!@#$ horay ( tentatively)

Member by the name of Ralphn ( Dan) a couple of years ago sugested - in a response to yet another whinge from me about the woeful performance of my D40 - I should clean up the earth contacts, the ecu and the one under the airbox. For some reason I did'nt get around to it till today.

Well dickhead me.

Could have saved myself a couple years of heartache and bitchin.

Its really running beautifully and has all day.

It has run like this before but never consistently.

My only contrary thought tho is that in pulling off the earth strap that presumably would have cut power the the ecu thus resetting it so it may well be the effects of a reset I am experiencing.

Time will tell. For nowI remain cautiously ecstatic

Sounds interesting. I wonder if that's something more of us can do.

My own engine bay has muddy water marks all over it - we've taken her swimming - and she's nearing 100,000km now (about 97,500km on the clock). I might take a look over these areas as well, but I'll put a cable on to maintain power to the ECU.

Yeah the termination loop is bolted straight on to the paintwork and the bolt itself seemed to have a coating of some sort on it.
I'm curious why you would'nt want a reset Old.Tony.
I'm considering diverting the ecu earth into the cab via a toggle switch so I can reset daily

Why would you want to reset every day? If the ECU does truly learn from our habits then you would be better off allowing it to do it's job and learn to drive the way you think is beneficial than reset to what most people refer to as a "factory default" every day.

I have my doubts about the benefits of a "factory reset" and the reliance some have on it as a cure all but I neither have the time or inclination to further my required reading on the issue and therefore haven't got any hard evidence to back up my doubts.

Jardsoooo said:

I'm curious why you would'nt want a reset Old.Tony.
I'm considering diverting the ecu earth into the cab via a toggle switch so I can reset daily

Click to expand...

????????


If this was a good thing...the ECU would do it religiously

Well Krafty 1. I happen to drive like a Grandma a lot of the time as I wish to save fuel , tyres and brake pads and rotors and gen wear and tear but when I want power I want power. Presumably if I drive conservatively the ecu will limit fuel accordingly whenI actually want to get up an go. If not what is the point of the learning

2. I really dont need the nannying. I suspect it is more to do with compliance than any benefit for the driver. I dont need traction control either( no I dont have it but making a point ). I dont need the aircon to come on just because I change the direction in which I want the air to flow through the vent system. Ditto the minimum 3 x indicator flashes. If I want 3 flashes I can hold it on for that long. Having moaned about all that however I do like ABS.
And as for if it were a good thing the ecu would do it regularly I admire but dont share your faith that all engineering design benefits the end user

Oh it's about nannying. Well then logic goes out the window along with common sense and placebo effects come into play.

Resetting an ECU daily probably wont hurt it but suggesting it's going to have advantages in two different areas you mention are extremely unlikely.

Ok Krafty so you are making the point that it is an emotional response and fair enough but my point holds that if you drive conservatively the majority of the time and ecu learning is for real then the logical outcome has to be that the vehicle is effectively detuned. So again logicly when you want to access the potential power it is not there to be utilised.

Also Krafty I am coming from the point of view of a bloke who has had a vehicle that has been all over the shop performance wise and now - miraculously - it is performing brilliantly. And actually this is an emotional issue. Being teased with a good 30 mins here and there, to bogging down on take off to the point one day of stalling it three times running to everything inbetween. To have this constantly playing in my head, being told by the dealer " nah it's running fine mate - no error codes" and nobody really taking it or me seriously.
It is running well now due to one of two things: An earth issue or the possible inadvertant ecu reset that may have occured when I removed the earth lead. I am hoping it is the earth but if not it has to be the reset there-fore: I do not want to go back to how it was thus the reset looms large as the solution to 2.5 years of anger and frustration thus I consider ways to utilise and access the reset easily.
AND I bought the ute based on the vehicle allowance I was recieving from the job I was subsequently made redundant from ; my income is now much less than it was and the ute payments etc are making life quite tricky - like struggling to pay my child support. Like knowing that the loan payout figure is more than the thing is worth so I cant sell it cos then I have nothing and a debt.
So: stuck with a vehicle that was giving me grief and having to cough up $900 a month to boot. and the costs are no longer deductable
So: if I have to reset the bloody thing on a daily basis to keep its performance I certainly will.
I;m not a Navara expert, I can only operate with what I know and experience and what I can pick up from forums such as this. And might I say re the forum I am grateful for its existence and folk that run it.
Where else could I rant like this. And get a response. And learn shit. All good

There is very little evidence to suggest resetting it daily will do that for you though. If you are resetting it back to a "factory setting" you are resetting it to a setting the factory deems as the best for all round performance.

What if that shitty earth was effectively resetting the ecu or part thereof and in cleaning it up you've allowed the ECU to work as it's suppose to. Daily resetting in this instance could make things worse.

To say the ECU is able to learn from a drivers habits is only part of the story and resetting it to forget those driver habits is also one part of that story, as to how many other parts there are I'm yet to find a definitive answer but as Krankin has said, if ECU resetting was such a good thing they'd be doing it electronically.

Which could lead to another question, how do we know it's not done every time we turn the key, or every fourth time, or maybe even every time the tank is filled?

I don't need to reset my ECU religiously, mostly because I'm not overtly religious and secondly the only reason for resetting it is to force it back to factory default so that it unlearns the bad habits I might have taught it - and generally I try not to!

If you find that it helps, go ahead and reset it. It doesn't hurt. It'll be interesting to see if it does change anything.

