BHDave

Ahhh, i wonder why i bother some times.... I never said the power fc was the greatest ecu ever made, and if you are one of the unfortunate individuals who doesn't have access to a tuner capable of tuning a power fc then it's probably best that you don't get one of them, rather get something that can be tuned by your tuner. For a street ecu you simply can't go past an fc for price, functionality, ease of install and available capable tuners. I never said that there weren't manufactuer faults, i disagreed with your assertion that there is a bad batch that apexi has stored solely for the use of overseas buyers, and left it at that. Ofcourse there are going to be faulty units. No ones QA is perfect so some dud's do slip through. You may have noticed i said the majority of problems are due to install, rather than all problems as i do realise that faulty units can and do exist. On topic for this thread, we are talking about a car that has had an engine swap and runs an rb25 ecu and loom. It is much more likely that there is a fault with the wiring than with the ecu. I have actually carried out this same engine conversion on my own r32 and know from experience that it not a simple job to get the power fc working properly when you are trying to wire it with poor information. I have also carried out a conversion on an s13 with a later model s14 engine and loom and had exactly the same problem as ryno has mentioned here. It wasn't a dead ecu, it was a wiring problem, which i fixed, and now the car runs perfectly. You know how i know the power fc isn't faulty? I read the thread before responding.

I'd check your plugs and see what heat range they are first. If they aren't 7's or 8's then swap them first. I suppose the other thing to consider (and i think this is what bezerkR32 is getting at) is that the ignitor isn't in the best condition and is starting to fail as it gets a bit hot. Depending on the version of the microtech you have you can throw all the stock ignition stuff away and run external bosch coils which should give a considerable improvement to the spark, but in all honesty the stock system with splitfires should be sufficient at your power and boost level.

Fair enough. I'd look at getting some 90 degree bends in steel maybe so that you can point forward and closer to the end tank before using flexible joiners to make up the difference. (obviously need some joiners at the other end too) It shouldn't be too hard to get a rough idea of the angles you need and the correct size and get them made up by a fabricator. Then use a silicone bend to finish it off at each side.

I think maybe i should start a poll: Who bought their power fc off an Australian Distributor in the last 2 years? (Is there even an official distributor?) I can guarantee that 95% of the member here have bought their fc's individually through online traders who deal direct with apexi or resellers in Japan, and they are posted over. There aren't any bulk shipments, there is no stockpile of dud fc's sitting in the distributors back room, do you think that Apexi are naive enough to think they won't get returns from OS buyers? You can connect the unit in 10 minutes if you have access to a 10mm spanner and a phillips head screwdriver. I'm not saying that tuning can be performed by anyone but injector correction, maf changes, self learn idle proceedure are all easy to do. The NZ software you refer to is called datalogit, there's also the official Apexi software (which is in Japanese but still gets used over here). As for fine tuning with hand controllers, well you dont get access to all the features of the fc by using the hand controller, thats common knowledge, but you are still tuning a 20x20 fuel map and a 20x20 ignition map so there should be no difference in the overall tune. It just takes a bit longer with a hand controller as you can't dump in an existing good tune from a car with similar mods and tweak it. As far as tuning, you're right. There are a lot of people who have killed engines by playing around with their boost settings or tune. But i still think you are being fed a load of shit about dud pfc's. Most problems are down to incorrect wiring and getting the wrong unit for the car (red top/black top SR is a prime example as the power signals are different) and frying it when it's plugged in. The majority of problems that are raised on these forums and others are not to do with the unit itself, rather outside factors, either user playing without knowing what they are doing or existing wiring faults that the stock ecu can live with but the fc can't.

You have possibly damaged a castor rod, maybe even a tie rod. Best get it to a suspension joint and have it looked at as opposed to a tyre shop.

the 52 trim garrett 2871 runs the same wheels and housing a/r as the gtrs in t2 flanged form. I think there is a bit of a difference between the t2 and t3 flanged versions of the gtrs, most obvious being the bypass slots in the compressor inlet which are supposedly to eliminate surge.

Or do what i do. Follow your car onto the hoist and just get in the guys ear about what settings you want and stand there talking to him while he adjusts it. Some guys don't mind because i walk out happy with my print out and they know i won't be back with complaints. Others get the shits because i don't want 1mm toe in on the front wheels and don't care if my car chews the inside edge of the tyre. And because you are standing there you know what they have adjusted.

Lol Where does this shit come from? If the units shipped to aus are rooted then how the hell can a tuner get it running?

Thats the point. Constant power to the input side of the relay, ecu trips relay, power to the ecu. If you run it through another switched ignition you won't be able to save settings on the fc as it won't be able to maintain power for the second or so after the ignition is switched off.

