BoostedBarge

Well I made up my mind quickly and got a GTR plug-in board fitted to my Stagea 260RS last week by Mark at Godzilla Motorsport. For some reason with the stock ECU my Stagea had a rough idle that was very lean. As soon as Mark fitted the Vipec the idle came good He then fitted a boost control valve (using the wiring to the stock boost solenoid) and tuned it to run 13psi. All up the tuning only took 2-3 hours and went quite smoothly. In the end it was producing 250HP @ 13psi with a conservative tune (~11.8:1 AFRs up in the revs). This is my daily, so I want it to be reliable. The only other mods to the car are dump-back 3" exhaust with 2.5" compliance cat (even running stock airbox). There were a few small differences with the A/C wiring in the 260RS compared to the GTR, but these were easy to fix. Oh yeah, I'm running a MAFless tune and was able to wire a switch to one of the Vipec's digital inputs to trigger high or low boost. Low boost is 8psi, high is 13. You can see from the dyno sheet that the Vipec holds the boost welll at 13psi and has minimal overshoot. The car idles nicely, starts first time in the morning and has no problem idling with the A/C on. It sounds much nicer than before and revs smoothly. It certianly pulls much harder than before. I noticed a huge difference up in the revs. Thanks heaps to Mark and the guys at Godzilla. For some reason my crappy work computer doesn't have javascript and I can't attach the dynosheet. You can get it here http://www.justmurph.com/willy/Stagea/Dyno...021-10-2008.jpg Dyno video: http://www.justmurph.com/willy/Stagea/P1030318.MOV chalon: No news from Ray about the knock control amplifier. I didn't worry about it. Mark did a conservative tune, so I'm not too concerned. I can always add it later on. You can download the Vipec software and play with the ECU yourself. The software seems pretty straight forward to use.

I asked him that question (waiting on reply). If there isn't one, I will make one and share the schematic

OK, I have some good news. I emailed Ray Hall about the knock control and this is what he said Hmm I think my ECU choice is now cemented

Thanks Mike. I'm convinced that Vipec ECUs are a good option for me and superior to some of the options. I guess I just need to decide if knock control and losing wasted spark are worth the extra $$$ over a normal V66. So how much extra will it be? $350 for the loom and then whatever extra the V88 is over the plug-in (prices are deep in this thread somewhere) Hmmmm.. I'm not chasing huge power from my RB26, just want a reliable 250-300kwatw eventually (once I replace turbos etc). What the hell happened to this thread by the way?

That's a bit of a worry, because there is no means of controlling knock and no means of indicating it like you would witha Power FC. Not sure if I wanna cough up the extra $$$ for the V88, plus adapter loom. It then puts me in the ball park of other ECUs. Other than that, the Vipec does look impressive

I was told that you can wire in a high/low boost switch. I was looking at the website earlier and noticed in the comaprison table between V44/V88/plug-in, that the V44 and plug-in ECUs do not have knock control. It says the V88 does, but not the others. I hope that the table wrong. Can anyone confirm? I was under the impression they all have knock control. If they don't then that's a bit disappointing as your losing a factory feature. It was also a major advantage over the Power FC and others. Of course, if I really want knock control I could buy a V88, but then a lose the 'stealth' factor of the plug-in boards.

Here are some pics of our 260RS finally. Pretty much stock. Oh yeah, my old GTI-R is in the background on the last pic.

Cool, thanks for your reply Matt (sorry for the delay, I've been away with work). I'm now treading the line between plug-in aftermarket vs modded standard ECU. I guess it will be some time before I decide anyway (gotta convince the missus). I have some pics of this ECU. I will post them on Nistune for you.

Jeez, good work man. Talk about change of plans! This thing will be awesome Keep us posted how you go.

Yeah I know the GTRS is laggy as all hell, but the GT-SSs are still going to be slightly laggy. I was wondering how they compare with stock turbos. I really wouldn't want much more lag than stock. The stockers can support another power for what I would want, it's just a shame the turbine wheels are ceramic, otherwise I'd keep them.

