powerchip has always been a rip off!


Just take the car to your local race specialist and get a dyno tuned setup. Not this pre-fab one size fits all idea of a mod.

 

Not to downplay your knowledge, but I think my cats know more about the 350 than most dealers

 

good point

 

You are exactly right. If the ECU actually supplied additional fuel due to the increase in air, then it is doing exactly what we want it to do, burning more fuel thus making more power.

If the ECU adds more fuel then is needed, we are running rich and simply drowning out the cars performance increase negating everything we set out to accomplish with the mods in the first place.

--wes

 

UPDATE:

May 6, 2003

An upgraded (but yet still conservative) fuel/air program on my car is yielding ~7hp with everything on the car STOCK... the 8hp gain you might be hearing about was with the East Coast Z race team or what not, and those codes have not yet been implimented with my Z... there is still room for improvements...

TechnoSquare has made a set of prototype downpipes that have eliminated the cat, stock size (~2.25") and drove with it for about 20 minutes, so far no CEL... the car is definately running/pulling better than before... the idea is that there is room in the car's program to get bigger gains with new down pipes.... The flanges and entire pipes are made from scratch. Tadashi took it to the near by Bosch Dyno and said it definally made some HP gains, he hasnt told me the numbers yet.. but its in addition to the ECU tuning... so ~7 + X... It's not much louder than stock either, as reported.

I'm waiting for a few key components to get shipped to the tuner shop, mainly exhaust/intake setup(s) and THEN do the big change in the ECU with a more aggressive tuning...

i understand the need to a 'solid' STOCK Z fuel program so i'll be trying to get that finalized... before all the other mods.....

we will be doing a flow bench test set with several intake setups to see which one yields the best CFM flow rates...
1. Stock air box
2. Full Injen setup with injen filter
3. just the JWT pop charger
4. Upper Injen Piping with JWT popcharger
with those data points, we'll probably make our own intake piping to get highest velocity possible...

i think someone was knocking a carbon fiber intake design they saw online... something of the sorts.. but that not ugly and not nearly as expensive...

one of the drawbacks of tuning the ECU is that it takes so long to flash it and everyone has to be really careful around the car when it's getting flashed.... One power surge or computer lockup, and your ECU is pretty much dead... thats due to the REALLY slow xfer rate of the programmer attachment...

well. hopefor the best next week!

the sooner this is done.. the sooner i can drive my freakin car! ...
well. actually no... still more prototyping after that...





--Cheston

 

And special thanks for the continued work and patience you've shown in giving your car up for (how long has it been?) the greater good of the Z community. I know we're all eager to hear more results.

 

bought the car in november.... drove it for about two monthes before i decided to tinker with it.... had a good idea of what i wanted done and what was needed...

its been in and out of tuner shops getting products made/tested since beginning of Feb... still have 3 more shops to go after this one before i can say, "ok. time for me."

still gotta put on my nismo replica body kit on with some add-on mods (aka intake inlet ... hopefully) and get my volks tires... get some CF stuff made, maybe make an underside diffuser (which i might try myself to make with the help of my SAE friends at UCLA...), and i still would like to get some boost someday...






--Cheston

 

Does this seem disappointing to anyone else? But, if they can get the ECU to cooperate with (and not negate) other mods, this could be very promising! So far, the 350Z ECU has been very obnoxious because it apparently detunes after a mod resulting in poor gains.

 

I'm not convinced the rumor about the ECU detuning is exactly right. Some mods ARE paying off, for instance I've seen the dynos on the Crawford headers and plenum that have been posted here. The header specifically had quite a few miles between installation and testing, and they held up.

I think people expecting great improvements on things like CAIs are the ones disappointed. IMO, the stock design is already pretty good there, so improvements won't be that great. The exhaust is probably similar with stock manifolds, it is adequate for what is needed, with limited gains to be had (be interesting to see the new Borla dual numbers).

 

if the ECU negating mods is tru i wanna know HOW the ECU can decide HOW MUCH ignition to retard ot get exactly back to stock.... it just seems sooo counter intuitive..... more air = retard timing as opposed ot EVERY OTHER CAR MADE where more air = more fule...

Ben

 

I have to agree.. completely, But still waiting and listening for the finished product. Thanks for the update Chebosto

 

How much is thing mod going to cost? What kind of access/control am I going to have? I guess I can't justify spending the $$$ when I can have full control with a stand alone.

.02

 

Blas: the fuel program alters the entire fuel map throughout the entire rpm band, (except prior to 3k where its in a closed-loop program, that is to ensure the car warms up properly when cold at 1500rpm and then drops down to proper idle)..

with your standalone, say, SuperAFCII, that only alters fuel... the ecu mods the ignition timing and in some instances raises the rev limiter, but which isn't necessary in our particular case... as far as ecus go... most of the time they always work better with modifications at a later point...

Mannish: as far s the rumors go... yea its hard to believe.. but there is a hard non-variable value in the hex coding that seems to always push back whatever intakes do to the ecu code..

i'm not saying that headers and plenum dont make good hp.. im sure it will definately benefit a new program tho

 

Super AFC II you consider a stand alone? hmmm...

 

If they don't already have it, I'd invest in a nice line conditioner/uninterruptable power supply. Like you said, this will ensure a clean flash, and covers you if there were a power surge. Certainly wouldn't touch anything while it was going either, people underestimate what static electricity can do.

I have a great story I'll share about static electricity. While in the Air Force, I was stationed at the Pentagon. My shop was in charge of all the cryptographic equipment in the Pentagon and the national capital region. We got a call one day saying that an office in the Pentagon needed us to bring them all new crypto keys for their secure telephones. This was odd, because we showed they had made this same call 2 times this month already. Some other guys had just gone down and reflashed their phones before, but our shop supervisor wanted to find out what was going on, so they sent my buddy and I (usually handled higher level equipment, not secure phones). We show up and first thing we notice is we both get shocked walking into their office by the door handle. This place had nice plush carpet, not like your typical office carpet. It seems the previous commander "thought it'd be nice". I shook the hand of the office manager and promptly got shocked again. I asked him how long this static problem had been going on. He told me "about 4 weeks since they installed it". We informed him that in a secure area the carpet needs to be special anti-static carpet, in which he responded that he knows that now, and it's coming in next week. You could touch any computer in this office and turn it on or off. Since computers these days use a soft power switch, a voltage spike to signal to change the power state, be it on or off, all it took was one touch. There was so much static you could touch one thing, shock yourself, pull your hand back, and shock yourself again. He went on to tell me that they had gone through two coffee makers, several phones, a few computers, and several other smaller devices.

Static is nasty! That's all for class today kids.

 

I wonder how much gain they can sqeeze out of a ECM from a altima?

Would they be interested?

I would be interested?

 

UPDATE:

Images of my Cat Removal...

 

more images..

 

last one...






FYI: ALL custom made

 

Looks awesome! Are you going to get a cel? With stock ECU? Are these cars OBD2 or OBD3? I have read posts both ways?

Anyway kick *** job