Tomei Poncams, Nistune, and other help

[sjbsuperman1425]

Well it has been yet another few months since I've been on. Just bought a house with my own garage and have been moving in and dealer with the sub-zero temperatures of the mitten state. Now I come to you guys for some help before I bring my baby home and start turning the wrenches!

I'm putting in Tomei Poncams. Should I run any oil additives for break-in on the cams? Do you guys have any good assembly grease/lube you guys have used in the past? Also, does anyone replace the caps on the lifters or no? Just clearing up some things I've heard from around the block around here.

I will also be putting in a Nissan Maxima Alternator to help solve my charging issues I've had. The old stock alternator just isn't cutting it anymore..I bought the OEM connector for the Maxima alternator but the wiring is quite a bit smaller than the stock alternator wiring. Has anyone run into this or does anyone have an example from what they did?

The last is NIStune. I have Deatschwerks 550cc injectors and an ISIS 300zx MAF I will be installing to bump up the boost a bit. From what I could gather what I will be doing is sending my ECU out and once I get it back, it will start up and go. I plan to do that BEFORE installing the MAF and injectors. After I know it runs and operates like normal (HERE COMES THE QUESTION), does it matter which I change first, injectors or MAF..or does it not matter? I thought I read somewhere doing one or the other first or vice versa will throw off the K value and making tuning more difficult. Really looking for the NIStune guys to help me out here.

I think that's really it. Thanks in advance for all the advice and insight!

Zak

[Izento]

When I put my Poncams in, I just dumped regular synthetic oil over them. I didn't do anything special like replacing caps or anything, I just used all my old stock parts.

[float_6969]

Just make sure the cams are well lubricated before you install them. These are hydro cams, so there's no special break in procedure. I can't help with the Nistune.

[sjbsuperman1425]

thank you sirs. That was my big concern was with the cams. I did by some lucas oil stuff (don't remember what it was) that I will probably use but that's probably about it.

[Buddyworm]

The order in which you tune for MAf and Injectors doesn't really matter. What matters is your K value in relation to the TP (Load) scale after changes for injectors and MAF have been made. The common wisdom is that a K value as close to stock as possible after tuning for MAF and injectors makes tuning your TP scale easier, as the changes you need to make don't have to be as big.

For reference: TP = K * (MAF airflow Reading / RPM)

Which means, for a given RPM and airflow, different K and MAF settings are going to change calculated TP for that same RPM and airflow. You therefore have make sure your TP scale is set up so that, for any given RPM and airflow condition the engine sees, the ECU is referencing the appropriate cells of the fuel map to properly fuel the engine.

Remember, an engine can only pump a finite amount of air, depending on revs, throttle position, yadda yadda. You are trying to optimise the injection time in order to hit a specific AFR given a rate of airflow.

Hopefully that made sense! More info can be found here in the first couple slides: http://www.nistune.com/docs/Workshop%20 ... %20Web.pdf

[sjbsuperman1425]

So in reality, it would be ideal for me to change my injectors and MAF at the same time then correct? I plan on leaving it stock until I make sure it runs good with the cams and put the MAF and injectors in afterwards. Then I change them, I would use the "RESIZE INJECTOR/RESIZE MAF" option in NIStune. Then it says to adjust the K constant, you unplug the O2 sensor and basically shoot for 14.7 AFR. Do you do that on cold start or after warm up?

This is what I was reading to get it close --> "In reality you can often tell when you've got K close to the mark by the general behavior of the engine
around idle and light load. If it’s running well in these areas then you’re probably not far off the mark"

Do I have it about right..?
Thanks Buddyworm

^^

[Izento]

Yeah, I would do injectors and maf at once. I mean, I'm running Power FC, but the same principle applies.

[Buddyworm]

So in reality, it would be ideal for me to change my injectors and MAF at the same time then correct? I plan on leaving it stock until I make sure it runs good with the cams and put the MAF and injectors in afterwards. Then I change them, I would use the "RESIZE INJECTOR/RESIZE MAF" option in NIStune. Then it says to adjust the K constant, you unplug the O2 sensor and basically shoot for 14.7 AFR. Do you do that on cold start or after warm up?

This is what I was reading to get it close --> "In reality you can often tell when you've got K close to the mark by the general behavior of the engine
around idle and light load. If it’s running well in these areas then you’re probably not far off the mark"

Do I have it about right..?
Thanks Buddyworm

^^

Yes, it sounds like you've got the right idea. I like your approach of having it running first and THEN changing the cams/maf/injectors. It's difficult to diagnose starting/running issues on a build that's never even idled before.

The Resize Injectors and Change MAF features in Nistune work very well. They will put you in the ballpark for dialing in your K after the changes have been made.

Only thing I would do different is unplugging the O2 sensor. When you do this the ECU treats this as a hardware fault and will trim the fuel richer as a safety measure, this can throw your mixtures off once you're done and it's plugged back in. On the CA18 I prefer to take my Fuel Map and zero it out in order to tweak my K constant. To do this switch your table to RAW view, highlight any cell within your fuel map and then hit CTRL+A (select all) followed by CTRL+X (cut). Your fuel map will then be all zeroes.

