Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

whereas in sydney I've noticed these chips cost around $2k-$2.5k...some idiot quoted $4k... but all these prices in sydney includes the cost of labour...

At that price, they're talking about fully programmable aftermarket computers. Possibly with tuning, at some of those prices. Which means some tuner will sit there and custom-make an engine tune that maximises the gains for your particular car.

This unit is none of those things. It connects to one of the sensors the engine computer uses (typically the sensor that tells the engine computer how much air is going into the engine so it knows how much fuel to inject), and modifies its signal by a fixed amount. It's a one-size-fits-all product, and you have no idea what was done to the car they tested it on.

Thanks to manufacturing tolerances every engine is slightly different. Which means they all put down slightly different power when leaving the factory. Good manufacturers will keep this variance to a minimum, but its luck if you get 2 different engines that perform in exactly the same way. Which means the factory, one-size-fits-all, tune on every ECU they make has to allow for these tolerances so they don't blow up too many engines. Only a niche manufacturer is going to be able to custom tune every engine that leaves their factory, since its way too cost and time consuming to do it on a volume seller.

It's in those tolerances that an aftermarket computer can find some gains on a stock car (along with a bit of gain from tuning the car outside of its legal emissions requirements). These one-size-fits-all tunes have no idea what your specific engine's tolerances are, so they either tune just as conservatively which means you don't get the maximum gain possible, or if they push it close to the limits you run the risk of tuning outside the tolerances of your particular engine and you eventually break something.

The gains they've quoted are straight-out bullshit. Notice that the gains are "up to x"? A gain of 1hp is still a gain of "up to 35hp" so they're not technically lying, but if you think you're going to see those gains you're dreaming. And even when I did my intake and exhaust and then had my engine custom-tuned with a programmable computer, I don't think I saw those kinds of gains. And that was tuning both the air/fuel mixture and the ignition timing, not just the former.

Steer well clear of these things.

I can get them,:thumbsup: are you Sydney based?

I'm going to gauge interest again shortly in the V Series forum for a Group Buy. If I can get more than 5 interested parties the prices are VERY good.

Also, Plenum spacers, filters etc, are well within the scope of a patient backyarder with some decent hand tools.:thumbsup:

Cheers, Dale.

Hi Dale,

I will be interested in a sway bar group buy depending on the type of Sway's that will be bought.

do you have access to particular brands? i.e Hotchkis sways?

i have read alot of good things about the Hotchkis sways, Stillen i have read have started to break in some cases.

Also something to consider would be aftermarket End links as i have also read that the stock ones tend to wear/break with aftermarket sways, Powergrid Endlinks have been given the best write up and i have bought a set of fronts from the US ($150usd rough per set, and 1 set is required for front and another for the rear) still waiting for them to arrive but purchasing in anticipation of getting revised sway's

P.s im also sydney based.

At that price, they're talking about fully programmable aftermarket computers. Possibly with tuning, at some of those prices. Which means some tuner will sit there and custom-make an engine tune that maximises the gains for your particular car.

This unit is none of those things. It connects to one of the sensors the engine computer uses (typically the sensor that tells the engine computer how much air is going into the engine so it knows how much fuel to inject), and modifies its signal by a fixed amount. It's a one-size-fits-all product, and you have no idea what was done to the car they tested it on.

Thanks to manufacturing tolerances every engine is slightly different. Which means they all put down slightly different power when leaving the factory. Good manufacturers will keep this variance to a minimum, but its luck if you get 2 different engines that perform in exactly the same way. Which means the factory, one-size-fits-all, tune on every ECU they make has to allow for these tolerances so they don't blow up too many engines. Only a niche manufacturer is going to be able to custom tune every engine that leaves their factory, since its way too cost and time consuming to do it on a volume seller.

It's in those tolerances that an aftermarket computer can find some gains on a stock car (along with a bit of gain from tuning the car outside of its legal emissions requirements). These one-size-fits-all tunes have no idea what your specific engine's tolerances are, so they either tune just as conservatively which means you don't get the maximum gain possible, or if they push it close to the limits you run the risk of tuning outside the tolerances of your particular engine and you eventually break something.

The gains they've quoted are straight-out bullshit. Notice that the gains are "up to x"? A gain of 1hp is still a gain of "up to 35hp" so they're not technically lying, but if you think you're going to see those gains you're dreaming. And even when I did my intake and exhaust and then had my engine custom-tuned with a programmable computer, I don't think I saw those kinds of gains. And that was tuning both the air/fuel mixture and the ignition timing, not just the former.

Steer well clear of these things.

this was a very good read,

thanks a lot buddy :)

Hi Dale,

I will be interested in a sway bar group buy depending on the type of Sway's that will be bought.

do you have access to particular brands? i.e Hotchkis sways?

i have read alot of good things about the Hotchkis sways, Stillen i have read have started to break in some cases.

Also something to consider would be aftermarket End links as i have also read that the stock ones tend to wear/break with aftermarket sways, Powergrid Endlinks have been given the best write up and i have bought a set of fronts from the US ($150usd rough per set, and 1 set is required for front and another for the rear) still waiting for them to arrive but purchasing in anticipation of getting revised sway's

P.s im also sydney based.

PM sent.

Regarding the bar breakages, I would attribute this to the fact that most of the US made upgraded bars that I've seen appear to have the lateral locks (basically a clamp next to the "D"bush to stop the bars from sliding sideways) WELDED to the bar, also they seem to just use a flimsy flat washer. This will surely become a stress riser and lead to the eventual cracking/fracture of the bar.

