Disadvantages Of Wolf 3d Ecu's?

[rb26s13]

jesus christ wats that work out to be.. 3 n half grand au?

or more.. thats just f**king stupid regardless of how good it is compared to power fc.. or anything else.. buy a f**kn motec

[MerlinTheHapyPig]

bd4s' in sydney don't charge that much for a tune. in fact their tuning prices are comparable to most workshops tuning wolf/powerfc etc. I think it was around the $5-600 for full tune with aftermarket turbo, aftermarket injectors etc. on sr20det from memory when i spoke to them a couple of months ago (of course you would have to talk to them yourself to get a quote...)

motec m600 is around $3,500 for the base unit.... Then pay for tuning, and any sensors or setup etc. I don't think it's gonna be cheaper!!!!!

Edited June 14, 2006 by MerlinTheHapyPig

[Sydneykid]

SydneyKid; when you say that absolutely no ECU out there can cater for the Nissan Auto; how many ECUs are we talking about?

This a copy of my PM to Stan, I think it answers and asks the important questions.

I have never used an HKS FCon V ECU, and I never will. Even if they gave them away for free. I am completely uncomfortable with only having one tuner that can tune them. I have seen nothing in either the spec list or price that would encourage me to even consider using one. I have no doubt that they are a good ECU, but not the best by any stretch of the imagination either technically or value for money. You are taking a big risk, you have no other tuner to turn to if you have a problem. If you are say in Melbourne on holidays and the car stops you are screwed. No one can help you, for the cost of towing it back to Sydney you can buy a Power FC. Please consider carefully what it means to you to be in the hands of one person.

Moving onto automatics, as usual they are telling half of the story. The engine ECU needs to tell the gearbox some stuff. Typically engine rpm, throttle position and road speed so that the gearbox ECU knows when to change gear, up or down. Most ECU’s are capable of this and are “advertised” as being auto gearbox compatible. Power FC, Wolf, Motec, Autronic all have this capability. This means the gearbox will change gear, if the ECU doesn’t have this capability, the gearbox will simply stay in the one gear all the time

BUT (there is always a but) what they don’t tell you is the standard engine ECU also has ignition cut and retard logic programming. This means that the gearbox ECU tells the engine ECU when it is about to change gear and the engine ECU cuts or retards the ignition timing. This softens the gearchange, makes it less harsh, not sudden or jerky. More importantly it protects the gearbox from excessive torque loading while it is changing gear. This gives flare free gearchanges, remember you don’t lift your foot on the gearchange like in a manual. It also protects the gearbox from band and clutch pack damage and premature wear.

Think about the current gearchanges, they are relatively smooth and flare free all the time, full throttle, part throttle, up hill, down hill, around corners, one passenger or 5, luggage or no luggage etc etc

According to Nissan the amount of programming in the automatic engine ECU to give those sorts of results is HUGE. In fact more lines of code than in the ignition and injection maps combined. This is not cheap to develop or program that’s why no aftermarket ECU manufacturer has bothered to spend the millions necessary to test and program their ECU. Considering the small demand, they would have to sell them for maybe $10K each to make any money. No one would buy them at that price, so they simply don’t make them.

Now have a think about what that means when you increase the power output of the engine, presumably that’s why you are changing the ECU. The rough changes just get rougher, the bands just wear out faster, the clutch packs over heat faster, the flare on gearchanges just gets worse, the gearbox wear rate is hugely accelerated.

I have driven several Skylines with various ECU’s claiming compatibility with autos. Remember I have a strong personal interest, the Stagea is an auto. I have yet to find one that I would use in my own car. They were almost all exactly the same, rough change, jerky and just not nice to drive. This is why I have gone the SAFC (actually DFA) and SITC route.

Don’t confuse this with other cars, Toyotas for example. They have the ignition cut and retard programming in the gearbox ECU. That’s why you will see Power FFC’s for Toyota autos.

