Nistune

[darkhalf]

Use an aftermarket VCT controller (RPM based) for the HCR32 ECU if you want to go that way, but Z32 ECUs have VCT TP and RPM controlled (and also switch off in higher rpms) so that is the preferable ECU

[greensa14]

Hey all,

Thought i would add my Nistune experience.

I got a Nistune installed in my S14a, and tuned this week by the boys at Chasers. Cant be happier with the results.

My car made a heap more power on less boost.

Thanks to Glenn and Paul at chasers for the work. Very thorough and professional.

Car feels and drive great.

One problem though......it has not stopped bloody raining since i got the thing arghhhhhh!!

Edited August 11, 2010 by greensa14

[Skyline R33 Wide Body]

hello! I have fair lady Z 300ZX 2/2 in October, 1989

GZ32 VG30DE MT ECU. Need to install on R33 GTST F5 with nistune. and about question. is There any problem of year of ECU? Mean Z32 ecu year.

guess you understand question sry for my engish

[blah_blah]

Hey all,

Thought i would add my Nistune experience.

I got a Nistune installed in my S14a, and tuned this week by the boys at Chasers. Cant be happier with the results.

My car made a heap more power on less boost.

Thanks to Glenn and Paul at chasers for the work. Very thorough and professional.

Car feels and drive great.

One problem though......it has not stopped bloody raining since i got the thing arghhhhhh!!

Nice! What sort of power were you making before hand? And what mods?

Cheers!

[hypergear]

Nice! What sort of power were you making before hand? And what mods?

Cheers!

I built the turbo on it. Very responsive result. Shoot in few more psi next time .

[chrisR34GTT]

Hi guys. Car has been into the workshop for a tune and it took 4 hours for a raw tune. I supplied the tuner with a ECUtalk cable and my laptop. Tuner believes that communication kept dropping out?? Has anyone else encountered this problem... If the cable is the cause then I'm pissed because it is costing me delays on the dyno @ $200/hr.

[bubba]

Are you using a serial>USB adapter?

[Rolls]

How does the tuner not already have a cable? Have they ever tuned a skyline before?

When I put my cable in the plug was a bit dicky and would come loose at times, had to really put a lot of pressure to get it to click in properly.

Also regarding people using the RB25s with the RB20 ECU, eboost street boost controllers have a build in rpm based controller which can switch the VCT on and off within a window of RPM, works very well and if you already need a boost controller (most people do) then it makes sense to get this one.

Edited October 13, 2010 by Rolls

[STATUS]

Hi guys. Car has been into the workshop for a tune and it took 4 hours for a raw tune. I supplied the tuner with a ECUtalk cable and my laptop. Tuner believes that communication kept dropping out?? Has anyone else encountered this problem... If the cable is the cause then I'm pissed because it is costing me delays on the dyno @ $200/hr.

it will be the operating system, or a compat issue with the cable.

The nistune cable works fine on XP and VISTA but iver heard of issues with other cables and Vista.

I run XP as it allows more access to DOS fo all my Motec stuff, the upside of XP is it is far more stable for ALL tuning suites, i used to run vista and have phantom issues now on XP i have NO ISSUES at all.

Find out what OS the tuner is using.

[chrisR34GTT]

Are you using a serial>USB adapter?

I have the ECUtalk cable which has the consult head and a usb connector

How does the tuner not already have a cable? Have they ever tuned a skyline before?

When I put my cable in the plug was a bit dicky and would come loose at times, had to really put a lot of pressure to get it to click in properly.

Also regarding people using the RB25s with the RB20 ECU, eboost street boost controllers have a build in rpm based controller which can switch the VCT on and off within a window of RPM, works very well and if you already need a boost controller (most people do) then it makes sense to get this one.

Tuner is a confessed link computer lover and hater of NIStune apparently.

it will be the operating system, or a compat issue with the cable.

The nistune cable works fine on XP and VISTA but iver heard of issues with other cables and Vista.

I run XP as it allows more access to DOS fo all my Motec stuff, the upside of XP is it is far more stable for ALL tuning suites, i used to run vista and have phantom issues now on XP i have NO ISSUES at all.

Find out what OS the tuner is using.

The laptop being used is mine, tuner didn't have NIStune but claimed he could tune it. The OS is XP and I never had problems when logging using the trial NIStune version (before it got canned). I just really think the tuner is making it difficult because he is a hater...

