Safc Tunes

[Guest tkch55]

the other thread about SAFC made me think a bit..

how do the workshops like unique or hitman in sydney tune the safc? do any of them also check the timing with a timing light or something too?

i haven't been to any of them because they're a bit far from where i live

when i had my last car, which is an r32, i had safc in it and i had it tuned 3 times by different people. none of the tuners checked the timing.

i even had one tuner who just copied the r33 safc settings from the booklet that apexi supplied with the safc2 onto the r32, then charged me 80 bucks for it.

so for my current car, which is an r33, i've only done a very very conservative tune myself on the dyno, but i'm too scared to lean it out too much. although i really don't think leaning it out by 3% max is going to do too much

my concern is this. even if the af ratio is tuned to 12:1, if the ecu advanced the timing too much due to reading less air than reality, it'll still detonate anyway.

you won't know what timing the ecu's pulling unless you check it properly.

especially with rb25, i have the impression that this engine's very timing sensitive due to the higher compression.

again it's just my theory and i'm not very sure if this is right, so correct me if i'm wrong.

like SK said, the safc is a compromise. this gives me an impression that with just a fuel controller, sometimes you just can't have the magic 12:1 af ratio, you may need to run it a bit richer to be safe. Hence i assume that the timing should be checked. and i'm sure SK checks the timing when he tunes the dfa or safc, according to his old posts.

also, is it really safe having it tuned at any given condition (hot/cold/hi/low air density), or is it best to tune it on a hot day to ensure that it's safe since its more prone to detonation on hot days? i know that the stock ecu deals with temperature change, but you really don't know what its doing with the timing at different condition especially when the signal that the ecu's recieving is modified.

and how do you determine what throttle points should it be set at?

lo-15% (pre boost) and high-75% (open loop)?

can any experienced safc tuners advise on this?

and lastly, who are the good tuners in Sydney that'll bother with a timing check?

i know someone who blew the piston rings of an rb25 due to poor tuning of the safc. the owner claimed that he pulled 210 rwkw with safc, stock intercooler, 3 inch turbo back, air intake and an electronic boost controller set on 11psi or something, but the 210rwkw didn't last very long.. obviously this tuner didn't bother with the timing check.

i just don't want this to happen to me, hence the post.

i'm hoping that this discussion will benefit people like myself who want to tune their car with a fuel controller in the future. so they know what to look for when searching for a good tuner, and decrease the engines going bang due to bad tunes.

to those who wondered why i bought the safc instead of the pwr FC, i just didn't think that the old r32 gtst will ever touch the magic 200rwkw to deserve the pwr FC, hence i bought the safc.

cheers

[rob82]

Why didn't you just chip it then you can do away with the SAFC and run whatever timing/AFR you or the tuner want. Dave at silverwater is the person to see in Sydney.

[Guest tkch55]

yeah well i thought since i took the safc out from my old car i might just use it for now anyway.

do you know how much dave charges for chipping the ecu?

i have the impression that chipping the ecu usually cost more than the apexi pwr FC.

chipping ecu's the same as the japanese rom tunes right?

how about the reliability of the chipped ecu?

and are the mod chips retunable?

[Jago]

i think you need a daughterboard first *shrugs*

[R33_Series2Lover]

sell the safc and buy the power fc you will never look back.

[Andi]

A daughter board allows you to put rom chips into your ECU, allowing you to make up you're own maps. The benefit of this way is that you can make a map especially suited to your car, input all timing, fuel, afm load points that suit you. However the downside is that everytime you want to make a change you have to take the romchip out of the ecu and "burn" a new map onto it, thus making this a very long process. I.e. Run, take out adjust, run, take out adjust... and you have to keep doing it until it gets right.

Depending on how modded your car is, perhaps the SAFC is enough? I've only got a 3" turbo back, pod and plan to run abit of boost - with just these mods I didn't see the need for a full PFC (and I don't plan on trying to get anymore power) so I'm just going with the E-Manage route. A 16x16 map for both ignition and afm will be enough for a "mild tune" and I don't have to worry about other factory sensors such as AC, cold start, idle etc.

Regarding the actual tuning, I'm going with Hitman. I've heard good stories from him and I don't doubt his abilities, having tuned Motec's Haltec's and PFC's. However I'm going the road-tune route, as I prefer to have my car tuned in the environment where my car is most spent at - i.e. the road. IMO dyno's are an artificial environment which doesn't take into account things like traction, wind resistance, temperature, road tarmac etc.

Now I've probably just opened up a can of worms but for my car with just mild mods I don't find dyno "fine tuning" necessary as my car isn't making enough power that its critical to make sure that everything is perfect or you're going to end up with a broken engine.

In regards to the SAFC, Matt (Hitman) does these like drinking water. Just when I was out there the other day he had 4-5 to do on that day and the following day. I believe the tune should be around $150-200 on the dyno if you've installed it yourself already.

Hope this helps mate.

[predator]

PowerFC (for r32) is $1200 + ~$400 for tuning.. its a $1600 investment...

vs $300 + ~$300 - $600.. nearly 1/3 the price.. not 1/3 the power

you reach a point where you obviously need more than an SAFC, but then you need to spend a lot more on other things..

[Andi]

Agree with predator, see what your plans are with the car first. If you're planning to go hard in the near future then get the PFC, much better investment.

If you're not sure if you want to or you know you won't be modding for a long time or so, maybe the SAFC + Tune will be enough until you make up you're mind. It all comes down to what you have, what you want, when you want.

[Guest tkch55]

yes i'd probably go pfc in the future but maybe not now..

i want to get the fmic and other basic mods sorted before i have the pfc installed, so i won't have to go back and get it tuned again everytime i do a change.

so far mods are just a blitz panel filter, turboback exhaust and boost @ 11 psi

for now i'll just use the safc since i've already got it

Edited September 11, 2005 by tkch55