Nistune Forums

My name is Alberto new to the forum, but not to the tuning world.
We have tuned 3 previous nistune boards on ka24 and sr20 (s13/s14). These were cars that had the nistune boards running on their cars and all we had to do was map it on our dyno.

This time I was asked by a friend of ours in Panama to come down here and set up from scratch a tune on his type 3 board. He had the board soldered here in PMA, so we installed it today, cranked the car with it and it was running no issues. I tried to connect to the ECU via Consult and no luck at all. Read some threads here and no dice.

As the engine was ON the client turned ON the AC and it blew a fuse, we changed the fuse car started up again, but no connect. Reading more on this board we took out the ECU and checked it out and a resistor from it was fried.

So at the moment no Nistune tuning for us until we can guarantee that the consult cable connects and a proper ECU is fitted once again with the type3 board. I am wanting now to take the damaged ECU with the type3 board back to the USA to see if some distributor there can help me out with getting this back in order.

Thanks in advance, Alberto

Sounds like an installation problem

If the resistor is dying then its likely the 12V to 5V regulator is getting shorted, due to VCC and GND being soldered together. Also check soldering on the 40 pin connector, but usually short on these wont cause this issue

If this is happening then I would suggest double checking soldering on the ECU jumper where it switches from reading ECU ROM to Nistune board

These jumpers have VCC and GND right next to each other and I've been guilty of shorting these together on one of my ECUs before. It will kill the resistor and ECU stops working

Once that happens ECU runs limp and consult wont work either. Need to find another resistor firstly and get that going again. Type 3 board is probably fine

Matt wrote:Sounds like an installation problem

If the resistor is dying then its likely the 12V to 5V regulator is getting shorted, due to VCC and GND being soldered together. Also check soldering on the 40 pin connector, but usually short on these wont cause this issue

If this is happening then I would suggest double checking soldering on the ECU jumper where it switches from reading ECU ROM to Nistune board

These jumpers have VCC and GND right next to each other and I've been guilty of shorting these together on one of my ECUs before. It will kill the resistor and ECU stops working

Once that happens ECU runs limp and consult wont work either. Need to find another resistor firstly and get that going again. Type 3 board is probably fine

Awesome man thanks for the quick reply, I am going to take this stuff back with me(USA) and have my brother look at it since most of the time he is the one that solders all of our boards and the install of this stuff was done by some local guy here that I dont know and by looking at the results dont trust any more on them.

I will revisit this thread once we fix the issue and let you know if we have better luck next time.

Alberto

That is the car that we are currently messing with.
Let me put you a pic of the board and also I may have found what the issues is, check it out and confirm me on it.
The CJ2 jumper is not connected properly. Is this a correct assumption?



Here is also the ECU after the fuse blew and it fried a resistor. Damn the car was still running after this happened.



So I guess we are going to replace that resistor and do the jumper move to that cj2 and see if that remedies the issue with the consult.

Alberto

That jumper is fine.... not the problem

However that resistor pack (?) which is fried links to a different issue with the ECU. Thats related to coils or injectors at first glance. There is something else wrong here not related to the board or installation from what I can tell

Are there any haresss modifications or otherwise which would burn out that part of the ECU?

As Matt said, that is not a resistor that has burnt out, that is a driver circuit which is usually used to run the injectors or coils.

Interesting, so then how come we are able to crank the engine over with this driver burned out?

Engine cranking but is it starting? If it is partially then half the drivers are probably blown

As previously mentioned that looks like a fried driver IC to me, however I think it may be Injector drivers not IGN.

Have you by any chance changed the injectors in this car? If I recall correctly, the SR20 in the RNN14 uses High-impedance (10 - 14 ohm) injectors from factory, if you have swapped these out for Low-Impedance injectors (2 - 4 ohm) AND did not wire in a ballast resistor on the +12 supply chances are you've blown this driver due to current draw.

This would also explain why it ran for a short while before dying, as the Driver would have overheated & then blown not long after starting.

HTH,
Hayden

Thanks Hayden for the reply. This car is bone stock, all it had installed was a SAFC before. The injectors and the other components are OEM. At the moment we are looking to get another ECU to try to install the Nistune type3 board to it and try once again to connect to the vehicle's com port.

Okay back to this car for the mean time. I have a another GTiR at the shop here in LA.
this one is a 1994 with a ECU 23710 / 54C00 this car had a JWT chip in there and we desoldered it and installed the Nistune type3 board to it.
At the same time the owner of the white GTiR in the photos had a ECU sent over to us from the UK to have it socketed with the nistune that was on the ecu with the burned driver in the pic.

Okay so we put the ECU#1 (this is the one that we took the JWT chip out of it) in the car and initially would not connect to my laptop, but later it did when the engine is off but switch ON. The consult would detect and no issues there. Once the car is turned on with that ECU#1 the consult turns off says No Communication and connecting can not be restablished.

We tried the same thing with the ECU#2 (virgin ecu socketed with a type3) engine off and swtich ON we get connection, but once the car is ON and is idling both ECU lose conectivity to it.
I am on a Dell Latitude with XP os. This is solely my tuning computer.
The cable that I am using is a PLMS and the drivers for the consult cable were downloaded from that site and installed and the computer has installed them with no issues.

So I am stuck at the moment not being able to connect when the engine is ON. Any help please, thanks in advance.
Alberto

i don't know how much you, and who ever is with you, going to panama is getting paid to work on this car, but their is more than likely a problem in engine room/frunt harness not efi. Vcc more than likely. A jumped a/c pressure high/ low or other vcc circuit. i would belive if the A/c operation caused it, but you need a service manual otherwise you're wasting time on or not suppling enough information. That car i bet was chopped up or in an accident or poo installation. i will not reply sorry im no help.

that guy wrote:i don't know how much you, and who ever is with you, going to panama is getting paid to work on this car, but their is more than likely a problem in engine room/frunt harness not efi. Vcc more than likely. A jumped a/c pressure high/ low or other vcc circuit. i would belive if the A/c operation caused it, but you need a service manual otherwise you're wasting time on or not suppling enough information. That car i bet was chopped up or in an accident or poo installation. i will not reply sorry im no help.

At the moment that white Pulsar is running on a stock ECU and a SAFC at the moment, no issues. So you are saying that a harness issue could be the culprit of that capacitor getting fried on the original ECU right?

At the moment I am trying to address a issue with connectivity I am having on a Pulsar here at the shop with a good working ECU with nistune not being able to communicate or Consult stay running while the engine is ON. The connectivity drops on it and is only able to connect when the car is off and switch ON.

Check ground especially one on engine (on RWD SR I have problem with one between head and firewall) , I did have those problems also on engine swaps and yes different laptops have different results when connecting to cars with bad grounding, Toshiba do the best .

Thanks for the reply, a friend of mine sent me a pic of his two ground connections that are present on his car, but not in the one that I am having issues with.
Here is the picture of where he told me his is originally connected.

Could this be the issue that is plaguing this car at the moment? Now lets hope those wires are tucked away some where in there.