stand alone or piggyback

greddy Emange is okayish... My mate did run one on his St185, worked okay, but the unit is very temperamental. Okay to map for fueling, good monitoring etc. But the units poor reliabilty has seen him go back to std. another mate runs one on his gen 5 and it works a treat. They seem to be a love em or hate em type of ECU, the software support for 3sge cars is pretty non existant and while it has access to lots of goodies such as launch control, its no where as easy to use to work these settings.
Its tricking the std ecu, rather than taking over in simple terms, which can work okay, but we found when playing with the maps, the cell format was at times limited and no where as easy to use as my standalone. HOWEVER, there is a huge price difference, so in terms of value, its much better. Talk to a couple of Dyno tunners, get there thoughts, if they feel confident to map with that, then it could be a good call.
Dont however buy a unit second hand, as my mate did this and it has been next to useless at times, get it new with some kinda warranty, otherwise you can spend hours and hours trying to solve the intermitent faults these units can suffer from.
hth

 

Yeah, Link have a good rep these days, their earlier units were a bit touchy and need a lot of updated, but now there are very popular.
I must admit I prefer stand alone, it gives the mapper total control, and the high cost can be justified by the fact that you can take it out and use it on a different car, just using a different loom. The software support for popular ecus such as the Link for the 3sgte engine is good, and known, which helps too.

The way my car drove on the std ecu and then on my haltech was just night and day, Its hard to state just how much better it drives now. using a Standalone can also mean you can push the limits a bit more. Next year I will run a map hopefully with much higher boost and changed ignition timing for just on track sprint runs, combining this with water injection, I would never run 1.5 bar on the road or map it with WI normally, but for occasional balls out track work I will have that option.
So you can run a varity of maps, depending upon waht variables you need, for instance I will have two maps, one for 98 ron fuel, one for 95 ron. and if I could ever afford it, one for race gas too.
you could have a map that will work if you hook up nitrous for example

 

Link are used by lots of the MR2 guys, Rougue racing fit em all the time, they also tune and race 3sge engined MR2s, so the knowledge is there. maybe some tweaking off the loom to fit the rev 1 3sge, but its do able.
Def save the pennies mate, its so worth it

 

yeah its no problem to have multiple maps, I have a switch located in the glove box, next to the ecu, switching it to different settings will ( once all the mods and maps are done) move between settings.

With any changes to the engine that will need a response, be it changes to the fueling, lift or duration of cams, rev range, air intake etc, you will need to have the car mapped on a dyno to get the best from them.

Cams will def help with you goal, don't forget though, you don't just need cams, you need to be able to adjust them with Vernier pulleys, you need your head to flow and cope with the extended rev range. You need to get the air in, in the best way possible, cold dense air, lots of it, and you need to be able to expel the exhaust gases in the best way. A purpose built extractor exhaust, properly heat wrapped to encourage all that hot air to leave in the best way possible.
You need to make sure with a NA engine, that your spark is string enough, that it will cope. Then on top off all that you need to worry about the way the fuel is delivered into the chamber, bigger injectors, maybe up the flow rate. Your ECU is like a conductor, telling the orchestra of your engine what to do but if your brass section aint up to much and you don't have any cymbals, no matter how good the conductor is, you aint going to make sweet music.
A good fast road engine, is a collection of modifications that all work in harmony with each other. For instance, if you lighten and balance the bottom end, get a lightened flywheel to make the most of it. If your cams take all power up the rev range, make sure you look at the exhaust manifold, so your chosen design does not sacrifice low down and mid range torque, other wise, you end up with what I call a Gopsor engine and they suck. Gopsor stands for Good on paper shit on road. Don't be obsessed with a power figure, if you only get 190bhp, but have a really quick drivable car, that's loads better than a 210bhp dyno king, which has so little low end a beetle with a knapsac can beat you away from the lights.