP and Dominator are both good systems and have good features. The 2.0 update took what was called "speed density" which really wasn't and added a true speed density table called VE that works well. We became a Holley dealer last year and have sold/tuned quite a few since then.

 

Thats what a local tunner tokd me. He didnt like. Or should I say it wasn't really common place to tune in lb per hour fuel. Now with ve he is liking it. My only issue with the fast is no dual wide band to run the pcm. And im running twins on street car so id like a system that can manage eaxh bank

 

Holley isn't the only system out there that supports dual widebands and a modular motor ignition. Any particular must-have features you're looking for beyond these specific items?

 

You can do that with either one. Too much bad info that floats around on the internet.
Both systems can read two widebands and both systems have the ability to adjust per cylinder

 

The Holley is an extremely versatile system. As Brian stated most ECU's on the market can do what the holley does. I have used FAST and DFI in the past and I personally felt that the holley tuning program was the simplest and most well laid out of all of them. One other good thing is the new traction control and how robust it is for the $$$ if you are interested in running it. The boost control is awesome to use and highly tunable based on a bunch of different inputs.

Anthony

 

On the other hand, neither one of the two ECUs discussed here has the ability to use separate 3D trim tables for each cylinder; both use a fixed percentage at all load and RPM points.

It depends on what you need and how much fine tuning you want to do.

 

let it go Matt... he didn't ask about the Megasquirt.

No one in reality is going to use separate 3d trim tables for tuning each cylinder unless they have 8 O2 sensors and 98% of the people wont even use it then. Nice feature but mostly just for show.

 

Ok, Im running stock modular crank trigger and cam trigger. Holley tells me I will need a MSD part so instead of 3 volts at the cam it will read 5 volt (0-5). I have read some of the older holley EFI's had RF issues, but was told I should get the 4 wire coils. For now, im running a 4r100 and factory gauges, but in the future might go 4l80e. Running twin 6466 cae turbos currently controlled with a HKS ecs V controller, old but very accurate, but if that can be sold and use the pcm to do the same thing, im all for it. twin tial 44m gates, need to drive 8 injectors, probably 160# or larger, 30 psi max boost, so 4 or 5 bar map. I want the dual widebands connected and have apac able to read both and adjust accordingly. Again, that's more for street than track. AC, I have a DCC fan controller, but wouldn't mind using the PCM either. pretty much looking at a 1400 street truck. proabaly much less on pump gas. Currently running a fuel cell with magnafuel MP-4703 fuel pump and will be changing my regulator from an Aeromotive a-1000 to a magnafuel for fuel pressure control, not sure how the PCM relates to that.

 

I'll break this down into an item by item set of notes. If your two choices here are Dominator or FAST, I'd say the Dominator has a bit of an edge, but I'll touch on other ones as well.

The Dominator doesn't have anything in common with the earlier Pro-Jection (where the controller was made by MSD) or Commander 950 (a John Meaney design). There are a number of settings in there that look a bit similar to John Meaney's designs, but I think it's someone else copying Meaney's tuning strategies.

The Dominator has 4L80E control standard, and it's an option on BigStuff3. For any other ECU, you could use a TCI / FAST or Baumann standalone transmission control.

Pretty much any decent racing ECU can do basic boost control. Not all of them will do speed based boost control like the HKS - I don't believe FAST XFI currently has this feature; it has a simple boost amount vs throttle opening with some ability to reduce boost if wheel slip is detected.

Holley is a good bit more sophisticated, and would blow the HKS boost control out of the water - it can do timed boost curves from launch or use traction control to cut boost, for example.

The MS3-Pro will also do gear or speed based boost and can pull boost when wheel slip is detected.

AEM's Infinity has similar high end boost control features.

Not sure which of these are available with BigStuff3 or Haltech, but they all have boost control capability.

You'll probably want to look into the new crop of 2000 cc injectors out there. The Bosch Motorsports 160 lb/hr injectors that used to be the standard behave a bit weird at low pulse widths and can be a bit of a challenge to tune right at idle if your ECU doesn't have some sort of table to compensate for nonlinear injector behavior. The MS3-Pro has this, not sure about others. This is more of an issue on a VE based ECU than one that uses a pulse width table - in this case, specifying pulse width directly can have its advantages as long as you have enough resolution in the pulse width numbers you can enter.

Pretty much any good ECU will handle this.

If it's the relay based one, just about any ECU will run this fine. The variable speed one is harder to duplicate.

It doesn't; all the PCM will do is switch the pump off and on. The Magnafuel regulators are purely mechanical devices.

The individual trim tables mentioned above can be dialed in OK with EGT probes - again, may be more expense and time than wanted; it depends on what the budget is and if he's after that last 1-2% of horsepower. I wouldn't try 8 individual widebands on a turbo motor anyway; they're not going to like the heat and pressure.

 

Holley is currently still working on the Mod engine setup. I talked with them last week about another customers setup. There may be some beta stuff out there but not fully supported yet. It is coming.

All ecus have an issue with the cam signal on Mod engines. The 0-3v is an issue on the Mustangs since any RF noise will confuse the ecu into what is a CAM sync or not. I am working on a billet drop in hall sensor for these, it should be ready by next week, it will have a 0-12v signal output instead of the 0-3v.

Matt is pretty accurate other than the FAST boost control, it does have a tps vs duty and a time based setup for drag racing. Open loop, closed loop or dome pressure like AMS1000 does.

 

Sorry, missed that one - I may have been using an out of date manual on FAST.

 

The shop I'm planning on buying my my setup from also called holley last week and is also working on a drop in cam sensor and has a 7 second nova. Lol, sounds like we spoke on the phone maybe.

 

I should have the drop in Cam sensor deals next week.

 

We're on our 3rd Mod Motor using Dominator and have used various setups for cam/crank to make them work. We've modded stock setups using MSD sensors at closer proximity and even went the external crank trigger route on one. I spoke with Brian about his sensor but we needed something quicker and tested the MSD 8509. We are pleased with the results on both Cam/Crank and it's low cost (~$80) and easy wire in were a snap. Most of the info above covers what your after...