Frequently Asked Questions
General
NIStune
RealTime boards provide a way to make your factory Engine Control Unit (ECU)
fully reprogramable similar to aftermarket Engine Control units for a fraction
of the price. They use the latest technologies available on the market today to
keep the size of the board small and cost lower.
Having
your factory ECU reprogrammable
means that either yourself or a knowledgeable tuner can quickly and easily
retune your factory ECU with minimal installation and setup.
Unlike
any other type of daughterboards available for Nissan vehicles on the market,
NIStune boards are the only real-time tuning solution available on a single
small standalone board.
Once
initially programmed, the NIStune board is permanently installed in the owners
ECU (engine control unit). The ECU can then be tuned on a dyno via either the
USB connector for Type 1 boards or Consult port for Type 2-4 boards.
Combined
with the powerful user friendly NIStune software, real-time monitoring, map
tracing and tuning is quick and simple.
Once
the board is installed, there is never the need to touch the ECU again. This
means no need whilst in the shop, to erase and burn EPROMs after each tune
We
use the existing consult port provided on Nissan ECUs, so there is minimal
wiring required to get your board running.
For
earlier ECUs, only 4 wires to the ECU for basic functionality are required. For
later model 16-bit ECUs, all is requried is installation of the standard 40 pin
connector.
Installation
is as painless as can possibly be with a factory ECU. However if you are not
experienced with electronic installation, we recommend you either send it to us
for installation or take the ECU to an electronic repair shop, with our
instructions to get them to install the board.
We cannot cover damaged boards, due to wrong equipment used during installs or user error.
We
have been working with and received quite a number of queries and requests from
workshops with what NIStune will cost for the workshop. NIStune has now been
split into two users licenses.
(a)
Individual users license
-
Intended for those who wish to purchase one or few boards, only needing address
files for those boards for personal interest
- Limited to three address files, and five differerent ECU IDs that can be
tuned in real-time
(b)
Tuners license
-
Intended for those in the business of tuning. ie primarily workshops. Those who
wish to either run NIStune with emluators and daughterboards, or wish to tune
using our RealTime boards
- Provided with complete set of Nissan address files with maptracing information
- Unlimited emulator and boards supported
- Discount prices on boards, and further discount on quantity boards ordered.
Currently NIStune supports the following Wide Band units:
TechEdge
1.5 and 2.0
http://www.techedge.com.au
Innovate
LM1 and LC1
http://www.innovatemotorsports.com
AEM
UEGO
http://www.aempower.com
Zeitronix
http://www.zeitronix.com
PLX
Devices (R Series)
http://www.plxdevices.com
MOTEC
PLM
(Currently in testing)
DLP Design A/D Converter
http://www.dlpdesign.com/usb/io8.shtml
These
units connect to your laptop via the serial port (or USB port when using serial-USB
adaptor). These units output data to allow NIStune to monitor your Air Fuel
Ratios from their sensor, and some produce auxillary inputs for connecting other
sensors which can display and log inside NIStune.
NIStune
provides several internal utilities to make the most of your Wide Band
- Dyno Mode AFR graphing against RPM
- Real time AFR and auxillary map display (minimum AFR, maximum AFR and current
AFR against the fuel map)
- Logging and playback of AFR
We can add other units in the future, if they have a protocol specification available for us to code and emulate to
If
you are using a Type 2,3 or 4 board or are using an emulator with ECUs
compatible with these boards, you will require a consult connector. These are
available in serial and USB versions from PLMS Developments
http://www.plmsdevelopments.com
You
can order our boards through them also! Just let them know the ordering
information
You also may wish to purchase a wideband unit. These are listed in the Wideband section of this FAQ
We
are not recommending any particular unit, and recommend you research each one
based on their own uses and features. Prices vary between the models, and some
have additional upgrades for more sensors.
NIStune
provides upto six auxiliary inputs which are read into the PC from your wideband
unit. The
data from these inputs can be displayed on the Wide Band screen, recorded to the
log file with the consult data and played back at a later time.
NIStune
does not provide any onboard inputs or outputs at this stage of the project. We
may feed inputs using spare ECU connections in the future as an additional
enhancement.
We
have sufficient stock of Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 boards available.
Type
4 boards are still in field testing, as some ECUs are still to be tested and
confirmed working on a vehicle. A majority of testing is done on the bench prior
to field testing. Please to not ask us for a date on these. We will provide
notice of when they are ready
Type 5 boards will support N14 GA16DE, S14/S15 SR20DE, K11 and similar other half sized ECUs. We have designed the schematics and working on board layouts at this time.
10.
