I finished installing my UTEC recently and figured I ought to share my install tactic and sheets in case anyone else wants to try it. I started out labeling all the required connections from the UTEC. In all I think I had 20 or so connections to the UTEC (20 in and 20 out).



After I got a connector, courtesy of surraTT (great connector, BTW) I wired up the portion that will connect from the stock ECU to the UTEC. I soldered all the connections and wrapped them in heat shrink wrap.




Then I cut the connector from an old ECU I had, stripped it down to just the pins, and soldered every single connection from the new "harness" to the old connector, also soldered the wires that will be coming into the connector from the UTEC


(i cut the pins down a little from there)

and ended up here after soldering in my wideband to this harness:


I have put the UTEC in the car and so far I know that it will work on map 0 (stock) and it sort of works on the turboXS base map for z's.

Issues:
I am currently trying to work out a breaking up problem and a super rich off-throttle situations. When I go full throttle in the turboxs map, the car will accelerate from low RPM to about 3000RPM, but after that its like a soft limiter or a 2-step kicks in, its really weird. I have the #1 pin on the connector grounded so I dont think thats problem. Also the car accelerates fine in the ("0") stock map or any unchanged map. Any thoughts? Im going to make sure my parameters are 100% right before I get into more serious diagnosing.

Another thing is a really strange problem. It happens in every map. When I let off the gas and let the engine brake, as soon as the revs drop to approx. 1750RPM or lower I start getting a lot of popping and backfires out the exhaust. It smells like the car is going VERY rich and that is the cause of the backfiring, but I dont really understand why the UTEC would cause me to go super lean. I have taken the UTEC out and confirmed it doesnt do this with only the stock harness and ECU. Any thoughts on this part either?

 

Oh yeah, and the wiring diagrams I used (ignore the wires I drew in):


^^^Taken from these wiring schematics:



Next Project:

 

Did you buy the UTEC new or used?

 

used

 

Have you hooked it up to your laptop and looked at the maps stored on the UTEC?

 

Yeah, I uploaded the turboxs base map to slot one and that's the one that is causing the issues with WOT. I did not figure out how to upload the parameters until recently so I still need to do that and see if that works. For now I just have the parameters roughly set up how I think they ought to be. That might solve the issue with WOT but it wouldn't do anything for the dumping fuel issue would it?

 

Either upload the right parameters or PM sparks03max and see what parameteres he's using. What you're experiencing is probably the UTEC not reading the MAF signal properly which is why it's not letting you rev past 3,000rpm.

This is like the e-Manage Ultimate in a sense that the car won't run properly without the right jumper settings/parameter setup.

 

wow...good work..sorry i dont have any advice..

whats the next project i see there? is that a revup clamshell?.. how you planning on fitting that under the hood? and what do you plan on doing for the TB side

 

Yeah, the thing is I can get to normal redline under light throttle, but it might be that it was low enough that the UTEC wasn't in control yet

 

Correct.

The UTEC basemap you uploaded is making corrections starting at a certain load point (probably MAF voltage) and if the UTEC is getting a bad MAF signal then it'll go into some kind of limp mode thus limiting you to 3,000 rpm.

 

It's a regular non-revup manifold. I'm planning to do some runner and plenum work to it. For the TB I'm going to cut the neck off the plenum and use a straight pipe angled down. I've read some mixed reviews on how the manifold fit on the engine, I'm hoping that it will either fit without cutting any bracing from the hood or if I have to cut the hood that a spacer will fit the manifold. I have es mounts so the engine is a little lower than stock. If it doesn't work I'll be ok. I got those two pieces for about 70 total which is similar to what most people ask for just one part, so if it doesn't work I'll just sell it off

 

Good work Gemner.

 

Props for doing the install and tuning yourself, man. I wouldn't know where to start with either of 'em...but, then again maybe I'm just a dumb@$$. Hehe.

 

Ya, I found you can't run the 350z base map at all on our cars unless you get that map tuned to your car. I had the exact same issues you are having. I'm just using the stock map (0) at the moment until I get the motor built and then tuned afterwards.

 

I ran the 350z map with no problems...

u might have a bad utec, I bought my first one brand new and I had similar problems.. they sent me another one and I had no problems after..

 

That looks like a nice installation!

Good luck with your tuning and future mods!

 

So, it looks like the cutting out start at 2000 rpm, which is exactly where the UTEC takes control of the timing. could this be a problem with the ckps wire or what? Remember it runs fine, accelerates fine in the "0" map

 

I also just found that in the dashboard the UTEC displays the current timing (while running) to be 0 degrees so im guessing that its not reading the timing right? Do i need to connect both the ckps (pos) and ckps (ref)? I only see one pin for the ckps in the pinout (pin 95 for 5.5gen), is there another? Or do I need to connect the cam position sensors to the UTEC?

 

Yea i ran my UTEC on the 350 map only problem was the knock setting was to sensitive but it revved fine. You might really have a bad UTEC. Or the person you bought it from has a map you cant use at all.

 

^^^was yours a plug and play? If not, did you connect the cam position sensors to the UTEC?

 

utec's base maps are rich...

you would have known that if you read the manual......

















jk, but damn good work though!

 

lol. i read the manual andi know the maps are super conservative, but thats not my problem

 

Parameters are very likely to be your issue. You have to have them all right as they're important. The UTEC manual and 350z forums were a good place for me when I was getting all the settings right in my UTEC. Just think logically when you're setting things up and read the descriptions of what each setting does and is.

