After my first experiances with the TS reflash I won't be going that route again. I was dead set against piggybacks before. This time I'm either going with the high end SS box or the Emanage. My only requirement is that there be NO 2nd fuel pump or aux injectors. I want the car to run off of the 'stock' fuel setup. Using a piggyback opens the door to much more overall control (injector pulse widths and timing). My biggest fear with the standard piggy back types that are out now is if the 2nd pump would fail or the aux injector would get clogged. Without several guages that would have to be monitored at all times you would have no idea if the fuel system failed.

My issues with TS is the fact that I am in Ohio and they are in Cali. I think they MAY be capable of tuning a high powered VQ35 but without the car they will never get it perfect. 'Small' changes and tweaks are impossible. The thought of being able to use my laptop to make minor adjustments in real time overweighs any doubts that installing a quality piggyback raises.

What do you think about that gurgen?

Oh, and they were supposed to order parts for my car last Friday but Infiniti wasn't going to order them until today! I was planning on having Infiniti of Dayton fix the body but due to the body shop manager being a complete ***** to me I pulled the car from there and took it to a local high end shop.

 

Hey Kevin

If I knew that you were planning to take the car to the dealer for fixing things from the collision, I would have suggested against it. They place everythign that happened to the car into the Infiniti car history, which could potentially lead to them trying to deny warranty in the future on a related repair... but then again, US (as in what we have done to our cars) and warranty are not compatible notions to begin with.

Af far as tuning goes... I agree with you... The kind of tuning that is necessary (or that you and I demand) is not possible when you are separated by 2500 miles from your tuner... As good as TS product can be, trying to do a reflash without any fine tuning for a motor such as ours is not too wise...

 

Sorry to hear about this Gurgen. It's gotta be heartbreaking.

The "MAF Hack" you describe above has been done by a good handful of the 240sx guys with some moderate success. I'm not sure why you might be seeing too much turbulance though. The Hacked MAF works very similarly to a piggyback by giving a lower airflow reading to the ECU to compensate for larger injectors. When you do this thought, 2 things happen. The ecu thinks there is less load since the airflow reading is low for the given RPM and TPS signal and it adds timing advance. Secondly, the closed loop O2 sensor feedback may try and bring the A/F ratios back to what the ECU was programmed to do. This is especially dangerous at high throttle applications. Generally, in the past, Nissan ECU's ignored the O2 sensor at full throttle so tuning here using the MAF signal is quite safe(other than potential timing changes). But at high throttle under boost, it may go to lean. I was able to get away with it on my E-Manage piggybacked 240 since I was running only 6.5 psi and the timing control allowed me to back off some timing at the higher airflow signals. BTW, a hacked MAF would actually lower the resolution, but it would allow it to read more air before the sensor element itself maxes out.

The best solution is obviously a reflash tuned correctly for your application or a stand-alone tuned correctly. Other options I might consider is the E-Manage as it does allow for you to add additional fuel via the injector grounds instead of the MAF signal. The E-Manage taps into each of the fuel injector's grounds and you can tune an additional fuel map to provide and extended ground to the injector to add more fuel. I haven't tried this myself, but this seems to be there to get around the closed-loop O2 adjustments. Another piggy-back solution is out there and the name escapes me, but it provided an additional map where you can piggyback the O2 sensor signal itself. I haven't seen how well this worked, but the concept is brilliant. The only downside I saw was it's map resolution was only 8x16 (IIRC) as opposed to Greddy's 16x16 maps.

 

Ckwik

Everythign that you said is accurate to the best of my knowledge, and I am mindful of these considerations. However, I am not too concerned with losing resolution as, as i have held before, I do think the MAF resolution is the limiting factor here (the 16x16 table is IMO). Also, i do NOT think that this is much of a 'hack', as the VERY same MAF sensor that is in use on the 350z is in use in the 5.6 V-8 Nissan Titan (in a larger housing, of course).

Also, I have come to know quite a bit about this ECU of late, in particular how it handles fuel. What you are saying, the ecu wanting to go to stoichiometric on the low end (wherein the "low end" now is no longer "low", as at as low as 3v of MAF voltage we can be doing 10 psi at 3000 rpm), is correct, but IS in fact correctable in the ECU. We can edit the normally closed loop part of the fuel trim table to actually keep it at far under 14.7 (whatever we want). So this is not an issue.

I MAY use e-manage some time down the line for fine tuning...we'll see.

 

Hey there sorry to here about your engine. I live close to Z1 Motorsports and was planning on some forged internals with F/I. Do you think that they assembled everything right? I am planning to take my G to them for everything. Are there any suggetsions for doing forged in. and F/I like is there anything else we need to take in to consideration before going this route.

Hope everything goes in a better direction from this day forth.

 

damn dude, sorry to hear that. reflashes IMO are a big no-no in high hp projects because there are way too many variables involved in tuning an engine to allow a set program to manage all events. something as simple as a change in temperature would offset the program enough to blow yer engine. i would suggest going a complete engine management system for such a project. that way you have complete control of all sensors on the engine, and can tune and monitor it best that way if you or your tuner have an intimate knowledge of logarithms. you can also have a plethora of programs saved for different situations (cold weather/hot weather/race-track/street etc...). word of advice, your engine is only as strong as its weakest link (not saying the ecu was the weakest link). and i've said it in the past, there's no such thing as a bullet-proofing your motor, so be cautious and good luck with the next one dude!

 

My questions is where do you get the CASH to do all of this?? Is it a sponsored vehicle? I'm not up to date on the whole timeline, I was just reading about the blown engine, but I assume there is more to the project than just a hobby on the side...

 

He's an Armenian drug lord.

 

Damn you Randy.. you Texan you! Many people in other parts of the country will not be familiar with the Armenian community in Los Angeles...so they may not quite understand what you mean. That is to say... that what randy said is nothing more than a simple friendly remark... Armenians are not usually associated with drugs from what I know...

As far as where I get the money to do this... hmmm, that's a little personal... But i will tell you this ...this is not a sponsored vehicle.. and I am an enthusiast such as yourself, and i choose to share everything i go through with respect to this car with everyone here for the common benefit...

 

Right on. I can totally respect that! Very good work Gurgen.
You're teaching us all a lot.