Thread: Tuning Saga: A Love Story About a Man and His Daughterboard

Thanks for your insights, Bowlcut. Much appreciated. I use a dyno in Mount Airy, MD. I'll be sure to report back.

Oh.....and i just looked closer at your a/f maps. That dip you have at 5800 reminds me a lot of what we were battleing when we were tuning. No matter what we did, we had that dip. It was going to the knock table or the such. I gota load tuner pro to look at our roms again but i want to say that was what was happening. I would love to see a datalog session of that watching the timing map. Use NDS to do a datalog and replay the data. go to the compare section where you can see a line graph of everything. See if your timing drops out for a few hundred rpm's window in that section. Ours was doing that. Took a while to figure out what was going on tho and how to fix it. If you can make it repeat that A/F dip i bet it would also show up on the dyno as a dip in power, it did for us. This is all at WOT tho. When you are doing these data runs also plot the data coming out of the ecu.

Are you running an LM-1? If so Calum's got how to use the logworks to log all the data of the wideband along with the data from the ecu. And i bet with that combo and some dyno time you could really have the makings of one of the ultimate stock de tunes. But talk i think in the other forum he posted how to make logworks beta pull all the consult data...i think

Interesting -- that dip at 5800 was evident across all of my runs. I was able to move it up and down but never make it go away relative to the adjacent RPM ranges. The datalogging that you are suggesting is not something that I have done before, but I will try to noodle through it. Do you recall why your ECU was pulling timing at 5800?



Yes, I am running the LM-1. Using the accessory data input (I think it's the LM-2) I can pick up certain signals from the ECU with direct wiring (that's how I got the MAF voltage, and I have logged TPS voltage on my other car). But I will check on Calum's writings to see what is possible.

Thanks for the tips!

Bill

It was either the o2 sensor or the knock sensor i forget which right now, it was like 3 months ago. Since its a race car we ignore o2 sensor. Since this will be a street car, getting that fixed may be a tad more interesting. You may have to edit like the knock table and such in that area of the map to not pull as much timing. I wish i could remember exactly what that was from...thats why i was saying do a datalog run with nissan data scan and maybe it will jog my memory . And the fact we spent 6 hours on the dyno, 3 of wich was learning how to mess with the software, other 3 really tuning....my mind was mush

OK, got it. Thanks.

Cool Bill, finally got around to reading the updated version.

So although you haven't been on the dyno yet, did you notice any seat of the pants increase in power anywhere? Just curious.


Cannot wait for my wideband to come in the mail...

Dudeman

The only thing that I have noticed is increased torque steer at 5000 to 6000 RPM as the AFR gets tuned in. This could just be my imagination, but the car feels pretty peppy. There was a definte noticable improvement moving from the factory ECU to the Calum ECU.

I finally made it to the dyno -- and then it took me a while to get around to posting these results. Just as a reminder, I am running an AEM CAI, UR 2 pulley, Topspeed header, and 60mm exhaust by HKS. My peak power was 120 whp on the Dyno Dynamics Dynomometer, which reads 5-7% lower than most of the more common dyno brands. Peak power was less than I expected, and occurred below 6000 RPM. I'm thinking that peak power is a little low, and also that it should have occurred at higher RPM. My current theory is that the Topspeed header is holding me back a little. So I've order an Ebay header with 2.5" downpipe and will install this before proceeding with further tuning.

First lesson: The Real Time system will pay for itself real quick when you are tuning on the dyno. I made a lot of runs trying to use the Nissan DataScan Active test function to change the AFR across the board, and later to change the timing for dyno runs. I also edited the bin file to make 2 more tunes and try them on the dyno. It seemed to take forever. Time is money on the dyno.

This chart shows my most interesting results. The red line (Run 032) is the factory tune. You can see that it's lean at low RPM and rich at high. The blue line (Run 003) is my street tune (based on the Calum v.4) with AFR mostly in the low 13s, dipping into the high 12s a little. The wide band data from the tail pipe unit on the dyno were very close to what I was measuring with my LM-1. The Calum tune makes more WHP above 4500 RPM -- as many as 4 to 5 more WHP.

The green line (Run 013) was a surprise. When I richened the AFR into the 12.5 to 12.7 range, the car made a couple extra WHP above 5800 RPM. Like I said, this was a surprise. I changed the bin to keep low 13s below 5800 RPM and mid 12s above 5800 RPM. Although I got the desired AFR pattern, I did not make the WHP that were found with the AFR straight across the RPM range in the mid to high 12s. I'm not sure why it worked that way, but I was able to repeat the extra power 3 times by richening the mixture a little with active test.

I tried a couple different timing settings -- both adding and removing advance, but found no more power. That was a surprise also. Calum did a good job tuning this one in!



I'll probably go back to the dyno when I get the header on. Or I might start tuning my VE. But I have a huge oil leak in my J30 that must be attended to first. Your comments are welcome. I'm still real new to this stuff.

There is always power in fuel...which means you are getting plenty of air, but needed a touch more fuel for the given VE of the motor.

Your findings really do match what ive seen on the dyno, but mine have been with a race car. So my goals were different than your's Id say. We were going for really safe nice a/f's but as much power in the 4500+. That tune that is shipping now v.4 has been tuned on for the last few years. Thing is, a bolt on car doesn't see drastic increases in hp from the ecu tweaking. Like my car with nothing but a pop made the similar type of moves in the map but larger, like 10hp. but when we put it on scott's bolt on car, similar to your setup, it made only 2-4hp. This was 2-3 years ago so the bin has matured a bit.

The header will help you a bit. The exhaust side of the car helps a lot...from our tuning experience. Its a fine line of how loud you can take it and how much power you want to make really.

Ive been driving on i think like v.2 or v.1 on my nx now for 2-3 years atleast...considering its a beta type board in there from the first batch of ecu's and i know calum was too lazy to reflash it . so its pretty safe id say.

And I agree that a realtime on the dyno is soooo nice. and you dont piss off the dyno operator either . Like i said if you have a friend with one or multiple cars...it makes it nice to have one between a few cars.

What id love to do...or if you wanted to spend more time.... Tune the 2000-4500 range. With a dynodynamics you can do loaded pulls down there. Id like to play with the a/fs down there mostly. but for the most part its better than stock and still gets good mpg so not much of a gain. but thats part of the rom that isnt touched all that often. and then do some various loads on the engine like part throttle stuff. But that would be like near an all day type of thing. Calum and I have wished at doing that one day.

The header i think will only net you a couple of hp, and open you up another 500rpm. The hotshot gen6 peak hp was around 6400rpm, the stock cam's just dont have enough breath in them. Our a/f's were mid to low 13's. This is without an o2 at all, no knock sensor, and a 3" open turn down after the driver exhaust. So...I dont think you are going to move the graph to the right very much.

Wow thats pretty low... I got 125whp on a Dyno Jet, with 91 intake cam and Pop charger. Even with the 5-7% false WHP reading that seems quite a bit low...