Aftermarket Ecus

[siddr20]

Hey Guys,

Just wondering about whether i'll need to upgrade the ecu, or add a piggyback or not even bother?

Currently my car is stock, other than a cat-back exhaust and air filter.

I aim to keep the car as stock as possible, but also to get as close to 200rwkw as i can without changing turbos/internals, with the goal being performance, efficiency and reliability (it's my daily driver)

So my planned mod path thus far looks like:

* Front/Dump pipe + High flow cat

* Larger Intercooler (e.g. r34 side mount to keep the stock look)

* Boost it up a little, say 10PSI

** also considering a water injection kit **

My question is: with this relatively small list of modifications, do i need to address the ECU to make the most of them? And if so, which path to take - pfc, safc, emanage or other?

My car has similar mods to yours.

I ended up getting a remap via toshi few months ago.

If you still want to use stock turbo and ecu, then this is the best option by far and is the cheapest.

Cost me 400 bucks and it was the best money spent on my car!!

Results - 196kw at 10psi.

Perhaps at 11 or 12psi you will easily get 200kw. Maybe more depending on other things etc etc.. like timing etc etc..

Check my thread here: http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/To...st-t211348.html

[dmac_25]

As paul said pfc FTW just a not my mate 32 gts cooler pod exhaust stock boost 150 before pfc after 163 and shit loads more k's out of a tank

[siddr20]

Theres no way a power fc tune on a slightly modded 33 which is still using stock turbo will cost near to 1k mark.

Most is 700 MAX!!

If it exceeds this, the tuner must be ripping you off or your car had problems.. and spent more time on it..

ANYWAYS!!!!!!!

GO REMAP!!!!!! toshi ftw

plus you in sydney.. check my link above

[dmac_25]

Theres no way a power fc tune on a slightly modded 33 which is still using stock turbo will cost near to 1k mark.

Most is 700 MAX!!

If it exceeds this, the tuner must be ripping you off or your car had problems.. and spent more time on it..

ANYWAYS!!!!!!!

GO REMAP!!!!!! toshi ftw

plus you in sydney.. check my link above

If that is to tune then no way not even 700 i payed 600 to mod a gtr powerfc fit it and tune in on my gts4 he did 10 runs as well

[quarkgun]

Theres no way a power fc tune on a slightly modded 33 which is still using stock turbo will cost near to 1k mark.

Most is 700 MAX!!

If it exceeds this, the tuner must be ripping you off or your car had problems.. and spent more time on it..

ANYWAYS!!!!!!!

GO REMAP!!!!!! toshi ftw

plus you in sydney.. check my link above

Hey mate, thanks for the link - an interesting read, and sounds very close to what i want to do to my car.

[Wacky Dee]

Well I'm just saying what I've been quoted to tune a pfc on an R34 GTT. CRD quoted $650 and Bel Garage quoted $880. I've also read threads where some famous tuner was coming down from Brissy to tune cars for a bunch of people and was doing it for "only" $1000.

[esky_mad]

for the mods you have i doubt very much a power fc is going to have any benefit at all compared to a remap.

just food for thought,

i recently got a remap by toshi. my mods are far from stock.

RB20DET

GT3040

Custom plenum

GTR pump

Full exhaust

Front mount

bits and bobs here and there, so you get the picture.

the car was an absolute dog (obviously)

toshi spent all of friday and a bit of saturday arvo road tuning it and on only .6bar the car comes alive so much better.

AFR's were tuned very safe as its primarily a drift car. i was using stock injectors maxed out ans stock AFM hence why we kept the boost low.

so in other words get a remap, safe the rest of that money for further mods, guages or whatever.

[paulr33]

this has been covered to death many many times comparing various ECU options and information

a search would give you all the juicy information thats been dug up in the past

as time goes on the answers get shorter and shorter as the older guys cant be bothered

re-typing the same over and over, so you get quick short smart ass replies usually

Car A

intercooler, some cams, some turbo changes, boost, and usual mods

Now if car A is fitted with remap, piggybacks, powerfc, motec, greddy emanage, hks fcon, autronic

i would expect (and so should you) the car will make the same power (within programmable limits) of the device itself

regardless of what ECU is used. ie; a powerfc shouldnt make 20rwkw more than a motec, an autronic shouldnt give you "magical" 50rwkw midrange over a remap

and a piggyback shouldnt give you more boost than a remap and so on

a lot of people get into the thought of cost vs what you get and go the stand alone's are a waste of money as i can make 200rwkw on a remap

of course you can, but thats not what it comes down to. the main result that it comes down to is a summary of the following

- performance

- reliability

- support

- user control

- economy

- installation

- tuners

so to me, a good ECU or a good "setup" is one that covers most, if not all of those features, as they seem resonable given cost and the importance of a good ecu

so when you are comparing options, do a list for your target ECU and what other ECUs you may like to use and youll see quickly which is the most useful and better for your situation

so ill do a common one that most guys face;

========================================================================

std ECU with a remap from toshi (lets use him, he is well known) or even dr drift if you like

my car has intercooler, exhaust, heavy duty clutch, std afm, std injectors, 12psi, splitfire coils, gtr pump

