Limit performance while retaining good milage
 

Okay, this is probably not a typical question. I have a son just starting to drive, and would like to pass on the maxima without have him tearing around the town (while I upgrade to a newer year). Is there any hints/directions/prior forums or suggestions on how to potentially tune down the performance a notch, without killing gas mileage or otherwise causing longer term engine problems. Something to accommodate 87 octane would be bonus, but I realize this is a wish list more than having a possible reality in automotive tweaking. Otherwise, I'm worried long term his going to get a ticket or worse, and at 17 in NJ, insurance will be 6 billion dollars annually.

get a tuning device and set the rev limiter at 2500k rpm

Lolz god damn he wouldnt even be able to get on the highway .

If u wanna tune the car down its becauae u dont trust him. If ur giving him a car u have to trust him. You think by giving him less power he'll stay out of trouble. But he could hit a person at 10mph and be in trouble, so thats not the solution. the solution would be to not give him the car at all, and if thats not an option then u have to trust him.

Bottom line if hes not ready dont give it to him.

in many situations power can get you out of bad situations.

My siblings and I first learned how to drive with the Maxima. Yes, it does have a lot of power lol, but like dakota510 says it has gotten me out of dicey situations such as merging on to a highway during rush hour... other situations too. I'd say you should be worried about power if you're giving him a V8 or something...

MOAR POWAH!

Slow cars are dangerous. I'm not sure how people drive base civics and the like. It's scary.

I've gotten on the highway plenty of times without passing 2000 rpm most of the time. Gotta save that gas :mecry:

With great power comes great responsibility. Some dude in a spider costume told me that....

your son probably will total your Maxima

If you are worried, buy him a $500 Nissan Micra or Mazda 323 or Toyota Tercel. You know every kid will drive the crap out of any car you give them. If you are worried about how fast they are going or how many e brake turns they are doing in parking lots, they will learn fast and hard from the cops. If they drive a 250hp Maxima or a 95 hp Micra they will get going fast eventually. I am not here to give parenting advice, but just a glimps into what a 17 year old with any car is going to do. You teach them responsiblility, and you know in your heart if they are responsible or not. You should be more worried about things like drinking and driving, or pot smoking than how fast they are going to drive.

fill it with ethanol

Sell the maxima and get him something else

Just give it to him or get him a Civic or Accord 4 banger, I had a Accord and still was hauling a$$, so in whatever car they will go fast in it a couple of times I believe, but should try to get him a lot of practice behind the wheel, so he get used to it....:D

How is 255hp and a 4spd auto too much? The cqr does like 7.5 secs to 60.

First it won't do 87 unless you adjust timing, I dont even know if timing could e retarded that much, usually timing is advanced for performance...

like someone said you could have a sh!t box, an aaz powered 75hp diesel golf and still have him speed (ticket) and/or crash... Throw him some cash n tell him to take the bus or buy his own car, trust me if you pay for your own **** you're much more responsible

At least its FWD. Whatever you do dont get him a RWD car. Cause every 17 year old thinks he's DK in a RWD car. He'll definetly crash a RWD car.

And yes I agree that teens should work for there cars, not be given them. Yes I was given a few cars along the way, but I earned the right to drive my cars and was WAY more careful and responsible about them because I had to pay for my first and second car. Was I careless and reckless at some times, sure, but I was for the most part responsible because I knew if I crashed it, I would have to pay for it, or have no car.

This is ridiculous. Did you son learn to drive on the maxima? getting in any vehicle is dangerous. it is a risk we humans take out of necessity.

When you learn to drive you have to learn to control and respect the machine you are operating. if you don't think your son is responsible enough to drive a maxima then he should not drive any car.

I'm 19 soon to be 20 got my max just before I was 18, of course I did stupid things, we all do, its part of owning a car that has get up and go. But my car is still in one piece, I have a clean driving record and a maxima with the piss modded out of it. As long as your son has common sense to not be stupid and is a good driver then you will be fine. Granted not all kids are going to be me, I refuse to text and drive or do other distracting things and all my friends claim im the best driver they have ever seen (regular driving and "race mode). You just gotta have faith and keep an eye on him.

and there it is....... all the answer you ever need OP.

Good thing or bad thing?

What is race mode?

