LinkNuc wrote:I don't have any performance mods on my Altima, as I have no reason to believe anything on this forum

Hey man, I didn't want to get involved with this.. but seriously.. you've made your point. You're skeptical about this mod (and seemingly every other mod, even ones backed with dyno's, which you seem to want for the BD, as if that would prove to you that it's legit), and you have every right to be. We get that. Message received.

It's just really getting annoying that you keep putting the BD down, especially when you don't even have one. It's one thing for a person who has bought one to be stating some cons observed while owning it, but I don't think you have much merit coming in here saying the things you do when you don't own one yourself. Not only that, but you have no other performance mods done to your car! I'm not knocking you for that, it's your car and you're totally free to do whatever you want to it, but a lot of us have done a lot of things to our cars and we know the changes they've made. You haven't. If anything, you'd think that we should be the ones who are to be trusted, as we have the experience. I had a 350Z like you did, and I know what 300HP with a 6MT feels like, and I know what what my AC CVT feels like. I have that experience to draw from, as do many other members here.

If you personally don't trust us, that's fine, but please, let us OWNERS of this product talk about it in peace. We know you don't like it. That's cool. We hear ya. No need to keep putting it down when you don't even have one yourself.

mcheddadi wrote:what are we looking at there?

speed chart?

A/F Ratio

LinkNuc wrote:I don't have any performance mods on my Altima, as I have no reason to believe anything on this forum, as the only proof is "butt dyno". I installed the short shift kit which was a great mod, but based on prior experience with my 350Z and Titan, I am a little more skeptical now, I too had the placebo effect that really ended up being maybe 0.5 mpg and 10 HP at the wheels greater, which is barely Butt-dynoable. I just think that its really lame to take newbies for a ride as far as performance is concerned. IF you like look, sound etc fine, but Don't put bullsh*t claims out there on a magic bullet grounding kit that will give you 2mpg, come on! That's why I am super skeptical about this, especially because the product hasn't even been tested by its producer for numbers, think about it.

I wouldn't classify myself as a "newbie" as I have built motors including totally rebuilding my old Mazdaspeed Protege however I am relatively new to the V6 Nissan concept. ECU tunes are a great mod and have been around forever so I was just wondering if this device actually worked as I have not heard of Bully Dog before. I will not use all the other features on this device (except maybe removing the Governor) so I won't be purchasing the GT version. Anyway thanks for the info guys! I will be ordering mine shortly and let everyone know how it works out.

FREE POST

How many times have these negative nelly's been told GTFO.

I may be a d**k but i try to be helpful. As Dangeris has said you clowns earn a rep. Enjoy being avoided like the plague.

Back on topic - i want to know what the tune did to my engine or ecu?

What specifically changed?

Is it safe for my engine, because my car is a rocket now. The header and the tuner really gives my little 2.5 a boost.

Lucky 2.5 Coupe owners with their headers :-(

i got my tuner put i guess they dont have part number yet JB13A maybe its in that update file or im probly going to have tell them about it oh well everthing else on it is the s*** though i mean all the info it gives you the only thing its missing that i think would be cool is the transmission temp

they finished that part number already same as me .. had it monday talk to hadley Ext 1146 he has it

by any chance do yo have the file laying around and can you send it to me

grv575 wrote:I guess you don't understand what the unit does. They're reverse engineering the ECU on a range of cars. I'm sure you've never done any reverse engineering of binary code. So lets get that out of the way.

2nd, there's apparently differences in the ECUs between engine makes. It's not possible for a company such as BullyDog to buy every singe year and make of car for testing. Modified by grv575 at 2:41 PM 8/15/2009

Pretty low expectations for a product which has complete control over your engine. BD did not market a "general purpose downloader" that might possibly ship and work 5-6 months after going on sale. They marketed a tuner that could immediately apply an ECU update and improve performance.

I'm personally amazed that everyone's just kind of shrugging at BD's business practices. Reputable companies do not ship or charge for products which are clearly still in development. The Altima owners in here are essentially the R&D platforms for Bullydog, and they're paying for the privilege too. I hope for their sake that BD got the tune right the first time. (But hearing about A/F ratios in the 30 range is not really boosting my confidence.)

Technosquare and Bullydog both provide ECU tuning, but that's where the similarity ends. TS has a dyno, close relationships with Nissan, and lots of experience doing live tuning of Nissan platforms. In fact, they won't even release a tune for the CVT Altima because Nissan is telling them not to. Does anyone know where BD is getting their Altima tune(s)? To me it looks like they're just kind of making things up as they go along, or taking a tune from a different vehicle and tweaking it.

