AEM and vipec

aljordan

aljordan

LEADED FUEL ONLY
Jul 14, 2005
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I personally know of three 7M AEM cars that have never had an issue. There are countless people (supra, evo, viper, ect) on the AEM V1 who make silly power and have made silly power for years. People like to blame the hardware when in reality it's the tuner that's the problem. It wouldn't suprise me to see all these "hardware" issues have a rookie or uneducated tune pushing the buttons.
 
RacerXJ220

RacerXJ220

Interdimensional
Mar 30, 2005
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Abalama
aljordan;1543871 said:
I personally know of three 7M AEM cars that have never had an issue. There are countless people (supra, evo, viper, ect) on the AEM V1 who make silly power and have made silly power for years. People like to blame the hardware when in reality it's the tuner that's the problem. It wouldn't suprise me to see all these "hardware" issues have a rookie or uneducated tune pushing the buttons.
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Of course, AEM makes perfect products all the time. Their ignition boxes (POS) are as awesome as their boost controller (changes boost with the weather, random spikes under brake boost).

It's never AEM's fault............................... lol

If I had this choice, ViPEC all the way.
 
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honestabe

Happy as hell :D
Jan 15, 2006
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aljordan;1543871 said:
I personally know of three 7M AEM cars that have never had an issue. There are countless people (supra, evo, viper, ect) on the AEM V1 who make silly power and have made silly power for years. People like to blame the hardware when in reality it's the tuner that's the problem. It wouldn't suprise me to see all these "hardware" issues have a rookie or uneducated tune pushing the buttons.
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So John Reed is a rookie uneducated tuner just pushing buttons??? Seriously, I've talked to John about the AEM Gen 1's and he's tuned several cars with them that have failed due to hardware issues. The AEM 1st Gen's like to blow a chip (John said it was like $2 each and quick to replace). John Reed has a large pile of them that he keeps on hand because it's such a common issue. I've heard of more than 1 car running an AEM 1st Gen that had a really good tune by a good tuner that suddenly lost part of it's settings or changed some of its values for no reason at all while driving (and not tuning). The problem isn't the tuner, it's the hardware (and possibly a glitch in the software). Any product that has so many catastrophic failures has earned the right to be kept far far away from usage and should be highly discouraged. Sadly, AEM has done this with their 1st Gen standalone.
 
aljordan

aljordan

LEADED FUEL ONLY
Jul 14, 2005
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Indianapolis, Indiana
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I was just talking of personal, hands on, experience. I've worked on the three cars that I referenced and not "read it on the interwebz". We've had this discussion before Adam and you know my stance. :)

If you go with Vipec go with the V88. The sequential injection is well worth the extra cost. Much better driveability.
 
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honestabe

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Jan 15, 2006
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aljordan;1544387 said:
I was just talking of personal, hands on, experience. I've worked on the three cars that I referenced and not "read it on the interwebz". We've had this discussion before Adam and you know my stance. :)

If you go with Vipec go with the V88. The sequential injection is well worth the extra cost. Much better driveability.
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It's not what I heard on the net, it's what people with first hand experience have told me. As for the ViPEC, I agree. Spend the extra cash to get the V88, it'll be worth every penny. I got lucky with my V88 and got it used (something you don't see often with the ViPEC's).
 
aljordan

aljordan

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Jul 14, 2005
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Indianapolis, Indiana
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I'm not saying the AEM is perfect, but I'm also not saying the others are. I bet one could find some ViPEC threads where the poster/tuner is claiming the ecu is the cause of all the issues. I doubt any could find ANY ECU that has had zero negative posts.

I have read about problems with AEM EPROM chips not being fully seated and this causing an issue, but not an issue leading to a holed piston. It seems that this was hit or miss a few years ago and is pretty much squashed at this point in time. AEM (actually GEMS is who makes the hardware) now adds something to hold the chips in place. In threads that I can find on the other supra forum, John Reed talks of two that he's encountered to have problems. The others could be due to a lack of a quality tune. Who knows. So many variables. Fact is, there are MANY AEM powered cars that make stupid power and are driven quite frequently with zero issues.

As I said, the three cars that I've turned wrenches on are fine. The guy that does the tunes on these three cars has his hands on five AEM'ed cars total. No issues on any of them.
 
northwestsupra

northwestsupra

New Member
Sep 19, 2006
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well i can tell you now my heart is really now with vipec, due to the facts that it has yet to have "hardware issues" i dont like the idea of spending 12-14k$ on a engine, then 2-4k$ on a standalone to have it blow up the bigger number because it was jealous or something.

to adam: i have no problem building a harness myself, as long as i can get good documents on what wires are what and where they go lol.

as for the comment on the aem wideband being good. i will greatly agree with this. i have been using my AEM UEGO wideband gauge on my camaro now for a while and its freaking awesome and has helped my tuning out alot, made my life loads easier
 
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IJ.

Grumpy Old Man
Mar 30, 2005
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My opinion on Standalones: Pretty much all of this generation of hardware is good/stable, the biggest concern is the after sale support if you do have issues how quickly will they be resolved and who can you speak to if help is needed?

Can't comment on AEM/Vipec but a few of the manufacturers are HOPELESS in this regard, in the end I ended up with MoTeC and happily pay the premium for the hardware as support is faultless, if I added up the hours the guys have spent helping me sort what to them can only be "IJ issues" from me doing a lot of strange things that more than likely no one on the planet would ever do I'd be well into the 50K region.

I'm NOT pushing MoTeC here just that Support>Hardware these days, next would be software and what happens when/if you find a bug?

Been in this situation many times since I changed to MoTeC due to some of the odd things I do and each time they've been prompt in sorting the issue and getting an updated version of software on their website, Other manufacturers have been 99% useless in this aspect, one time I had to camp out at their door and ambush the owner first thing in the morning to get him to resolve a problem/issue I was having.
 
I

IJ.

Grumpy Old Man
Mar 30, 2005
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LOL wasn't the MoTeC but yeah that's pretty much how it went, there was going to be violence if it wasn't repaired on the spot.... :nono:
(I had exhausted my tiny supply of patience and understanding)
 
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honestabe

Happy as hell :D
Jan 15, 2006
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ViPEC has excellent customer service. They have a forum for technical support as well as getting very fast (sometimes within the hour) response if you send them an e-mail. Ray Hall is the main guy at ViPEC and I sent him an e-mail the other day to look at my map and see if he noticed anything odd (I am having a severe stumbling issue around 2300-2500 RPM's) and he got back to me within the hour. They also regularly update their website with software upgrades. So far it's been nothing but pleasure working with the ViPEC. The auto-tune feature is very nice to have to. You can tell it what value you want in what range and it will automatically adjust your map for you to help speed up the tuning process.
 
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