Get a black box system so you can monitor his driving habits. No physical restriction, but if he knows you are essentially in the seat beside him every time he's in the car, may help him in making better choices and taking fewer risks. This way it doesn't interfere with the car and can be removed when he moves to another vehicle.

Track days, autocross, drag strip, ect... And IF I do go into RACE MODE while not at the track its at 2 am when no one is around. I can't stand people who are reckless and put other people in danger, It pisses me off because it gives people like me a bad name. Just cause i'm 20 and have a loud car doesn't mean i'm a reckless driving speed racer. YA DIG?

I can guarantee u if u made him buy the car and pay for the insurance, he won't beat on the car.

That is also a very good idea, make his *** pay you for it. He will treat it like gold.

buy hima civic i dont like civics i drove one for a few months its very uncomfortable to drive with no power and redline is the same power at 3k on my maxima lol but u gotta trust your son my parents used to be worried when i started driving alone and yea i did some stupid **** gunnin it and racing pushin my first car (maxima) hard and then it started to get misfires and **** lmao but i always drove safe with others in the car would never want to hurt my friend but i didnt really drive crazy in traffic either so i wouldnt hurt anyone but myself now i drive safe never really speed last time i speed was when i was 18 years old now im 20 and my car is alot faster than all my prev cars with all the mods i have on it now.

So after reading all of these messages, it makes me want to chime in as well.
Here are my thoughts, although let me first say that my first car was the 4th gen my parents gave to me when I was around 16-17. The car is still with us, and I am 23-ish now, and have graduated to the 7th gen.

I'm sure we all at some point or another felt that we were invincible, had the nicest car, was the sexiest person around, etc etc. It's normal.
Heck, I still think that, although not the "sexiest person around" part; I digress, so let me get back on topic:

But one thing my parents drove over and over into my head was "trust and responsibility".
They trusted me to be responsible with the car.
They trusted me with driving in with in legal limits.
They trusted me to be smart enough with what I was doing in the car and not to get myself into stupid situations that were easily avoidable had I made the right decision.
If I got into a situation that got out of my control, they trusted that I would own up, be responsible, and call them about it.
Anything and everything that I did to the car, I was responsible for it.
All those things, they told me right away, and said in a simple yet effective voice: "Please do not break this trust that I have in your responsibility." I don't think they ever told me the consequences if I did.

I became responsible near instantly, since I was actually quite scared to drive that thing. Over time, the 4th gen grew on me, and I started love and respect the car (in a normal way mind you), always letting it warm up on cold days until the needle touches the lowest mark, or at least 30 seconds if the car is already warm.
I never took corners at high speeds because I didn't want to roll over and damage my beloved car.
I didn't drive like an idiot, because I didn't want my car to be damaged over time, and my goal was to actually drive it up to one million miles, and then some.

I think I wrote too much and went in some random direction I was not originally planning, but long story short, maybe try telling him that you are investing trust in his responsibility with the car. If he breaks the car, he is going to have to start walking, or the bus.
As others have said, if you feel that he is ready for a Maxima, then let him have it. If not, then again, as some people has mentioned, a dash cam or black box to be there and not there at the same time, or simply not give him a car until he has proven himself to be responsible.

All this of course, I have no idea what your son is like, and I also have no kids of my own to draw experience from, so I may as well be talking to a rock. However, good luck on whatever you decide to do.

Yes exactly... I paid for all of my own **** since I was 16 with my tomos moped LOL.

Also agree with you on the being young and not stupid... After that moped I bought that ninja 250 and then when . Was 19 I bought a 93 zx7r. According to insurance stats at 19 with a 750cc super sport i should've died :/ lol

not one ticlet or anything. Don't get me wrong I did **** around on those bikes but I knew how to handle them, except the 750 twas a tad much power and heavy as ****.

anyways I think op should just get his son a POS econobox or a bus pass

My two cents...

an old accord is a good idea. In 2000, I got an 86 accord. Cheap to maintain and enough power from the 4 banger to merge on highway but still safe and cheap.,

Granted, I outran a Washington state trooper on the freeway with it (I was already going 95 and had a blind exit in my favor), but that was a good first car for me when I was 17

A direct answer to your question: put a restrictor plate in the intake (before the air filter, in case anything goes poorly). They use them in race cars all the time to limit performance. Or on motorcycles (in Germany), either due to age restrictions or insurance rates. Granted, you would need to do a quick calculation to figure out the right size, or do a few trial runs, but it is the simplest limitation. It would also help if you didn't tell your son specifically what you did, or he wasn't mechanically inclined enough to take things apart and discover your "mod." Also, your car should be able to run 87 octane, however, it will be less efficient. I would also personally run a few tanks with it while I was still driving just to make sure there was no knock/pinging. Younger drivers may not notice that.

