Has anyone had any experience with this company.

http://www.afrtuning.co.uk/ECU-Chip-Tuning.asp?Car=Nissan%20300zx

I have emailed them and briefly spoke to them at TOTB about mapping my Z. I have been waiting for JD to do it but he must be to busy so i thought id sound these guy out.

Im in manchester (roughly) and theyre in essex so if anyone knows somewere closer that can map the standard ecu then that would be good. I dont want a chip though, i want it proper live mapping. think theres to many different mods on the engine for a pre programmed chip.

cheers

danny

No idea if it's closer, cos i live on an island lol

But rising sun performance in Hampshire do the stock ECU mate.

cheers

smithy

Probably similar distance mate, but rising sun are cheaper and seem seemed to make more sense on the phone. So unless anyone has anything else to add i will use them. Not a Z specialist but i assume mapping 1 car is similar to another.

cheers

danny

I dont want a chip though, i want it proper live mapping. think theres to many different mods on the engine for a pre programmed chip.

cheers

danny

 

 

 

Hi Danny,

 

I do not know the company you have mentioned but could I ask you in all seriousness what you are trying to achieve and what your expectations are of a live mapping session as you mention?

 

Reason I ask is I deal with the same questions every week and have had some very odd answers and some technically correct but inappropriate answers too.

 

On the whole and not just on zeds it seems to me that there are lots of high end tuning companies are very precise at giving imprecise information about their product and services such that it becomes very ambiguous, this does not detract from their service or product just makes it more difficult for the average Joe to know what's what!

 

Of course your engine tune at the moment and what you have planned is an important factor in deciding on a ready made eprom ("chip") replacement or one done with extra information via live data.

 

However I really do think that you or anyone else should not discount a ready made one as not "good enough" as in the real world there is only so much that can be improved upon especially on a mildly tune one.

 

 

I have all checked all of the mappings of:

 

Eight bit

 

Central 20

Veilside

Blitz

JWT (Genuine )

 

Superchips

E-bay ones

Many others cannot remember names of.

 

All of the above are very, very, very similar and with the exception of the Veilside all are ok with UK fuel, little or no other mods and run 1 bar (14.5) psi easy and give good real work results

 

John Dixon ( all variants )

 

Despite been mapped with some addition live data the changes are minimal and seem very similar to JWT ones.

( no offence John)

16 bit

 

Central Racing ( Central 20 sister co.)

 

Run in a late 98/99 zed at 1 bar the results were almost identical to running a series one ecu with a cloned JWT chip ??

 

Having dealt with many zeds running mediocre or badly sometimes the engine set up has more direct effect than the chip does, in fact a badly set up engine will often run less well with a custom chip if issue exist when tuning and are not dealt with as the whole set up is compromised.

 

 

 

Not a Z specialist but i assume mapping 1 car is similar to another.

cheers

danny

 

The key is ensuring the level of tune BEFORE any mapping or chip swapping is done is absolutely spot on because if they are not addressed then the results will be disappointing, detailed knowledge of the z32 engine and its characteristics and its nuances will more likely be better addressed by a zed specialist.

 

 

So in my opinion unless you have some very special requirements then maybe live data inputs would have some bearing but real world driving is full of compromises and this cannot be changed.

 

If you do not mind Danny I would love your input and thoughts on this because I have dealt with some very large rolling road proven zeds this year done by other establishments of which two had 480bhp +. BUT and this is my whole point on the road they...well hate to say it were sh?te but unfortunately they were.

Loads of lag, lethargic and not quite lumpy just not smooooth how a zed should be, maybe raw is a better description.

 

Anyhow all of these live data cars had issues that had not been resolved so after this was done they ran much better however I was still not convinced and we reverted much of the kit on these cars to standard and used pre-mapped chips.

 

The results on each one was remarkable, much quicker response quicker 0 to 60 mph etc. etc. and smooooth how a zed should be.

 

Now, no doubt at all in my mind that these cars will now show a lower BHP figure on a rolling road but hey the real road is where its is important eh.

 

Ok Danny over to you :D

 

Jeff TT

Edited July 29, 200916 yr by JeffTT

Were to begin.lol. First off i wasnt saying pre-programmed chips were a bad idea, just that my engine has so many different and uprated parts, i cant see how a ready made chip can account for so many variables. As i understand it, these chips make assumptions about the engine characteristics and set the fuel and timing to them. I am by no means an expert, all i know is what ive heard from people and read. My theory with the live map is that however my engine responds/acts, the map will suit it. Without having to make assumptions or compromise. i understand that there will have to be certain compromises but i want to keep them to a bare minumum.

 

So ill throw the gauntlet down then, ill post my engine spec up here,and current power, torque etc. And if you think you can supply a chip that will see a decent increase and get the most out of the mods, then just give me the date.

I dont want to break any records with power, just get the most from the car safely.

If im talking crap. and it has been known, let me know. think i should just come and see you lot anyway at some point.

Cheers for the input though. Much appreciated.

danny

Engine

 

Wesco 89mm forged pistons (now 3.1 ltr)

Eagle forged Conrods

Toga Racing shell and small end Bearings

Bronze Valve stem guides

Solid lifters

Skimed, Polished, Valves recutand seated and Heads reworked

Mike smith Manifolds

New NA Oil Squrters

Balanced Crank

Brand New Idle control Valve

Brand New Cam Belt tensioner

New Cambelt Pullys

Genuine complete Unortherdox lightweight belt pullys

Lower Plenum polish

Nismo Thermostat

Torga Motorsport high flow oil pump

Brand OEM New waterpump

Nismo 555 injectors

Garrett GT2871RS roller bearing Dual cyclone Turbos

Integral HKS gate valves

Noltech engine mounts

HKS Irridium S40i plugs

Power Enterprize Racing Rad 200% larger than Standard

Greedy Large volume side pod intercoolers

20" Pacet fan

24 row Mocal oil cooler

Mocal Thermo Oil cooler flow valves

Mocal Remote Filter plate

Mocal Remote filter housing

5/8" blue nylon braided oil feeds

Braided Fuel lines

Braided power steering feeds

Smithy's Place hard pipe Rad kit

Smithy's place hard pipe intake kit

Power Enterprize induction Better breathing than the Apexi's that I had

Apexi BOVs

Allunox custom built stainless divorce down pipes

Allunox custom built stainless decat X flow system

with wide band lamber sensor boss

Allunox custom built stainless tail pipes and silencers

Body colour co-ordinated ballance bar, throttle cable,

Cam and cam belt covers

Got rid of all emissions rubbish

Got rid of throttle body preheaters and Plenum hot water system

greedy porfec eo1 boost controller

Danny just a quicky is your zed auto or manual?

 

Jeff TT

Edited July 29, 200916 yr by JeffTT

Ok here we are, by splitting the spec you have in to two groups its easier to see what can be done with ecu mapping.

 

Passive parts that enhance performance but the ecu has no interaction with.

 

Active parts that enhance performance and one that have a some degree of interaction with the ecu

 

 

Passive parts

Garrett GT2871RS roller bearing Dual cyclone Turbos

HKS Irridium S40i plugs

Power Enterprize induction

 

Active parts

Nismo 555 injectors

Nismo Thermostat

Greedy porfec eo1 boost controller

 

So in reality despite your build spec been real nice and extensive the degree that is directly interactive with the ecu mapping is much smaller than might be thought, of course what we are talking about here is no way shape or form an in depth assessment of what can be achieved but an idea of how to assess what you want on the road.

 

I have a few concerns on the dyno read out too which could raise some doubt on the accuracy of the figures, if you have any more info would be helpful and as I asked before auto or manual.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

I will be seeing you soon Jeff about my chip, just waiting to be paid. Did you get my email bud, thanks.

 

Damien

..... as I asked before auto or manual.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Danny's car is a manual (conversion).

It's was markzx's blue car.

with that kind of spec your always going to get more from it with a stand alone ecu and more importantly the correct mapping of it, if you have invested so much in the rest of the car you should always put a decent amount aside to make sure you have an ecu and map which will get the most of your car.

 

Mike

yeah, as above is a manual, but i believe still has the auto ecu, just socketed and chipped. what other info do you need? only put the full spec up there so there was no concerns about cooling and reliability etc.

thanks all

danny

Jeff makes some good points, though I would say that the MSP Mani's and exhaust system are big passive contributors too.

 

Your torque figures look quite healthy, but drops off very quickly but you can see that's a result of the boost dropping back to 1 bar higher up the revs. If you kept the boost at 1.2 bar up the rev range then power will keep going up :)

 

I think if you go to a stand-alone, the results are pretty much down to the person mapping the car, rather than the type of ECU.

Well mr kirbz, i know what your saying, but i didnt build the car, i bought it the way it is. And i know that i could take it much higher with an aftermarket ecu, but then i still need it mapping. But to be honest i cant afford to do that. If i was going to get one i would want something decent and they aint cheap. Like i said, i dont want to break records, just get the most, safely, out of the car, i know it was built to do much more than it is.

 

Dont know why the boost dropped off like it did on the dyno, it holds better on the road. The turbo's shouldnt run out of puff at that boost though, there were cars with standard turbos running not far from that on the same RR day, and they held the boost. So im open to ideas on that one.