The bottom line, ask BD4’s the hard questions as above and then make your own decision.

cheers

Edited June 14, 2006 by Sydneykid

[satanic]

Thanks for that and the PM SK; does this line from HKS change your opinion though as it addresses the issue of the ignition cut and retard logic programming.

"AT shift and revision"

"In the A/T car, at the time of high load because the knocking which is easy to occur at the time of shift rise or kick down is not caused, engine rpm fluctuation and throttle opening are designated as condition and ignition retarded angle revision of fixed time is done."

This is straight from their website translated into English.

[rb26s13]

thats got to be one of the best points sydneykid just mentioned.. 1 tuner and 1 tuner only in australia.. and in melb on holiday.. car shits itself.. are bd4's goin to send someone to see wats happened n fix it.. doubt it

sydneykid, wat about greddy emanage on an auto car?

[satanic]

I agree that it's a very valid point, but same could be said about any ECU (though not to the same extent ). Furthermore, I am from Sydney and it's unlikely I'll be taking the car interstate for any reason - too much $$$ in petrol.

[paulr33]

how is the fcon v pro? it almost compares to motec/autronic in features but only has 1 tuner

[satanic]

I'll tell you in 1 week's time

[paulr33]

sorry i meant, how much in $

[satanic]

I got my setup on the cheap so it's not a clear indication... but my guesstimate for ECU, harness, all sensors and the navigator would be somwhere close to $3k.

[D-limo]

Wtf.. How does a comparison between a Power FC and F-Con have anything to do with the topic title?

[MerlinTheHapyPig]

sk, you make a good point about only one tuner

i've driven a car with an fcon, but being in melbourne, we took it out and replaced it with a powerfc.

the fcon retains the stock ecu, perhaps it still retains the stock ecu's control over the auto transmission.

if you get stranded in melbourne, if you have an afm and stock injectors, it's relatively simple to swap it back to standard (all you do is unplug the fcon, change injectors, plug afm back in and she's ready to go -- though rb injectors are bitches to get too compared with SR20). If you had the parts, the cost of getting a workshop to do it would be similar to the cost of getting a tuning shop to work out the problem.

- having said all that... i'd be very sceptical about using ANY ecu where i don't have the cable/software to tune it myself!!! I think fcon's are a viable option for someone living in sydney, they have very nice feature set and people who use them in japan love them. however i'd never ever use one myself (living in melbourne) unless i can get my hands on the software/hardware to tune them somehow

Edited June 14, 2006 by MerlinTheHapyPig

[paulr33]

3k for piggyback doesnt sound right. i think the Fcon original and SZ are piggyback. im pretty sure the V Pro is standalone, it would have to be for autotune via wideband

[MerlinTheHapyPig]

edited...

i take that back. you're right, the fcon v pro is the standalone version of the fcon.... car i was using had the standard fcon. In any case, reverting to stock ecu is fairly straight forward if you run into trouble...

Edited June 14, 2006 by MerlinTheHapyPig

[Sydneykid]

Thanks for that and the PM SK; does this line from HKS change your opinion though as it addresses the issue of the ignition cut and retard logic programming.

"AT shift and revision"

"In the A/T car, at the time of high load because the knocking which is easy to occur at the time of shift rise or kick down is not caused, engine rpm fluctuation and throttle opening are designated as condition and ignition retarded angle revision of fixed time is done."

This is straight from their website translated into English.

Don’t you just love the Janglish

It sounds like it may retard the ignition for a fixed period of time when the throttle opening is constant, the rpm rises sharply and the knock sensors encounter pre-ignition. If that is the case, this is more of an engine protection strategy than a shift logic program. The idea being to stop the engine over revving on a full throttle upchange. The FConV supports this feature in manual form, which is useful when using a dog engagement gearbox.

I did note the lack of the words “ignition cut”, which is also a concern.

It’s use of the words “fixed time” that gives the most concern. Obviously the speed of the gearchange is different depending on the circumstances occurring at the time of the gearchange. Hence the ignition retard/cut needs to be varied in time with the gearchange, most definitely not fixed length.

