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The only company that I know that has been promoting Doctronics at all here is Ballade but they have been banned for almost a year now.
Since Doctronics is an Austrian company I would think they are most popular in Germany and other European countries, most users here are from north america.
I have a friend with a k-swap EK that is using their Pro-Ecu and is very happy.
Compared to the very old AEM EMS it's a very easy choice to go for ProEcu instead, just get it directly from Doctronics.
I installed one of these ECUs in my car last week and should be getting it on the dyno later this week. Initial impressions are:
1. Interface is pretty intuitive and similar to KPro, albeit you have less to play with.
2. Support is non-existent. I have tried emailing and calling Doctronics to get some questions answered, but haven't heard back. I did call Ballade and while they DID return my call and talk to me, I got a call from a sales person, not a tuner/tech guy so it wasn't very helpful.
I will report back as I play with it more and get it tuned.
Ballade sport you guys are very serious company and have great products. One question... What is the difference between Hondata K-pro P&P($2,500) Vs Doctronic proecu-S2k($1,400)?
The standard k pro requires you to change multiple sensors, valve cover,crank trigger wheel etc. Therefore all of that can add up quick, especially if you take it to a shop to have the necessary parts swapped order in order to run k pro. The k pro that ballade sells allows a straight plug and play deal. No sensor swap or added labor. The doctronics ecu is its own ecu, its supposed to be similar to k pro
So after getting the car tuned and driving it around for a bit, I'm back to give some of my thoughts on it.
- From a usability perspective, its the same as using K-Manager. Table layouts are the same but some of the keyboard short cuts are different.
- For some reason the Ballade Harness was made incorrectly and I didn't want to redo the harness so I wired my wideband into the ELD Input and I'm using that for closed loop operation. It works well, however, there's a 123 sec delay until it goes into closed loop which is annoying when you first start up the car.
- The quality of the harness itself leaves a lot to be desired. I couldn't de-pin some of the wires so in the end I had to remake it; I couldn't forced the issue, but the plastic felt like it was about to break apart with de-pinning tool. This was especially annoying since I kept getting random emissions CEL, e.g. P0453, that were a result of bad wiring. I was still getting the CELs even when forcing emissions to ready, which is pretty stupid; checking emissions readiness should disable all those CELs.
- The VTEC table is not ideal as it only uses RPM, vehicle speed, and ECT to determine if should go to the high cam. I had to keep my crossover point at 6k RPM; initially it was set to 4300 RPM but the car would want to keep crossing over to the high cam at partial throttle which was not desired. Doctronic should add a TPS parameter as well to resolve this.
- As advertised, its great to have a plug n play solution for AP1s that does not require switching out the sensors. The car started on the first crank using the base maps from Doctronic. Those maps also leave A LOT to be desired. The timing maps are retarded 20 degrees all the way through for some reason.
- You use the Nitrous settings to trigger meth/water injection, which is a workaround since there's no specific input for that.
- Support is limited. They did release a new software version last month, but there's little to no documentation available. I wonder how much longer that's going to last. You can use the K Manager to get a lot of your questions answered and the F1 function in the application itself gives you some information.
- Tables are very limited when compared Hondata/K Manager.
So the million dollar question, would I buy this again over a Hondata? I would. Its considerably cheaper than a Hondata and doesn't require changing sensors and the valve cover. Like I said before, the limited support, lack of tables, and poor wiring is a concern/annoying. Be prepared to spend some time getting setup to work like you want it. Lastly, I got the unit because I need to pass emissions when I move next year. I haven't had a chance to test that yet, but all the readiness tables are 'Complete' per an OBD reader.
Let me know if you have any questions or need help.
- You are talking about the "ballade harness": is that only the wideband harness ?
I mean, the main P&P harness to install this ECU on the S2000 is made by doctronics, right ? Doctronic - smart solutions - ProECU-S2K
Is this main harness ok ? good quality and really P&P ?
- The VTEC table is bad news: I agree with you that TPS position is important, I wouldn't want to be in high cams when just cruising on the highway... how can we know if an update is in progress ?
I think you're right: the main harness is made by Doctronic. I'm referring to the main harness being of poor quality; however, if you don't have to de-pin any wires then it should be fine. The harness is plug 'n play; the car started from the first push of the start button. Secondly, there are enough open pins on the harness that you add wiring for any sensors or output to a solenoid, pump, etc. I had to do this to get rid of one of the CELs.
I believe all harnesses come with the wideband option; at least mine did. It was wired as depicted on page 2 shown here: LINK I did not use the Honda wideband since I already have an AEM wideband, I didn't want to buy the Honda wideband, and I have limited space in the footwell as all the wiring for my Defi ZD gauge runs through the same grommet as the ECU wire loom. Also as you might have guessed, the ECU is smaller than the OEM S2K harness and the Doctronic does not come with any adapters similar to Hondata. I was still able to install it using a larger washer under the nuts to hold the ECU in place. Only 2 studs are used, while the top stud is not. Lastly, the harness is bulky and its cramped in the footwell. When you reinstall the plastic cover, there's a plastic clip that holds the cover in by your foot; I was not able to install that clip, but the cover is still held in securely and doesn't hit my foot.
Updates are available on the download section of the Doctronic site: LINK Latest update for the software is on 11/11. Uploading/downloading the maps from the ECU is super quick as well. The first time you do it during a session takes little longer (around 15 seconds), but once it caches the data it takes less than 5 seconds. Do not quote me on the times, but its fast.
So after getting the car tuned and driving it around for a bit, I'm back to give some of my thoughts on it.
- From a usability perspective, its the same as using K-Manager. Table layouts are the same but some of the keyboard short cuts are different.
- The VTEC table is not ideal as it only uses RPM, vehicle speed, and ECT to determine if should go to the high cam. I had to keep my crossover point at 6k RPM; initially it was set to 4300 RPM but the car would want to keep crossing over to the high cam at partial throttle which was not desired. Doctronic should add a TPS parameter as well to resolve this.
- As advertised, its great to have a plug n play solution for AP1s that does not require switching out the sensors. The car started on the first crank using the base maps from Doctronic. Those maps
Hey, thanks for your review. I also have the Doctronics installed and tuned by Ballade. I'm very happy with it so far.
The VTEC window parameters bug me as well...I don't like having to keep my highway cruizing speeds below a certain point to stay out of the high cam.
If I'm not mistaken, since the sensor TPS sensor is there, and the ECU picks it up, isn't it just a tuning software issue that the adjustment for throttle position is not there?
If so, it seems that adding it to the tuning software would be pretty easy.
How about all of us reading this that have the Doctronics email Christian (the head of Doctronics) and request that he add this setting?
Oh that is interesting. But with shipping to France & Import charges it costs near $840 total...
I had planned to buy one in a few months, so I am hesitating for this offer...
Do you know if there is an available basemap for a supercharged S2000 ? (rotrex C30-94 in my case)
I looked at the "basemap.zip" download on the doctronic official website, but there are only two things for s2k:
S2k_PND
S2k_PRA
And I don't know what this is...
Actually, my local tuner is quite expensive (price per hour!), so I would like to find a basemap that he would only have to "adjust", because it will cost me a lot if he has to create all the map "from zero"...
10-19-2018, 08:05 AM
