Power fc pro. Did I just buy one or not

[joshuaho96]

On 9/6/2021 at 6:48 AM, Dasmbo said:

Its still better than a std ecu everyone has there own choice in the end its only as good as the tuner and his equipment

 

For a street car I'm pretty sure the stock ECU is more advanced as far as engine protection goes

[PLYNX]

On 9/6/2021 at 4:00 PM, r32-25t said:

Oh no not another person who pretends that their ecu that gives zero real time data and zero protection is still the best thing for their car 

Bahahahaha !

[GTSBoy]

On 9/7/2021 at 6:47 AM, joshuaho96 said:

For a street car I'm pretty sure the stock ECU is more advanced as far as engine protection goes

Nah. Not in the proper context. A street car could be quite modified. You're not running with a factory ECU on factory maps like that. So you dial out all the R&R that is up in the top RH corners of the maps (which is the bulk of the factory "engine protection". The factory put it there because they did not intend the engine to ever run there and figured that the only way the engine could get there was via a failure (ie wastegate line) or some Neanderthal futzing with the inputs.

But as soon as we turn up the boost we start to go into that part of the maps and need to clean them up. If you clean them up, then there is no more "protection". Just more map you can use.

The OEM knock detection and the strategies used in the factory ECUs (which varied from the R32 era of changing to the knock maps, which were even richer and more retarded everywhere than the R&R corner of the later ECUs, to just mapping in R&R and having a big timing subtraction applied in case that didn't work) works, so long as the knock sensors are telling the truth, which is not to be taken for granted.

[GTSBoy]

Not to mention the other things that you can trivially do these days to add protection with a decent aftermarket ECU, being oil pressure and fuel pressure, hell, even coolant pressure. These are all great even on a streeter, and far beyond what the factory ECU offers. If I had spent money inside my engine I would be seriously considering the aftermarket ECU approach rather than the Nistune I use now. When I decided to use Nistune I took the cheap option because it was plenty good enough for a basically stock engine not being pushed hard. Now, many many years later, with spare engines being a forgotten memory and the costs of fixing damage being a lot higher than they used to be, I should probably be reconsidering right now.

[BK]

Oil pressure protection is a bit bullshit. Oil pressure protection didn't save our white 32 with the Haltech Elite last month at Morpowa.

How can it really ? Everything happens so fast with oil pressure that if it goes wrong, it's really too late for any "protections" to catch it before any damage occurs.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

On 07/09/2021 at 11:15 AM, BK said:

Oil pressure protection is a bit bullshit. Oil pressure protection didn't save our white 32 with the Haltech Elite last month at Morpowa.

How can it really ? Everything happens so fast with oil pressure that if it goes wrong, it's really too late for any "protections" to catch it before any damage occurs.

Depends, if you had a momentary oil pressure drop at the track around a big bend you could trigger that so can't rev the tits off the motor. Also depends on how you've set the strategy, there are timers you can setup depending on RPM and TPS position too.

I wouldn't call it bullshit.

Engine protection is useful, only when setup/used correctly. This happened to my old motor, I got the shits and dropped the minimum oil pressure requirement to 1bar.. guess who binned their motor afterwards  

[BK]

Its a "bit" bullshit.

On 07/09/2021 at 11:12 AM, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Depends, if you had a momentary oil pressure drop at the track around a big bend you could trigger that so can't rev the tits off the motor. Also depends on how you've set the strategy, there are timers you can setup depending on RPM and TPS position too.

I wouldn't call it bullshit.

Engine protection is useful, only when setup/used correctly. This happened to my old motor, I got the shits and dropped the minimum oil pressure requirement to 1bar.. guess who binned their motor afterwards  

That's sort of my point mate. If you set it too close to protect it will trip under normal operation. If you set it so it doesn't trip it may as well not be active.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

On 07/09/2021 at 11:55 AM, BK said:

Its

That's sort of my point mate. If you set it too close to protect it will trip under normal operation. If you set it so it doesn't trip it may as well not be active.

well it wasn't really normal operation because around the bends I was sucking up air and hence the oil pressure dropped, thus it tripped.

I got the shits and lowered it and that cost me a motor.

[BK]

Yeah I'm getting at "normal" motorsports applications which have fluctuations - it will not save you.

[GTSBoy]

And my point was to do with street cars, where an oil pressure problem could be either acute or chronic (ie something breaks or you're losing oil somewhere and don't realise it) and protection from the ECU would actually be more likely to save you than in a motorsport application simply because the engine isn't (usually) being whacked as hard.

Certainly more useful than not having it at all.