This is not true. Not every 16-18 year old will crash a RWD car, esp. the newer ones with TC or ESP. I had a RWD V8-powered car at 17 years old, and I never once was near having an accident. Granted, it was not my first car and the car in question was a 1987 Ford Crown Victoria LX with a weak 150-bhp 302 ci engine, but I still enjoyed it safely. And it taught me to love the virtues of RWD, which is also very important [for an enthusiast].

There are also many other good ideas here. Paying for one's own insurance and fuel, as well as any damage to the vehicle, is a good start to teaching responsibility. More important, however, it that you both have mutual trust and respect, which is developed long before now, and that he understands how utterly stupid it is to drink and drive. At any time.

Thanks!
 

I want to personally thank each and everyone of you. I really appreciate the comments both constructive, and reflective. For what it is worth, he will be giving me the 1500 he is saving for a car, so he is definitely chipping in, although getting a deal. Second, the recent kid deaths I know of from friends at work were "kids driving fast cars", or otherwise, I probably wouldn't have asked. I understand comments that power is good for merging etc., and agree completely, but I do worry about the temptation. I had slow and fast by age 19 and I know what I did. I didn't get the tickets with the slow car, and living in New Jersey, with dense population (which has probably doubled in that time),...... driving is crazy period. Thanks again folks, this maxima forum is always super productive. I will test the 87 first and see how bad the car hates it and restrictor plate next, and see how it goes from there.

I was just about to post that. :laugh:

At low-mid rpm it would be fine, but if he gunned it, it would strain for breath at high rpm.

Doing some thinking, the restrictor plate opening would have to be pretty small. I've seen pics of the ones they use in Nascar on the superspeedways, and they turn 9,000 rpm's and yet can still go over 200 mph on the back stretch of Talladega (in a draft) so I think it would be a cool idea to test. Perhaps start with a small hole and drill it out one size bigger every time just in case it's choked too much. Start off with a 1/2 inch hole and go from there. Might be a good idea to place it after the MAF because it would probably cause some major turbulence and give the MAF some wacky readings. You want it to have reduced power, not it run like crap.

Here is what else you can do, I would personally do this, this way you dont have to demod the car, buy one of those gps boxes that plugs in where you can see speed, miles driven and location, this way you know where he is and how fast he is going, If he gets caught speeding then take the car away, this way the car still has some go and you can moniter your son, win win right?

I did more dumb things in a 95 saturn with like 115 HP at 17 than I did with a 250HP maxima at 17. Something about the accomplishment of making a slow car go fast was more fun than driving a faster car fast

Nail a piece of 2x4 under the gas pedal ;)

On a side note, on the BMW e90 forums a High School kid just got a brand spanking new 335i from his parents... What were they thinking...

:laugh:

2x4 is a good idea, but I think you would have issues, being either

a) can only go 70 on the freeway maybe but it would take forever to get there and you would probably get cut off and other stuff for accelerating super slowly all the time
b) set it up so that it only goes to like 25% throttle which really is plenty 99% of the time, but then Im pretty sure you can still get the car up to at least close to triple digits. I know for a fact that my car goes 70 MPH at roughly 10% throttle on flat ground (VAFCII confirmed many times) so I would be surprised if you cant reach 100+ MPH at 25%

I started to type "unplug maf" as a joke.

But then I realized that you may be able to unplug the vias. I did that to a buddy at the track before we raced - laughed my *** off at him after I walked him. On my 2k that will take away 30hp or more at higher rpm after it actuates at 5k rpms. (Wish I could find my old dynos from when mine wasn't working - I actually think it was closer to 50).

I'm just not sure if your 2k3 has the same type of system.

Beyond that, I would suggest a monitoring device. I think a block off plate is going to be too hard to accomplish properly.