 

Yea it was plug and play

 

I just don't see why it would display 0 degrees of timing unless I am missing a wire somewhere

also, I set the timing for map 1 to all be ecu and left all the fuel and parameters the same as the turbo xs base maps and it worked fine, so I know that my problem is the timing reading

 

I have been looking at the FMS's for the z and the max, and the FSM for the z shows that the ckps spikes to 12v (likely battery voltage) when it spikes and the max FSM looks like it spikes to only 8 volts. They also have a considerable difference in stated average voltage (1.6 z vs 2.4 max). I dont understand how that can work out without any modifications?!?!

Edit: it looks like the FSM is wrong. I checked and my average voltage is about 1.2v

 

OK, so I have determined the the ckps is not the problem. However, the voltage for my ignition signal drops significantly from the input of the UTEC to the output. The drop is from .19 volts to .13 volts. which doesnt sound like much, but I dont think there should be ANY drop so...

Also, Turbo XS just confirmed that a drop like that is most certainly NOT normal

 

So when you are on map 0 the car runs idles fine. and will rev fine?

and when you are in any other map besides 0, it will not rev past 3,000



just trying to get a better feel for whats going on



if thats the case, i would re flash the throttle.mot and 2_8.mot files

 

Well, i couldn't rev past 2000 in any slot that had a map loaded. However, I changed the maps to run ECU timing everywhere and I can rev fine. Turbo xs has said that I may have bad ignition drivers

 

I had a question regarding the diagram posted above. How come certain pins are not connected. For example on the maxima side, the pins for the Cam sensor bank 1 and 2 are not connected? They exist on the 350z side as well. Are they not needed? I had the impression that both the cam and the crank sensors are used.
What about the pins for the VIAS and the throttle control motor? And there is no need to connect the o2 sensors as well? Or the pins for intake VTC?

I am a little bit confused on this part. I have already connected the main pins like the ignition, injectors, knock, and etc. But by looking at the diagrams and the fsm print-outs, i can see that certain pins exist on both side (maxima and 350z) but are not connected.

Basically what would happen if i did connect them? The way I see it is that if the signal is not moddified when exists the utec, why not let it go through the utec?

thanks for the help

 

Ok so do you think the 350Z has a VIAS, and that the UTEC that is made for the 350Z will drive our VIAS? No.... lol. Either way, most people who use a UTEC will have already done a VIAS delete and if they haven't, the ECU will control it as per usual.

The UTEC cannot control VTC, so why hook it up to anything? The same goes for cam sensors, those are mainly for VTC and not necessary for the UTEC to work.

The UTEC has no use for stock 02 sensors. If you can give any single logical reason why you think they should be hooked up, go for it please...

The reason NOT to connect things that aren't needed should be obvious. Would you rather splice 4 wires or 10 wires given that 4 wires is all you need and the additional 6 will only waste your time?

 

Thank you for the explination.

Also to the OP, why do you have the tachometer (pin 34 on the maxima connector) connected and where does it go?
And how did you fix the slow reving/limiter issue? I am having the same problem around 2000rpm where the threshold is set to switch over to map ( i am boosted)

Also can somebody please verify that I connected this right?
As far as the APP,
For App sensor 1, I connected pin 73 (maxima side) to pin 106 (350z side)
For App sensor 2 I connected pin 74 9maxima side) to pin 98 (350z side)

As Far as the TPS,
TPS sensor 1, I connected pin 83 (maxima side) to pin 50 (350z side)
TPS sensor 2, I connected pin 84 (maxima side) to pin 69 (350z side)

My Issue is that on the dashboard the voltage shown is really high and the pedal is not depressed. Also I have a slow reving issue to 2000rpm and then it wont rev past that point.

thanks for the help

 

you have to make sure that the tps wires are connected to the right place, which it sounds like they may not be. On both ECU's, one of the app wires is 5v at 0% throttle and 0v at 100% and the other is 0v at 0% throttle and 5v at 100% throttle.

On the dashboard, does it show ~100% or ~0%? And if it shows ~0%, are you sure that the parameters are connected correctly? You say youre boosted, so just to make sure youre a 2002 or 2003, right?

 

just FYI, you CANT connect the a33b O2 wires to the z33 O2 wires because the z33 O2's are wideband (0-5v) and the a33b O2's are narrowband (0-1v IIRC). For obvious reasons, connecting these leads together could produce a serious problem. You MIGHT be ok connecting them though because the UTEC doesnt read the O2 voltages, so chances are its just a pass through and wouldnt matter what voltage is input

 

I am going to re-check my wiring but I have it hooked up the way I posted in the post 32. To further elaborate, for example TPS 1 on maxima side goes to TPS 1 on 350z side and APP sensor 1 on maxima side goes to APP sensor 1 on 350z side. But the TPS right now has a voltage showing that the pedal is fully depressed on the dashboard.

By looking at my wiring diagram, I have 22 wires without the power and the ground that are connected. They are the essentials like inj,ign,maf,iat,knock,app,tps,collant temp,and crankshaft pos.

 

If the dashboard is showing that the throttle is fully depressed when it's in fact not being touched, then I'd say Gemner hit your problem right on the head in his previous post.

 

So if my app wires are switched, then that means that there is a chance that app 1 (maxima) goes to app 2 (350z) ?
I just thought that 1 goes to 1 and 2 goes to 2.
Anyway I look further into diagnosing my problem.

One more question, the app corelates directly maybe to my issue with the vehicle slow reving to 2000rpm?

thanks for the clarification

 

if your app wires are wrong then yes it will rev SLOW to 2500 rpm or so, thats with the pedal to the floor too!

 

Something tells me Darren has personal experience with this issue...

 

Haha iv'e tried so many harness/wire combination's its not even funny!