VIC Meet Toshi / road tune summary

Guys, I'd like to do a short post along the lines of -
" Toshi road tuned my car, didn't take long, everything went smoothly, all my mods have paid off and there is nothing more
to do with my Zed but enjoy the extra power..."

But with Zeds being Zeds and me being a complete noob with turbo cars the post is more along the lines of -
" How to get the best value from a road tune by having your shit together before you start "

Don't stress, the outcome was fantastic. But I have a few cautions based on my own mistakes for anyone contemplating a road tune.
All of the mistakes are sooo obvious in hindsight, try to go easy on me :rofl:

Anyhow.

Picked Toshi up from Avalon airport on Sunday morning, he got straight into it.
Checked the ignition timing and fitted some sensors before we left the car park.

Fitting the knock sensor for the Gizzmo K-mon, Toshi fits it to one of the rear plenum bolts -



I quizzed him about that, and offered to make up an adaptor so he could use the factory fitted knock sensor.
But he has his methods, they work for him, so he sticks to them.

Fitting the O2 sensor to a crap temporary tail pipe -





Caution # 1 - don't book in for a new custom exhaust system two weeks before a tune unless they are fitting tried and true components.
I gave the exhaust shop some freedom to experiment. Most of the work went well, other parts less so. Ended up with possibly restrictive
tail pipes on the day of the tune, while we wait for more 'good bits' to arrive at the shop. Two weeks was not long enough in this case.
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All wired up and ready to roll -



We started tuning soon after leaving the car park. Started off with a string of hard pulls in 2nd gear on quiet back roads.
He soon had the car breaking traction when launching in 2nd gear using the auto's hold button
It was pulling so hard that I had traction problems all over again. Until now the 225/50 Toyo R1R's on stock rims were coping with
13 psi of laggy boost on a stock tune but the car definitely needs bigger shoes now.

Caution # 2 -make sure your tyres are up to the job.
This seems too obvious to mention but be aware that if your road tune goes well, you'll be making better torque at lower revs than before.
And if you're tuning for higher boost then you might have real problems with tyres that seemed OK before.
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After each short run we'd pull over while Toshi worked his laptop, usually several minutes at a time with the engine
still running so's to maintain the connection between the ECU and the laptop.

Caution # 3 - your cooling system needs to be tickety-boo, able to handle prolonged periods of idling.
That goes double for an auto transmission's cooling setup, this is even more important later in the day.
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As the day went on we did some freeway runs and mountain thrashing, and found that the boost was all over the shop.
Eventually we gave up on the Gizzmo MS2 EBC and fitted an MBC which ross79 had kindly loaned to me.
Toshi prefers MBC's overall, he's had more consistent results from them. He even carries one with him for those occasions
when the car has a dodgy EBC or the owner can't set one up properly

Caution # 4 - make sure your boost is spot on for the level you are tuning to.
Again, this seems too basic to even mention, but...
I'd just fitted 555 injectors a week before and was running on a generic 555 tune at 12 psi, no problem with boost fluctuation at that level
so I left it alone. As soon as I turned it up to 16 psi during the tune, the rot set in.
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We also found that the recirculation valves weren't happy with the new boost level. Started getting 'goose honk' from them.

Caution # 5 - if you are using stock recirculation valves the same age as the car, either replace them with new OEM valves or fit BOV's.
You might have had no issues with your recirculation valves before but sooner or later they will fail.
We pushed them closer to their deaths on the day and they've gotten worse since then
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With the MBC fitted, Toshi was happier with the boost but now unhappy with the map changes he'd made to suit the EBC's whacky
performance so he started again with the timing and fuel maps.
Long story short, we got to Bendigo 8 hours after leaving Avalon. It's normally a 2.5 hour drive tops.

That's not a reflection on Toshi's efforts, it's actually a commendation of them. He ended up having to do the job twice through
no fault of his own. He's a patient man, and very thorough with his work :thumbup:
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By day's end we felt that we'd earned a beer or two. Several locals came along to meet Toshi and talk Tech and socialise.
I was too busy playing the gracious host ( as in - BBQ driver and tinnie fetcher ) to take pics, maybe others can contribute pics and comments?

Here's dribbles quizzing Toshi about the whole tuning process, ready for the day that he builds and installs a TT engine -



Caution # 6 - stock up your beer fridge if Toshi is staying at your place


Coming up next, RENZED's tune on the Monday.

 

excellent and informative write up, Mick ... many thanks.

 

Cheers Baz, it was a lot of fun.

