Retune of the Power FC

Pic 1: ER34 strapped on the dyno machine

After my botched up crappy tuning of the Apexi Power FC (read here), I've gone to another tuner that would at least meet my expectations and would know what he is doing. In preparation for the retune of my Power FC, a couple of items had to be done. They are:-

1) Obtain bigger cc injectors
2) Fuel pump rewiring (read here)

I got Nismo 480cc injectors for the retune but those ran out of flow. We found out the hard way while road tuning the Power FC. A good 200km of distance travelled were wasted and the tuning had to be stopped. These lovely injectors were already maxed out at 6,000rpm. Sigh....

With much hesitation, I put up the Nismo injectors for sale; and it was gone in a week! With the renewed funds, I bought bigger 650cc injectors from Sard. :)

Pic 2: ER34 strapped on the dyno machine

So the ER34 were in a half state of tune for 2 weeks while I waited for the Sard injectors to arrive. No worries since I'm not going anywhere much and if I do, I never drove past 4,000rpm. Yes, this self-restriction is mighty hard to cope with. LOL :D

Anyway, with the Sard 650cc injectors, one can be assured that there would be more than enough juice for the ER34. After the injectors arrived and were fitted, the car saw another 200km of road tuning before being strapped on the dyno machine for another 100km of fine tuning.

On the rollers, the ER34 spend a good solid 2 hours plus to get the tuning right. The power and torque curve is now much smoother compared to my previous jagged edged piece of crap tune. My air fuel curve can be better but given the amount of effort spent, it's the best that my tuner can extract out of it. It’s running a tad on the rich side now.

Whilst power and torque went up, fuel consumption improved dramatically! In my previous crap tune, I got 220km out of the full tank of 65 litres. Yea, it really sucked. Felt like I'm driving a big block muscle car. WTF!

Now, I'm getting far better mileage. Still on my initial full tank of fuel, I've already clocked 300km before my refuel. And a third of it is hard runs on the dyno machine! Most definitely it will however drink like the "Thirsty Traveller" during my hill runs but that’s expected anyhow.

Pic 3: Tuning the Power FC

Preliminary feelings on the car is that it’s now much tougher to drive hard and throttle modulation is crucial during cornering lest it’ll be tailing out. I am missing my stock turbine responsiveness with its early spooling. :(

The HKS GT-RS is a responsive turbine as it spool earlier than bigger turbines like the 3037s BUT it's still a tad laggier compared to the stock snail.

But when the boost kicks in, it’s bloody frantic! The car is also spitting massive flames. Wild bonfires in the still of the night. Hahaha

I have a strong feeling that I'll be much slower when I tackle Frasiers Hill again. That has got to suck! :(

Anyone care for a video of the dyno run? Hehe :)

Pic 4: Took this pic while preparing for road tune


Pic 5: Power FC, Datalogit cables, HKS A/F Knock Amp, Innovate Motorsports LC-1 Wideband Controller, etc..


Pic 6: ER34 strapped on the dyno machine


Pic 7: Spinning wheels


Pic 8: Anyone wanna see the dyno video? :P