Modern high-horsepower engine management is no longer simply about commanding a fuel injector and controlling ignition timing. As power levels have climbed into the thousands of horsepower, the ECU has increasingly become the central control and data-acquisition system responsible for helping tuners understand—and manage—what is happening cylinder by cylinder and combustion event by combustion event.

During a recent EPARTRADE Race Industry Now webinar, “Total Power Management: Advanced EFI & Engine Control with BigStuff EFI,” Ben Davidow, owner of BigStuff EFI, joined host Brad Gillie of SiriusXM Channel 90’s Late Shift for a technical discussion covering the evolution of aftermarket EFI, methanol fuel delivery, individual-cylinder tuning, high-speed data acquisition, ignition control and the architecture behind the BigStuff Gen4 ECU.

For Davidow, understanding the current technology starts with understanding the problems that had to be solved as racers began pushing EFI into increasingly extreme applications.