Toshi is great. When I met him at the airport, his fist question was - " how old are you? "
Told him I was 50, he smiled big time and remarked that I was even older than him.
Asked him his age, 47 with a smile. ( looks at least 10 years younger )

Then it struck me that he was used to dealing with much younger petrol-heads in his line of work.
I think he was really tickled to be younger than his customer for a change :rofl:

 

Thankyou very much for the great write up. Good information to know.

 

good write up, love that bloke he is a legend!! Funnily enough my mate just bought a 2 seater and has 270 rwkw, got the sheet to prove it and mine has 250 mine feels like it pulls harder from the toshi tune than his and the curve is smoother I can tell you that the mid range in mine is light years apart from his and both have the same mods, maybe his might make a bit more up top but mine feels shitloads quicker and better to drive especially when pulling out of corners.

 

nice write up. I saved it as a *.pdf for future reference.

 

Day 2, RENZED's road tune

R31 gagz / Craig volunteered to do the driving while Renee stayed home to do Uni stuff.
I think Craig was happy to have an excuse to thrash a car for the day

Ignition timing checked & adjusted, Nistune ECU ready to go in -




Craig fitting the ECU -




Checking the cigarette lighter socket for Toshi's lap top charger -




O2 sensor hooked up -






Almost ready to roll -



They got off to a late start due to an ECU or connector problem and a surprise coolant leak which Craig found & fixed.
Then late in the afternoon Toshi's lap top battery carked it. They were at Malmsbury, about an hour South of here.
So they came back to get another battery and soldiered on into the night.

When they got back we drank beer and started re-designing the Z32 intercooler system :rofl: -





Beer helps enormously when tackling complex engineering puzzles, don't you think?


Coming up next - RENZED on a hub dyno.

 

Well that was one extremely long day for a roadtune, Craig arrived at Mick's place at 0900hrs and returned back home at 0040hrs ...On the bright side, the zeds running smoothly and I managed to get one of my uni modules done

 

Day 3, RENZED on Simon's hub dyno.

Simon is based in Ballarat, he kindly agreed to bring his portable rig to Bendigo for us.

Why a hub dyno? It was all we could get in Bendigo, and it wasn't even in Bendigo until the day
I'd spoken to six dyno owner/operators, short version is that Simon
A. Seemed the most knowledgeable
B. Was genuinely interested in the 300ZX
C. Was fine with letting Toshi run the show while us plebs watched

Aside from that, the others either had crap dynos or wouldn't let us or Toshi anywhere near them.

Ever seen a hub dyno? I hadn't until that day. Simon's is fully portable, built it hisownself. Here's one of the hub units -



The ventilated discs are permanently engaged to the drive shafts. Those cylinders banded together are stationary.
They're electromagnets for applying some non-contact clamping force to the disks to create load.
Controlled or 'ramped' by the computer during a pull.

Obviously the rear wheels need to be removed -






All bolted up -




Blower fan for engine cooling -





Simon gave us four hours before he headed back to Ballarat for another job, only charged $200 kesh for it. Took longer than we
expected but Toshi being Toshi, he was determined to stick with it and squeeze some extra power out of the car.

We got some vid of the pulls. Gotta say, the exhaust note from Renee's car under load at full throttle is real ear candy
Hopefully Renee might be able to youtube some of it tomorrow.

 

Mick, a truly magic machine .. !!!

thanks for giving us a close up and personal.

 

any power/torque figures for renzed's car?

 

Made 123-124rwkw...not yet to get the exact number, I'm waiting for the dyno chart from Simon..but I'm happy, off the bottom now :zlove:

 

Does it feel better to drive Ren? Low to mid range better than before?

Regards

 

Yeah feels a lot more responsive and much quicker to accelerate, I'm loving it...nothing to a TT obviously...but I love it :zlove: :br:

 

Good to hear! Pity youdidn't have it for dubbo, coulda made they drive much more fun haha

 

I must install one of these anti gravity hubs

 

Aah, I thought they were hyperdrive motivators

 

Finally got around to uploading my vid...this is the run where I made 123rwkw and trust me it was MUCH louder in person!!

Hoping to get my dyno printout soon, as Simon is yet to return to Bendigo to email it to me.

Thanks again for organising this Mick :thumbup:

 

Renee, your exhaust sounds awesome even in the vid.
I was a bit frighted hearing it in person on the day, angry note is angry

And I've been in your car while Craig fanged it so I know that the cabin noise level is minimal,
just enough to let you know you're in a sports car. GREAT exhaust system, you done it right girl :thumbup: