Not to mention that most of the standalone engine management systems (At least the ones I work with) have little to no knock sensor provisions.

The old batch fire DFI (6.0 box) and sequential box have a knock sensor circuit however it's set up for a straight 10 degrees retard upon detonation detection and is very slow to restore the timing. I haven't had a chance to try out one of the Gen 7 boxes yet.

The F.A.S.T. system offers a slightly better knock sensor implementation but only on the bank to bank model. The sequential model doesn't have a channel available for knock detection so it isn't available.

I've worked quite a bit with Electromotive's TEC-II in the past and at the time they had no knock sensor provisioning and the same goes for Motec and Haltec although I haven't worked with any of these particular units in several years so the feature could have been added.

Overall, and I tell this to everyone who contemplates a standalone unit, I recommend if you don't need it, don't go to it because it's my opinion that you lose a lot of driveability going to the standalone stuff. There is just things that the stock ECM does so much better.

I mainly work on very fast straight line cars where the standalone stuff is concerned. I cringe when I see someone with an 11 second car running an aftermarket engine management system. Maybe in the import world you need it at that level but I've had no problem getting the domestic stuff to go that fast and in some cases even faster with the factory electronics.