Thanks everyone with the coments and help, i will get this car sorted sooner or later.lol

danny

Hiya mate, been a long time since that naff meal in teh Indian one xmas eh :p

 

I think what Jeff is saying, from the many Zeds he sees each and every day and he reads what the ECU has got from his PC, there is very little difference between the various chips he sees and those custom mapped ones.

However clearly though there is sometimes a signicant difference between the performance of the individual cars which may or may not be down to the relevant chip, sometimes other parameters within the engine, not up to spec as such.

 

If i was in your shoes mate, first i'd take the 2 hour drive down to his place for a full assessment, many do and find a major difference in the way the car performs. He can also tell you more of what you want to know and about your ECU, maybe even swapping with another for comparisson perhaps.

 

This is the cheapest solution but more importantly should you later decide on the mapping route, you know the engine is exactly as it should be before a mapper who may not know our engines too well, plays with it.

 

I mentioned Richard Bell at Rising sun as he maps Skylines, a different engine i know, but he still knows that if the engine is spot on as it should be to begin with, what the various ratios important to tuning should be and i understand he does a very good job.

He also has the software/equipment to Map standard Nissan ECU's.

 

In any event, i wouldn't advise anyone mapping your car without first checking everything engine wise is spot on, your missing a fair bit of potential power on those graphs IMO

 

Oh and 1 little thing, from the spec you posted which i know you got from what Mark gave you, but your still a 3litre engine with the 89mm pistons mate. ;)

 

Good luck which ever route you take, it's got some good potential and for possibly little money...

Cheers

Smithy

Well mr kirbz, i know what your saying, but i didnt build the car, i bought it the way it is. And i know that i could take it much higher with an aftermarket ecu, but then i still need it mapping. But to be honest i cant afford to do that. If i was going to get one i would want something decent and they aint cheap. Like i said, i dont want to break records, just get the most, safely, out of the car, i know it was built to do much more than it is.

 

Dont know why the boost dropped off like it did on the dyno, it holds better on the road. The turbo's shouldnt run out of puff at that boost though, there were cars with standard turbos running not far from that on the same RR day, and they held the boost. So im open to ideas on that one.

Thanks everyone with the coments and help, i will get this car sorted sooner or later.lol

danny

 

I know what your saying but so many times i have seen really good spec zeds and then they take short cuts on the mapping and ecu which remember is the brain of your whole car so its sooooo important to get it right and as everyone has said its really important to get someone who has a good reputation as there are alot of sh1te mappers around and trust me i know cars which have been to one place and the owner was happy and then had a remap at somewhere else and made alot more power but was actually a safer map!! so its really an art form. At the end of the day its your car and money so you do what you feel is best for you ;)

 

Also smithy with 89mm pistons it takes the displacement to what would be classed as a 3.1 and 90mm pistons take it closer to 3.2ltr :) cant remember exactly what the figure is but i have it somewhere LOL

 

Mike

Hi Danny,

 

Oh, my slight mistake, the mapping I thought you spoke of was to burn onto an eprom and then insert into a normal ecu did not realise you meant a stand alone.

 

However most of which I said stands, onto the RR print out, the boost drop off and the fact it feels better on the road than the roller results is interesting, also I noted that on the print out the in gear test is shown as 3rd, as far as I was aware you need to select 4th in a manual to acheive a 1to1 ratio for calculating transmission losses etc, if this is the case the read outs are unfortunately flawed and will be misleading you.

 

Kirbz I take your point on high spec builds been under developed in the ecu department however even with stand alone you can only add a map sensor and remove the afm and map from there albeit very acurately and the results will give good strong rolling road figures but what Danny is looking for is the best road performance with consistant performance that his budget can run to.

 

Ok Danny, back to the drop off in boost, before you buy or pay for any other tuning you need to get the whole installation and set up checked out as I am leaning towards some issues that require sorting first.

 

On a final note welll done Danny and others on giving this thread attention and interesting input. :D

 

 

Jeff TT

Remember that indian meal well smithy, dont remember much of the night round preston afterwards.lol.

I think I do need to run the car to Jeff's. Normally i take the car to Phil at blackmore service station (used to be C&S wood) . Its been there recently for a boost leak etc, and as far as he says, everythings fine, but i dont know if he has all the electrical equipment to test any further.

Im not on about getting a stand alone engine management system though.

Thats why ive been looking for people who can map the standard ecu, or a chip that plugs into it.

Turning into an intersting thread this, even i cant wait to see the outcome.lol.

So Jeffs it is then, for the full checkover etc, then go from there.

And if there is a chip out there that will just plug in and bring it all together, then ill be a happy man.

I know the car is seriously down on power because my last Z had basic mods in comparason, stock tubs, injectors, chip etc. And there wasnt a lot of difference pace. This one is a lot more torquey though.

