Ecu chips?

[Renegade2107]

Hey guys i got a 370gt v36 skyline im about to install a exhaust system and a cold air intake, not too interested in forced induction at this point but ive heard about ecu performance chips and then getting a dyno tune or something? Can anyone shed some light on this for me and steer me in the right direction as im not all too familiar with this kind of stuff.

[GTSBoy]

"Chip" tuning is a kinda shit thing that is thankfully mostly dead.  These days we tend to either;

• Directly tune the factory ECU (if it has been broken into by the community)
• Replace the main chip in the ECU with a daughterboard and tune using that,
• Replace the whole ECU with something aftermarket.

I don't know if the VQ37 ECUs have been broken.  I'd guess they probably haven't because there can't be too many people out there that would want to tune them and the available benefits wouldn't be very large (because no turbo).

I'm pretty sure that Nistune don't have a daughterboard that will go into these later ECUs, so probably shit out of luck there.

Aftermarket ECU is always going to work, and is that path that anyone doing serious mods to one of these would most likely follow.

Regardless, keep in mind what I've said above......You'll only nett a handful of extra kW from an NA tune on a fairly highly specced Jap engine.  Just throw the exhaust and intake on it, then pop the thing on the dyno and check the mixtures.  If they're fine then a tune (and whatever is needed to be done to the ECU to permit it to tune!) is just a lot of extra money for a fairly small benefit.

[Renegade2107]

Ahk in terms of turbo charging what are my options in terms of cost wise? I know they have a bolt on stillen supercharger that prices around 10gs

[GTSBoy]

Adding a turbo is a biggish exercise.  Twin turbo is a little easier (providing there is room on both sides of the engine) because you don't need to bring an exhaust pipe from one side to the other.  But if there is a lack of space in the enginebay, then it doesn't matter whether you go single or twin, your going to have to move/relocate some stuff.  A decent turbo (Garrett GTX, BW EFR, etc etc) are >$2k, plus you will either buy or build manifolds, get wastegates (if you're serious about power) boost controllers, lots of pipework, fuel pumps, injectors, ECU replacement, etc etc.  You won't get out of it for <$10k anyway, unless you're able to do all the fab and fitting yourself, and even then you'd go close.  The Stillen supercharger kit at $10k is still just buying.  It will no doubt go up a few grand once it's in.

You'll also need engineering of some sort, depending on what state you're in, because adding turbos to modern cars is frowned upon.  I see that you're in Melbourne.  Even adding an intake is enough to get the wowsers in Vicroads and the police angry with you.

Don't get me wrong, I think a boosted VQ37 sounds like a bloody good idea.  But it is a serious commitment, not an idle afternoon's work.

[admS15]

Agree with gts boy about the turbos. Im not too familiar with these newer skylines but i believe the ecu may be tunable using uprev. Google uprev for info.

If lots more power is on the menu, i would just go with a supercharger kit, purely for the simplicity of it.

Cops in Victoria have no idea about cars these days (unless you live or regularly drive through knox city), as long as its not too low, loud and you're not driving like a dh, you'll be right.