I'm Finally Happy With My Car.

[Abo Bob]

Apart from a couple of little things I will do over the next few weeks I'm pretty happy.

I got the car converted from auto to manual a little while ago by Greg at Autosport Engineering in Kirrawee. They did a pretty good job and were priced well. They also get things done quickly and efficiently.

Next I got the car tuned by Mark at Hills Motorsports. It ran pretty well but ran out of injectors. Over the next few days the car deteriorated so that I had to keep dropping the boost, eventually to stock, just so it wouldn't ping.

I tried everything I could think of and eventually took it back to Hills to diagnose. It turned out to be a wire that used to go to the auto shorting out. You wouldn't think that a simple tacho type signal could cause so much of a problem but it was causing the timing to jump all over the place. Up to 17 extra degrees of timing due to the CAS signal being changed. No wonder the bloody thing pinged and thank god I already blew my engine once and now have some nice forged pistons in there which handled quite a bit with no obvious problems.

Once this was figured out the PowerFC was reinstalled but still had the stock AFM from when we were changing things around trying to diagnose the problem. I needed the car so took it for the weekend but tonight I went back to Hills to check the tune with the Z32 in place.

Mark spent considerable time on the dyno staying there working on it til 8:30 tonight to make it run right. I'm sure he wouldn't want me advertising that he is "open" at this time of night but I'm just trying to impart a picture of his dedication to the job. The whole time we had the problem he did what he could to help me. He has lent me a car, driven me home once and stayed late twice. When I tried to give him money he said he wanted to make sure I was completely happy with the car before he asked for payment. When I drove off home he rang me half an hour later to check up on the car.

The other thing I'll say is that I can now see the difference between a crap tune and a good one. To test what Mark told me, on the way home I braked down to about 45km/h in 5th gear and accelarated up a hill in that gear. (for hills people, it was from the lights towards the school going south down Windsor Road) I went from 1000rpm in 5th up a hill to 60km/h. I'm not saying it did it very quickly but it did it smoothly with out a hint of a ping.

This was only a touch up tune and still he was working on various parts of the maps for half an hour before he even did the first power run. Final power figure was 286rwkw which I think is unrealistic. I will run it on a dyno it has been on before to get some graphs to post up here.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. I've heard a few things said about Mark but no one has suggested he insn't a good tuner.

[JeeTeeEss25Tee]

My very first service was with Mark and I must say he had similar dedication to his works as well. The problem he seemed to have was his workshop under-staffed. At most of the times there were only maximum of 2 ppl working including Mark so he never had enough time dealing with all customers and was contantly getting interupted.

However every time I took my car there since it was stock I was quite happy with the works done by Mark eventhough he usually took longer than what was originally planned. These were about 2 years ago so things might have changed now. I had fuel pump and FMIC installed by him and he did good job for both of them. Haven't tried getting tuned by him so can't really comment.

I've heard a few "different" perspectives about his workshop but I would suggest if you want to make sure jobs for your car are done properly they have to be done by Mark himself, not his apprentices or assistants etc

Keep us posted with your tune results Adam. It's looking good so far

[Cubes]

Good to hear its finally all sorted..

How do you find the manual compared to the old auto?

[Abo Bob]

I miss the midrange thump of power that the auto gave and the ease of use in traffic but my new top end is great fun. Also when I first had the conversion done I was using the auto ROM tune which gave lots of power but made me feel like a mongaloid when driving. Now I know that it wasn't me, it was the tune because I can now take off much more smoothly where before I was jerking around a lot. Also the clutch took a couple of weeks to settle in but is nice now.

I also needed some 2rismo tips on driving again. I wont bore you with the details but i'm getting a lot more out of 1st gear now.

Yeah Hills usually takes longer than expected for the same reason but he has just employed a mate of his who was at IBM, Adam, to manage the office and take the phone calls etc so I think that it should get substantially better soon.

