Here is the one ECU upgrade that I have seen work in person. 13HP and 8lbs/ft on the little 138hp MR2 Spyder. These have to be programmed on the actual car with the mods you plan to have so the pricing includes the tune session. I would have put this on my MR2 but I already knew I was going to sell it. I will get an intake, exhaust and then a Dastek Chip. BTW, The Racersgroup won the overall at this years Rolex 24 in a freakin' GT class car!!


http://www.theracersgroup.com/theprogram_unichip.html

 

I was considering the same thing. There is a shop in my area, NJ, that will program and tune a unichip to any car. My friend is having them do his WRX so I'm going to see how it comes out. They told me around $1000 for the whole setup. Doesn't sound bad.... I'll let you know what happens....

 

Jason, I was just curious what shop in NJ will tune and program a unichip to any car. I live in Jersey so I might consider the same upgrade. I know some good shops in Jersey but I never took the time to find out if they will do ecu mods. Thanks in advance.

 

It's sounds as though the UNICHIP system works by applying an offset to the existing ECU (from reading: http://www.theracersgroup.com/howitworks.html).

I would be worried that after paying the money to have the UNICHIP tuned, the ECU might "realize" that something fishy is up by watching the O2 sensors or whatever. In this case, the ECU would probably change injection maps and timing. The UNICHIP would now be applying an offset to an entirely new set of parameters from the ECU.

Does anyone know if the UNICHIP system makes any concessions for ECU's that learn/evolve?

Thanks,
Jeff

 

I would assume the Porsche 996's ECU is as advanced as the 350Z's ecu, and the UNICHIP has had good results when used with the 996...but who really knows until someone trys it...

Brad

 

I will let you know what the shop says after I visit them this weekend. They are in central Jersey and build custom race cars. After speaking with my friend, The new system they use is this one.
www.perfectpower.com/products/smt6.asp
I am going to see about setting up a group buy if I let them use me car as a guinea pig to test and tune the new powerperfect setup. You can tune it in real time with a palm pilot. According to my dyno, my car is already running kinda lean so I want to see if their is any danger with this setup...
If anyone is interested in this product, let me know. The only US distributer for it is 15 mins from my house and I'll be talking to them this weekend.....

 

Exactly how lean are you running?

 

I don't have the chart from my dyno tune session but the guy at the shop told me around 13.8 or so. I know I have a liitle bit to go but I want to keep the car reliable. I just spoke to the guy at the shop who sells and installs the perfect power and they told me it would normally cost between 1200-1500 for the full setup and that includes like 4 hours of dyno tuning and testing. Like I said before, I am going there Saturday to talk to them and I'll let everyone know of my findings...... PM or email me if you have specific questions that you want me to ask....
jays350z@aol.com

 

If you have the dyno graph (with A/F reading), could you post it? I don't think a 13.8 is all that lean to be honest with you. I ran my Honda at 13.7-14.1 across the powerband for 90K miles, no problems whatsoever. However, I don't know if Nissan motors like a leaner mixture or not.

 

j's350z,

Is this the shop in NJ?

IDA Automotive

http://www.idaautomotive.com/

Would definitely be interested in more info.

 

I don't have the charts with the A/F and I know I have a little room to play but being that this car is also my daily driver, I want to keep it on the safer side. Whats nice about the piggy back computers is that you can pre-program different maps and even turn it off. I would like 1 map for the street, 1 for drag, and 1 for autocrossing. Being that the shop dynotunes it for you, they can set up different settings all through the rpm range to optimize power. I will post on Monday all of my finds from the shop. How many people would be interested if they could get substantial gains from this?

 

Remember that on the dyno, you're at WOT throttle, so the maps are going to be different than normal daily driving. Do they map the ECU for 0-50% throttle or something of the like?

 

From what my friend told me, then spend like 4 hours dunotuning the car. And this new system also has real time tuning so besides the pre-programmed maps, you could also adjust it while you are driving, which technically means you could have one setting for 1500-3500 rpms and another for 3500-6500 if you wanted, the options are limitless.... Email me with any other questions you want me to ask. The guy who actually installs and programs the system is pretty busy this week si I have an appointment with him on Sat to learn more about it....

 

Let us know how it goes. From reading their website, the concept of their product is like the way some military exercises are done. The system will not physically alter the ECU, but it will alter the signal of the sensors that the ECU rely on to base the F/A mixture and timing. It's "almost like" placing a variable resistor at the oxygen sensors, MAF,and other sensors. The military does this to the radar systems to simulate different conditions. The radars are "injected" with a target and the controllers than react to them. Sorry about the geek stuff, this sounds like a programming project that I can get into. "Virtual turbo", hahaha

 

Great, thanks!

 

Well, I am leaving on vacation for 3 weeks but this will be my next mod when I return. I am gonna do the AEM, and an exhaust (got to figure out which one, but probably gonna go Ti for weight savings) and the Dastek all at the same time.

 

When you say AEM, do you mean intake?

Full or catback exhaust?

 

Just CatBack. Gonna keep it smog legal with the exception of the Dastek. The nice thing about the Dastek is that it can simply be unplugged and there is then no trace of it.

 

Do you dyno tune it, and set the fuel and ignition maps, etc.?

 

RacersGroup will do the dyno tune.