Do you stock anything for R33 or R34 Skyline
We
do not stock boards for R33 or R34 Skyline, however contact Sam at http://www.drdrift.com.au
who can get a Japanese EPROM board. They cost about $1000AUD. These will work
with a Moates emulator and NIStune for real-time tuning an R33 with full consult
map tracing and logging.
Your other alternative is to use an R32 Skyline ECU or Z32 300ZX ECU. The R32
ECU will not support VCT and several other features. Z32 300ZX ECU can be
remapped to run R33 RB25 engines with some minor wiring modifications.
Following posted by Eric on the Nissan ECU tuning forums at http://ecu2.forumwise.com
R33 pin 19 to Z32 pin 34
R33 pin 105 to Z32 pin 110
R33 pin 110 to Z32 pin 105
R33 pin 112 to Z32 pin 114
R33 pin 114 to Z32 pin 112
R33 pin 57: cut
Z32 pins 29+55 : join (O2 sensor from R33 to single O2 input on R33)
Please note that information is directly from the forums with a fix up on the O2
as advised from customer. We take no responsibility for any errors. Verify your
wiring against factory ECU pinouts for Z32 and R33 ECUs to make sure you have
the adaptation correct when performing this modificaiton
The
NIStune software is in 'beta' developmental phase, and available for commercial
sale. It is being used by quite a few users and workshops at this stage with
excellent results. Any known problems are in our problems list in the downloads
area of the website. If any users experience problems which require urgent fixes
we are able to solve problems with a fast turnaround time.
Users typically report problems on our forums which we maintain on a regular
basis.
The
software has been in progress for over three years now, and the base code is
quite stable.
We
have an expiry period in the software currently to encourage upgrades to the
latest version. Once software has reached a final version, we will remove this
period. Upgrades will always be available at no extra charge.
We
offer email support and continuous support on the forums, directly related to
install issues, problems encountered with the software and improvements which can
be added.
Our aim is for customer satisfaction with our product, so they can recommend it to others. The NIStune project however is on top of our regular 'day' jobs so we are only available after hours.
Fill
out the form on the forums with your forum name. When you have received a
registration email from us, then email us your forum name and we will activate
it.
We will not activate accounts unless you are registered. We can only support customers who have paid and require support at this stage. The forum may be opened up for read access soon.
Installation
of boards requires at a minimum:
-
Correct fitting screwdriver for opening ECU case
- Soldering station and solder
- Desoldering station or desoldering gun
- Acetone or other solvent to remove flux
See our soldering guide on this site for more detail. However not all people have access to this equipment. Also you can potentially damage your ECU if you have not worked with electronics before. Therefore we also recommend your local electronics repair shop should be able to install the board for you, given you supply them with our instructions.
At this stage,
we can also install boards for you.
15. Can you use a MAP sensor with NIStune?
At this point of time MAP sensors are not supported. We suggest upgrading your ECU AFM to using single or dual Z32 AFMs (dual will require a Apexi AFC) which are the highest reading Nissan AFMs. Other users in the USA are running with Ford AFMs or putting the AFM in a larger tube to accept more load and recalibrate to suit.
Using a MAP sensor, requires some recoding of the factory ECU software and addition of an Air Intake Temperature sensor (and TPS sensors for older ECUs) for this to function properly. The guys are HybridKA (www.hybridka.com) have got something working for the KA24E models with some ECU reprogramming and it may be possible for other Nissan vehicles later.
16. What are the minimum requirements for NIStune
NIStune is written to be as lightweight in system resources as possible. We recommend using laptop with:
- Pentium 300Mhz or greater (500Mhz +
recommended)
- USB 1.0 port (if using Type 1 board or USB Serial converter)
- Serial port / USB Serial Converter: Consult Connection (Used with Type 2
board)
- Serial port / USB Serial Converter: Wideband data display and logging
17. What if I have a problem?
Contact us with some detailed information that is
causing you issues.
(a) Type of ECU and board you are using
(b) Error messages and status messages relating to problem
(c) Providing us a log file will definately help us. Enable
File-Configuration-Debug logging. Restart NIStune. Then perform the operations
which caused your problem. Disable debug logging and close down NIStune. Send us
the log from the directory C:\Program Files\NIStune\logs directory
Send that to us in an email to our enquiries address on the orders page and we
will get back to you. Remember that we do this stuff in our spare time so see if
you can sort it out with the documentation or forums firstly. But we are happy
to help you get started.
18. How do you perform Injector and MAF swapovers?
In the NIStune software you enter the old and new injector CC sizes and this adjusts the main injection multiplier (K Constant) for the new injectors. You also have the options of rescaling your load (TP) scales for fuel, timing and volumetric efficiency maps as well as pulse width safety cut limits increased.
