I was just cruising the Apex-i website and couldn't find anything on this. Did anyone hear anything regarding the Power FC for our car? I would love to see a stand alone unit come out but I know that takes some time.

Dan

 

When I talked to Toshi at SEMA (the president of Apexi USA), he mentiond apex wasnt going to do much for the Z except minor bolt ons like exhaust and dampers....but who knows...

 

That's a shame. I saw that they announced November as the release date for the exhaust and "shortly" as the release for the N1 dampers.

I hope one of the big dogs ends up with a stand alone system for the Z. I thought it would be Apex because they have so many FC applications for nissans already. AEM has none.

We'll see. Thanks.

Dan

 

You could always go with a Motech M48 System. I also talked to SGP Racing regarding the Apexi FC and they said they can hook A FAST System or an Autronics System but i don't know much abut those.

I would love to see an HKS F-Con V Pro for the Z but then not a lot of people can tune that.....

 

That is a shame, I was hoping they would come out with it for the Z. I run one in my R-1 and love it. It was the best mod as far as it plugging in and actually doing what it claimed.

 

The FAST system is very nice. A lot of domestic guys use these for custom fuel injection setups for musclecars and TA Performance has built an EFI setup utilizing the FAST setup for a Buick 455. I don't have any direct experience with these, but supposedly you can fine tune everything including fuel and spark curves for every cylinder.

 

The reason I heard from Apexi was because of the OBDII.

 

Nah, they have the Power FC for alot of OBD II cars. That's not the reason.

They do have an HKS Fcon for the Z, but only in Japan. Top Secret has it on their Z. I've inquired about it but haven't gotten a response back yet.

Dan

 

Really which cars? Also JDM cars do not have OBDII emissions it's only a US thing. But you are right HKS Fcon and a few other have come out in Japan but not for the US market well not until they can figure out how to get more HPs with the OBDII thing.

 

Damn, I'm like a week away from ordering the Injen exhaust. Is it worth the wait til november to wait for the Apexi exhaust? I wish there was just a little bit of info out on it.

Peace

 

Dean! It's Spee! Good to see you over here I guess if anyone would have heard about it, you would. You would think though with the 350Z being so new and looking very promising that they would want to have one available for it.

Oh well. It really is a shame they canned the Z32 project. Any hope for that?

 

The Power FC for all the Bseries Honda applications are OBD2 cars.

 

The exhaust that Apex is coming out with is pretty nice. It's not all that loud but it helps the car breathe a lot better and gives some performance. As far as a Power FC they haven't decided on whether or not they are going to do anything with the 350Z. They pretty much have to wait till Japan decides what to do. So Apex-USA can't really do much.

The other alternative right now is the S-AFC II. I have it installed and it is very nice. Works great. But will admit I rather have the Power FC. Hopefully soon. I bug them about it all the time ..... LOL

And a Turbo.

 

Did you get this info straight from Apex-USA? I'm still on the fence about the SAFC-II. I'll feel cheated if they come out with the FC later and I have the SAFC already.

Dan

 

What exactly are the gains to the SAFC-II? Is there any potential damage to the ECU or the car by having this?
And about the exhaust - have you seen pics, or dyno numbers for it?

Bryan

 

Did you get this info straight from Apex-USA? I'm still on the fence about the SAFC-II. I'll feel cheated if they come out with the FC later and I have the SAFC already.

Well they haven't said anything about the Power FC to me or anything about it coming out. Like I mentioned before until japans apex decides to make it applicable to the 350z the US can't do anything really. I understand how you feel. But I figure if they do I can just turn around and just sell my AFC II since it didn't cost me much at all to get it and I'll probably make a little money on top of it anyways. It's universal so I can sell it to anyone.


What exactly are the gains to the SAFC-II? Is there any potential damage to the ECU or the car by having this?

