I'm pretty envious about how much you know about tuning and such, that's one aspect of cars I've never really gotten into much. Couple piggyback controllers for nitrous and that's about it. You're using Uprev yeah?

 

Yeah, I have uprev on the 05' so I can change the fuel targeting tables and data log. The AEM is dealing with the timing right now and maybe the fueling. My brother and I have played around quite a bit over the years with tuning but every platform is different. The Nissan / Hitachi setup in these cars is quite different from the other setups we have used. It's definitely a big learning curve and taking time to figure it all out. I wish I had a week or two off just to work on the tuning side and make some real progress. Another thing that would be nice if there were more than two people on the internet talking about tuning these cars We are still back and forth between using uprev completely which will take tons of work to completely tune especially without being on a dyno. or using the AEM and keeping the stock tables and using the map tuning after the maf maxes out. We were tuning this way using the secondary injectors but the GT500's were a little too big and it wasn't working well. So we swapped out the primary injectors with the GTR 588cc and am starting over. It's kind of cool to be able to play with the AEM and Uprev at the same time on the car.

 

Have you had to hit up seymore4 for any Uprev advice? I am also jealous about your understanding of the overall tuning process. I got 3 custom tunes for the MKS and I loaded the 93 octane performance tune through my handheld, that's about as much as I know about the hows of tuning. I understand the changes the tune made but to fiddle with the individual parameters to create a custom tune makes my heart race haha.

 

Yeah I actually contacted him about a Etune a week or so ago. He referred me to another shop that could probably put more time into something like this. I figured a Etune would be out of the question for most tuners since it would be a lot of back and forth data logging and flashing with all the weird crap I have on the car. Yeah, it's really fun to get into and learn about how everything works and effects the engine operation but it's also very dangerous and can blow things up easily. If I had a new ecoboost I don't know if I would dive in so fast. I've blown up a lot of stuff learning and that's why I work on beater cars. If I blow up a engine on this car it only costs me $600 to replace it with another rebuilt one and the tranny is about the same. (doing the work myself). So it doesn't bother me too much when pushing it or trying new stuff out.

More good news on self tuning the car today. I started wiring the car Friday for intercepting the primary injectors and deleted the secondary injector set for now. With the factory engine the GTR injectors by themself should have enough flow to blow up the engine (hopefully) After I finished up the wiring it was missing on one cylinder so I gave up for the night. Got back into it Sunday morning and found that injector #2 output pin on the AEM FIC was bad in the connector itself. I took the aem apart and soldered a jump wire around the connector for now so we could get right to street tuning. We were almost done tuning for the day and heard a PSSSSSS when we hit 8-9psi on the last 3rd gear pull so we had to put it up until I could find the boost leak. It shouldn't take too long since there are only 15 or so couplers on the charge pipe hahaha. But it's getting close to being a finished product. The GTR injectors really worked out well and I am glad I found a used set so cheap, they were only $135 so it didn't break the bank. So the only change on the factory ECU is the fuel targeting table so anywhere in boost it targets 11.5 AFR. The FIC6 is doing the rest. It pulls the timing needed under boost, clamps the stock MAF at 4.7v (there is a voltage differential between the two ECU's it actually hits 4.9v at clamp) and it also has it's map pressure based fuel table to control the extra fueling after the MAF maxes out. I'm pretty sure we are going to keep the car setup this way. We made more progress in 1 hour of tune time today than we have in the last 3 weekends. While driving it normally it feels completely factory (just doesn't sound normal with the turbo noise in the trunk)

 

Ahhh I see what you did now, so it uses the stock MAF until it caps out then it runs off the MAP sensor you have installed. That's pretty sneaky and I like it.

 

Exactly, easiest way to get the best of both worlds. This actually works better than my G20 turbo car. The G35 goes into open loop with a lot less pedal / load so it is a bit easier to tune and the transition is seamless. I have a boost leak tool I made out of PVC caps and fittings that I'm going to hook up to the car tonight. I'll probably regulate it to 15 psi and check for leaks. Hopefully it's something quick to fix.

 

I fixed 3 pretty good boost leaks at the couplings and ran it up to 20psi last night. They were really cheap Ebay T band clamps that were universal-ish.... The fastener bottomed out on the clamp before it got tight enough to seal it, lucky for me I had some old rusty spares from another parted out project.

So I drove it to work today and started thinking about intake air temps. If I'm going to start breaking 10psi I had better start deciding how to cool the air charge so the timing doesn't retard so much. I really don't want a intercooler and I have a spare meth injection system sitting around. The only problem is that the mass air flow meter has the IAT integrated into it. I really don't want to spray through the MAF but want the IAT sensor to pickup the actual air temp change after meth/water is introduced so the timing is changed correctly. So the only way I can think to do it right is separate the IAT from the MAF and install it into the intake manifold. So I have the service manual out for the wiring and am dissecting a MAF sensor for the IAT. I know I could use another type of IAT sensor but I would have to log calibration of the new sensor and rescale the ECU parameters.

 

I think the pin configuration in the harness separates the MAF and IAT readings so you could just throw a SECOND MAF into the duct, wire up one for MAF reading and the other for IAT.

 

However you are introducing more **** into the airstream.

 

I thought about using another maf sensor but I wanted it to be inside the intake manifold. That will give me about 16 inches of travel from meth jet to IAT. I just didn't have enough room to move the mass air sensor because of the bends. So I went ahead and cut up an old MAF for just the IAT sensor and used ultra grey RTV to seal it in a NPT brass bushing. I'll tap the intake tonight for the IAT and also another barb for the meth injection pressure input.

 

Yeah that looks like a much better solution than hanging a second large MAF in the airstream.

 

Well the custom IAT sensor works great. But I am getting somewhat unstable air any which way I run the intake tubing. The MAF signal is pretty rough down low on my 3.5" and 3" setups. So it will be a couple weeks until I get some 3" aluminum tubing, MAF flange and also I'm going to add a 1/8" x 1" cell honeycomb to see if I can get the flow to smooth out. Hopefully I can get a nice straight 13"+ stretch before the MAF. This is only to fix the idle area and light pedal, at WOT it doesn't effect it. I could try to tune the MAF section to get around this but that really isn't a good idea if I make any changes down the road. At least it gives me a couple weeks to practice my welding on thin aluminum scrap.... It's been quite a few years and I'm not very good with it. I might make my brother come over and weld it up, he has quite a few hours behind aluminum.

 

My girl and I went on a road trip to Oklahoma to look at a K51 2008 G35x to replace my 04' G35x that was totaled out. I picked it up really cheap because it was in a small accident and had problems that they didn't want to try and fix. It has 125k miles and has been to the same dealership every 4k miles almost it's whole life. I will have to fix the driver front fender, bumper, bumper cover, AC condenser and there is some slight rear bumper damage. It's all stuff I can fix pretty easily and I'm really lucky there was enough insurance coverage to get this car straight across. After I finish up the 05' turbo project I'm sure this will be next Twins or single turbo with GTR injectors again. I actually have 2x baby ecoboost borg warners in the garage that would be perfect..... hmmmm

 

How do you actuate the variable geometry turbo's in a retrofit situation like that? Standalone units have capability to control it or something?

Congrats on the new car.

 

They are the little borg warner turbos that come on 2l focus ST. They are a standard fixed ratio stainless steel exhaust housing. I've never messed with the variable turbos but if they are the electronically actuated type you could use a window switch or the output from the FIC6 could turn them on by boost or rpm.