I just had my car tuned an dynoed at Zcar yesterday after they installed my Unichip. The result was not what i expected from all of the NA mods i have put in. Lets just say, it was quite a waste of money. I'm not sure now if i really want to stay NA for long. The first two graphs shows before my Headers and Unichip tune. It was only with AFCII tune with intake, Kinetix V+, Strup tp, and HKS ti; and i was already putting down 244whp and 235tq. The last three dyno charts were after strup header and Unichip tune. It put down only 246rwhhp and 235 tq to the wheels. I'm not sure what happened, but i think i might have actually lost power after the headers were installed. I'm not positively sure, but thats what one of the techs said. I thought headers were suppose to yield some power, but for some reason i didn't with me. The car actually felt very smooth, and the power was more apparent because of the AF adjustment. I was hoping to break into the 265-270 whp range, but . A huge thanks to Zcar for the work and Rob. What do you guys think happpened? I just need some explanation to why i only made 2 whp more than before the headers. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Did you run with and without the intake filter to see any difference??

 

No ,only with JWT

 

Ah.. Shoulda tried that... Also have you ever done a reflash?

 

No, never done a reflash before. I know it adjusts the air and fuel and remove speed limiter. All of the adjustments are according to the mods, right?

 

You dyno'd at the same place both times?

 

damn, sorry to hear that man. Dsport mag dyno'd their car and the strup headers/test pipes showd like 10 whp and 8 wtq gains :/.

 

yes, same place both times.

 

That maybe true, but some Z might respond well to mods, and some don't. I think mine is one of the ones that doesn't respond well to mods.

 

this is just a guess, but it COULD be that since you live in cali and only get 91 octane you may be getting some extra knock after you installed the headers. This would cause the knock sensor to pull timming thus causing you to loose power.

This is all based on the assumption that Unichip(which i assume it can) cannot pull or add timming or your tuner didn't tune the ignition timming.

 

There should be a run before any tuning was done to get a baseline so you can tell ho much was gained due to tuning, you may have lost some after the headers install.

Also tuning may not be just for gaining hp but also to ensure you have a safe setup, in the event you were lean they would have had to add fuel to make it safe but you would have lost some hp.

 

but you can also lose horsepower by being to lean and gain power by richening the mixture.

 

yea make ure sure a/f ratio is good. i dynoed on the same dyno 265/247. similar mods to yours

 

Sigh unfortunately, modding does not = improvement all the time. Learned that the hard way lol. Getting all the problems fixed and that's it for me. GT-R next or hopefully something better.

 

peak HP #'s are not always the key.

If you gain a lot of area under the curve, that is still a positive result.

Also, since you utterly fail at taking/posting pictures, I can't even tell if your air/fuel is where it should be.

There's always the possibility your tuners were not up to the task. Also, I know very little about the unichip. How did they tune your car? MAF voltage adjustment, injector pulse adjustment, timing adjustment? All 3?

Also, with the Emanage ultimate, the stock ECU did not like it when I advanced timing. Yet, when I advanced timing with cipher by 2 degrees, I made power.

 

Go FI!

 

Was there a diff in temps/baro pressure on both days?

I think the headers are fine....I think a better tune along with a check on engine vitals....check the comp, plugs, filter, ignition etc...

Sometimes a small problem pops up in between mods and as soon as you fix it BAM hp comes

Dsport dynod a pop charger and made 14whp over their baseline....a dirty stock filter with like 36-40K miles....they said 6whp was more inline with reality on a good Z

When they added exhaust....2whp gain....but they still had the stock Ypipe intact (which to me is why the exhaust added so little power)

Truthfully I think you should ditch that intake mani for something better....or at least borrow something better for a dyno run to see if it helps.....I wish we had more of that in the Z community....try an MREV2 + spacer setup and see if you gain anything...couldnt hurt....

NA is about all the parts working together and some parts may be the weak link.....sad thing is you wont know until you try it

Pop charger + spacer + MREV2 + Cams + Headers + HFC + dual exhaust

I think for a lighly modded Z the only thing left after would be maybe pullies and a 100-150shot , flywheel, clutch, gears maybe.....solid 12 sec car with 11's a big shot away

Good luck

 

He should have gained more than 2whp with headers though. To me this is a result of a failure on the tuner's part.


OP what target AFR did your tuner shoot for? Did you get a AFR graph from your run? If not then all else is speculation. In order to narrow down the problem we need a AFR chart, timming log(preferably) , and a list of any ecu codes (if any are present).

Also what octane are you running. From what i have seen there seems to be a large difference in dyno results between certain areas of the country due to availablity of higher octane in some areas.

 

That's what I suspect too, but given the **** photos, it is 100% impossible to determine at this point.