Engine Management - It's more than EFI

Some people put fuel injection and engine management into the same basket.

In many ways, engine management is so much more than just fuel injection. And, in fact, most ECU's that are called fuel injection systems actually do a lot more than just control fuel and spark delivery to the engine.

So then, let's agree to put them in the same basket for the purpose of this post. And, we'll call them Engine Management, just so it's easy for us all to understand.

Now, what is engine management?

Firstly, it's a device, normally called an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) or one of may other names, depending one who the manufacturer is, and what vehicle it is going into. We'll call it the ECU.

The ECU's primary function is to control the fuel and ignition delivery. There is pretty much nothing as important for the ECU to do on the vehicle. For if the engine does not run correctly, it doesn't matter if the ECU is controlling the suspension ride height based on road-speed, or if it is controlling the automatic transmission shift points brilliantly if the engine coughs and splutters when you put your foot down.

How does the ECU maintain correct engine control?

The ECU uses sensors to measure the amount of air going into the engine, the engine speed, engine temperature, air temperature, the exhaust oxygen content, and the throttle position (plus often several other sensors outside the scope of this post) to determine using tables and mathematical calculations to determine when to fire the sparkplugs, and exactly how much fuel to inject.

These calculations happen many times for every engine revolution, so the ECU is always up to date with the current engine conditions.

What else can an Engine Management System do?

The ECU can control things like, the fuel pump, thermofan, A/C or climate control, engine check light, and other relatively simple tasks.

But this is where is gets interesting. You can use an aftermarket engine management system to control your electronically controlled automatic transmission, your air suspension so it automatically lowers down at certain road speeds and then raises up again when you slow down (so you can clear driveways and gutters), your active exhaust system, so the exhaust only opens up above a user set road-speed and/or throttle position.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Programmable engine management is so much more than just fuel and spark, and you should ensure that the engine management system you choose is capable of controlling as many items and accessories on your vehicle that you would like it to.

This will save you adding additional boxes (that may have trouble working together) into your car.

With some planning, you can end up with the correct programmable engine management system for your vehicle, and having it control all of the functions you require.