Guilt-toy Installs Vipec V44 Plug In.. & Base Tuned

[Guilt-Toy]

I got hold of a V44 Plug in and decided to take the plunge and install it in my car.

I have been happy with my power fc for all these years but it is time to move onto bigger and better things.

Firstly, i went for the V44 plug in, reason for this is because i wanted to make try it out and make the change over as simple as possible.

SO i recieved the ecu, it comes just i board form. So it took around 5 minutes or less to install it into the standard R33 GTST ecu case.

Pics of the ECU installed in case

Was time to wire it in, i purchased the additional expansion harness because i had to wire in the 5 bar map sensor, and also the inlet air temp sensor.

Wiring in external 5 bar Map Sensor (Mr Dirt doing what he does best, thanks for your help mate!!)

Inlet air temp sensor was able to screw in where i had my old WMI jet setup, seeing that i decided to sell this kit i was cheering i had something to put in its place

SO setting up the timing on this thing was a breeze!!! Its not like the power fc where you have to set the load cells to 10deg and then change the timing untill its on 10deg, you get the timing light, put it on the car.. then all you do is lock the timing and increase the offset number +or- untill the timing is dead on!! This took 20 seconds to get it right.

Once timing was set, was time to put car on the dyno

Okay car is on and ready to go, Thanks to Mr Adnum @ Hunter All Wheel Dyno for the dyno at late notice!

Time to tune!! Tuning was a breeze!!! It was like tuning a power FC but you do not have to set the numbers, the numbers get set for you!

I had my techedge air fuel ratio meter connected to a 0-5v input on the ECU and started quick tune and boy was i impressed with how quick this thing works!!!

As you can see the software looks great!!! it has a set of configurable gauges that you can do WHATEVER you like with, you can even set them up to display anything you want!!!

The autotune box you can see, the 2 dials, one is the target AFR for the load point your on and the other is the actual AFR, just watching them get close together and then read "target reached" put a big smile on my face, damn this is lazy tuning!! but i LOVE IT

"waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting... Target Reached"

Next load cell....

"waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting... Target Reached"

etc

etc

This was great!!! So i had to take some videos of this happening and post them up as well because i think this is a great feature of this ecu and it does it sooo damn well its just crazy!!!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=wys6yVF_o2Q

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=HxKu9Uvt0sU

The rev limiter i hit was actually a temp rev limiter, i set the ecu to hit limiter when the engine coolant temp gets up to 90deg... and it hit on the dyno pretty easily..

Yeah I must say i am pretty impressed with this ecu, I also puchased a 7" Touch screen for the car because this ecu has no hand controller to view the engine temps etc etc and i like to see whats going on I have a car pc setup to run the vipec software, i also have the vipec dash software which i will be using for it...

and video...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=68FZLd2IYHs

I did not have too much time on the dyno, so i just tuned it to have safe AFR's to get me going, i have been tweaking it a bit on the street and playing with the VCT cut in and out time etc and it seems to be driving as good if not better then the Power FC was. This was a major concern for me so I am pretty happy with it.

Those runs on full boost, let me explain why the AFRs are wavy like that, all i did to get the fuel set on full boost was set the dyno to load up at 5000rpm, tuned ONE load point to read 11.8afr, then highlighed ALL the load points from there on and put in that same number. This ecu uses the target AFR map and it gave me a AFR between 11.7 to 12.0 on full boost. I could not believe that this happened... SO i just left the tune like that for now as i am not really keen on giving the car a hard time untill its tuned properly next time on the dyno.

For a ecu that was soo easy to install and setup, i am pretty impressed with how it goes, the best thing about this ECU is that if i ring Ray Hall and ask him a question, instead of getting beaten down and told to read the f**king manual and f**k off, he actually takes the time to help you and tell you anything that you need to know and gives you great advice, it does not feel like he is trying to get you off the phone because he has lots of work to do it feels like he wants to keep you on the phone longer to chat more. Very impressed!

I have been getting great support from the Vipec dealer that it had made the switch over pretty quick and easy. So yeah its good to see this kind of support, honestly I was not expecting anything like it.

SO yeah a big thumbs up for the VIPEC V44 Plug in.

More dyno tuning and tests to come, i still need to interface my Gizzmo KMON to the VIPEC to run full knock controll (yes it can be done)

Once again, thanks to Wayne at Hunter All Wheel Dyno for the short notice dyno hire and help on the day! I love his dyno

[unique1]

awesome write up mate, i think u have made vipec another sale, i have to purchase a new ecu soon and the v88 is lookin like a good option over the sm4 which getting info for them is like getting blood from a stone for some reason.

[paulr33]

if you take away the software is the ecu basically locked away

that is, without a laptop and software, there is no control ?

[Guilt-Toy]

if you take away the software is the ecu basically locked away

that is, without a laptop and software, there is no control ?

yeah.. there is no hand controller option for it, but there are a couple of dash options if you wanted them, the AIM dash costs about 2 grand i think and Ray Hall has made a cable to suit it.

