Finally done!

After a long and enduring amount of lessons learned and a patient and careful tuner I've finally completed my 2005 G35 6MT REVUP setup for my Vortech Supercharger Full Kit. In case you're wondering all of these dynos and events listed are done on a DynoJet although they are from different locations.

My Full Kit is utilizing the FMU and Auxiliary Fuel Pump setup that Vortech sends and it came with their stock tune. This tune, as you all know, is made only for stock cars however mine has a few breather mods. All other modifications don't affect the power. So the tune was not made for such a setup. It was installed on 8/29-8/30 in Lubbock, TX by "slamdbusa" an ex-military helicopter mechanic and former 12 year dealership tech and current mechanical engineering student. He did a great job! Not a single problem with a single thing he's installed for me yet.

For those of you who have read my other threads I've been having issues with the vortech running lean. It began with a dyno on 9/3/2008 at Protech in Austin, TX where I saw most of the run at 10.xx to 11.xx but then above 6000 RPM we crossed over 12 and after 6500 rpm we got up to 13.49. That was the only run we did that day and until I figured it out I had to postpone everything.

Afterwards I had my stock fuel injectors cleaned at the local dealership and $120 later I took my car to Carboy in Houston, TX on 9/8/2008 and our dynos there were great. AFRs only got as high as 11.7 in one run, 11.9 in another run, and 12.5 in a cold run. I was happy with it and drove it around like that beating on it like a red headed stepchild for 3 weeks.

I finally decided recently to go ahead and get it custom tuned because I knew there was more power to have from this setup and frankly I wanted someone to tune it to a conservative and reliable level and get the AFRs more consistent. They were jumping all over the place from 10.6 to 11.7. I had no idea how the Vortech tune was handling my other breather mods.

So that puts us at 9/23/2008 when I took it into Fastlane Incorporate, the only unichip tuner in the Houston area. The owner/tuner and I hit a brick wall this day. Even on his first initial run with the vortech stock tune he was getting AFRs over 13. He paid it no mind and because he was going to have to start from scratch anyways (the vortech tune is locked so you can't access it) he just deleted the vortech man and we started from a base N/A '93 octane REVUP motor map.

Well we hit a brick wall. He wasn't getting the fuel he needed and couldn't be sure if the vortech auxiliary fuel pump or the FMU or a boost leak or any of the variables were the concern.

I guaranteed him that all of these were fine and then after 4 or so hours of working on the dyno and being on the phone we called it a night and I ordered some 440 cc Deatschwerks injectors and had them overnighted.

Since we had not planned on taking so long the day before and not finishing and my shop had no techs available to do the install I went off to West Infiniti and had them do he install on the injectors. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. They tightened up the belts for me since they were running loose and even found a fuel clamp that looked like it was on its last legs and replaced it. They inspeceted all my fuel hoses to be sure they were in good condition and even inspected all the vacuum lines so when we went back to the tune we could know that a boost leak wasn't happening.

During the time I was waiting on my injectors to get installed I sent some e-mails and spent some time on the phone with JE Import Performance's owner and Tony from Unichip (The Aussie or Kiwi guy who's the real expert there).They informed me that the problem probably is that we were not activating the auxiliary fuel pump. I took this info back to my tuner and everything just clicked. We go on board and learned that "Option 5" in the unichip tuning menu was what needed to be accessed to turn on the auxiliary fuel pump for this application. Many have come across this problem when having their unichips tuned. We were lucky that Vortech spent some time on the phone with us an lead us in the right direction. The "Option 5" must be turned to "On/Off Cam Control" and then the variables in there can alter it based on load or rpm or a variety of other features. This is just an auxiliary on off thing that can be hooked up to anything you want (nitrous, methanol, etc). In this case it's hooked up to turn on the auxiliary fuel pump.

Once that was done we were on our way!

We approached our air fuels conservatively as well as our timing. We used the datalogs from my cipher cable from previous runs to start out with the total timing used by vortech is a starting point. After turning on the fuel pump was done it was less than an hour before we completed our tune.

The result was 355 RWHP on Fastlane Incorporated's Dynojet Dyno @ 7.75 PSI max boost.

We also have a "Valet Mode" map which limits the RPM to 4000 RPM and is attached to an AB map switch that I can change at any time when I'm giving the car to the valet or giving it to my girlfriend. The AB map switch is only $15 + shipping from Unichip.

Here are all the dynos thus far and our progress:

Dynos on 9/3/08 and 9/8/08=


Injector Duty Cycle on OLD stock injectors 9/8/2008=


Final Dyno Run 9/24/2008=




Lessons learned:

1) Even if you have stock cats, nismo headers and nismo exhaust will alter the vortech tune so that you WILL need bigger injectors. Mine were maxed out at 93% according to the cipher cable's measurements of Injector Pulse Width. BTW, Injector Duty Cycle = Injector Pulse Width * RPM / 1200 if you're wondering. You WILL NEED 440cc injectors or greater when even running the stock full vortech kit for the revup.

2) Deatschwerks fit right in and work great. My tuner enjoyed how predictable they were. My installer enjoyed not having to cut the old clips off nor do anything out of the ordinary to install them. They do really drop right in. For some reason they don't snap in like the factory ones b/c they're missing this groove but they do fit snugly onto the fuel rail.