[joshuaho96]

On 9/6/2021 at 4:40 PM, GTSBoy said:

Nah. Not in the proper context. A street car could be quite modified. You're not running with a factory ECU on factory maps like that. So you dial out all the R&R that is up in the top RH corners of the maps (which is the bulk of the factory "engine protection". The factory put it there because they did not intend the engine to ever run there and figured that the only way the engine could get there was via a failure (ie wastegate line) or some Neanderthal futzing with the inputs.

But as soon as we turn up the boost we start to go into that part of the maps and need to clean them up. If you clean them up, then there is no more "protection". Just more map you can use.

The OEM knock detection and the strategies used in the factory ECUs (which varied from the R32 era of changing to the knock maps, which were even richer and more retarded everywhere than the R&R corner of the later ECUs, to just mapping in R&R and having a big timing subtraction applied in case that didn't work) works, so long as the knock sensors are telling the truth, which is not to be taken for granted.

Yeah, I probably should've mentioned that I meant factory ECU with Nistune or comparable method to change the map. I don't really consider having R&R corners of the map as "engine protection". Actual knock control/knock maps does count as engine protection though. AFAIK the RB26 ECUs also have a table for TPS vs RPM which will automatically short-circuit the MAF-based load calculation and skip straight to max load as a protection measure.

[Dasmbo]

On 07/09/2021 at 7:17 AM, joshuaho96 said:

For a street car I'm pretty sure the stock ECU is more advanced as far as engine protection goes

I dont use an apexi myself i have had a Wolf for the past 8 years now and was tuned at 473 hp and had it checked 2 years ago and still making 470hp safely and yes i still have the original engine block that the car came of the production line a lot of failures are caused by the driver not the equipment

 

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

and not to mention all the closed loop strategies for fueling, timing, boost, idle, air temp, air density, etc.. then there's drive by wire, launch control, traction strategies, etc... list goes on!

I know plenty of PowerFC fans here so I won't say anything bad because people will have a sads.

[UWISSH!]

On 9/7/2021 at 3:22 PM, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

and not to mention all the closed loop strategies for fueling, timing, boost, idle, air temp, air density, etc.. then there's drive by wire, launch control, traction strategies, etc... list goes on!

I know plenty of PowerFC fans here so I won't say anything bad because people will have a sads.

Yerrr but it’s got a hand controller display so u don’t need to have a fancy race dash 🤪

[joshuaho96]

http://twinturbo.net/nissan/300zx/forums/technical/view/1127497/Z32-Knock-Control---Do-you-know-your-ABCs.html

Light reading on how the Z32s did knock control. Even in the 90s knock control was pretty decent, at least for saving the engine. It isn't quite as sophisticated as what you'll see in OEM ECUs today but it's still more advanced than some standalone ECUs out there.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

On 07/09/2021 at 4:34 PM, joshuaho96 said:

http://twinturbo.net/nissan/300zx/forums/technical/view/1127497/Z32-Knock-Control---Do-you-know-your-ABCs.html

Light reading on how the Z32s did knock control. Even in the 90s knock control was pretty decent, at least for saving the engine. It isn't quite as sophisticated as what you'll see in OEM ECUs today but it's still more advanced than some standalone ECUs out there.

so did the RB ECUs, hence the knock sensors and the S14/15 SR20s

[GTSBoy]

And while it was reasonably sophisticated, it frequently didn't work. Many VGs and RBs ran on the knock maps all the time (and like shit, obviously) because the knock sensors were hearing engine rattles that the discriminators thought was knock. Either that or they went faulty and never heard knock even on an engine that was pinging like a 90s raver.

[Kinkstaah]

On 9/7/2021 at 11:58 AM, BK said:

Yeah I'm getting at "normal" motorsports applications which have fluctuations - it will not save you.

I mean, you could set it to instantly kill the motor before the oil pressure drops to a point where damage could occur.

But this is also potentially unrecoverable, if it drops at 7000rpm, the damage is done by the engine decelerates from 7000rpm to 0. It certainly wouldn't hurt in scenarios where you have *low* oil pressure in certain scenarios, vs say instant 0 oil pressure problems.

In theory you could tie this into an Accusump system. I.e if it's been triggered for more than 1S kill the motor, and let the accusump carry you through until your engine decelerates from 7000 to 0...

None of this applies to a PowerFC though 😛

PowerFC is as basic tunable ecu for fuel and spark. It's not that it's bad, RB's are simple engines electronically after all -  its that it's not really good value for money. Noone should buy one. If you got a car that has one already, that has already been tuned for it,  you may consider keeping it depending on your needs, but that's about it.

Their niche has been more than adequately covered by Nistune. If that didn't exist you could make an argument for a PowerFC if you got one very cheap.