Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

ok long question with lots of points

as some of you will know i took my car out to a new mechanic for my next round of mods, not a lot.. cam gear,z32afm,catchcan,powerfc retune and e-boost retune.

now the problem is when i spoke to him he said it would all be sweet but the morning i dropped it off to him he told me he'd never tuned with a PFC before and had had VERY limited knowledge with the e-boost, also didnt have a clue why i would want to change the AFM as its the same size. :Oops: told him it wasnt about the size but the voltage and tuning resolution with the PFC, looked on here and got a little info for him.

anyway he said he'll give it a bash and after installing and tuning the cam gear (ended up at 5degrees retarded) we managed to pull another 6.5rwkw. not a brilliant gain but at least its something.

next up will be the afm, as i said i got him a little info like what to wire to what etc

and was wondering if anyone could shed some light on exactly what he should be doing

also does anyone have instructions for tuning the PFC in english?

then he could do a bit of study before jumping in and that would make me feel a lot better.

he seems like a competent bloke, bathurst, rally wrx's and so on a specialty, he just has never seen a pfc nor have any of his colleagues hes been chating to recently.

Thankyou

(stressed) Jimbo :)

Tune will make or break a car Jimbo.

Having someone who freely admits that they have no Power FC tuning experience is asking for trouble in a big way.

I can think of several cars that have taken the cheaper or easier approach to tuning and ended up with an engine rebuild.

Take it to a reputable tuner.

Yeah, take it to someone experienced. If you don't want to offend him make up some crap like "I've just come into money problems, thanks for doing the camgear i think i need to save some more before i get the PFC and eboost done"...

so the general consensus is to take it back off this fella and that is a serious thought in my mind now

before i do that let me just check you understand and please reaffirm yourselves if you did.

he IS a good tuner with others (eg microtech and so on) and would understand the problems and air fuel ratios etc, just checking the pfc is that much diffeent to al those other ones that would make it that much more complicated.

thankyou

I got my old car (had an EMS ecu) tuned at a place that hadn't had much to do with EMS systems before,but the guy was a decent tuner.The end result was a 'decent' level of tune,but a bit costly,due to him not being familiar on how to navagate through the EMS system with the handpiece,so more time on dyno,so more $$$.....

That's what I would be worried about. What it amounts to is paying extra for incompetency. Just because some tuner doesnt know how to tune a very common ECU, why pay extra for him to learn?

I would take the car and drive very fast in the opposite direction as soon as you can before it costs you.

well there is a couple of positives in this.. atleast he a) has told you that he hasnt done PFC's before, he could have been silent and kept the car learnin, then charge you an arm and a leg. B) you obviously have some faith in him as a tuner to keep your car there and he would seem competent in installing cam gears ...

anyway what i would suggest, is if you dont want to take the car back straight away, and you seem like your on good terms with him, maybe ask him, if he can charge half price or something as of your buisness, he is learning a new skill which can help his buisness in the future...

i know when itook my car for an alarm install at local autobarn, he said he will only charge for normal hrs for installation for similar car, as he has never done a skyline before, (he did say bitch of a job) but he now knows how to do them (dropped car of at 8, picked up at 4)

Wether he is good with a Microtech or whatever is similar, but by no means the same.

It's totally different, and not understanding the AFM thing... well that to me says take the car elsewhere right away.

As Blitz said. A tune makes or breaks a car. If it breaks... you'll be buying a new motor... not him.

thank you for all the helpful replies guys.

the car is now back in my hot little hands. :D

we parted on good terms and we arranged that somewhere down the track if he would like he can study the system and use mine to navigate around and learn in his own time, he would get some experience and i would get a free tune. weather i want him to go buggering with it after getting the tune doen where it is now booked in for in a few weeks is a different story :(

he was gonna charge me a lot when i rang him this morning to tell him i was taking it back (all the hours he was dynotuning the cam gear) i told him i was very unhappy with that and ended up only having to pay for an hours labour...but he detuned the hks cam gear back to where it the original was and since its a different gear its actually making less power than wen i took it in, but i can live with that till next time.

again thanks for the advice peeps

James

Admitting he hasn't worked with it before i think was a decent sign. Most won't even tell you that until its too late or until you have learned the hard way.