The reason you do this is because the Nissan ECU treats a 0 as a 14.7 AFR target. (After zeroing the table in RAW view, switch it to Estimated A/F ratio and you'll see what I mean.) Hit knock copy to copy to the knock maps. (On a CA both Main and Knock fuel maps need to be the same when tuned.) The ECU will now be fueling for 14.7 AFR under all conditions.

Cruise around under light load like this and dial your K in so you cruise and idle around 14.7. Once you're satisfied flip your fuel maps back to RAW view, click the top leftmost cell of the fuel map and hit CTRL+V to paste the fuel map values you cut back into the table.


A note on your TP scale:
Imagine for a second that in 4th gear cruise at 3500rpm the ECU is accessing the fifth (5th) column from the left of your fuel map. AFTER you've tuned for injectors and MAF you want the ECU to access that SAME column when you're crusing in 4th at 3500rpm even though the TP value for that column will likely be different.

[sjbsuperman1425]

a lot of good useful info buddyworm thank you.

Now, can't I "save" a bin file with the stock tune so if i say cannot get it to run and reverted back to stock MAF and injectors, I could just load that tune and be back to normal? I think if i recall right, you can tune for hours but if I never hit the "BURN" button (can't remember exact name) it wont save the bin file to the ECU. Therefore say I were to do something and need to reset it, I can just turn the car off for 15 seconds and it will restart on the settings it was at BEFORE tuning. (i think that makes sense)..

Definitely will be digging into the NIStune site and reading all their info as well.

[Buddyworm]

Correct, the Nistune board wont permanently store the rom image unless you hit "burn".

What I do is save each working iteration of the tune as I make major changes. That way I can always revert back to my most recent working ROM if I need to. Also very handy if you manage to c*** something up and need to go back and compare old images to find exactly where/when you went wrong.

[sjbsuperman1425]

Buddyworm,

I've just kind of read the basic's on the NIStune site for getting the K value squared away. Completely understand that and I thank you very much.
Once I change the injectors and MAF and get the K value set, all i would really need to do from there is make logging runs and adjust to target AFR's from there right?

[sjbsuperman1425]

Alright guys,
I've installed the stock cams before (snapped one being dumb..) and have one question with the Poncams.
For those who did it, did you just follow the FSM on installation and everything? With the duration and lift is there any special way you really need to put them in? I mean from the specs its basically an exhaust cam swap with more duration on both sides. I shouldn't have to worry about clearance between the valves and pistons at TDC when torqueing the cams down correct? Just follow the FSM torqueing procedure and do them slowing in 3 increments (ie: inside caps to outside caps)

[leadpaw]

Installed my Poncams as per nissan service manual along with a slathering of synthetic oil. 10,000 miles later still working great. There shouldnt be any difference in installation, they have the same lift stock cams. I just made sure it went down straight and even as I tightened.

[Izento]

Yeah, I didn't install them anyway special, I just followed torque sequence, like super overly cautious. I also placed the cams in with the lobes in the same place as the stock ones came out. I don't know if it even matters for that part, but I wanted to make sure.

[sjbsuperman1425]

That's what I was more concerned about was the lobe placement in the head. I figured since the lift is basically stock exhaust cam lift it shouldn't be to different.

[Izento]

Let us know about your experience of your car after the install. I would like to hear your testament to these cams.

[sjbsuperman1425]

You installed these cams as well correct? What is your opinion on them?

[Izento]

The cams really wake up the mid range torque and carry over to redline. You should notice the difference is significant, but with that thought, you need to consider how much time/money into the cams and determine if it was "worth it". For me, it definitely was.

[sjbsuperman1425]

if it wakes it up at all, it's worth it to me lol the cam sensor teeth were chewed and destroyed on my stock one so it was just one of those "well I mind as well buy them" kind of things for me.

[sjbsuperman1425]

For the NIStune guys,

I'm waiting for it to warm up a bit before I head to the garage and try to just connect nistune but I want to make sure my thinking is clear on the following:

Sync to ECU (Upload) - This will take whatever changes you have done to the current map and put it in the ECU but if connection or power is lost, the ECU will have the same ROM image after you cycle the key since you didn't "BURN" the image.

Sync to ECU (Download) - Pulls the maps, constants, etc. from the ECU and puts it into NIStune.

[sjbsuperman1425]

Okay well this is where I am at. I put some Lucas Assembly lube over all the cam journals (where the caps bolt the cam into the head). Everything went in great.

My friends around here are telling me to run Zinc additive to the oil. I'm running 10w-40 Castrol GTX oil right now and have been since I got the engine running. Do I need to add that Zinc additive? Does anyone else? Is it recommended to run synthetic oil with the cams? I can't find anything on Tomei's site or in the books included with the cams. I just want to do it right because I don't want to do it twice and don't want to wait another 6 weeks before I can drive my car.

Thanks for the help!

[float_6969]

Dude, they're PONcams. Just drive the damn thing already! LOL. Seriously though, These aren't that much of a change from stock cams, so don't worry about break-in or anything. The cams and lifters are hardened steel. There really isn't any break-in.

[sjbsuperman1425]

Thats what I needed to hear. Not a lot of info on them about that on the web so I wanted to ask and for future users to search. Thanks Ryan!

[float_6969]