[STATUS]

where are you? what are your mods?

[Rolls]

Time to find another tuner.

[bubba]

The only times I have had connection issues and dropouts is with a particular serial>USB converter, my other converter works fine and when I go straight to the serial port on the carpc it's also fine.

+1 to find another tuner.. he's probably looking to sell you an old Link he has on the shelf.

[chrisR34GTT]

Unfortunately guys I'm in North Queensland and tuners are few and far between There is definitely a lack of skill up here.

Trent mods are pretty much identical to Matt from Nistunes.

[STATUS]

Unfortunately guys I'm in North Queensland and tuners are few and far between There is definitely a lack of skill up here.

Trent mods are pretty much identical to Matt from Nistunes.

ah, a few friends of mine live in Mt ISA and said there are allot of puppets up there (townsville etc) if it aint what they sell then they dont want to know.... if it blows they always blame the ecu. Not sure if its the same in your case without knowing the shop.

Link is a great ecu but a good tuner should be able to tune anything.

[Torques]

Hi!

I started with Nistune 7 months ago.

In this period I have become quite knowledgeable with regards to the Z32ECU and the R33S2.

If you want plug and play then you are at the mercy of the tuner who is doing the installation.

But I modified the Z32ECU myself (you need to be good at soldering)

When I finally installed the Z32ECU, the car was not running well but I got enough support from Matt (Nistune) to get

it decently running by mapping it myself.

Eventually I brought the car to a tuner in the UK who did his best to get it 'tuned' on the dyno.

After the tune the car was not what I expected and I was unhappy with the outcome.

To make a long story short I now bough my own wideband device (links into Nistune) and will tune the car myself.

I can recommend http://www.plmsdevelopments.com/ in OZ for advice / references.

All in all Nistune is a very flexible system which comes at a good price and lots of support from Matt.

Cheers,

Andrew

ah, a few friends of mine live in Mt ISA and said there are allot of puppets up there (townsville etc) if it aint what they sell then they dont want to know.... if it blows they always blame the ecu. Not sure if its the same in your case without knowing the shop.

Link is a great ecu but a good tuner should be able to tune anything.

[chrisR34GTT]

ah, a few friends of mine live in Mt ISA and said there are allot of puppets up there (townsville etc) if it aint what they sell then they dont want to know.... if it blows they always blame the ecu. Not sure if its the same in your case without knowing the shop.

Link is a great ecu but a good tuner should be able to tune anything.

After more discussions with the tuner, he called Matt and the reason behind the drop in communication is that there is too much electrical noise and the ECUtalk cable is the issue?? Tuner mentioned that it took him 30mins to change one section of the fuel map in between drops in communication... Now Matt suggested another cable probably the plms? one ($100) and problem solved. I paid $80 for the ECUtalk cable and it has, and I quote the tuner, taken 13hours on the dyno to get a raw tune!!!

I can't believe this shit... Needless to say the car won't be ready until Monday when the cable gets here and I swear it better not take long to get the final tune on it!

[Mattw_83]

How does the tuner not already have a cable? Have they ever tuned a skyline before?

When I put my cable in the plug was a bit dicky and would come loose at times, had to really put a lot of pressure to get it to click in properly.

Also regarding people using the RB25s with the RB20 ECU, eboost street boost controllers have a build in rpm based controller which can switch the VCT on and off within a window of RPM, works very well and if you already need a boost controller (most people do) then it makes sense to get this one.

interesting i have this. r32 ecu and that boost controller. is there much to it?

[darkhalf]

After more discussions with the tuner, he called Matt and the reason behind the drop in communication is that there is too much electrical noise and the ECUtalk cable is the issue??

This has been an interesting one.

Firstly the board installation in the ECU had issues. Overall the installation was done quite neatly but I noticed that several of the pads on the Type 4 board connector had not been soldered properly. The solder had not flowed all the way through the through hole in the ECU. This caused issues with write verify fail errors when tring to change things like rev liiter. Once it got posted here and I fixed that up, was posted back.

