John Dixon

Just went out the same run twice to decide whether to junk the HICAS - one with it on, one with it disabled. Was it better - in short yes, definately. Ulitmately I guess it's probably quicker with it or nissan wouldn't have put it on but that's academic if you don't have the confidence to chuck it around. To me, it's also academic if it'll pull 0.1g more in a 140mph corner because I like back road driving. It used to 2 main things that annoyed me: 1) Back end used to feel 'floaty' like it was going to come round on you. This used to happen mainly on bends with a changing radius or when you had to give a quick correction - basically anytime when you had to give extra steering input mid-bend. I never trusted this feeling and so was getting back on the gas only when it stopped. That was always way after the apex so I couldn't get back on the gas as early as I wanted. Without the HICAS this feeling is totally gone. 2) When turning in really hard into a very tight bend, particularly when changing direction like in a chicane the car used to feel unsettled. Hard to describe really but nasty. Again this is gone without the HICAS. Another benefit is that you get a better idea of when the back is going to step out because you can feel the load building up better on the back wheels. Guess it's a case of learn to drive with it or take it off. I'm definately going to remove it. Saves 20Kg too.

Nigel, the JD chip you've got is well safe. It's the real time mapping bit that's not proven yet. I'm happy to push car a bit, just wouldn't do it to someone else's until it's proven on mine.

You're brave! Going to book some dyno time soon, but still waiting on getting air filters yet. Oh and some time off!

7.4L Chevy Big block. Crude old american crap but sounds amazing and goes like feck :D

It was donated to me by a guy called Devin Novak who does some tuning on the condition that I wrote the software so he could use it too! Nice guy! Have a look Here for his stuff on tuning. There's a link to the Xtronics home page in there somewhere too. TBH, an after market chip is a good place to start. They've spent a lot of time getting them right. Just a case after that of some dyno time to optimise it for your car / change what you want to.

Basically it's just some memory with an interface that pretends to be an EPROM. You plug that into the EPROM socket in the ECU and then you can manipulate the code that's in it to change the parameters. The Zemulator is just an xtronics Romulator with a VB interface on it and some data aquisition added in. I'm writing a Romulator interface at the minute to allow real time mapping. It's finished, just haven't had time to test it on the car yet. Works OK on the bench though ... You still need a boost controller though.

Yeah, swapped the rover for this - that fixed it!

Look at the auction data here: Autosquare A few 99-'02 ones come up but they're still expensive

I fell out of a boat once trying to find the source of a missfire. Got a shock off one of the HT leads and fell over the side :o

Just got a profec E01 in mine, top controller with loads of nice features like graphical trace of boost, RPM and 2 other inputs. Also has a start boost set so that the wastegates are kept tight shut until the bost passes a set level, gives you the fastest possible spoolup that the turbos can manage. Emanage looks good, but you can do the same thing with a £100 EPROM emulator if you're prepared to learn where the maps etc are in the code.

I'm pretty sure there's nothing wrong with it. Diag is all OK, bled it and changed the fluid. No wheel movement at all. Getting a full alignment chack done at a motorsport place next week, so I'll see how it goes after that. Might be able to disable it by pulling the connector off the solenoid, I'll check it out.

Fitted UK clocks, which was much better that the converter chip. Not too sure about the NA, I'd imagine the subframe is different too. Probably be more expensive anyway. Courtesy eliminator is about £150 including taxes etc.

Not much point going that high on stock turbos, they're way inefficient then, you'll probably loose power if anything as what you gain from higher pressure is offest by heating the charge more.

I've run 16psi on both mine with no problems on stock internals. With your bigger tubs though, 16psi is a lot more a flow than with stock ones, so may not be. Limiting factor is usually injectors though.

No, everything's fine, I replaced most of it recently when I did the bushings and there's no play at all. It's definately a rear steer thing as you can feel a definate point where it comes in and then stops. It was the same on my last car too, so I'm thinking it's just the normal operation of the HICAS

I've got an old gear stick to chop up to make a QS. I was just going to chop the botom off and extend it a bit. Anyone done it? How much did you extend it by? Cheers

Anyone on here done it and recommend a particular brand? The odd ball feeling of the rear end of the car floating that it gives is really starting to annoy me, kinda spooky when you're really pushing on, but worse at low speeds on roundabouts etc.

Other than the chips the ECU's are the same, so if you're buying it to socket it'll be fine. If you want to socket it, I can do it if you don't want to try it yourself.

Cool, just thought it was worth a mention. Got 2 Apexi's coming to try out on mine soon.

Stuart, you might want to tape up the mesh on the front of the blitz. On a very rainy day on my old car, a load of water came through there and fried my MAF! Possibly not a problem with your front end, on the stock bumper it came through the slit above the number plate.

Saw a thing in a bike mag once where a guy had fitted neon valve caps that were quite heavy. The force pulled the valve out at 150 :eek:

I'd be surprised if you can get them compressed. I think you'd have to heat them up and they'd probably not be very springy after that. Doing this is sure to destroy your car as anything other than a posing machine. If you take all the travel out of the back it'll be twitchy as hell.

There's one main reason to get a Jap import - you can get a SWB :D :D

Try Mike Feaney at MJP in the traders section.

They should be the same AFAIK. If you're getting it from the back of the speedo cluster, chase the track on the PCB that the wire connects to and make sure it goes to the speedo head.