========================================================================

- performance - no problems with max rwkw power, 200rwkw would be reasonable expectation and obtainable

- reliability - rock solid, its the std nissan OEM chip so its the same as the normal ECU

- support - well im locked into really only toshi and dr drift, any other work shop cant touch the remap so thats BIG down side for me

- user control - i have no visibilty over the car in real time and cant touch a thing, there is consult but its clunky laptop software, down side

- economy - will be spot on providing the tuner does his job and 02 sensor is working ok

- installation - 2 seconds to install as its just ECU swap and its done

- tuners - im locked into only workshops can who do remapping (dr drift and toshi are the only two I know of in australia)

- cost - a remap is around $500 ish all up. if you need to do big changes sometimes a full "remap" charge is applied, ie another $500 in some cases

so this means if the tune is wrong or you think something is bogus you cant do anything and you have to

contact toshi or dr drift and liase with them to get it sorted, this might mean posting your chip in the mail

or ordered a "mail style" tune from toshi or dr drift if your out of state (common practice over the years, i think toshi does this)

========================================================================

a powerfc ECU plug in unit - tuned by any workshop you like, pick one, ill pick RE customs in vic

my car has intercooler, exhaust, heavy duty clutch, std afm, std injectors, 12psi, splitfire coils, gtr pump

========================================================================

- performance - no issues, should be spot on 200rwkw with good safe tune etc

- reliability - rock solid, doesnt miss a beat, thousands of PFC's in the wild with no known issues

- support - lots and lots and lots of tuners support the PFC and can do everything on it (some even have laptop software making it even easier)

- there is lots of external documentation for the powerfc, its functions and how to use them, even guides on how you can tune parts of it yourself

- user control - i can have full visiblity via the hand controller (std item) and it lets me make changes too (providing i learn how)

- economy - will be spot on providing the tuner does his job and 02 sensor is working ok and 02 feedback is enabled

- installation - 2 seconds to install as its just ECU swap and its done

- tuners - i have a choice among hundreds of workshops regardless of state and even a std auto elec can debug most stuff with the SENSOR SW CHECK screen

- cost - the PFC will cost around $1100 and a the tune will be seperate

so you can see here, sure there is the extra cost of the PFC, which youll get back when you go and sell the PFC

but you are paying for the extra features and extra support, such as larger injectors on tap, larger AFM's on tap

the super easy hand controller for the common stuff such as IGN and INJ tuning, the ability to make quick on the fly changes

be able to use race fuel etc and just quickly make a map change. be able to monitor key engine items with a small compact unit

==============================================================================

so in summary both options or others (lets say the HKS FCON) will make power, will make boost

will do wheelies in 2nd gear and chirp etc but its all the extra stuff thats where the cost comes from

local tuners, having a choice of a few workshops who can fix / work on it if you dont like workshop ABC or XYZ is too pricey

[Pal]

pfc is probably the best one as there's a lot of people that can tune them ..but the cost is rather high (both chip and the tune itself). However you can score them on japanese auctions for a good price if you're lucky .. I just got an R34 GTT PFC off japanese auctions for $160 ($270 or so after all import costs) using importmonster.com.au so saved $7-800 right there ;D

u sure, i thought i had bought a pfc for that price but ened up being just tuning data. ??!!

[paulr33]

u sure, i thought i had bought a pfc for that price but ened up being just tuning data. ??!!

yeah make sure its not something like this...

[bozodos]

hmm well i just got my gts 4, with a rb 25, microtech lt12, kkr 480 turbo, FMIC, exhaust, GTR fuel pump, splitfire ignition coils, the car was originally tuned by Croydon Race Developments on 18psi, i bought it running 11 and haven't touched it so far, and I reckon that the tune or the computer itself is hopeless!

No VCT (apparently I have to ring up microtech and get info on how to turn it on), have to piggyback the MINE'S gts4 ecu that also came with the car to get AWD working, car often requires starting twice on a really cold start, and uses a heap of fuel! It does go really well, but kind of wished the previous owner had gone the PowerFC route, as im now looking at having to pay someone big money to get it all sorted out.

I was tempted to just get the microtech all taken out and a stock ecu with piggyback computer hooked up but its all just too much stuffing around so i guess ill just persist with it.

[siddr20]

Great write up paulr33..

Hopefully this gives some sort of conclusion for those wanting to tune there car and need to select what ecu.

Theres always pros and cons with each unit or method..

