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Samson, Mugen ECU is definitely great although bit pricey.
But think of it this way, time to time I say it and I felt that the Mugen ECU did satisfy me more than doing exaust, header and intake combined together.
The fuel trim is modified albeit minor one.
And through exetended day to day driving, I felt nothing but satisfaction.
You will feel the sizeable difference when you accelerate from stand still, the car simply pulls heck of a lot stronger without reving or bogging and combined with final gear mod, you can peel out just reving up to 2K.
It was proven at the drag strip, I was able to achieve 14flat with just reving up to 2Krpm and hitting rev-limiter twice on the way to the finish line.
Church Automotive mapped out the air/fuel ratio with both the Mugen ECU and the stock ECU on my car. The dyno chart starts at 3000 rpm. As I remember, the Mugen is much leaner in the range of 3000 rpm to 6300 rpm then it mimics the factory afr from 6300 rpm up to 7700 rpm where the factory goes rich very quickly and the Mugen goes lean to pre vtec values.
From what Ive read it isnt the peak horsepower that gains the most from these kind of mods more mid range. This would be supported by sideways post with vtec range matching the stock ecu.
I would lean towards xpander's advice since it is a clear cut gain with no ongoing tuning costs etc. Also because it is a probably the safest mod out there for our car.
I would consider a "chip" for cars that are known detuned from other countries. Otherwise, it's not going to pay off.
However, If I did all the mugen upgrades including header, exhaust, intake, tstat, and radcap... I would think and ECU would be a no-brainer to take advantage of the new parameters.