For MAF swapovers, NIStune will detect your current MAF and you then select from a drop box your new MAF from a list of configurations we have collected from vairous engine control units.
This function will replace for you the calibration curve and injection multiplier. Some ECUs may some calibration of the injection multiplier using a wideband. Older ECUs such as Z31,R31, S12 and Y31 ECUs may require the AFM voltage to be dropped from 2 - 7 volts by making an internal modification to the ECU. See the following page regarding this afmupgrade.htm
19. What are the limits of factory ECU tuning
A single Z32 MAFs can hit a limit of 310 - 320rwkw and injectors up to about 800CC can
be supported by the factory engine control unit. Keep in mind that for any
control unit, that higher flowing items will have less control resolution. To
get around the MAF limits, people are now doing the following:
(a) using the MAF in a larger tube and
recalibrating to suit
(b) using MAFs from Toyotas and Fords with
the Nissan ECU or
(c) using two MAFs with an Apexi SAFC to combine the signals
20. What parameters are tunable for particular ECUs?
Please see the address files in the downloads section. These have the tables you can modify with each one. You can also open them with the trial version of NIStune to see the maps, tables and values for yourself.
21. Are the boards lockable?
The latest firmware for the boards is lockable. If you wish to have this, please specify that to us to ensure we use the correct firmware version. The boards use a PIN number to lock the board. Users can connect to the board but cannot 'sync' maps from the ECU until the valid PIN is entered. If the PIN is forgotten or lost, the board needs to be reprogrammed with a base image programmer.
22. What about an ECU you dont have listed?
We most probably dont support it, or it is only supported at this stage using emulators (see if it is listed in our address file pack). We only support some Nissan ECUs from 1984 - 1996 era. We dont plan to support any other vehicles. For the 350Z there is a company cobbtuning.com already working on this
You can always email us, but include a picture of
the insides of the ECU and model, year, part number etc, or we wont be able to
help you much
Technical
That
is fine and will work. It is possible to have several ECUs with boards fitted,
just for tuning. You can then download those maps and save them into a
factory ROM image. This ROM image can then be used for burning to EPROM or FLASH
chips for plugging into socketed ECUs or daughterboards.
However
you will find that once you are in the workshop with a customer waiting or are
paying for dyno time that selling the customer a real-time board installed and
integrated with their ECU will outweigh the normal 'ROM tuning' when performing
ROM erasure, burn and testing are required.
Yes
this is entirely fine. But without a Type 1 board installed you will only be
able to change parameters in realtime with no consult guages or maptracing.
When a board is ordered, it is either programmed prior to shipping with the customers ECU ROM image or can be programmed by a tuning shop using the NIStune programmer through the PC parallel port using NTProgCE software.
A standard Nissan ECU ROM (BIN) file is converted by NIStune Developments to an ENT (Encoded NISTune file) and then programmed into the board using NTProgCE. The encoding adds special firmware to modify the NIStune board installed inside the ECU.
In
most cirsumstances, once the NIStune board is installed in the ECU with a
programmed image, it is only ever necessary to change maps, tables and constant
values in the ECU. Where there is a need to load maps from another ROM image,
you simply load that ROM image into NIStune and upload the new maps. All these
functions can be performed whilst the engine is running in the vehicle.
Where
it is necessary to upload an entire ROM (including different ECU program code),
then the board will need to be removed from the ECU, jumpered to 'program mode'
and reprogrammed using the NIStune programmer.
The
reason for this is that the NIStune firmware runs using the factory ECU ROM
code. It is not possible to replace the factory ROM code whilst the ECU code is
executing. This is how NIStune is able to perform real time updates.
NIStune
is based on the latest technologies using Programmable Logic Devices and EEPROM
backed NonVolatile RAM (NVRAM). The size of the NVRAM used on Type 1/2 boards is
32K and on Type 3/4 boards is 64K. Hence the boards will typically store just
the one ROM image.
Daughterboards
with larger storage capability to store multiple ROM images typically use FLASH
memory. You also cannot perform realtime tuning using FLASH memory because its
write times are slow, and it requires an erase in large sized blocks before
rewriting a single byte inside that block.
NIStune
also utilises existing Consult communications protocols to perform write
operations to onboard memory. When the tune is complete, it can then be burnt
permanently to the board. All this occurs with no interruption to normal vehicle
operation.. The ECU stays installed after initial installation with no need for
removal or connection of other devices. The existing vehicle consult port on
consult enabled vehicles is utilised with optimised programming for fast upload
times.
Address files tell the NIStune program where the maps, tables and values are located in the ECU ROM image. They are specific and different for each model of ECU.
When ordering an Individual user license with a board you will be supplied with an address file compatible with the boards purchased. The first three address files can be used for real-time tuning with this license, any others loaded afterwards can be used for regular rom editing.
