Alright, so after sifting through almost all of the informational threads on timing advance I dediced to give it a shot. I already was heading to Tampa and heard good things of AutoWay Nissan and their service department through kpr10is. Anyways I was only in town for the day and found out around 4pm(wed) that they wouldn't even be able to fill out a workorder for my car until monday. Determined to go home happy I jumped the back gate and walked into a bay half-way down the shop asking around 5-6 techs if they could do it on the side for me real quick recieving a head shake each time. Finally the last guy had me camp out for a little while and then came out and hooked up a Consult II to my car.
First off I had the ign. timing advanced to the limiter at 17*, followed by adj. the idle air volume. Not only did he do this for me though, he also checked out my A/F Alphas for Bank 1 & 2 revealing that the ECU after 90,000 miles had recalibrated to run at around 90% (i'm guessing this is rich?). Stock he informed me is 100% but you can also go higher (i.e. 110%-lean?). I may have those reversed but anyways after recalibrating the ECU automatically set them back to 90%, reinforcing my previous thoughts on having a partially bad MAF. He also said that my EGR might be gunked up and gave me a few other things to check over. He also recalibrated a few other things while I was keeping a lookout for us which I'm not sure of but the short of the story is, watching all of my max's sensor's and their readouts in real-time adjust to different settings was definetly sick. Definetly a worth while experience considering the guy would only accept $20 of the $40 I tried handing him.
Ok, so did I notice any difference - Yes, I definetly noticed a slight change in throttle response...for the better. I am so far very pleased, and @ $20 I can't beat that with a stick. Also resetting the ECU definetly did seem to help as well. Now I guess I need to research info on the EGR and purpose/cleaning and dig up $100 bones to throw for a new MAF. I have only read good things about replacing those as well. Sorry for the essay but the 2.5 hr drive home was so enjoyable I had to share. Late.

---Kevin

 

I will need to do the same thing. I know that in Orlando the Univeral nissan dept is full with a$$ guys which I'm sure will say no. I still will stop and ask one of them to see if they can do the timming advance........

 

I think i'm going to give it a shot at Lithia Nissan my friend works there and has had his Altima 3.5's timing advanced 2* which puts it at 17*. He said i can do it for free i just don't know if i want to seeing as how i go in for a lot of warranty work.

 

I asked this Nissan guy at my service department, he told me that once you change the default from 15 to 17, it rests it back to 15 once you start your engine again.

I told him, that it couldnt be since everyone else on the forum is doing it and it stays there at 17.

 

I could be wrong but I believe that after you tell the Consult to adjust it goes through a preliminary check of some sort and lets the car adjust to the new timing. You can watch it happen in real time...mine went immediately to 15* again and then jumped to 16* after a little while and then finally 17*. We tried to go higher for sh*ts and g*ggles but it wouldn't let the 00 go any higher. Maybe you should ask him to do it and then let the car sit. I also could be way off with my assumption.

 

I've done so many and only a handful have reset only cause the ecu detects when you use 'cheap' gas and pinging becomes excessive and will retard timing back to 15.

It never resets after restarting vehicle, that's false.