[NYTSKY]

Great stuff Anthony,

The interior of you car is looking more like the bridge on the starship enterprise

[STATUS]

nice ECU's hey, the base tune makes life a breeze (ie starting, moving etc). I've been using a lot of links latley (got to play with the new G4 extreme on a turbo bimmer) as i can get them cheaper than the VIPEC... has anyone else with the VIPEc had map sensor issues? ive got one here that flatlines regulary, hoping to hear back from ray soon on a replacement.

Edited December 17, 2008 by URAS

[Guilt-Toy]

nice ECU's hey, the base tune makes life a breeze (ie starting, moving etc). I've been using a lot of links latley (got to play with the new G4 extreme on a turbo bimmer) as i can get them cheaper than the VIPEC... has anyone else with the VIPEc had map sensor issues? ive got one here that flatlines regulary, hoping to hear back from ray soon on a replacement.

no issues here, i am using a 5 bar external map sensor because the 2.5 bar is not big enough

[STATUS]

no issues here, i am using a 5 bar external map sensor because the 2.5 bar is not big enough

im yet to hear back so if i get no resolve ill probably do the same.... want to wind some boost into this r33 badly.

How you finding the K-mon? i working to get a dyno interface so we can log it i also want to play with the datalogit inputs to do the same but im pretty time poor

[Swiper the Fox]

cannot wait to get my V88 tuned...it looks awesome.

Power FC...lol...so old and dated

Im keen on the Aim MXL for mine

Edited December 17, 2008 by DiRTgarage

[Guilt-Toy]

im yet to hear back so if i get no resolve ill probably do the same.... want to wind some boost into this r33 badly.

How you finding the K-mon? i working to get a dyno interface so we can log it i also want to play with the datalogit inputs to do the same but im pretty time poor

yeah i can imagine how busy you would be this time of year, Kmon is great! I have used it 4 times now... but i will be running it full time in the car with outputs to to the v44 for knock controll (or test it and see how well it works)

I won't need to connect the kmon to the laptop to make it work either, it just needs power. So i can run the +5v on the expansion cable to a cut usb cable plugged into the KMON to just power it up, because the KMON saves your previously used settings every time i power up the ECU it will power up the KMON and use it as the knock interface instead of buying ray's addon and I will have far better knock sensors then the standard ones.. Kinda overkill but we will have to test it and see if it works properly.

KMON outputs 0 - 5 volts so setting up to a dyno should be a piece of cake

[STATUS]

cannot wait to get my V88 tuned...it looks awesome.

Power FC...lol...so old and dated

Im keen on the Aim MXL for mine

that dash looks pretty sweet

i bet though a decent PFC d-jetro tuner and a decent LINK / vipec tuner would end up with the same hp at the end of the day... i proved this at a far lower level months back when i matched the vipec plugin with a emange ultimate kw for kw in the same car on the same day, but i can tell you now though an emanage will never con close to the levels your taking your car to (i find high 300rwkw's is the ceiling of the EMU) im yet to find the ceiling on a PFC dejtro although its lack of comprehensive dataloging is a downfall.

again i will reiterate the G4 Extreme Link in the turbo bimmer i tuned the other day was by FAR the easiest stand alone i have EVER tuned or played with, i think the G4 Exteme is the V88, in fact it took only 1/2 day to wire it, config it and then a few hours to tune it, and the bimmer had some wierd ass sensors and triggers happening. Doing a skyline would prolly take half the time. Great product.

the big test will be the VVTI jza80 supra wire in and tune i need to do in coming months, it has a EMU in it now and will be getting the G4 extreme / V88 it was about the only Ecu i was happy / comfortable to use to control the VVTI, i considered the v-manage but why have two ecu's dong a job when one could do it better.

Edited December 17, 2008 by URAS

[Swiper the Fox]

that dash looks pretty sweet

i bet though a decent PFC d-jetro tuner and a decent LINK / vipec tuner would end up with the same hp at the end of the day... i proved this at a far lower level months back when i matched the vipec plugin with a emange ultimate kw for kw in the same car on the same day, but i can tell you now though an emanage will never con close to the levels your taking your car to (i find high 300rwkw's is the ceiling of the EMU) im yet to find the ceiling on a PFC dejtro although its lack of comprehensive dataloging is a downfall.

again i will reiterate the G4 Extreme Link in the turbo bimmer i tuned the other day was by FAR the easiest stand alone i have EVER tuned or played with, i think the G4 Exteme is the V88, in fact it took only 1/2 day to wire it, config it and then a few hours to tune it, and the bimmer had some wierd ass sensors and triggers happening. Doing a skyline would prolly take half the time. Great product.

the big test will be the VVTI jza80 supra wire in and tune i need to do in coming months, it has a EMU in it now and will be getting the G4 extreme / V88 it was about the only Ecu i was happy / comfortable to use to control the VVTI, i considered the v-manage but why have two ecu's dong a job when one could do it better.