In conclusion I would warn anyone who wants to keep their car for a while to wait and see a little more. And to anyone already running the tune, I would take a close look at all your OBD2 parameters (cat temp in particular) to make sure that you're not cooking your engines.

i agree with you in all but the expectation to tune all the cars on release date simply because there are so many different engine ecu's that for them to have released a product to tune them all they would have had to have a least thirty different altimas from the same year. that why TS asks for your ecu i dont know but i rather have this inconvenience and be able to return my car to stock and have all those cool little gauges.

i havent seen any one have high coolant temps which i think would be a good indicator of a "cooked" engine

and lastly a question when you let go of the gas dont all cars lean out until they return ilde?this wasnt personal just discussing oops i just reworded the previous

zerep im glad to see you like the tuner so far!!

now we need someone to get a custom tune for there set up and see what bullydog could do by distributing that tune to us lol

actually i do have the file on my desktop email me ill send it to you [email protected]

email sent lol

[QUOTE=Zerep i havent seen any one have high coolant temps which i think would be a good indicator of a "cooked" engine

and lastly a question when you let go of the gas dont all cars lean out until they return ilde?[/QUOTE]

Yes my coolant stays around 188 to 192. If im sitting in traffic for a long time though it does go up, but that is natural. Ive never seen it go over 205.

My intake temp stays around 98 to 100. But i was stopped reading a map on my iphone and i saw my intake temp go to 124. But the coolant still held its go.

Yes that is when my car leans out when i let off the gas. But i dont think it goes as high as 30. im thinkin more like 18 to 20.

*thread jack*

Engine Ice - any comments? they say a cooler engine makes more power?

well its tuned and i can definitely feel it, my gf says the cvt manual mode kicks harder but on my teststrip near my house i usually hit 70 before i need to slow down i was doing about 80ish when started applying the brakes im satisfied no they just need to come out with i/h/e tuned and were set lol

Zerep wrote: i havent seen any one have high coolant temps which i think would be a good indicator of a "cooked" engine

and lastly a question when you let go of the gas dont all cars lean out until they return ilde?this wasnt personal just discussing oops i just reworded the previous

Coolant temp will react to changes in cylinder temp slower than exhaust temp. (The engine coolant system is a large thermal reservoir so it doesn't heat up/cool down as quickly as the cylinders and exhaust stream.) I would still get baseline numbers for all temperature indications and compare them across the stock and BD tunes to see if anything jumps out. Ideally the end user wouldn't have to do this sort of testing, but that's where we are.

Not sure about the A/F ratios on throttle down - I could see that the throttle body can't shut off air flow as quickly as the injectors can kill the fuel, but this condition shouldn't last more than half a second or so.

1125Altima3.5 wrote:(But hearing about A/F ratios in the 30 range is not really boosting my confidence.)

This was my mistake. To get your A/F ratio as commonly understood you should be using sensor A - it's 12.5 and leans out at 18.6.

1125Altima3.5 wrote:Technosquare and Bullydog both provide ECU tuning, but that's where the similarity ends. TS has a dyno, close relationships with Nissan, and lots of experience doing live tuning of Nissan platforms. In fact, they won't even release a tune for the CVT Altima because Nissan is telling them not to.

Oh happy day. Nissan turns the traction control / CVT module into an overprotective nanny while MazdaSpeed traction control allows significant wheel spin. Funny now Nissan badges these cars as "Sports Edition". How about parting with $30,000 on advertised expectations, huh?

1125Altima3.5 wrote:In conclusion I would warn anyone who wants to keep their car for a while to wait and see a little more. And to anyone already running the tune, I would take a close look at all your OBD2 parameters (cat temp in particular) to make sure that you're not cooking your engines.

Do you have an idea of what a safe cat temp range is (what limit should we be staying away from)?

grv575 wrote:Oh happy day. Nissan turns the traction control / CVT module into an overprotective nanny while MazdaSpeed traction control allows significant wheel spin. Funny now Nissan badges these cars as "Sports Edition". How about parting with $30,000 on advertised expectations, huh?

Do you have an idea of what a safe cat temp range is (what limit should we be staying away from)?

You're only interested in cat temperature because it provides an indirect indication of peak cylinder temperature. No idea what the dangerous cat temperatures would be: the best you can do is monitor the difference between the stock and premium tunes and guess how much is acceptable. A few degrees would probably fine - any more than that and it's anyone's guess how long your engine internals will last. You could use numbers from a turbo'd engine as an upper limit (but it's still guesswork).

It doesn't seem to me that CVTs and performance mix well. I've had the tranny replaced once already due to abnormal internal CVT noises and those noises came back after ~1000 miles on the new tranny. I don't even autocross or track my car - I'm just a spirited driver and the CVT is still choking on the VQ's power.

