Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

theres only like 3 places in australia that tune HKS f-con systems

very good unit considering apex went bust

full 3d extrapolation maps (from 2d) for fuel and timing, its just that they are a bit on the expensive side, and like michael said, ur limited to xspeed

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/180856-hks-fcon-is/#findComment-3287677
Share on other sites

Expensive from the tuning side, or for the actual unit?

A car I'm wishing to purchase soon has the HKS F-Con (V Pro Gold :S same thing), however I'm not sure whether its worth my while taking it out and putting a Power FC in there instead as the cost of the FC plus tuning is apparently similar to the cost of just tuning a HKS F-Con.

At the end of the day, is the money you fork out to purchase and tune an F-Con worth it ($ vs. Gain) vs. Power FC + other ECUs.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/180856-hks-fcon-is/#findComment-3301995
Share on other sites

Expensive from the tuning side, or for the actual unit?

A car I'm wishing to purchase soon has the HKS F-Con (V Pro Gold :S same thing), however I'm not sure whether its worth my while taking it out and putting a Power FC in there instead as the cost of the FC plus tuning is apparently similar to the cost of just tuning a HKS F-Con.

At the end of the day, is the money you fork out to purchase and tune an F-Con worth it ($ vs. Gain) vs. Power FC + other ECUs.

hey matty,

Expensive from both the tuning side and the actual unit.

If the tuner has had limited time with the ecu it make take them longer to tune it and therefore cost you more.

the F-Con ecu is a great ecu better than the Apexi Pfc IMO, if i was you i would just keep it in and get xspeed to tune it max you are looking at is $400-$600 for initial tune. which you will have to pay that if you buy an apexi powerfc.

Also if its the V Pro (ecu is gold itself) then its the top model and worth keeping as you are looking at 1.5k+ for the ecu + the cost of the harness = big $$$$

Apexi Powerfc is $1000 (depending what car you got, im guessing its a GTR so then its around the 1-1.1k mark) then tuning $400.

The only problem you may have is if you have a problem with xspeed then your pretty much up shit creek without a paddle with the hks unit

cheers michael

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/180856-hks-fcon-is/#findComment-3302043
Share on other sites

i personally wouldnt buy a car based on teh ecu in the car, but in terms of tuneability - apparently they are a better unit then teh PFC AND XSpeed are the only place in WA. and if you dont like them then tuff

Hot4's had an article about them a while ago (or was it zoom?) and the had a F-Con S put in an Aristo

very simple to tune once base maps were established according to the article....

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/180856-hks-fcon-is/#findComment-3302232
Share on other sites

Cheers for the info guys.

Yes it is a GTR Michael...I'm sick of doing single peggers, and time to get all 4 smoking now :action-smiley-069::D

I'm not buying the car based on the ECU, however it just happened to be the one installed in the car. The other modifications to the car were the main appeal for me. At first I thought the HKS unit was just some cheap jap ecu unit you wouldn't be able to modify, but seems I'm quiet far from it. lol.

I'll give the unit a go and see how it pans out.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/180856-hks-fcon-is/#findComment-3302914
Share on other sites

very good unit considering apex went bust

No, they didn't. :P Chinese whispers ftl.

AP Engineering stopped producing units. RB26 PowerFC's are still freely available from APEXi and can be bought here:

http://www.nengun.com/apexi/power-fc-hand-controller-d-jetro

Matty, as I know the car you're thinking of buying, I wouldn't let the ECU stop you.

It's more than likely it wont need a tune at all, however if you want to get the tune checked and ensure it's going to run smoothly on our poxy 98ron fuel (like I did when mine came in) it wont cost you much more than a couple hours dyno time at $130 an hour.

If it's really bothering you, I'll swap you my PowerFC for your F-Con :(

Edited by Brockaz
Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/180856-hks-fcon-is/#findComment-3303130
Share on other sites

I'm in Sydney and I've jumped onto the F-CON boat (F-CON V Pro); never looking back... I've had numerous cars roll through with quite a few different systems and when you factor in cost of unit, cost of tuning, and time taken to install then it's all pretty much on par with each other.

Even though the F-CON does not come with a base map (V PRO, IS and S have base maps I believe) the setup configuration is a 15minute process by entering the car's details into the PowerWriter software.

When comparing the HKS units to those like the PFC; you're in too completely different worlds... there are probably 100 different things on the F-CON that the PFC doesn't have or won't have. Also; might I add that the F-CON units are upgradeable in the sense new features can be loaded on - my last tune had a whole bunch of compensation components loaded in as an upgrade; not many ECUs allow for this.