Nice work guys. It inspires me to begin the mods to mine How do you find the GT-SSs? Not too laggy?

That's pretty impressive on street tyres. It would be awesome to see you win a round. We need a GTR at the top. It's a shame Nathan sold his beast and went to the dark side.

THanks guys. I've found one

Yeah I really miss the sprints. Great fun I was only doing mid 46s, but my car was near stock and running on 185 street tyres. Now I've got a Stagea 260RS. I'd love to bring it up to see how it compares. Much bigger and heavier car, but seems to handle better than the old GTI-R. I think I saw your car doing Motorkhana, too. My brother-in-law, Jaimen, owns an old black (now half black, half orange) Toyota T18 (previously owned by my brother).

Keep up the good work on this thread. I'm enjoying the reading I used to live in Townsville (left early last year). If I was there, I would be keen to help out. I used to do sprints, too (grey GTI-R)

That's good to hear! From what I read on here, the series 3 R33 GTR has the strongest of the GTR 5 speed gearboxes I can't remember the differences. Triple synchros or something (I don't know gearboxes very well)? A search should find the differences.

I'm not sure if Skyline ECUs implement boost control other than just cutting the boost as a safety feature. My old GTI-R ECU used to run the stock boost solenoid full open (not pulse modulated) normally and close it if there was knock or I declerate or something like that. So there's no facility that I'm aware of (Skylines could be different) that allows you to specify x bar of boost. Edit: I have a feeling (I could be wrong) that bikirom may have added that functionality via additional hardware. Check on their website.

Thanks Toshi. I'm guessing the daughterboard is not a real-time programmable one like Nistune's, so once you add the cost of emulators (or finding someone with emulators), you're right, it's not a very economic option. It's a shame, I'd like to keep the factory ECU for the nice idle, cold start, knock control features and stealth factor . I believe the factory ECU is capable of supporting the sort of power I require. Oh well...

Spotted a green RS4 in Buranda shopping centre carpark (Brisbane). I parked next to it, but when I came out it was still there so the owner wouldn't have seen me.

Cool. Thanks for your advice Toshi. I've played with Nissan ECUs a bit myself over the years, so I know how capable they are. Ideally, I'd like to keep it, but it looks like it will not be economical to do so. Oh well.. I heard somewhere that you socketed daughterboard for the R33 can be connected to EPROM emulators and is supported by Nistune. Is this true? If this also works with the GTR ECU and I can find someone in Brisbane with EPROM emulators, then it may be an option. Otherwise...aftermarket it is

Awesome! Nice car mate. It was good to see a Stagea there

So we're looking at around $550-$570 including the braided lines, speedflow fittings and thermostat? I may be interested. Need to measure if the core will fit in the front of my Stagea somewhere.

Yeah that's another option. I need to double-check on the wiring loom. I may be getting confused with the standard Stageas. It seems kind of crazy using a ECU that's nearly 10 years older than my car, but then I guess they use the same algorithms and have 16x16 maps, so what's there to gain? Does the R34 GT-R ECU has a daughterboard connector like the R34 GT-T? Edit: I'm sure there are quite a few differences between R33 and R32 ECUs. For a start, I just remembered that the R32 uses Titania O2 sensors, where as the R33 uses Zirconia (I just replaced them), so that would cause problems. Would probably have to replace the sensors.

Hey Toshi, I have a Stagea 260RS, which I am led to believe has a R33 GTR ECU with R34 wiring loom. I cracked open the ECU the other day and discovered that it has no daughterboard connector I am in Brissy, is there way you could do your mod and then I could take the car to someone in Brissy to get it tuned? Do you know of any workshops who have the necessary emulators? I already have Nistune on my laptop (I had a Nistune daughterboard in my last car...man I wish I could have one in this car). Cheers, Simon

Spotted a white 260RS going along Ipswich Road in Brisbane, heading towards the city about 11am on Saturday. Had gold mags I think. We were driving the other direction (towards Jambo!) in our white 260RS. Spotted a red RS4 at Jamboree on display!! Looked very nice. Anyone on here?