1125Altima3.5 wrote:It doesn't seem to me that CVTs and performance mix well. I've had the tranny replaced once already due to abnormal internal CVT noises and those noises came back after ~1000 miles on the new tranny. I don't even autocross or track my car - I'm just a spirited driver and the CVT is still choking on the VQ's power.

Not to sidetrack the thread, but did they replace the timing chain as well as the tensioner? There's a technical bulletin (NTB07-042a) but it only describes replacing the tensioner. The issue is not the tensioner material used so much as the original timing chains had too much teeth to them and the replacements ones do not and don't wear down the tensioner till it's metal on metal.

Maybe not the same issue if they replaced the CVT. But it does sound like a whining noise as you rev the engine.

kanejuice wrote:actually i do have the file on my desktop email me ill send it to you [email protected]

IF EVERYONE THAT GETS AN UPDATE FROM A TECH AT BD COULD UPLOAD THE LATEST FIRMWARE TO http://WWW.MEDIAFIRE.COMit would be GREATLY appreciated!

Currently the latest one that I know of is 40410_NISSAN_v1104http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?kd3difajxuo

to check your current firmware version check the settings part in the tuner:

(on that pic it's version 1103)

grv575 wrote:
Not to sidetrack the thread, but did they replace the timing chain as well as the tensioner? There's a technical bulletin (NTB07-042a) but it only describes replacing the tensioner. The issue is not the tensioner material used so much as the original timing chains had too much teeth to them and the replacements ones do not and don't wear down the tensioner till it's metal on metal.

Maybe not the same issue if they replaced the CVT. But it does sound like a whining noise as you rev the engine.

Actually I got that timing chain whine too, but only at high RPM (>5k) on a hot day. I haven't even bothered bringing it up because I know the dealer response will be "could not duplicate".

But the CVT noise is a rattling noise at slow speeds when in "D and off the throttle. Happened in the Rogues and the Muranos too, which both use variants of the Altima CVT.

Hi,

Just talked to the support and asked them for the latest update for Nissan

so here you gohttp://www.mediafire.com/?shar...c68bc

Still no support for my part# though

11.04a is the latest update

unknow wrote:11.04a is the latest update

should i even bother downloading and installing this new update?

i have the previous one and everything works for me.

unknow when you updated your tuner:

when you go to show settings, does the SV# supposed to say 1104a or is it going to stay at 1104 because i just downloaded your file and it stayed at 1104

@dldjros69 : No need since this update only for supporting more part# so you won't gain anything from it.

@crayzitalian3: Yes it doesn't show (a) only 1104.

well i went to work today with the tune offand since i had time to sleep over it i really didnt notice a differencewhen i left work i reinstalled the tune and man does it make a difference trying this is how the car should have felt like from the factory i was like "so this is what 175hp feels like" any ways im extremely pleased i just would like them to come out with I/H/E tune cause that would be sick

Zerep wrote:i agree with you in all but the expectation to tune all the cars on release date simply because there are so many different engine ecu's that for them to have released a product to tune them all they would have had to have a least thirty different altimas from the same year. that why TS asks for your ecu i dont know but i rather have this inconvenience and be able to return my car to stock and have all those cool little gauges.

ZEREP,

How do you come up with “they would have had to have at least thirty different altimas from the same year”

I checked with Courtesy Nissan, 800-527-1909

http://www.courtesyparts.com/kb_search_ ... _6253_6257

I found out that to cover Altima model years 2007, 2008, and 2009 both the 2.5 and the 3.5, there are a total of 11 different Electronic Control Modules listed in the Nissan part book. The ECM is also known as Control Unit-EFI.

The breakdown is as follows:

2.5 4 listed for CA emissions cars2.5 4 listed for 49 State emissions3.5 3 listed for all 50 state emissions

Something interesting is that on the 3.5, they list a separate ECM for the SE CVT, the SL CVT, and the MT .

So, in order for a company to claim that their product works on Nissan Altima 2007, 2008, and 2009 model years, they would need to make sure it works by testing it on 11 different Altimas, if they wanted to work correctly with out problems.

For all I know, it might be Bully Dog policy to have the customer update the tuner by contacting them. They might send out a universal fit model, I just don't know.

Well I just checked the latest update and it worked for my car!!! Although the tech support said it's still not ready for my car!!

Anyway I will post my 0-60 mph and 1/4 stock vs tuned (using bullydog performance test) later.

Thank you Throck. That was a rectal pluck if I ever saw one...ugh. I am interested in this product, as they work well on trucks...well all trucks but nissans....ugh

yeah so what your saying is only 4 ecu'ssince you like researching so much why has there been more then 4 ecu codes just asking your tone is very agressive calm the down by the looks of it they got it to work on most 2.5 and 3.5while working on the ones that dont work