At the end of the day; there is a reason why they call it the "Motec of Japan"

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/180856-hks-fcon-is/#findComment-3303158
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Latest Posts

    • Update 3: Hi all It's been a while. Quite a lot of things happened in the meantime, among other things the car is (almost) back together and ready to be started again. Things that I fixed or changed: Full turbo removal, fitting back the OEM turbo oil hardlines. Had to do quite a bit of research and parts shopping to get every last piece that I need and make it work with the GT2860 turbos, but it does work and is not hard to do. Proves that the previous owner(s) just did not want to. While I was there I set the preload for the wastegates to 0,9bar to hopefully make it easier for the tuner to hit the 370hp I need for the legal inspections that will follow later on. Boost can always go up if necessary. Fitted a AN10 line from the catch can to the intake hose to make the catchcan and hopefully the cam covers a slight vacuum to have less restrictive oil returns from the head and not have mud build up as harshly in the lines and catch can. Removed the entire front interior just shy of the dashboard itself to clean up some of the absolutely horrendous wiring, (hopefully) fix the bumpy tacho and put in LED bulbs while I was there. Also put in bulbs where there was none before, like the airbag one. I also used that chance to remove the LED rpm gauge on the steering column, which was also wired in absolute horror show fashion. Moved the 4in1 Prosport gauge from sitting in front of the OEM oil pressure gauge to the center console vents, I used a 3D printed vent piece to hold that gauge there. The HKB steering wheel boss was likely on incorrectly as I sometimes noticed the indicator reset being uneven for left vs. right. In the meantime also installed an airbag delete resistor, as one should. Installed Cube Speed premium short shifter. Feels pretty nice, hope it'll work great too when I actually get to drive. Also put on a fancy Dragon Ball shift knob, cause why not. My buddy was kind enough to weld the rust hole in the back, it was basically rusted through in the lowermost corner of the passenger side trunk area where the wheel arch, trunk panel and rear quarter all meet. Obviously there is still a lot of crustiness in various areas but as long as it's not rusted out I'll just treat and isolate the corrosion and pretend it's not there. Also had to put down a new ground wire for the rear subframe as the original one was BARELY there. Probably a bit controversial depending on who you ask about this... but I ended up just covering the crack in the side of the engine block, the one above the oil feed, with JB Weld. I used a generous amount and roughed up the whole area with a Dremel before, so I hope this will hold the coolant where it should be for the foreseeable future. Did a cam cover gasket job as the half moons were a bit leaky, and there too one could see the people who worked on this car before me were absolute tools. The same half moons were probably used like 3 times without even cleaning the old RTV off. Dremeled out the inside of the flange where the turbine housing mates onto the exhaust manifolds so the diameter matches, as the OEM exhaust manifolds are even narrower than the turbine housings as we all know. Even if this doesn't do much, I had them out anyways, so can't harm. Ideally one would port-match both the turbo and the manifold to the gasket size but I really didn't feel up to disassembling the turbine housings. Wrapped turbo outlet dumps in heat wrap band. Will do the frontpipe again as well as now the oil leak which promted me to tear apart half the engine in the first place is hopefully fixed. Fitted an ATI super damper to get rid of the worn old harmonic balancer. Surely one of the easiest and most worth to do mods. But torquing that ARP bolt to spec was a bitch without being able to lock the flywheel. Did some minor adjustments in the ECU tables to change some things I didn't like, like the launch control that was ALWAYS active. Treated rusty spots and surface corrosion on places I could get to and on many spots under the car, not pretty or ideal but good enough for now. Removed the N1 rear spats and the carbon surrounding for the tailpipe to put them back on with new adhesive as the old one was lifting in many spots, not pretty. Took out the passenger rear lamp housing... what do you know. Amateur work screwed me again here as they were glued in hard and removing it took a lot of force, so I broke one of the housing bolts off. And when removing the adhesive from the chassis the paint came right off too. Thankfully all the damaged area won't be visible later, but whoever did the very limited bodywork on this car needs to have their limbs chopped off piece by piece.   Quite a list if I do say so myself, but a lot of time was spent just discovering new shit that is wrong with the car and finding a solution or parts to fix it. My last problem that I now have the headache of dealing with is that the exhaust studs on the turbo outlets are M10x1.25 threaded, but the previous owner already put on regular M10 nuts so the threads are... weird. I only found this out the hard way. So now I will just try if I can in any way fit the front pipe regardless, if not I'll have to redo the studs with the turbos installed. Lesson learned for the future: Redo ALL studs you put your hands on, especially if they are old and the previous owners were inept maniacs. Thanks for reading if you did, will update when the engine runs again. Hope nothing breaks or leaks and I can do a test drive.
    • No those pads are DBA too  but they have colors too. I look at the and imo the green "street" are the best.
    • I’m not sure what happened I told them about sonic tunes free OTS tune and the next the I know .. I was booted..   To funny 
    • Yea - I mean I've seen my fuel pump which is decades old and uh, while I'm not saying this with real knowledge... but I sure get the ick at using anything in the fuel system that produced the state of that pump. Many years ago I went through multiple pumps (and strainers) before I dropped the tank to clean it out with extreme violence. I'm talking the car would do maybe 50km before coming to a halt, which resulted in me cleaning out the filter with some brake cleaner and going on my way. None of my stuff ever looked like what came out of your fuel tank. I don't think I'd be happy with it unless every single component was replaced (or at least checked/cleaned/confirmed to be clean here).
    • I'm not going to recommend an EBC pad. I don't like them. Just about anything else would suit me better. I've been using Intima pads for a while now.
×
×
  • Create New...