3) Building relationships in this adventure is what it really takes to get things done right. I trusted a tuner that had little experience with this car (they work mostly on domestics) b/c I trusted his judgement. It took a long time for us to get this right but he was patient and willing to take things on small step at a time. He was willing to take the time to call anyone who could get us to solving this problem since he'd never tuned a Vortech Unichip setup before except in some Hemis in which Vortech kept the aux fuel pump on all the time.

I'll have more dynos up tomorrow in JPG format that will be easier to read since I haven't yet received the files from my tuner.

Thanks to:

First off thanks to 4Shizzil for all the pep talks and all the advice and showing me that the unichip can be taken advantage of under the right hands. I've bothered that poor guy tons of times at all hours of teh day and night.

Also thanks to Vortech for giving us as much information as they could to get this tune going and turning on that aux fuel pump.

JE Imports (The owner there was a big help in understanding the aux fuel pump as well)

Tony, both Mikes, and the whole Unichip team.

Deatschwerks for overnighting me their quality injectors.

Southwest Infiniti and West Infiniti for installing the injectors and tightening belts/checking everything out since I had no garage and no tools to get any work done here in Houston. (Especially the service advisors Cal and Josh from the two dealerships respectively) They treated me right and didn't overcharge me whatsoever. Nothing quite as quality as dealership work.

My good friends and companions from Lubbock, TX, Matt the superstar military engineer and experienced mechanic for installing everything perfect the first time and GamblerZ who was kind enough to let me use his guy and his garage.

Jeremy Tibbs from Performance Factory for all his advice and quality time he spent with me. I ended up ordering Deatschwerks injectors because of him.

Paul at Advanced Race Technology for taking care of me all those times when I changed my order about a bajillion times to get me the to the full kit first then to the V3 next.

We're lucky to have sponsors on these forums that keep customer service at the top of their list!

PS: There's no TQ reading b/c for some reason that last run didn't get a TQ reading. The run just prior made 342 RWHP and 298RWTQ so I assume the last run made something similar.

Here's the list of parts that we used at the end:
Vortech V-3 Satin Full Supercharger Kit with 10:1 FMU, 155 LPH Aux Inline Fuel Pump, and Unichip
440cc Deatschwerks Injectors
Nismo Headers
Nismo Cat-Back Exhaust
5/16" MD Spacer w/ Isothermal thingy
Non-Revup lower plenum
Stock Cats
PLX Wideband

I know I've probably missed some people that have helped a ton in this whole process. This entire forum and everyone's knowledge on here is what made this possible for me. Thanks!!!

 

numbers seem kind of low but it's better than 312whp. Also, with all the mods u have done why didn't u change the cats??? I think by upgrading to the hi flow cats or test pipe would have gotten u more whp/tq in the top end. U basically caused a bottleneck by keeping the cats stock but never less congrats to being boosted. drive safety

 

HFCs are >$600 and to me that's too much for maybe another 5 HP up top.

TPs are too loud for my daily driving. I didn't get TPs for the same reason I didn't get a big true dual exhaust. I will soon be working at a hospital 80 hours a week and to roll up all raspy to that or a small clinic somewhere is bordering on unprofessional in my opinion. The Nismo setup is still very quiet and stock sounding.

You're right though, more HP could have been had and a bottleneck was caused by them.

I took this into account and the fact that I am applying to about 7 residencies in California. TPs or HFCs wouldn't fly well over there if I had to move.

I think the real deal here is that more can be done from the unichip and it does react well to these lower levels of boost in the hands of one of their unichip certified tuners. A UTEC is not a requirement to get these similar power levels on a DynoJet and dumping the FMU/Aux Inline Pump is also not requirement but obviously even at stock boost levels on a revup the lesson is apparent that stock injectors do not handle it well.

 

Congrats on getting everything worked out. Enjoy...and TAKE IT ABOVE 5k RPMS!!

 

^ but dude it's scary above 5K RPMs and my car isn't even that fast =P

 

Glad everything worked out. Give us another update on how she is running in about a month.

 

sounds like you had a little adventure. Nice to hear your G is running great.

 

THANKS!

Someone suggested I update after a few K miles are on the new tune so I will.

As of right now the car has 2K miles on the stock vortech tune that made around 310-325 rwhp. I've driven a lot in a month!

Anyways, I'll keep you guys updated.

 

Glad to hear everything worked out for you. Enjoy the all the fun.

 

True, HFCs dont get u a lot of hp but it's still more than 5whp (maybe around 10whp). All HFCs are basically the same and use ones run around <300.
My pt is your setup is a bottleneck so u have a lot of unwanted back pressure that causes lost of whp. I'm sure u could have made similar whp with the stock exhaust in its place because then it wouldnt have the bottleneck affect. Also, dont forget that once u get to CA that u retune your car again bc now the gas and the altitude is different compared to most states.

 

^ yeah I didn't buy the exhaust and headers for the supercharger. The plan was just to put a few bolt ons and deal with the fact that the car wouldn't make a lot of power.

I probably should have kept the stock exhaust on there but the nismo stuff was already on so I left it on.

Yeah, I'm not gonna retune for being in CA just for 1 month in November. I'm just not going to push it and putter it around below 3K RPM.

Thanks for the tip though.