I just got my Cipher today (http://www.uprev.com/products/cipher_more_N_I_GB.html) and have been playing with it for a bit tonight. Overall it works really well, though the gauge graphics could be a bit more readable. It was raining so I couldn't have too much fun, but I did a quick 2nd gear run datalogging the two wideband voltages and vehicle speed versus time (update rate is about 10 Hz):



Here's the conversion from wideband voltage to air/fuel ratio in case anybody is interested:



I've written a RoadDyno application used by the WRX crowd that I'll soon be expanding to support the Cipher, so those of you with Ciphers will soon have a free dyno on tap. Here's a sample "dyno" output from a tuned STI (the program accepts RPM versus time datalog along with vehicle parameters like mass / gear ratios / drag coefficient / etc to calculate power versus RPM):



And the idle speed and timing adjustments appear to work just fine... sweeeeet!

 

Cool! I got mine yesterday too, but won't get to play with it until the weekend probably (until I borrow a laptop because my carputer isn't ready). Thanks for the screen shots.

 

$400, holy crap. Looks like I need to reverse engineer their system and sell it for 200$ lol. What're you guys using this data for? Just for fun or for tuning?

 

I'm using it just for fun at the moment, but it should prove quite valuable for tuning, especially with the wideband sensors on the 2004.5+ models. I used a similar tool extensively for tuning my last car.

Also, it's nice to be able to pull up DTCs, or clear those pesky "over-rev" codes.

 

Yeah, a little pricey. It was $350 under the group buy. I'll mostly be using it for fun for a while, but it has so much potential. I was going to write my own software, but I'm not familiar with the Consult protocol at all and I would have just been pulling ODBII data. I figure it would have cost me just as much, if not more, in time alone to write my own. I'm sure it'll be worth it when I can finally play with it.

 

Well if you wrote your own and sold it to undercut them I'm sure it'd be worth it.

 

There aren't any competing non-generic computer interfaces for the Nissans, correct? So this Cipher thing is huge... I couldn't imagine trying to diagnose problems or evaluate performance on my last car without the computer interface. I'm surprised more people aren't as excited as I am! If nothing else, the people who live near me should be excited that I can raise their idle and adjust their timing for them. :P

 

Its certaintly interesting as a reader, but is it also a programmer???

If yes, I would like to find out much more... What all can it do?
I went through the website and at a glance it appears to only be a reader.

 

According to UpRev, the Cipher will never have re-flash capability, but they are investigating reflash solutions as another product.

The Cipher basically has the functionality of the CONSULT-II for our cars. You can monitor virtually every sensor of interest at a high data rate, and program small changes to the timing or idle (as some have had the dealer do).

My primary interest is the high resolution vehicle speed sensor read-out for very accurate road dynoing, as well as the wideband O2 sensor readout for future tuning.

When I was getting hesitation under boost with my last car, datalogging timing retard, injector duration, and O2 voltage was key to determining that I was actually maxing out the fuel injectors, which resulted in leaning out the mixture and the ECU pulling back timing to save its a$$.

 

Detailed investigation of the timing adjustment to follow in the next few days...

 

MechEE, I felt when my timing was changed to 17 degrees.

I am curious why the driver side bank is almost always leaner then passenger side on my car, now I see it on your car also. I wonder if this is VQ35DE specific or Cipher glitch?

Hopefully they will not stop here and release soon some Cipher interface, either API or scripting or even better Girder files. This resizing and clicking Ok, Next, etc is tiresome. Also, what is the big deal with converting voltages into A/F ratio, if nothing else based on that service manual table? Face-lift or yet better, skinning ability would also help. I was expecting to see “hazard” blinkers and windows-up functionality. Knock sensor in the future? Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that I bough Cipher and not some generic OBD reader, I just want little more (like passing steering wheel commands ).

I will definitely look for your RoadDyno app. Thanks

 

Just for a quick little test, try switching your A/F sensors from bank one and bank two around and see if it reads the same or different.

It may give a little more insight on what is happening with your engine.

 

I agree 100%. I'm not sure what's up with the bank to bank variance in A/F ratio. Hazard blinkers and windows up functionality are in the BCM functions area I believe.

If the raw O2 voltage is what's present in the data stream, then I'd rather they display that like they do. Then at least we're free to do the conversion and know how it's being done. But if they can do this internally and add it as an additional reading then that'd be cool too.

Other sensor data I'd like to see is encoded steering angle for both the front and the rear (for rear active steer cars). I'm curious exactly how much the system is commanding the rear wheels to move in different circumstances.

Regarding the timing stuff, I was going to do some speed versus time runs while logging timing and timing retard both at 15 and 17 degrees and try and extrapolate some power differences and verify that the entire map is being boosted.

 

I'll check tomorrow to see if the there are any differences in the conversion values we use for the two banks. Errors are always possible..... It's better that we stamp them all out as soon as possible. There are 497 possible parameters that a Nissan ECU may report as available so it's alot of error checking

The reason Cipher only reports AF sensors as voltage is this:

It's a relatively trivial conversion... why doesn't Nissan do this in their own tools? Is it possible that a different ecu (with a different AF sensor) uses a different conversion formula? It would be horrible if a motor was destroyed because a user relied on an AF reading that shouldn't have been converted using the table/method of the 350Z. I'm working on a solution but it's likely going to be tied to the ECU part number somehow until I have more information.

John

 

Thanks for the info John. Any word on whether knock sensor readings / front and rear steering angle could be added? Any chance there is a way to access accelerometer / yaw sensor readings?