It took quite a while, but it's all in and working perfectly. I've already done some initial A/F tuning and have it pretty solid in the mid 13s up to 5700 and high 12s to redline (Z guys usually make the most power around that A/F). It misfires past the stock redline so I'm still messing around with settings to get that working better. We hooked up a total of 29 wires so 100+ solder joints. Next step is to get some wire loom and wrap it all up. Here's some pics.

Just FYI to you Dyno *****, it probably won't make it to a dyno for a while. I'll be logging A/F and knock while adjusting 'till I have timing and A/F where I want it, then hitting the track. I'll do 2-3 runs on map 0 (stock map) and a few runs on my map as a comparison.

 

 

holy crap thats a lot of wires! how long did it take you?

 

total was probably in the 8 hour range.

 

cool man. i just wired up my EU also....i'm pretty good at soldering now! lol...

so how will you be monitoring knock? i don't know much about UTEC but i have to monitor mine with voltage....i was just wondering if yours is the same?? if so what voltage is knock and what's not??

 

Ill be buying a controller soon as well...luckily im an electrical engineer lol soldering is my forte! congrats on the install

 

It monitors knock off the stock signal and has sensitivity settings and you can even tune how much timing it pulls depending on your sensitivity settings.

 

The soldering is the easy part, messing with the pins in the connector and making sure you wire up the right ones from the 350z pinout to the maxima pinout can be a headache. Get that nitrous stuff installed asap!

 

Also here's a pic of my new intake setup without the nitrous. Short and sweet

 

Yeah I can figure out the wiring in a snap, just wired up a buddies 6th gen (only power driver) to have power driver and passenger and heated front and rear....from basic to elite package...that was fun! anyway yeah the nitrous...its sitting next to me reminding me to get it installed soon lol.....

 

Can someone give an idea of what the difference is between the E-U and the UTEC as far as the rev limiter is concerned? Does the UTEC simply continue giving fuel after the stock rev limiter like the E-U does?

I never liked the way the E-U advances the rev limiter, Dandy says you cant avoid the 200 rpm rich spike at the stock rev limite. Gives an ugly dip in power on the dyno...

 

It takes full control of the injectors/timing when in open loop fueling, including past the rev limiter. As long as it's tuned right, there is no "transition" above the stock limiter.

As another note, the EU has been said to have alot of issues on the 5.5 gen anyway, and the UTEC ONLY works on the 3.5 engines with full 3.5 ECU (IE no 3.0timing/3.5 swap 4th gens unless you did a full swap) so this may not apply to you.

 

..and also screwing with the MAF sensor signals. Does that filter incorporate some sort of velocity stack?

 

Yeah there's a little plastic velocity stack in it. Seems to work well enough. My AF did not change going from the longer pipe on the filter side to no pipe.

 

what about closed loop, for example could you be at 60% throttle and still rev pass stock fuel cut

 

All depends on where you set your TPS threshold. Closed loop can either 1: be 100% controlled by the UTEC (usually used on F/I) 2: modify the MAF signal by a %age for each 250 rpms even during closed loop.

Basically, you cannot cross the stock fuel cut if you're at partial throttle below your TPS threshold where the UTEC takes over fueling.

 

sorry for all the questions, but what happens to your a/f when you rev past stock then let off the gas. does it go back to stock settings, kill spark or fuel

 

I am next on the list for UTEC on a 5.5 gen ecu. Did you use the map sensor or still the maf?

 

Well when you let off the gas it cuts fuel anyway. But yeah, you lose fuel when you let off and it decels like normal. Just FYI you can find all this info and more on my350z.com or a google search, there's TONS of info out there.

Well the map sensor does not have enough resolution on a N/A car, so I'm using the MAF for now. The MAP tuning is also much more complicated and involved (modifying injector pulsewidth directly), and I would like to get some more time with the UTEC before I have to jump into all that. When my F/I build goes down, I will have to change over and do a speed density tune.

 

piggy backs are so much fun

I have to hook my EU back up. I miss messing around with my settings especially advancing the timing

I know my post is pointless but its motivating me to get my EU up and going before i put in the 3.5

 

for some crazy reason I can not log into 350z.com I emailed the admins there no response and even created 2 different accounts nothing

 

^^

Yeah iirc it took them like a week to get my sign on which i dont even remember anymore lol

 

Just use the google search, it's more accurate anyway. You can go to the advanced search preferences and enter a domain name you want to search on. The search on the actual site sucks IMO, no better than the one here.

 

Glad to see i had to find out through here.

 

I assumed you knew since everybody else did. They all talk talk talk so I didn't feel like I needed to announce to anybody lol.

Agree on the google search thing. I search my350z forums with the advanced google search b/c the one on their forum is ridiculously bad.

 

Probably a stupid question but are you basically just splicing into the harness without cutting the wire from the stock ecu connector? (hopefully that makes since lol)

Edit: Also which version do you have?