"is also one part of that story, as to how many other parts there are I'm yet to find a definitive answer "

Point well made Krafty. Most of us are enquiring individuals and that is why this and other forums are so important as they do allow the picking of individual brains and the gathering of that info in one place and the parts start to fall into place

The problem is sourcing fact from fiction. We know the ECU can be reset, we know it can be reset several ways and we know the thing is capable of learning but beyond that facts are quite scarce, there are plenty of stories but not so many definitive facts.

and....unlike a "chip" the ECU doesnt come with 5 or so user switched settings.
How uch the ECU "learns" is unkown to most, and I very much doubt it strays far from the factory set mapping, especially in terms of hi or lo perf just cause the driver is a granny or a hoon.

the only thing i'm aware of that the ecu learns/stores is the fuel pressure data.
can't remember if disconnecting the power deletes it or not.
not a good idea to delete it all the time. ecu needs to know the characteristics of the fuel pump.

I'm going to get in touch with Nissan this week see if I can get to chat to somebody technical. Bout time this got sorted

Good luck with that. One I'm not sure they will be prepared to give away much info but two you're going to ask for someone technical at Nissan. You'll probably end up with the guy who refills the coke machine.

Jardsoooo said:

I'm going to get in touch with Nissan this week see if I can get to chat to somebody technical.

Click to expand...

I used to reprogram the GM808 ECU along with a couple of mates in a company called Precision Injection. In short we used to write custom programs for the generic GM computer.
The base parameters we used to set up were basically a max and min point for the fuel curves timing etc.From memory I think we could set up near 1000 pointers or parameters depending on what the client wanted
The "Learning" part of the deal was the ECU would "average" out the figures from your driving.So in short if you drove it like you stole it then it would normally go to the richer side of the settings and then lean back as it adjusted to its running data. If on the other hand you drove like your granny then it would start lean and adjust to rich as required.
By doign a reset your telling the ECU to load its default settings so it starts off in the middle not lean and not rich and from there just learns as you drive.

Dont forget then there is open loop and closed loop.Never could remember which was which but one way is it runs off ECU parameters only when the engine is cold (closed loop I think) and then once the engines reaches operating temps it goes by the readings from the O2 sensors etc ( open loop I think)

Only advantage to resetting the ECU is when you change one of the parameters.Different fuel or a clean air filter or something else that could have a direct effect on the running of the engine.I reset mine every time I clean the K&N air filter as its a parameter that will directly effect the running habits.

If there was any advantage what so ever to resetting the ECU every time you drove then you would run it from the ignition circuit so it powers up when you turn the key

There are earthing kits all over Evilbay for fixing so called weak earthing from the factory. Its basically just high quality cable with lugs on it to make sure the body ,chassis and engine are all earthed well .
Many claim performance gains from it , this I think is just a crock however if your vehicle has bad earthing then repairing the earths with good cable will fix up some issues

The book does suggest an ECU reset whenever you replace the fuel filter, which when you consider just about any discussion about what they do and don't learn nearly always comes back to something to do with fuel is probably quite reasonable.

Aussie Frontier said:

I used to reprogram the GM808 ECU along with a couple of mates in a company called Precision Injection. In short we used to write custom programs for the generic GM computer.
The base parameters we used to set up were basically a max and min point for the fuel curves timing etc.From memory I think we could set up near 1000 pointers or parameters depending on what the client wanted
The "Learning" part of the deal was the ECU would "average" out the figures from your driving.So in short if you drove it like you stole it then it would normally go to the richer side of the settings and then lean back as it adjusted to its running data. If on the other hand you drove like your granny then it would start lean and adjust to rich as required.
By doign a reset your telling the ECU to load its default settings so it starts off in the middle not lean and not rich and from there just learns as you drive.

Dont forget then there is open loop and closed loop.Never could remember which was which but one way is it runs off ECU parameters only when the engine is cold (closed loop I think) and then once the engines reaches operating temps it goes by the readings from the O2 sensors etc ( open loop I think)

Only advantage to resetting the ECU is when you change one of the parameters.Different fuel or a clean air filter or something else that could have a direct effect on the running of the engine.I reset mine every time I clean the K&N air filter as its a parameter that will directly effect the running habits.

If there was any advantage what so ever to resetting the ECU every time you drove then you would run it from the ignition circuit so it powers up when you turn the key

There are earthing kits all over Evilbay for fixing so called weak earthing from the factory. Its basically just high quality cable with lugs on it to make sure the body ,chassis and engine are all earthed well .
Many claim performance gains from it , this I think is just a crock however if your vehicle has bad earthing then repairing the earths with good cable will fix up some issues

Click to expand...

open loop is running from a "set ecu map" whereas closed loop is using o2 sensors. that is mostly for petrol engines though, although some of the newer high tech turbo diesels are using o2 sensors so they may use similar programming.

as for the bad earths, gu patrols seem to have a lot of issues with body to chassis earths causing all sorts of issues and fitting new or additional earth straps fixes a lot of their issues.

as for resetting the ecu every time you drive the car, i won't say any more than what has already been said. the main reason they suggest doing a reset after changing the fuel filter is as the filter blocks up from catching crap the fuel pressure will drop. i don't know how the ecu's are set up in these but if they raise the fuel pressure to maintain a set range, then you stick a new fuel filter on the fuel pressure may be too high and end up damaging something.

on the other hand, if the ecu doesn't increase fuel pressure and you stick a new filter on it may trigger limp mode because the fuel pressure is higher than what it was used to seeing, indicating there may be a leak. obviously resetting it tells it the factory set fuel pressure which is what it will be with a new filter.

in saying all that, if you reset it every time you drive and it never gets time to adjust as the engine wears in / out, you will probably have shithouse fuel usage too as the computer will always be running in the "base map" instead of adapting to the way you drive...