Pnm35 Build Thread

[Jetwreck]

Low-mid 80's

[PN-Mad]

Ordered my "GT MAF" From Z1motorsports today. Good for 180% over what the stock MAF does, while keeping idle resolution apparently. Come on Fedex.

[Rudi_ARX-TURBO]

Hey Alex how you doin?

[PN-Mad]

Good Rudi.

Want to sort out a few things in the car, then I'll be happy with it. Got some time off coming up, so maybe in for a retune next week!

[PN-Mad]

Well, all went well today, car was retuned by DVS JEZ, produced more power, on a safer tune, with great increases in the mid range.

I'm well rooted after today, was a long one, so I'll make a detailed post tomorrow with a graph.

Many thanks go to Jez, and Craig for their patience and knowledge today to get things working together. I think Craig might have got some video, so maybe he'll post that later.

[DVS JEZ]

Glad ur happy buddy. Was a mission

[wolverine]

Mid range gains ftw.

[scotty nm35]

Nice Alex, where is the graph? I want to see where the boost kicks in...

[Rudi_ARX-TURBO]

Well, all went well today, car was retuned by DVS JEZ, produced more power, on a safer tune, with great increases in the mid range.

I'm well rooted after today, was a long one, so I'll make a detailed post tomorrow with a graph.

Many thanks go to Jez, and Craig for their patience and knowledge today to get things working together. I think Craig might have got some video, so maybe he'll post that later.

Well done Alex waiting with baited breath on results, also I'm thinking going back to the creek on Wednesday I know I can do better.

[DVS JEZ]

Nice Alex, where is the graph? I want to see where the boost kicks in...

Boost kicks in extremely early. The thing wanted to keep jumping to 3rd gear when under 40kph so i had to start the run at 50 which in 4th is already on boost

[Jetwreck]

Much quicker than a stock nm35.

Edited May 12, 2012 by Jetwreck

[PN-Mad]

Ok, so here is my account of the day!

Jetwreck and I arrived pretty early after both being RBT'd (with no problems) at the start of the F3. Met up with Jez up the Central Coast. Jez took a quick look over the car and did the fluids, and we had a chat as to what we wanted to achieve for the day, and the order in which we should proceed.

Strapped the car down and ran it up with the tune it drove in on. Car produced a 2kw difference to what I had seen at Unigroup. Jez noted that he thought he heard a bit of rattle, and when we looked at the AFR it was quite lean throughout the range. First change was to try this Plenum Spacer out- a Motordyne 5/16ths that reportedly gives good gains on both NA and FI VQ motors. So as Jetwreck went for bacon and egg rolls, I had the top plenum off and spacer on and installed as per instructions. Ran the car up with the same tune, same temp etc etc and had a loss of power in both the mid range and the top range.

See the Initial green graph compared to the blue graph with the plenum spacer in. So thats a Fail. Its going to be For Sale! It should provide good gains to NA cars- as proven by Motordyne, because they work under vacuum, Air will always travel the path of least resistance, so being pressured, there really isnt a difference between the cylinders that this would compensate for, where a NA car would benefit.

So, back out the spacer comes and onto tuning. I popped the Uprev GT MAF into the car, and flashed the map to the car with their MAF scale. Car ran like shit. So no, Uprev, its not a drop in and click process. We worked to get the car to idle, redid the target AFR and fuel comp maps. to make it run nice. Then we wound in 6.0psi of boost. We spent a lot of time messing around with intake cam advance to try and lower the torque within safe limits. In the process of that we made some pretty big holes in the map here and there, and didn't really see any process. This was very time consuming (as its not a live tuning feature) and I thank Jez for keeping on going to make a good result. We ended up going for the stock map cam advance for the Rev range, but reducing the degrees of advance though the midrange to limit torque. The fuel at this stage was a good 1 to 1.5 points richer than the drive in map, and provided a good safe basis for timing to be worked out. We then spent a bit of time on the timing maps, adding lots of timing to the idle, which ended up much smoother, and adding a bit of timing up top within safe limits.

Things we found out- the ECU is very picky on what intake and coolant temperatures it sees. Unfortunately there is no way to adjust this with Uprev at the moment. The difference can be 2 or 3 degrees of timing that it takes out even at moderate temps (way below the stock fan cut in). Intake cams are a dark art- very hard to get right, reducing the torque while not effecting the power. The best way to ramp the car up is to come in at part throttle, and feed it on through the midrange. This not only reduces the torque load at very low RPM (because it will run full boost in 4th at 2500rpm), but also helps the car retain ign advance up high. It is very hard to measure and tune torque with the auto tranny.