The 2 easiest things to check (seeing as it's an engine swap) are that pin 45 is getting a switched ignition source off the dash plugs. (all the other wiring from pin 16 to the eccs and ign relays and power feeds back to the ecu should be untouched as it doesn't need to be modified at all during the conversion from memory). And that the constant power to the eccs and ign relay in the foot well is up to the job of powering the coils. A direct 20amp wire off the battery will solve this one if you can't find a decent gauge wire in the r32 loom to power off. I think this will be the cause of your problem as the pfc seems to suck a bit more juice than the stock ecu for some reason. While you're in the footwell, check that 58 (i think it is) is getting a constant 12V supply as well. Thats your battery back up.

Oiled cotton filters are fine, it's the oiled foam that let small animals through you should be worried about. If you don't get enough oil on them they are useless at removing small particles so oil it to manufacturer specs. I do, no problems in 3.5 years.

Is the gauge sitting at zero with no signal? Sounds like it's well out to me.

Not that i've found locally. I have seen them on a jap tuner website sold individually. Can't remember where though....

They look like cusco's which have a quality rose joint. Mine are still fine after about 80,000km's. The dust boot makes a difference too.

If you think it's bad now, wait until you install some bigger ones

The factory fan come on a bit over 90 degrees. I wouldn't recommend using it for thermo control as thats a bit late imho. Ideally you want the fans kicking in around 85 in a skyline as that is slightly higher than average cruise temperatures so the thermo only comes on when you're stopped for a little while, and if it's big enough, it will run for a couple of minutes and drop the temp enough that it switches off. That way you maintain a fairly stable temperature in the 83-88 degree range rather than having it fluctuate between 83-95 for example.

yes. The r32/silvia castor rods are the same no matter the brand. But not all castor rods are created equal As geoff said, neither of the pictured items look to be of particularly good quality.

You wouldn't have a problem with sucking water up with a set up like that. Consider that the end of the pipe is submerged, you'd need a very well sealed cai and enough vacuum to lift water a foot in a 4 inch pipe. against gravity. As i doubt your cai is completely sealed i'd be inclined to think that the air will come from somewhere else if the pipe is blocked by water.

The 2 most likely cluprits are your stock castor rod bushes and your tie rod ends. Combine that with a dud pair of shocks and you'll have a fairly ordinary front end. Subframe bushes rear will allow a lot of movement. There are a couple of different size rear lower control arm bushs that the r32 can run. Measure length and diameter before ordering. Noltec are aware of the 2 types but their catalogue only lists the smaller of the 2 (30.5mm dia) but mine runs a bigger, shorter bush about 33mm dia. Also, id advise getting all the bushes sitting in your hand before commiting to removing the old ones. I received promise after promise when ordering mine and ended up waiting 5 weeks for some bushes. From experience: Noltec make everything you could ever want but you tend to get forgotten about. Nolathane only make stuff for the front end but you will have it in under a week.

thanks mate

Thats interesting. My nolathane bush kit didn't come with nipples for the upper control arm. Anyone know where i could get some before i install the bushes?

Are you changing the entire clutch or just the friction plate? It would make more sense to just reco your existing pressure plate and if possible get a heavier spring if you're thinking along those lines. Then just replace the friction plate, and there is really bugger all difference between different button style plates. You could possibly even have your current plate re pucked. What sort of friction plate do you have now? If you are drifting and so popping the clutch i'd be leaning to towards less pucks, either 3 or 5. Drivability isn't that bad with current generation ceramic buttons either. My 9 puck xhd extreme has almost the same weight as the stock clutch, is only fractionally biteyer (is that a word?) than stock and is happily holding down 240rwkw. I don't drift or drag though. If i did i'd look at a 5 puck plate minimum.

Just the usual obvious ones when wiring an rb25 engine into a non factory body. Make sure the coils and injectors have power. The coils probably will if you have maintained the 2 relays near the ecu as all you need to do there is give it get constant power to one side of the relay and the rest of the loom doesn't need to be touched. Injectors will come straight off a switched ignition through the big SMJ plug so check that they are getting power. The power for everything in the rb25 comes from the big SMJ and a surprising number of things are powered off different pins on this plug so just trace every wire that runs direct from the plug into the loom and figure it out from there. In most case the ecu uses negative triggers so almost every wire that runs straight to a sensor plug off the SMJ is a switched ignition. There are a few exceptions like the temp gauge and a couple ot others i cant think of right now though.

Because i'm not going to go out and buy a blow torch for 20 bucks when i can buy 10 copper washers for 50c

The little fan in front of the radiator is only for the air con and when the water temp gets up to 95 degrees or so. So driving it around on a winters day with the heater on rather than the aircon isn't going to cause problems. Unless you have removed the factory viscous fan.......