OK, I have read quite a bit on this, but our cars have the ecu that reads the engine components and adjusts the fuel and timing and so on. This is an advantage over the older carurator setup that would have to be adjusted when the elevation changed to keep the engine running properly, from my understanding. So I guess what I am getting at is, will a standalone be good for driving anywhere once it is setup or will it suffer when you change your location? Is there only a small window for proper performance?

only difference is typically no knock sensor and/or slightly less sophisticated fuel mapping, but that is not always the case.

The same sensors are used. Air Temp, mass Air flow or mass Air pressure, Coolant Temp, vacuum pressure or boost pressure.

up and down a mountain without any problems? I am just concerened about limitations the standalones might have. I live in a mountianous area and it would not benefit me to have a car with a standalone if I couldn't drive over the mountain pass into california. Would I have to tweak the FMS at all or would it just auto-adjust, so to say, and stay reliable?

But i am like you, best to use each and every ensor you can hook up IF you can tune it well enough to take advantage of its output in the programs. The motronic is a very advanced unit and can do a lot when fully tuned. From what I know the power seems limited only by the hard parts like block/crank/valvetrain. and the key to keeping this all together (besides building everything as bulletproof as possible) is controlling timing/ignition/fuel and boost to get max power without detonation (usually by running rich as cow ****). When running a small engine to the limit, tuning and geometry are everything.
Good chips are available (you get what ou pay for) for any level of tuning without going to standalone. And learning to tune to the limit with Mo- or any other tronic takes a lot of time and xpertise, but most importantly a lot of TALENT. This is not a thing to do lightly. Most chip makers offer low to no cost chip upgrades to go with hardware upgrades (at least good ones do) and give some guarantee that the chips do what they say when you go to the dyno or you get another burn. Only the brave and those who feel they tune better than the real tuners (1.8t challenge shows who they are) and get real power under the curve and not dyno queen hp spikes should try this. The cost may be the cost of the box and the hardware to make it work, but a new block and heads.
But if you are truly good or adventurous then go for it,
Rod

And some will even respond to EGT temps.

Its my understanding that for us is that we would need a custom crank trigger.

you can hook the knock sensors up to a stand alone?

And the question I am still trying to find an answer for, once a standalone is setup and tuned it is ok to drive anywhere right? I am qurious about elevation changes and the like. Will the engine stay stable and make adjustments as if it still had it's ecu?

Only if it has a barometric pressure sensor and uses the data.
Rod

So they dont necessarily read barometric data, but theoretically they would adjust for altitude changes automatically.

the knock sensors, does anyone know? If so then I may be going with something like that in the future. I just started to think that I wouldnt be able to drive my car anywhere and what good is a car if you cant drive it because it will not run properly.

knock and if you do, fix the car's tuning or boost levels cause otherwise you're in limp mode with no power. A Knock sensor is useful for tuning or safeguarding a car from bad gas. Thats about it.

You'll probably go with a standalone Boost controller as well. So turning back the boost is easy. There is nothing wrong with having Knock sensors, but I wouldn't put soo much weight on it. Most high performance race machines don't run knock sensors.

My car is going 034EFI IIC with Coilpacks, Turbosmart 40PSI electronic boost controller. No need for knocksensors. I am going to have a wide band O2, EGT, MAP sensors. The MAP sensor accounts for high and low altitude.

If everything is good, you don't need knock.

You can drive anywhere you can with Motronic. If you tune the car to the 9th degree then you are more likely to have problems from Standalone which require custom tuning on the fly. I.e. A racecar typically gets engine tuning at the track for each day depending upon atmospheric conditions.

Standalone can be just as reliable as Motronic if tuned to the same conservative level as a typical factory car. But, Never use Standalone if there is an off-the shelf Motronic Chip that matches your hardware upgrades.

I guess I am just going to have to go on that until I can meet one of you guys in person and see your car and how it is all setup.
Thanks, I appreciate all of the input.