Tuners
license will let you perform unrestricted real-time tuning with all of the
address files. Address
files are also now freely available from our website, so that they can be
downloaded as required by our users.
(1)
The older type vehicles which take 16K (128kbit) EPROMs use address files in the
16K_address directory. These are labelled like Z31_VG30_128_E.adr
These
files are for reading standard EPROM images from a programmer set to 27C128
mode. If you use a programmer in 27C256 mode (when using larger chips) then you
will need to read the top half of the ERPOM image (addresses 4000h-7FFFh) into a
16K file
(2)
The NIStune Type 1 boards which use these images have a 27C256 equivalent NVRAM
chip onboard. This holds 32K of ROM data. The NIStune ROM image is located in
the second 16K of ROM memory on these boards. Newer Type 1 boards use these
address files.
Therefore
on NIStune Type 1 (rev 3+) you just use the 32K address files (so for Z31 use
Z31_VG30_256.adr)
Once
the NIStune board has been installed in an ECU with NIStune firmware
operational, it will run a modified version of Nissan Consult called NIStune
eXtended Consult.
This
new communications protocol enhances standard Nissan Consult whilst keeping the
majority of functionality from existing consult. This means that you can use
your NIStune board with other consult software.
NIStune
however uses NIStune eXtended Consult commands to provide these features within
the NIStune software itself
-
Map trace uses the information from the address files for superb tracing,
monitoring and playback capabilties.
-
RAM monitor can display upto 256 bytes of data on the screen at any time
-
NIStune provides a ROM download feature for standard Nissan consult, and the
resync button will download the maps from your NIStune eXtended Consult enabled
ECUs within seconds.
NIStune
eXtended Consult implements ROM and RAM reads and writes without streaming. This
significantly increases the speed of data transfer, compared to traditional
Nissan Consult.
9. How do I download a ROM image from my ECU to send to you guys
To download your ROM
image:
1. Download NIStune from our website www.nistune.com
2. Run trial version using name: trial / email: trial which allows a single run
3. Load the address file matching your vehicle (from downloads page)
4. Connect your laptop using a consult cable to the vehicle
5. Operations - Consult Download
6. Save the file to disk and email to us
Type
1 boards have NIStune USB Consult, which is a first for legacy ECU owners who do
not have a consult capability in their ECU (and hence no consult port in the
vehicle).
What
NIStune does is use a USB chip on the Type 1 board and specialised firmware to
provide consult capabilities.
A
specialised protocol called NIStune USB Consult is written similar to NIStune
eXtended Consult to provide capabilities to
-
Stream out Consult register values
- Read and write ROM and RAM addresses
- Burn ROM data permanently in the ECU
- Output DTC codes from ECU
This
means that you can view a subset of the standard Consult registers on the
screen, log them and play them back in NIStune. It means that you can monitor
the DTC fault codes on your screen rather than work out flashing DTC codes.
The
USB connector is located where the diagnostic position selector normally is
located. Once the selector is removed, the USB connector board sits snugly in
the bracket where the position selector used to be located.
You
can either replace the diagnostic position selector with a smaller pot, relocate
it or remove it altogether. The DTC codes and the O2 sensor information is
reported to NIStune so the need for the selector is not required..
11.
What Emulators are supported
Pocket
Romulator I/II
http://xtronics.com
Moates
Ostrich 2.0
http://www.moates.net
The
Moates Ostrich units are 64K versions which are also USB based and have hardware
maptracing (8 bit tracing supported by NIStune) and have excellent reliability
Emulator
configurations are shown pictured below in 8 and 16 bit configurations on a Z32
VG30 and S14 SR20 ECU (fitted with daughterbaord)
If
there is demand, we may support the MultiRom 16 bit emulator in the future, but
it is quite an expensive alternatvie to using two 8 bit emulators simulatenously
and its hardware maptracing is not as accurate as using consult derived
maptracing.
Emulators
are available with the Tuner license of NIStune and is intended for workshops.
However, some individuals may have an emulator already and wish to use this. We
will provide Individual licenses with the emulator capability, on a request
basis. Operation will be restricted to several ECUs under this license, to
prevent abuse of license terms.
NIStune
supports 16 bit emulation. This means that you can use two emulators simultaneously
in either SPLIT (two emulators with same ROM image) or ODD/EVEN
(one emulator contains ODD data and other emulator contains EVEN data)
configurations.
You
plug the emulators either directly into the ECU (for 8 bit ECUs) or into a daughter board
(for 16 bit ECUs) which are available commercially
NIStune
Devleopments currently do not sell EPROM based daughterboards. However we are
investigating this option in the future.