The tuner was originally supplied with a laptop containing a 'trial' copy of Nistune with. This also ended up causing delays, because trials no longer tune boards due disabling it because of noted licence abuse!! So once I sent through a licence they installed in on their new laptop

However they had issues with the drivers for the third party ECU talk cable. This is because the cable was plugged in and the laptop didnt have drivers on it. We ended up going over the phone and reinstalling Nistune and the ECU talk FTDI drivers for this cable on a separate laptop

Tuner mentioned that it took him 30mins to change one section of the fuel map in between drops in communication... Now Matt suggested another cable probably the plms? one ($100) and problem solved. I paid $80 for the ECUtalk cable and it has, and I quote the tuner, taken 13hours on the dyno to get a raw tune!!!

Yeah this is pretty bad. The software does integrity checks on the data it sends/receives. If the recieved data doesnt match then it will retry, retry, retry until it throws its hands in the air and disconnects. That is why it is slow on the maptracing and raising errors all the time

If you run most consult software (or Nistune in 'stream mode') you wont see this, since any dodgy data just goes straight to the guage needles and might look like the occasional flickering. It will get worser with higher RPMs ...

Okay the reasoning behind this is a combination of the car and vehicle! My R34 GTT has run both blazt and PLMS cables with no problems in connection on the dyno. This means the laptop is getting a nice clean USB signal even in high RPMs on my vehicle

As you know the consult port in your vehicle is connected to your ECU which is then getting solenoid feedback from injectors and coils. The recoil on the release on the solenoid is massive and can send big spikes back in your ECU if it is not grounded well. Good and proper grounding in your vehicile is essential for avoiding noise continuing down the line

Back to your consult port, if spikes come out of your consult port and then into your cable and via the USB connection, things are going to get ugly. USB uses a differential line pair. It means that if there is a spike then both lines carry the spike, which generally works. However if the spikes get too close (which happens on higher RPMs) then it messes up the USB comms. USB will attempt retries and pass through data. Sometimes with too much rubbish on the consult line the data gets messed up. This is what is happening.

The software on the end (Nistune in this case) will read invalid data against what it sent and request a resend.

I can't believe this shit... Needless to say the car won't be ready until Monday when the cable gets here and I swear it better not take long to get the final tune on it!

Well the problem started with supplying the tuner with a laptop loaded with a dodgy licence. Thats fixed and now there is the vehicle and third party cable to deal with. I'm not sure on the filtering the ECU talk cables have but PLMS has researched noise issues in vehicles and improved their cables to handle this, which is why I have sent out a cable (you are not in a next day express post area so that will take time to arrive) to replace the ECU talk one with.

However the vehicle is also generating a lot of noise (as I mentioned before my R34 GTT not a problem with disconnects), so I suggested cleaning up all the grounds from battery to EFI loom to start eliminating that issue.

We cover this in detail in the diagnostics documents about problems with vehicles and consult on the Nistune website, but problem is that people dont always read these when hitting issues. I'm going to put more diagnostic pages into the software for people that dont read docs, but there is no more improvement we can do on our end with noisy comms issues when its a vehicle issue

Guess I am stipulating it is not a Nistune board or software issue, but something vehicle/cable related. Try and help where I can with these and can see the frustration also on the tuners end which should have been a 1-2 hour job if all went well, and someone usually has to foot the time

One of my main points is that if you are going to take Nistune to a tuner, make sure it works first! In this case making a connection to the ECU after installing it and making sure you could at least connect to the ECU, do a data log, and perhaps even change the RPM limiter would have found these issues earlier. It suprises me how often vehicles (running any system for this matter) end up on the dyno and then there is some sort of electrical or mechanical issue to sort out and the time is ticking whilst on the dyno. Fix problems first before taking it to the tuner and time and money will be saved. Preliminary connection checks etc are definately advised

[chrisR34GTT]

Thanks for the detailed explanation Matt. Most of it goes over my head but I generally know where you are going.

In regards to the dodgy trial version, a mate I know supplied me with said trial (the version before licencing issues) and had previously tuned his car (innovate wideband) and advised that it would work fine for what I wanted. I also played around with the trial a few times and never had communication problems, I managed to data log a few road runs in consult mode, pulled up most of the gauges and as such thought is was working fine. My mistake. Yes I probably should have bought the full version but I thought the trial worked for me and it was free, so like I wasn't going to try it out.

But yeah in the end I just want my car to reach the potential of the mods I have put into it. No one in this city sells or promotes tuning with NIStune so I really had no local knowledge of the product and neither did the tuner. It is all a learning curve and at no stage was I point fingers just trying to work through the problem.

Thanks for your input once again.