I reckon the following should be stickied lol

========================================================================

std ECU with a remap from toshi (lets use him, he is well known) or even dr drift if you like

my car has intercooler, exhaust, heavy duty clutch, std afm, std injectors, 12psi, splitfire coils, gtr pump

========================================================================

- performance - no problems with max rwkw power, 200rwkw would be reasonable expectation and obtainable

- reliability - rock solid, its the std nissan OEM chip so its the same as the normal ECU

- support - well im locked into really only toshi and dr drift, any other work shop cant touch the remap so thats BIG down side for me

- user control - i have no visibilty over the car in real time and cant touch a thing, there is consult but its clunky laptop software, down side

- economy - will be spot on providing the tuner does his job and 02 sensor is working ok

- installation - 2 seconds to install as its just ECU swap and its done

- tuners - im locked into only workshops can who do remapping (dr drift and toshi are the only two I know of in australia)

- cost - a remap is around $500 ish all up. if you need to do big changes sometimes a full "remap" charge is applied, ie another $500 in some cases

so this means if the tune is wrong or you think something is bogus you cant do anything and you have to

contact toshi or dr drift and liase with them to get it sorted, this might mean posting your chip in the mail

or ordered a "mail style" tune from toshi or dr drift if your out of state (common practice over the years, i think toshi does this)

========================================================================

a powerfc ECU plug in unit - tuned by any workshop you like, pick one, ill pick RE customs in vic

my car has intercooler, exhaust, heavy duty clutch, std afm, std injectors, 12psi, splitfire coils, gtr pump

========================================================================

- performance - no issues, should be spot on 200rwkw with good safe tune etc

- reliability - rock solid, doesnt miss a beat, thousands of PFC's in the wild with no known issues

- support - lots and lots and lots of tuners support the PFC and can do everything on it (some even have laptop software making it even easier)

- there is lots of external documentation for the powerfc, its functions and how to use them, even guides on how you can tune parts of it yourself

- user control - i can have full visiblity via the hand controller (std item) and it lets me make changes too (providing i learn how)

- economy - will be spot on providing the tuner does his job and 02 sensor is working ok and 02 feedback is enabled

- installation - 2 seconds to install as its just ECU swap and its done

- tuners - i have a choice among hundreds of workshops regardless of state and even a std auto elec can debug most stuff with the SENSOR SW CHECK screen

- cost - the PFC will cost around $1100 and a the tune will be seperate

so you can see here, sure there is the extra cost of the PFC, which youll get back when you go and sell the PFC

but you are paying for the extra features and extra support, such as larger injectors on tap, larger AFM's on tap

the super easy hand controller for the common stuff such as IGN and INJ tuning, the ability to make quick on the fly changes

be able to use race fuel etc and just quickly make a map change. be able to monitor key engine items with a small compact unit

==============================================================================

so in summary both options or others (lets say the HKS FCON) will make power, will make boost

will do wheelies in 2nd gear and chirp etc but its all the extra stuff thats where the cost comes from

local tuners, having a choice of a few workshops who can fix / work on it if you dont like workshop ABC or XYZ is too pricey

[quarkgun]

Yeah thanks Paul! Apologies for making you type all that (for what sounds like the eleventy-billionth time - notice that number gets used a lot around here) I appreciate it heaps. The remap sounds like an excellent cost saving approach, if you're done modding the car and will not need multiple re-tunes, the pfc if you want to make adjustments in future, which would be very handy if the modding bug bites.... hmmm

[Wacky Dee]

u sure, i thought i had bought a pfc for that price but ened up being just tuning data. ??!!

Yeah pretty sure .. I even asked the importmonster guys to confirm it looks legit and they did ;-) Here's the original japanese auction anyway http://page11.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/n65582056

Translated (engrish) http://translate.google.com/translate?u=ht...en&ie=UTF-8

The only thing I'm not sure of is whether this PFC is for GT-T's or GTR only. If it's GTR only I can sell it I'm sure.

Edited May 28, 2008 by Delta Force

[Wacky Dee]

hmmmm on 2nd thoughts ..shit, this might be the wrong PFC for me. The only reference I can find to 'BNR34' is to GTR's.

Any chance this PFC would suit a 1998 R34 GT-T ??

[paulr33]

hmmmm on 2nd thoughts ..shit, this might be the wrong PFC for me. The only reference I can find to 'BNR34' is to GTR's.

Any chance this PFC would suit a 1998 R34 GT-T ??

no, its a GTR R34 PFC hence the code on the side BNR34L

the l is for ljetro, ie: std afm version

it wont work on your GTT

[Wacky Dee]

Cheers. One BNR34 PFC for sale then ..anyone interested PM me an offer

[some_cs_student]

a full PFC tune should cost $500

i cannot understand how a full PFC tune would cost anywhere near $1000

I paid roughly $850 for install and tune but that was with adjustable cam gears and an excellent tune. The cam gears probably took some time to tune

[paulr33]

yeah cam get setup and install would be id say $100 in labour easy

to the install FC you can do it yourself - so no need to pay for that

[Ricos]

My car has similar mods to yours.

I ended up getting a remap via toshi few months ago.

If you still want to use stock turbo and ecu, then this is the best option by far and is the cheapest.

Cost me 400 bucks and it was the best money spent on my car!!

Results - 196kw at 10psi.

Perhaps at 11 or 12psi you will easily get 200kw. Maybe more depending on other things etc etc.. like timing etc etc..

Check my thread here: http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/To...st-t211348.html

Is there anyone in Melbourne that offers a remap like toshi does? This would be the best option for me also as i have similar mods.

But going up to sydney or where ever he is, isnt really an option sadly.

Quick question thats slightly off topic,

How much power/boost can stock RB25 internals take, just say with a highflow, before you need to upgrade injectors and what not?

Thanks

Edited May 29, 2008 by Ricos