Well, obviously I'm in favor of a Microtech.... but anyway... here is why I wouldn't go with the other EMS's and why I'd go with a Microtech
AEM - way more than you need in 95% of cases, hard to get dialed in, and people are still working on bugs with their installations in most cases. It's a good EMS but you plain and simple will NOT make a drop more power than with any of the other cheaper EMS's.
UniChip - Discontinued for the Protege's as of next year, not user adjustable, and would be hard to get truly customized to your full setup. Also, anyone that tells you that a single tuning session will make your map perfect for your car in all situations and temperatures etc is feeding you a line of bull and you will be unhappy in the long run.
Haltech - Good unit overall. has suffered some reliability issues here and there. I've worked with them some and they aren't bad, but the software is not as easy as the Microtech and there is a lot more room for bugs and problems with having to configure your own sensors etc (look at all the struggles early adopters like LinuxRacr etc went through... this may be mostly sorted... but it is part of the history of that system). Good unit, but in general not as clean or as easy as a Microtech.
MPI Tuner - Decent unit as well, cheap and "can" do the job. Have had many many problems with not holding a tune. I've had numerous guys ditch them and go Microtech and have gotten several "why didn't I go MT sooner!!" comments. Dana and others have improved a lot of this and made it better, but it is still a piggyback, it still screws with your ignition dwell time etc, and in the long run unless you need emissions I would look elsewhere.. my opinion though.
Greddy E-Manage - Probably one of the lightest used systems for the protege. I don't know if anyone besides Sam ever got this to work at all or to hold a tune. Not a lot of support or knoweldge available for this with the protege.
Microtech - Obviously I'm partial to it as it is what I developed and what I sell. Plain and simple we are slowly dominating the Mazda inline 4 market with this system. We are the ONLY EMS with full timing and fuel for the Mazda 3, we are the only EMS in development for the Mazda 6 V6 and the Mazda 6i AND the Mazdaspeed 6 and will be up on most of those Mazda 6 apps by the end of the year. We have dozens of the units out there and almost all on daily drive cars and I honestly never get a call about problems once the installation is done and the car is tuned the first time. That's a testament to the stability and ease of the system that these guys install it and run like a top from start to finish. I've also replaced numerous MPI's and Haltech's on cars and I don't know of any that have gone the other way. The Microtech also uses all stock sensors, and is preconfigured for use with the Protege, so it's as easy and stable as it gets there. I also want to be fair and say the drawbacks to the Microtech - long lead time on initial order, something I'm working on fixing, but it's still about 3-4 weeks in most cases (but we've had them screw up and take longer in some cases, and in other cases turn a unit around in 2 weeks... so it depends). The Microtech also lacks some of the features of units like the AEM and Haltech, but we can discuss those in detail and I can explain why they do and don't matter depending on what you are doing.
roughly speaking, the AEM, Microtech, and Haltech all have the potential to produce the most power in the long run. The MPI follows pretty closely and then the UniChip and E-Manage. But none of them are seperated by much.
So that's my 10 cents worth or something...
Thanks!
Steve
