Hydra 2.7

Either new or upgraded? I'd like to compare notes in general. I see NO discussion on Miata.net about it at all. NO ONE other than myself has mentioned "Hydra 2.7" over there as far as my searching is concerned. The new forums on the Hydra website are completely empty save two posts. When I called around recently to find a new tuner since my last Hydra specialist tuner is no longer tuning them, I found very few places that had any experience with Hydras, none close by. One shop a few hours away was willing to tune it for "a few thousand dollars, you'll have to leave the car with me a week." The new way Hydra has set up upgrades and add on features seems designed to suck more money from current customers than attract new ones. Hydra said a while back that they may get a dyno and start tuning themselves, but that's a long time down the road they say. And the speed at which Hydra does things, it'll be years. I have a really bad feeling where this is going.

But without getting into such speculative, big picture issues, my most pressing issue is voltage, alternator control. Anyone got that working well? What firmware and software version are you on? I'm still using 2.7r6, r10 I think is the newest, fixes the tach dropping issue, but requires a harness change I haven't got around to, need to get the required resistor (a small change, but so much for a plug and play upgrade). I got the impression the newer firmware and software didn't help the alternator control.

Please let me know I'm not the only 2.7 user on the planet. Wink

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I have a new 2.5 unit that I have yet to install and that I was going to send for upgrade with similar concerns to yours. Several guys that I PM'd said they would not recommend me upgrading at this time because of lack of adequate base maps and lack of any improvement to alternator control. Still looking for more details.

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I believe there was a change needed for the AC, jumpering two pins and adding a diode on the jumper. This gets taken out for 2.7 I think. At least I removed it when I went from 2.6 to 2.7 because the AC didn't work when I first put in the 2.7 upgrade.

Plug and pray. Wink It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so much confusion about it. Every upgrade I've done has presented a new set of gotchas I need to work out. When enquiring about the upgrade often these are not mentioned or are not mentioned in a clearly. Perhaps I'm just kinda dumb and, "don't get it"?

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I have 2.7.

I don't see anything different about my alternator control issues with 2.7. I guess I should check the voltage once the car is running. I know that I get a major voltage drop with increasing load on the car. But I had the same annoyance with 2.6. I have to say that start-up is a lot better with 2.7 compared to 2.6 and software is a lot more user friendly. I still don't understand what anything is though.

Harness change with 1k resistor for proper tachometer function is definitely something hydra should have seen and fixed before releasing 2.7 to the market. Thankfully it is an easy mod if you follow instructions.

I have to say though, stock fuel map is total crap above 5k rpm. I was driving my car on stock ECU perfectly fine before 2.7 install and once 2.7 went in, I couldn't get a smooth acceleration after 5k until I changed out the spark plugs. Went to the track and car is still backfiring and buckling after 6k rpm. Now I have no boost what so ever and all my hoses seem fine. Oh well, I'll get my local shop to sort things out, I'm too tired.

Another annoyance is that 2.6 to 2.7 map conversion is total BS and doesn't seem to work. Hydra said that they fixed that issue with their r10 update, but I still couldn't start my car with the old map. That old map cost me $500 at the tuner just 1 year ago!

Oke, I'm done venting now. What I really wish hydra had was a free weekend online course on hydra ecu tuning to all the owners. I would love to actually understand what all those software parameters mean and how to properly adjust them. I drive my car every day and I can easily tweak it based on my daily experience. (I even have a laptop with a prehistoric serial port!) As it stands right now, they don't even have a manual! Thankfully there is at least long term trim and hydra auto tunes as you drive. That at least gives my car a very smooth 2k to 4k range as I mostly stay somewhere between there on my daily drives.

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