[satanic]

Looking good Bobby~ happy to hear it's all worked out for you

[silver gts-t]

nice adam, good to see...

list of mods now please

[Abo Bob]

Wiseco pistons - 8.75:1 compression ratio

Tomei type B Poncams

Minor head work

Crank collar for oil pump drive

GCG highflow turbo

Nismo 480cc injectors (at about 98%)

R34 GTR fuel pump

R34 GTR fuel regulator

Blitz LM Intercooler

Nismo panel filter in stock airbox

CES split dump/front pipe

3" cat

Fujitsubo cat back (dunno what it's called but it's pretty quiet)

PowerFC

AVC-R

Z32 AFM

Custom made hardpipe from AFM to turbo by Mick's Metalcraft

R33 GTR clutch rebuilt by Jim Berry

Was an auto now a manual using all GTT parts.

Using stock diff but have a Nismo 1 way waiting to go in.

Running 1.2 bar at the moment. Injectors have no more head room but I don't really feel the need to boost it any higher.

Other stuff not related to power:

Copper dual core radiator

Cheap oil cooler

Unknown springs

Bilstein shocks

[paulr33]

wow suprised your maxing the injectors

good stuff

[d00dz]

w00t Adam! Nice!!

Must be good to drive manual, though not so much in traffic.

[paulr33]

manual is heaps of fun in traffic

[d00dz]

manual is heaps of fun in traffic

orly?

Adam I wonder where your supergood auto tranny is going. :( Mr. Choi

[Abo Bob]

Yeah 480cc so I guess that's about normal. When I got them there were no drop injectors any bigger that you could get.

It's fine in traffic. 3 reasons.

1. The clutch was jerky at first but wore in and is much smoother

2. The auto ECU controlled the engine ok but starting off was again jerky and annoying. The new tune is so smooth. Mark explained that he does something different with the revs just above AND below normal idle speed so that it takes off easy. It works.

3. R34 GTT's have a pull type clutch so it's easier to push the pedal in than the push type which R33 GTST's have.

[N1GTR]

Wiseco pistons - 8.75:1 compression ratio

Tomei type B Poncams

Minor head work

Crank collar for oil pump drive

GCG highflow turbo

Nismo 480cc injectors (at about 98%)

R34 GTR fuel pump

R34 GTR fuel regulator

Blitz LM Intercooler

Nismo panel filter in stock airbox

CES split dump/front pipe

3" cat

Fujitsubo cat back (dunno what it's called but it's pretty quiet)

PowerFC

AVC-R

Z32 AFM

Custom made hardpipe from AFM to turbo by Mick's Metalcraft

R33 GTR clutch rebuilt by Jim Berry

Was an auto now a manual using all GTT parts.

Using stock diff but have a Nismo 1 way waiting to go in.

Running 1.2 bar at the moment. Injectors have no more head room but I don't really feel the need to boost it any higher.

Other stuff not related to power:

Copper dual core radiator

Cheap oil cooler

Unknown springs

Bilstein shocks

Stock rods?

They're the same as GTR in the NEO's from memory?

[Moanie]

awsome sutff adam!! good to hear you're finally happy with your girl

Subscribing to this thread I want to see your final power runs

and when you heading to ec?

[Abo Bob]

Stock rods?

They're the same as GTR in the NEO's from memory?

Yes and yes. They were shotpeened when it was rebuilt but that's all.

[N1GTR]

manual is heaps of fun in traffic

Sure is

Add a multi plate clutch and you can have a party

[Abo Bob]

awsome sutff adam!! good to hear you're finally happy with your girl

Subscribing to this thread I want to see your final power runs

and when you heading to ec?

I'm hopefully getting onto the UAS dyno on saturday.

Umm, when I get a chance.

[legend01]

Awsome stuff Adam ,So the new EC time's will be ?????.Damn soon everbody's gonna be quicker than me

[Duncan]

Another for Mark from me, he tunes our race cars, great tunes and a great price....and all from the standard computer.

And he has a 4wd dyno now too

[Sydneykid]

Well done, good to hear that it's going. The 286 rwkw is not too far off the mark at 98% of 480 cc's. With similar bolt ons, I have seen 275 rwkw at 90%, which was pretty close to the lean limit (12.2 to 1). We used a Nismo adjustable FPR at 45 psi for 315 rwkw. So that's worth considering if there is any more airlfow left in the turbo. Or if you want a bit more head room on the injector duty cycle.

cheers

Edited September 28, 2006 by Sydneykid