General Nissan Consult Question - What Does It Do?

[hop1308]

Hey guys, I've got a R34 GT-T.

I've had it for a while and have heard about the "consult" cable. I have a stock ECU, I was wondering a few things about the whole cable:

- What are the main things I can do with the cable and my car? (I have a reasonable amount of computer knowledge)

- Is it hard to use the cable?

- Is it worth buying?

Thanks heaps guys

[niZmO_Man]

You can look up fault codes and gauges (e.g. with ecutek). Nistune uses it to read/write the ecu data.

[hop1308]

can't seem to find the edit button, but along with those questions I have another;

Why are the prices ranging for the consult system, from like $15 - $400 on ebay? isn't it just a cable you connect, would have thought it would be a cheap thing to get?

[zoomzoom]

The more expensive units are hand held readers which display codes on an LCD screen, the other cables are just an interface between the car and a laptop. Years ago I purchased the ECUtalk cable, which is still around $100, nowadays there are lots of cheap ones available from china (Im sure the ecutalk one is chinese too...)

The ECUtalk has a site, with links to the chip manufacturers site where they list USB drivers for various operating systems. I have no info on whether the cheaper ones will have the same support, if any at all.

http://www.ecutalk.com/interface.aspx

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

[hop1308]

thanks heaps for that.

does anyone know any examples of what sorts of things you can see with the cable, e.g - compression tests? etc

and is it worth getting a cheap like $15 one?

[mad082]

You can't see compression, etc since the ecu doesn't have anything to monitor it with.

You can see things like timing, afm voltage, tps voltage, o2 sensor voltage, rpm, etc