Just better fuel management. I haven't had any problems with it except that I keep messing with it. But it works great. 6hp and 8lbs tq is what I got out of it. Car definately feels better with it. No damage to the ECU.
for the Exhaust I saw it at Apex a few months ago and was told about the dyno results not too long after.

 

So what are the dyno results then? Does it look as agressive as the Injen, or the RS-R?

Also, does it take some tampering to get the SAFC-II to put out 6 whp, or is there a default setting for it?

Pardon all the questions, they both are really tempting mods.

Bryan

 

For the Z, you are going to find the engine management options very few and far between for a few reasons, but mainly, its lack of demand. On our own project car,w e will be doing an Electromotive TECIII standalone, and will introduce a kit for it after development is completed on our car. However, that is 6-9 months away at this point due to other work being done to the car.

A Motec M48, AEM wire in, FAT, Electromotive, Haltech, etc all can be used as they are universal ecu's that are complete ala carte affairs. These are not plug ins, so lots of wiring is needed, and like any standalone, they are not without their tradeoffs. Biggest issue of course is the tuning side of things. Unless you are familiar with standalone engine management, or at a minimum have patience and time to play with, these are systems left tuned by the professionals, as they are quite labor intensive.

The F Con is another option on the market, but has next to no support here in the US. The way HKS markets the product is that it can only be tuned by an HKS Master Shop, meaning they must not only be an HKS dealer, but also go through the necessary training to perform the installs and programming. The software is not something the user gets, it is something only the shop doing the install gets access to, unlike the other units mentioned above. While we are not a qualified F Con tuner, I do have some experience with it, as I had some exposure and training on it my last time in Japan. It is a very complete system, very stable software, and generally works very well. However, the more time you spend around standalone, the more you begin to realize that the hardware being used from various manufacturers differs very little. While each has some unique features, they all work pretty much the same way, from a sub $1000 Haltech to an over $5000 Motec or Pectel. The real differences lie in the sophistication of the software (i.e. are they windows or DOS based, how easy/hard they are to navigate, etc.). Getting a handle on why the particular ecu does what it does is half the battle in getting them tuned.

If you are seriously considering standalone management, it means you are either at the point of, or are prepared to commit to, a pretty extensive list of mods. For the car we are doing, the overall setup really necessitates the use of standalone, as it will give us the overall level of control we are accustomed to on a car with the level of performance ours will have.

For most people though, with the basic bolt on items (exhaust, pullies, intake, etc), one of the many piggyback ecu options would probably be best. While these also take some getting used to, and are really only fully understood by a small fraction of the people that have them, they are very powerful tuning aids, and can really exploit the various mods the car has.

We have used the Apex'i SAFC I and II, the GReddy E Manage, HKS SAFR on many different cars with great results....the trick is having a datalogger to help you tune with, and making small, incremental changes.

Adam

 

Very informantive.

A friend of mine has an Apexi SAFC-II on a 96 Supra NA. The only real mod he has is a cat-back exhaust. Since his mod-list is brief, does that mean he is probably not getting the power gains out of the control unit that he claims to be getting? Is a SAFC-II only worthwhile if you have an army of mods to accompany it?

 

Each car is different, so it really depends on the application. The gains on a turbocharged car are typically greater than those on an NA car for the obvious reasons. However, it is possible to extract some decent gains from an NA car by taking the time to udnerstand how the factory ecu does what it does, and then having an understanding of the piggyback ecu you are using, to properly manipulate everything.

While you don't need an army of mods to really make the SAFC worthwhile, the gains become more prominent the more extra goodies the car has. You then get to the point where the goodies are too much for a simple piggyback to handle, at which point, a standalone (or a properly reflashed factory ecu) become necessary. The reflashes have become pretty popular nowadays, though their single biggest limitation is the vast majority tends to be sold mail order, so they are tuned for the particular car they are going on, but rather the same type of car with the same type of mods. This is an obvious shortcoming that for some, is livable, and for others is unacceptable - all depends on your ultimate goals.

Adam