Trent, i soldered the Vi-PEC loom to one of Rays adapter boards so the V88 unit just plugs in....easy!

[STATUS]

Trent, i soldered the Vi-PEC loom to one of Rays adapter boards so the V88 unit just plugs in....easy!

hell yeah up there for thinking ....down there for dancin

http://www.linkecu.com/products/Installati...rLinkNissanLong

its one of the reasons i choose it too I bought a field harness for the supra but will use thier toyota adapter BTW have you seen a jza80 haress? there is nearly 4 times the wires to intercept..... its crazy

Edited December 17, 2008 by URAS

[Johnny]

Sound interesting, any downsides to the power fc?

Honestly im kinda getting sold on the fact it looks stock so if i ever get EPA tested, they wont see it.

How much we looking at for the ECU, is there a better model coming out soon?

[TiTAN]

nice ECU's hey, the base tune makes life a breeze (ie starting, moving etc). I've been using a lot of links latley (got to play with the new G4 extreme on a turbo bimmer) as i can get them cheaper than the VIPEC... has anyone else with the VIPEc had map sensor issues? ive got one here that flatlines regulary, hoping to hear back from ray soon on a replacement.

no map sensor issues here either. (using the inbuilt 2.5bar)

Johnny, the plugin ECU's are ~$1650 + install and tuning.

[discopotato03]

I'd be interested to hear the opinions of anyone whos tuned an RB with a V44/V88 and Mass air sensors ie say an RB25 with the Z32TT MAF .

Cheers A .

[Scooby]

Hi Anthony

Great to see you're using Quicktune, I was hoping someone would. I posted on the original Vipec thread and asked why, when the Vipec site says that a full map could be done in 20 minutes using QT, tuners are still asking $750-1000 or even more for a tune. The tuners I spoke to said 'it's just an aid' etc but the site actually claims that QT is better than most tuners. I asked Ray about this anomally, and said I felt that paying for the QT function in the Vipec, but then getting slugged for a manually tuned fuel map anyway, was self defeating. A bit like having a dog and barking yourself. He agreed, and said it's because most shops have to pay off expensive dynos etc so the cost of tuning would probably stay high because that's the way it is in the industry.

I've been wanting to use the Vipec for a while but really wanted to see someone go there properly with QT.

Well done.

[Swiper the Fox]

you must understand also the associated time, overheads, risk, etc that has to be factored into dyno time. Anthony is charging $400 for a tune which in my opinion is way too cheap. Does QT do the timing map? or just the AFR's?

[Guilt-Toy]

Sound interesting, any downsides to the power fc?

Honestly im kinda getting sold on the fact it looks stock so if i ever get EPA tested, they wont see it.

How much we looking at for the ECU, is there a better model coming out soon?

i have noticed a few differences with the power fc on drivablility, and mainly those differences will be noticed on any map sensor ecu, most of those differences i have been able to iron out during the first few days of driving it around.

I'd be interested to hear the opinions of anyone whos tuned an RB with a V44/V88 and Mass air sensors ie say an RB25 with the Z32TT MAF .

Cheers A .

That is not supported yet, I am not sure if santa will bring it with the new firmware update either

Hi Anthony

Great to see you're using Quicktune, I was hoping someone would. I posted on the original Vipec thread and asked why, when the Vipec site says that a full map could be done in 20 minutes using QT, tuners are still asking $750-1000 or even more for a tune. The tuners I spoke to said 'it's just an aid' etc but the site actually claims that QT is better than most tuners. I asked Ray about this anomally, and said I felt that paying for the QT function in the Vipec, but then getting slugged for a manually tuned fuel map anyway, was self defeating. A bit like having a dog and barking yourself. He agreed, and said it's because most shops have to pay off expensive dynos etc so the cost of tuning would probably stay high because that's the way it is in the industry.

I've been wanting to use the Vipec for a while but really wanted to see someone go there properly with QT.

Well done.

Its the time that costs the most when it comes to a dyno tune, the tuner cannot quote a tune based on how easy the ecu is to tune. If he quotes $500 for a tune then he gets $500 for the tune, he cannot say ohh but this and but that and its going to cost you $1000 to drive away your car.

The initial setup of the ecu is the same as most ecu's... timing needs to be setup, ignition needs to be setup for your car and it takes the same time to put the car on the dyno and strap it down with quick tune or without it.

QT is mainly only usefull for the cruise load cycles and driving, all full boost and power load points do need to be checked manualy

another thing to take into consideration, that with QT its not just a matter of driving on the load cell and then bang your done, the car will get from 80deg to 95 deg in less then 5 minutes then you need to cool the car down for another 5 minutes or so and then check it before you continue.

So yeah there has been a few load points on QT that i could have probly tuned quicker myself but most of the time QT is faster but cruise is only 40% of the map.

I would think that $500 to $1000 would be a fair price for a full vipec tune depending on the car / tuner

[Swiper the Fox]

new firmware is available. 4.3.2

Edited December 18, 2008 by DiRTgarage