Thanks again all, much appreciated.

danny

Im watching the thread with interest, as I this is the next step for mine, when I eventually get it back on the road. Good luck with it Danny.

 

 

Barry

I can never understand why there is so much s**t talked on this subject over and over again. As Jeff says, the majority of issues come from badly built / setup engines being mapped before they should be or from just a bad mismatch of parts: big turbos on stock manifolds, badly designed dual intakes, leaking cheap dump valves etc. etc. Probably the biggest single issue is bad boost controller setup then the car mapped like that. I've even seen dyno graphs where the boost is like a sine wave at the top end due to too much gain!

 

At the end of the day, mapping is not black magic, its SCIENCE. For any given engine condition there are 2 parameters: AFR and timing. THATS IT, you just have to set them up to make best power or economy at each given site and maintain a safety margin within the engines limits on EGT etc. An engine properly tuned for best power is safe if minimum best timing and sensible is run.

 

A car properly set up on the dyno will perform as well as it possibly can on the road as long as the map has been fully done. Ultimately the feeling of flexibility and smoothness on the road comes from having the max power available from the engine under all conditions. The only exception is possibly very big turbos or cammy motors where you might soften the delivery a bit.

The biggest issue is that most RR operators will tune the max power settings and not worry too much about the mid range stuff or the low end stuff that you can map static - customers go away happy with the headline number and that's all the max power boys want. It's easy money. To completely re-map a Z on every speed/load site takes about 3 hours, to optimise only the full load stuff is about 20 mins max.

 

There are advantages to aftermarket systems, particularly ones that allow you to do away with MAF, add an intake temp sensor etc. but most of the benefits come from the useability as much as anything else - they're designed to be tinkered with, the factory one isn't. That being said, the factory ECU is very good.

 

With respect Jeff, my chips are not really much like JWT at all. OK they look similar but then all maps for a given spec will!

I maintain the safety maps, JWT don't

I expand the load scales, JWT don't, even on some of their big turbo maps. This means that you run the same timing and AFR numbers for almost 1/2 of the turbos operating range!!

Most of my stuff is significantly leaner at the top and richer in the middle than JWT.

Most of my stuff runs more timing than JWT

If you look closely at a JWT, most of their primary fuel maps are a stock safety map with an enriched top end.

See attached pics: JWT on left mine on Right - both for stock(ish) Z - not too similar after all.

 

 

I had a link engine management on my supra and consisted of RR and being driven on the road for many hours to set up. The results were great. Link management is not to dear and i know a very good guy that fits these and will road map it for free.

spot on john

 

i do think that mapping etc always seems to be low on peoples budgets when it comes to building a car, ive seen loads of people over the years that wont bat an eye lid about spending £10k on the engine then order a £50 chip over the counter from jwt etc

 

ive had several cars mapped on the dyno and never had any problems but i have always used a tried and trusted mapper which is so important, i also like you would never try to just get the maximum gains out of a setup its all about driveability unless your purely setting up say a drag car.

 

I would have liked to go more into mapping as i enjoyed setting up my aem and putting a base map on there, was satisfying when you go from nothing to a nice idle to nice revs upto a certain limit :)

I had a link engine management on my supra and consisted of RR and being driven on the road for many hours to set up. The results were great. Link management is not to dear and i know a very good guy that fits these and will road map it for free.

 

free?? jesus not many mappers do it for free LOL

 

not heard good things about the link ecu on the 300zx, i know a couple who have tried it and then removed it as it didnt control certain elements correctly but i know its well used and works well on the supra

Thanks John for your input and your clear and technical explaination, as I said earlier threads like this are so good for getting everyone talking about zeds!

 

Jeff TT

free?? jesus not many mappers do it for free LOL

 

not heard good things about the link ecu on the 300zx, i know a couple who have tried it and then removed it as it didnt control certain elements correctly but i know its well used and works well on the supra

 

Yer that was the xlem G2 or some thing like that. The xlem G3 is 16 bit and alot better. free as in you buy the system off him and he installs and maps it. Part of the package. LoL

 

Rouge motorsport did my supra (Mr2 guys mainly)

Is that you stepping in to map my car then john? lol. Thats kind of what i was trying to say about just buying a chip. Only what i said was more of a guess than an actuall scientific explination. So thanks for that. Like ive said, cant really afford stand alone ecu, i know that i would be able to get more from the car and, again, like ive said, im not after a monster top end power. I want a fast road car, i believe that was the plan for this car originally. John, you've seen the car, would you say it has badly matched turbos/manifolds, cheap dump valves etc?

Still with the plan i think, take it to Jeff for a full checkover, then am i back on the waiting list John?

cheers

danny