CharlesF
As Mike indicated I have experience with the Turnigies - I have 5 Turnigy 40A ESC's - but they are now all in a box.
The problem is that they do NOT govern to maintain a set rpm. Thus your motor speed deteriorates as the battery wears down. Will Hubin did some bench tests that show it MIGHT be feasible to use the Turnigy IF you also have a "throttle up" or compensating timer that increases throttle setting over the course of the flight. There are a couple such timers out there (and I am not familiar with all of them), Will has the FM-1A timer which actually ramps up the throttle over time to try to maintain a near constant RPM. I have some FM-1A timers and I am going to try them with a Turnigy ESC in a OTS sport model this spring. I have no illusions that it will perform like a Phoenix, but I am hoping this will let me recoup some of my investment in Turnigy ESC's!
My expectation is that the FM-1A timer with the throttle-up functionality will make the Turnigy ESC into a workable piece for a sport model - without the "throttle up" the Turnigy it is virually unusable for CL. They should work OK for RC though.
Another problem both Will and I have noted with the Turnigy is that they seem to be a little unstable with heat - but that has been harder to pin down. My brother the 'puter geek is fitting all my Turnigies with CPU heat sinks to nullify any possible heat issue.
On the plus side: The Will Hubin Timer with Turnigy is very easy to set-up. Will's timer has easy to set controls - when you use it with the Turnigy controller all you need is a small Phillips screwdriver & a tach to set your target RPM - no PC required. The Turnigy programming card is easy to use, and the ESC WILL let you set "governor" simultaneously with an effective prop brake. One more plus - The The Turnigy "Sentry"(?) series has a connector that you can plug into your LiPo balancing plug. The ESC actually monitors battery balance. That seems like an idea other ESC's might some day copy.
In flight the Turnigy seemed to govern during manuvers. I THINK (but I did not get a lot of experience with this) that the Turnigy governor might deal with short duration load changes to maintain more constant RPM. However, because you do not program a target RPM into it it has no target to try to maintain as the battery wears down.
Depending on your intentions for your ECL bird the Turnigy with compensating timer MIGHT be good enough. For a sport model - probably OK. I'm cautiously optimistic that it will work in a OTS model I'm working on. However, for ECL-CLPA there is no substitute for the Phoenix.