We pulled over 50 power runs for the day, the engine held its temp, didn't misfire or hiccup and produced good safe power without any knock. There we no rods on the ground at the end of the day!

So gains- we went from 4psi to 6 psi dropping to 5.4psi in the top end. We gained 20 to 25 kw right through the midrange, on safer AFRs. Up top we gained about 14kw in the top end where power tips over at 6000rpm. There is no need to go higher. Torque ranges from 470nm to about 380nm - we had a gain of around 100nm.

Again, I'd like to thank Jez for his time and energy in tuning what is not an easy set up to tune. He has researched these motors, and got his head around the software very quickly. It's great that Jez now knows that his dyno is calibrated, and he has the ability to tune V35's, 350z, 370z, R35 and various other Nissan cars with Uprev.

Finally, I have no idea how the guys in the States are producing 400whp with these setups. I can't explain it from everything that I have seen here. All I can think of is some very imaginative dyno compensations, or ramp speeds. I'll be sending some more emails asking questions, but these guys just don't give any info out, and are very cagey. My car drives great - midrange and pick up is awesome, it certainly is a very nice street car.

TL;DR

I got more power - DVS JEZ tunes awesome

[andy65b]

Great result Alex and sounds like you have a great tune and great informative write up.

I look forward to seeing it go.

Cheers

Andy

[scotty nm35]

Nice graph Alex, Why did you stop there? I would have thought 250kw would have been ok... Do you still have plans for an engine build down the track? You hit the nail on the head with the temp sensors, they affect the stock ecu heavily, and not just engine sensors, the gearbox plays funny buggers too. Unfortunately we need them, if only we could change the sensitivity...

Jez, can you imagine what the kick down to 2nd or 3rd on mine is like? My car needs to be doing over 70-80kph before you ease the throttle on. I hope you have a good strapping system.

[PN-Mad]

Torque was the main limiting factor Scotty. Seeing it run 470nm @ 2000 RPM wasn't nice....All it needs is a little load, and that turbos spooling! I think I need to look into it and figure out if it is a product of the converter locking up and producing more NM during that process, or if the figure is correct. After about 2500rpm, torque started to drop off to better levels around 380-400nm

We didn't find the Box make that much of a difference with temp, but then again, I have already fiddled the figures with the Torque management(line pressure) table.

As far as building an engine- if I can avoid it, I will. I'm looking at investing a bit of coin into a different automotive direction, so don't really want to spend all that much on a new motor. However if it poos itself, then I'll look at that path

[DVS JEZ]

Nice graph Alex, Why did you stop there? I would have thought 250kw would have been ok... Do you still have plans for an engine build down the track? You hit the nail on the head with the temp sensors, they affect the stock ecu heavily, and not just engine sensors, the gearbox plays funny buggers too. Unfortunately we need them, if only we could change the sensitivity...

Jez, can you imagine what the kick down to 2nd or 3rd on mine is like? My car needs to be doing over 70-80kph before you ease the throttle on. I hope you have a good strapping system.

Sure do buddy. Ran up a 385kw supercharged v8 strapped it down hard and it hardly moved.

Do u normally run ur car in 3rd on the dyno Scotty?

I cant see how a VQ35 with 10.3:1 comp can make big power with a turbo kit on 98 octane. The fuel is definately the limiting factor on this engine.

[scotty nm35]

I used to, as the speed cut would kick in too early to tune in 4th. Now I have to use 4th as the converter lockup clutch slips badly in 3rd and flares up to the stall converter. There was little difference in power but the torque was much higher in 3rd obviously, over 1200nm, which would possibly snap nylon straps imo when it kicked down violently.

[DVS JEZ]

Haha nice. We did a run in 3rd with Alex's car. Made 206kw and more power everywhere

[scotty nm35]

I cant see how a VQ35 with 10.3:1 comp can make big power with a turbo kit on 98 octane. The fuel is definately the limiting factor on this engine.

True, I just assume everyone has got on the e85 wagon by now. lol.

You mean you haven't yet Alex?

Haha nice. We did a run in 3rd with Alex's car. Made 206kw and more power everywhere

Remember his car has 3.5:1 diffs like mine does now. I used to have 3.0:1's which made it more like his 4th I guess. Why Nissan put such long ratios in I have no idea.

[Commsman]

Good write up Alex. This information will be extremely helpful to other PNM owners considering the FI/Uprev path.

As different as the ECUs are between PNM35 & NM35, there are an awful lot of similarities too.