The Whiteline bars use a Billet alloy clamp around the bar, which is a much more elegant, albeit more expensive way of doing things. Note; the lateral locks are included when you purchase from Whiteline.

Hope this helps.

Edited by Daleo

At that price, they're talking about fully programmable aftermarket computers. Possibly with tuning, at some of those prices. Which means some tuner will sit there and custom-make an engine tune that maximises the gains for your particular car.

This unit is none of those things. It connects to one of the sensors the engine computer uses (typically the sensor that tells the engine computer how much air is going into the engine so it knows how much fuel to inject), and modifies its signal by a fixed amount. It's a one-size-fits-all product, and you have no idea what was done to the car they tested it on.

Thanks to manufacturing tolerances every engine is slightly different. Which means they all put down slightly different power when leaving the factory. Good manufacturers will keep this variance to a minimum, but its luck if you get 2 different engines that perform in exactly the same way. Which means the factory, one-size-fits-all, tune on every ECU they make has to allow for these tolerances so they don't blow up too many engines. Only a niche manufacturer is going to be able to custom tune every engine that leaves their factory, since its way too cost and time consuming to do it on a volume seller.

It's in those tolerances that an aftermarket computer can find some gains on a stock car (along with a bit of gain from tuning the car outside of its legal emissions requirements). These one-size-fits-all tunes have no idea what your specific engine's tolerances are, so they either tune just as conservatively which means you don't get the maximum gain possible, or if they push it close to the limits you run the risk of tuning outside the tolerances of your particular engine and you eventually break something.

The gains they've quoted are straight-out bullshit. Notice that the gains are "up to x"? A gain of 1hp is still a gain of "up to 35hp" so they're not technically lying, but if you think you're going to see those gains you're dreaming. And even when I did my intake and exhaust and then had my engine custom-tuned with a programmable computer, I don't think I saw those kinds of gains. And that was tuning both the air/fuel mixture and the ignition timing, not just the former.

Steer well clear of these things.

Nice post, thanks for that :).

  • 5 years later...

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


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • I know why it happened and I’m embarrassed to say but I was testing the polarity of one of the led bulb to see which side was positive with a 12v battery and that’s when it decided to fry hoping I didn’t damage anything else
    • I came here to note that is a zener diode too base on the info there. Based on that, I'd also be suspicious that replacing it, and it's likely to do the same. A lot of use cases will see it used as either voltage protection, or to create a cheap but relatively stable fixed voltage supply. That would mean it has seen more voltage than it should, and has gone into voltage melt down. If there is something else in the circuit dumping out higher than it should voltages, that needs to be found too. It's quite likely they're trying to use the Zener to limit the voltage that is hitting through to the transistor beside it, so what ever goes to the zener is likely a signal, and they're using the transistor in that circuit to amplify it. Especially as it seems they've also got a capacitor across the zener. Looks like there is meant to be something "noisy" to that zener, and what ever it was, had a melt down. Looking at that picture, it also looks like there's some solder joints that really need redoing, and it might be worth having the whole board properly inspected.  Unfortunately, without being able to stick a multimeter on it, and start tracing it all out, I'm pretty much at a loss now to help. I don't even believe I have a climate control board from an R33 around here to pull apart and see if any of the circuit appears similar to give some ideas.
    • Nah - but you won't find anything on dismantling the seats in any such thing anyway.
    • Could be. Could also be that they sit around broken more. To be fair, you almost never see one driving around. I see more R chassis GTRs than the Renault ones.
    • Yeah. Nah. This is why I said My bold for my double emphasis. We're not talking about cars tuned to the edge of det here. We're talking about normal cars. Flame propagation speed and the amount of energy required to ignite the fuel are not significant factors when running at 1500-4000 rpm, and medium to light loads, like nearly every car on the road (except twin cab utes which are driven at 6k and 100% load all the time). There is no shortage of ignition energy available in any petrol engine. If there was, we'd all be in deep shit. The calorific value, on a volume basis, is significantly different, between 98 and 91, and that turns up immediately in consumption numbers. You can see the signal easily if you control for the other variables well enough, and/or collect enough stats. As to not seeing any benefit - we had a couple of EF and EL Falcons in the company fleet back in the late 90s and early 2000s. The EEC IV ECU in those things was particularly good at adding in timing as soon as knock headroom improved, which typically came from putting in some 95 or 98. The responsiveness and power improved noticeably, and the fuel consumption dropped considerably, just from going to 95. Less delta from there to 98 - almost not noticeable, compared to the big differences seen between 91 and 95. Way back in the day, when supermarkets first started selling fuel from their own stations, I did thousands of km in FNQ in a small Toyota. I can't remember if it was a Starlet or an early Yaris. Anyway - the supermarket servos were bringing in cheap fuel from Indonesia, and the other servos were still using locally refined gear. The fuel consumption was typically at least 5%, often as much as 8% worse on the Indo shit, presumably because they had a lot more oxygenated component in the brew, and were probably barely meeting the octane spec. Around the same time or maybe a bit later (like 25 years ago), I could tell the difference between Shell 98 and BP 98, and typically preferred to only use Shell then because the Skyline ran so much better on it. Years later I found the realtionship between them had swapped, as a consequence of yet more refinery closures. So I've only used BP 98 since. Although, I must say that I could not fault the odd tank of United 98 that I've run. It's probably the same stuff. It is also very important to remember that these findings are often dependent on region. With most of the refineries in Oz now dead, there's less variability in local stuff, and he majority of our fuels are not even refined here any more anyway. It probably depends more on which SE Asian refinery is currently cheapest to operate.
×
×
  • Create New...