 

No you still have to cut the ECU harness because the wires need to pass through the UTEC before they go back into the ECU.

Currently running version 2.6 on it. I'll update it eventually, but I'm not in a hurry. 2.8 was mostly just a big update for boosted guys using map sensors to tune with.

Small update, I was having some issues with random misfires at idle and partial throttle. I thought about it and remembered having run my wideband power off the ECU power (stupid!). Ended up relocating the power for the wideband, and 99.999% of the misfires went away. I still have one rarely, and I am thinking even the UTEC may pull a little too much current off the ECU power. I may relocate the UTEC power as well.

 

For what it's worth, I learned early on that it's a Good Idea to have separate fused power busses for add-on parts - and I have a bunch now. A/F meter, Shift_Fast module, MSD units, nitrous heaters and relays, etc.....

It's not hard to find an unused fused circuit in the fuse panel on the lower left side of the dash and wire in a circuit or two there. For critical electronics and heavy-duty fuel pump, I'm starting to use automotive regulated power supplies to run things - surprising what a stable voltage will do for computer-based add-ons. For really heavy battery drains, I run a fused pair of wires to the load ( two 240W heater blankets ) because you can't always trust the car body for a good ground.

FWIW...

 

Gotcha, makes since now. I think I am going to take the UTEC route I need to research more on how to wire it into "our" cars tho..

 

Thanks for the info, I've been trying to do that where I can and it's great advice especially with alot of electronics. Since the UTEC pulls power off the stock ECU in it's native application (Z/G), I assumed it'd be fine on mine but I'm starting to think that's not the case. It may be very sensitive to current load.

 

Did you know that one heater blanket draws 20 amps while heating? Solenoids draw a lot - depending on which ones you use - but 15-20 amps is common. I have each pair fused for 30 amps.

If you think about it, your add-ons' current demands can exceed the output of your alternator - and say you're at the track at night, launching and spraying with everything using lots of amps, the supply voltage drops to 12volts or maybe 11 volts before you cross the traps. Not good for computer-based electronics.. You should buy a battery before the racing season starts - from a real battery dealer.

Talk about confusing - I was at KCIR one summer night with the 3.0 and after I launched and got into the second nitrous stage, the solenoids started cutting in and out on the way to the traps. That was - exciting.... Weak battery, I later discovered.

 

Did you ground the case of the UTEC separately?

I have been running mine now for about a year now without any misfire issues.

I relocated my ecu to under the front passenger seat. It is mounted on an aluminum plate, alongside the UTEC, which is grounded at several points to the floorpan under the carpet.
.
[IMG][/IMG]

 

I haven't grounded the case of the UTEC, that sounds like a good idea, and it'll be grounded pretty well to the floorpan when i get around to drilling some mounting holes for it as well. That's a very nice looking install, and wow @ you splicing EVERY wire! I bet that took forever.

Another note, I've decided (for now) to stick with my stock rev limiter and use MAF pulldown instead of full open loop fuel control. It needs a good tune from someone who knows how to work with the fuel/ignition maps past the stock limiter before it's safe to screw with that (IMO). In light of this, I'm working on trading my SSIM for a stock IM and I'm going to lengthen my intake and probably go with a 3" maf housing at the same time. I'm not sure if I'll use a functioning vias stock IM or if I'll use the blockoff plate, but I'm prety sure either of them would make for a little meatier powerband (even at the track) than the SSIM with a stock limiter. Most gears shift down to around 4200-4500 with the stock limiter, and the SSIM doesn't show gains over the vias delete/stock until 5500-6kish (according to dynos i've been looking at).

 

I do not have any wire splices. No factory wires were intercepted or tapped.

At the dash end of the harness is an A33B ecu header connector that I removed from a dead ecu. The stock ecu connector plugs into that

I got the Z33 header and ecu harness connectors as well as the A33B ecu harness connector from a company that makes custom harnesses.

It is all PnP.

No splices, but I made something on the order of 200 soldered and 200 crimped connections.

 

Interesting I wonder if something like that could be done for people doing full 3.5 swaps.

 

Mine is a full 3.5 swap

 

Yeah I read about your battery nightmares, what a pain! I'm currently using an optima redtop and I'm pretty happy with it. When I end up with all my electronics for the turbo build and more nitrous, I may have to make some changes.

 

Well with the splicing I was referring to the solder connections that you can see in that pic.

I know what you mean about the PNP, before I installed this UTEC hardwire, a buddy of mine actually hooked it into my car in 30seconds flat plug and play with a prototype PNP harness he built. Fun stuff!

 

Dam, I wish this was plug in play! Does that buddy of yours still build the PNP harness's?

 

Well I said it was a prototype for a reason lol.

Just swapped a stock IM, drove around with the vias hooked up for like 10 mins... then came back home and turned the VIAS plate into a blockoff plate. Definately looking forward to getting this to the track.

Next track day is saturday the 9th of May, hopefully everything works well for me!