Still, everybody has to learn somewhere, and if he is familiar with other EMS then I don't see him stuffing things up majorly. The only real reason you would take it there i guess is go "well, look, you're going to be learning off the whole thing, and it may may off more for you in future -- so i want much discounted rates". Paying a tuner to "learn" how to tune a system is asking for trouble.. and unfortunately it happens a lot out there. Reason why i think quite a few people do get ripped by performance workshops.

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

    • Hi, is the HKS  Tower Bar still available ? negotiable ? 🤔
    • From there, it is really just test and assemble. Plug the adapter cables from the unit into the back of the screen, then the other side to the car harness. Don't forget all the other plugs too! Run the cables behind the unit and screw it back into place (4 screws) and you should now have 3 cables to run from the top screen to the android unit. I ran them along the DS of the other AV units in the gap between their backets and the console, and used some corrugated tubing on the sharp edges of the bracket so the wires were safe. Plug the centre console and lower screen in temporarily and turn the car to ACC, the AV should fire up as normal. Hold the back button for 3 sec and Android should appear on the top screen. You need to set the input to Aux for audio (more on that later). I put the unit under the AC duct in the centre console, with the wifi antenna on top of the AC duct near the shifter, the bluetooth antenna on the AC duct under the centre console The GPS unit on top of the DS to AC duct; they all seem to work OK there are are out of the way. Neat cable routing is a pain. For the drive recorder I mounted it near the rear view mirror and run the cable in the headlining, across the a pillar and then down the inside of the a pillar seal to the DS lower dash. From there it goes across and to one USB input for the unit. The second USB input is attached to the ECUtec OBD dongle and the 3rd goes to the USB bulkhead connected I added in the centre console. This is how the centre console looks "tidied" up Note I didn't install the provided speaker, didn't use the 2.5mm IPod in line or the piggyback loom for the Ipod or change any DIP switches; they seem to only be required if you need to use the Ipod input rather than the AUX input. That's it, install done, I'll follow up with a separate post on how the unit works, but in summary it retains all factory functions and inputs (so I still use my phone to the car for calls), reverse still works like factory etc.
    • Place the new daughterboard in the case and mount it using the 3 small black rivets provided, and reconnect the 3 factory ribbon cables to the new board Then, use the 3 piggyback cables from the daughterboard into the factory board on top (there are stand offs in the case to keep them apart. and remember to reconnect the antenna and rear cover fan wires. 1 screw to hold the motherboard in place. Before closing the case, make a hole in the sticker covering a hole in the case and run the cable for the android unit into the plug there. The video forgot this step, so did I, so will you probably. Then redo the 4 screws on back, 2 each top and bottom, 3 each side and put the 2 brackets back on.....all ready to go and not that tricky really.      
    • Onto the android unit. You need to remove the top screen because there is a daughterboard to put inside the case. Each side vent pops out from clips; start at the bottom and carefully remove upwards (use a trim remover tool to avoid breaking anything). Then the lower screen and controls come out, 4 screws, a couple of clips (including 3 flimsy ones at the top) and 3 plugs on the rear. Then the upper screen, 4 screws and a bunch of plugs and she is out. From there, remove the mounting brackets (2 screws each), 4 screws on the rear, 2 screws top and bottom and 3 screws holding in the small plates on each side. When you remove the back cover (tight fit), watch out for the power cable for the fan, I removed it so I could put the back aside. The mainboard is held in by 1 screw in the middle, 1 aerial at the top and 3 ribbon cables. If you've ever done any laptop stuff the ribbon cables are OK to work with, just pop up the retainer and they slide out. If you are not familiar just grab a 12 year old from an iphone factory, they will know how it works The case should now look like this:
    • Switching the console was tricky. First there were 6 screws to remove, and also the little adapter loom and its screws had to come out. Also don't forget to remove the 2 screws holding the central locking receiver. Then there are 4 clips on either side....these were very tight in this case and needed careful persuading with a long flat screw driver....some force required but not enough to break them...this was probably the fiddliest part of the whole job. In my case I needed both the wiring loom and the central locking receiver module to swap across to the new one. That was it for the console, so "assembly is the reverse of disassembly"
×
×
  • Create New...