BUT even worse than that, as the power of the engine increases the speed of the gearchange needs to be limited, you can’t have long periods of slip. It firstly wastes acceleration torque and secondly (more importantly) wears the bands and clutch packs.

So the question you need to ask the tuner is can he vary the ignition retard for gearchanges based on the 3 input parameters, engine RPM, throttle position and road speed? To accomplish this, the ECU will need a 3 dimensional map that he can “tune” to suite your engine’s torque output and the gearboxes shift pattern.

If he can’t because of knowledge/training or because the mapping simply isn’t there then you are slightly better off then you would be with a Wolf, but not as well off as you would be with the Motec or Autronic.

The final question, if he can do it, how much is he going to charge you for it? Because it's not a 5 minute job that can be done on the dyno, it's many hours of driving around in varying conditons.

cheers

Edited June 14, 2006 by Sydneykid

[Abo Bob]

Doesn't matter which ECU the title states, it always ends up bringing others into it.

I can also state that having one tuner CAN be bad but it doesn't have to be. You will find that when there is only one they try very hard to not inconvenience you.

Good on you for being the guineapig Stan. Others before you have sacrificed in the same way to prove and disprove various things for which you and others have reaped the rewards.

As for the Wolf. It seems that in capable hands it will work fine and there are alternative tuners out there if you need them.

[Sydneykid]

I agree that it's a very valid point, but same could be said about any ECU (though not to the same extent ). Furthermore, I am from Sydney and it's unlikely I'll be taking the car interstate for any reason - too much $$$ in petrol.

OK, so you are on the SAU cruise to Port Stephens and the car just stops, what are you going to do?

If it's a Power FC, you look at the Commander and it will most likely tell you what's wrong.

Ditto the Wolf.

If It's a Motec or Autronic you plug your (or someone elses) laptop in and it will most likely tell you what’s wrong.

Worst case you get it towed to any one of 6 tuning shops in the area and they can have a look for you.

If it’s a FConV you are forced to have it towed to BD4’s, because no one else has the software to do anything for you.

I would feel like I had an electric car with a cable that didn’t let me get more than 10 k’s from the power point at BD4’s. No thank you.

cheers

[Sydneykid]

As for the Wolf. It seems that in capable hands it will work fine and there are alternative tuners out there if you need them.

I will post it up again for those that may not have been around when I made this offer before.

If anyone thinks that they have a Wolf ECU that runs the auto in a Skyline properly, then please let me know. I will fly to wherever you are and you can take me for a drive, I will even pay for lunch and the petrol used.

I have done it once before, a guy with an R32GTST 4 door auto in Adelaide reckoned the Wolf worked perfectly in his car. So I flew down to Adelaide a day early for a race meeting and he took me for a drive. It was just terrible, rough changes, flared all over the place etc etc. He thought it was great, I hated it. About 2 weeks later the gearbox failed and he had MV rebuild it. Mike warned him at the time that he needed to do some thing about the ECU or convert the auto to driver gear change control using one of Mike’s black boxes.

The Wolf dealer in Perth even offered to show me personally it working perfectly, but that never happened.

So the offer still stands.

cheers

Edited June 14, 2006 by Sydneykid

[satanic]

Maybe this was left out somewhere in the discussion but the HKS F-CON does have a hand controller; it's called the F-CON Navigator or Navigator PRO. It displays all the monitoring sensors etc just like a PFC H/C does. However, unlike the PFC it cannot be used for tuning purposes. The most you can do from what I understand is set the desired A/F ratio that you want.

However, reading into the F-CON features there is an override feature which will enable you to bypass the F-CON allowing for a limp mode. Also, since it's installed in a "piggyback" style, the stock ECU is still there meaning you can always revert it on the spot (simply leave your AFM in the boot or just not hooked up I guess).

[paulr33]

so given the price did u look at motec/autronic instead?

* edit'd its agreed its not a piggyback, the fcon v pro is standalone *