ECU retune,

[quent85]

Wondering if anyone can help me regarding the ECU retune am looking at getting it done, but looking at wether it's worth it or not, main reason is I'm towing a 20" full van at about 2.6 tonne with a 2010 d40 auto 2.5 and seem to be using about 3-4 litres per 100 more than everyone else with a similar set up, the only thing the car has is a 2" lift mud tires alloy bull bar and canopy other than that it's standard,

At the moment looking at the remap and DPF deletion with full exhaust but trying to work out figures to see if it's gonna be viable.

Any information would be great

 

[kernels]

Are the mud tires larger than stock ? That will muck up your Fuel Economy calculations.

 

[Old.Tony]

We used about 19LPHK with our 2.5T van when we took it away for its first trip. The terrain does greatly affect economy, every time we head up into the Great Divide she just guzzles juice, our last trip was up the coastal highway to Coopernook.

We still have the DPF in ours, too. I'm going to try some Liqui Moly per this thread and see how it goes (have to get back to the city first), hopefully it'll improve things a little, but compared to when she was new and pulling 1.8T (we took our van on a 4,000km trip within 2 months of purchasing the car) she's really still doing quite well (137,000km on the clock now). Mine is also standard (AT tyres, 255/70R16) with no chip, no intercooler upgrade, no change to turbo or anything else.

I intend (over time) to replace the radiator with a racing model that provides around 30% more efficient cooling, and separate the transmission cooler, but none of that will affect performance except for on hill climbs, although I expect that now my fluid coupling on the fan has been replaced, that will be much better too!

ECU remaps are a sore point. If Nissan get their hands on the car, they could reflash the factory program and your tune is gone. A chip like Unichip (reportedly, ChipIt are out of the game now that they're insolvent) would be the choice I'd take if I really needed more beans, but for economy I think I'm going to try another experiment (while towing).

I noticed that at 80km/h on level ground my car consumes 6.5-7 litres per hour. At 110km/h, it's consuming somewhere around 13.5-14LPH. We're taking the van away at Easter, and I'll try to keep my speed reduced and see how the economy goes.

 

[happy john]

Have a chat to direct dent repairs a member here he has done a reflash and got a good minor increase in grunt but fuel economy comes down to your right boot no chip or retune will give magic fuel figures like the manufacturers or resellers suggest.

 

[Algirdas]

I got significant MPG improvement on mine after blanking EGR and deleting DPF. Last needs ECU remap to tell it there's no DPF on car. Then since ECU is out of car, asked tuners to do sort of ecotuning, to which they answered "we'll do you standartd ecu-tuning and this will give you economy plus some kW - but depends how heavy your foot is". Last thing to do was decat.
After all I get 6,5 - 7 l/100 km on bitumen, around 8 l /100 km on gravel, goes up to 9 l/100 km after some city driving. This is what ECU returns, car empty, back not covered. Before was 11 -12 l /100 km.

 

[happy john]

I got significant MPG improvement on mine after blanking EGR and deleting DPF. Last needs ECU remap to tell it there's no DPF on car. Then since ECU is out of car, asked tuners to do sort of ecotuning, to which they answered "we'll do you standartd ecu-tuning and this will give you economy plus some kW - but depends how heavy your foot is". Last thing to do was decat.
After all I get 6,5 - 7 l/100 km on bitumen, around 8 l /100 km on gravel, goes up to 9 l/100 km after some city driving. This is what ECU returns, car empty, back not covered. Before was 11 -12 l /100 km.

6.5-7 on the tar you sure about that?sorry no way possible 2.5tonne of brick can do that.

 

[Old.Tony]

6.5-7 on the tar you sure about that?sorry no way possible 2.5tonne of brick can do that.

Ours is nearer to 3T and on level ground, at 80km/h, it uses 4.5-5.5 litres per hour. When towing the van, on the same stretch of ground at the same speed, it's using 7-8 litres per hour.

In terms of LPHK (converting those figures to allow for the fact that we weren't doing 100km/h) that's 5.6 to 6.9LPHK without towing, and 8.25-10LPHK while towing. Note that this is ONLY on flat ground. Of course it uses much more climbing - up to around 22-23 litres per hour at 2500rpm, but only around 15-17 litres per hour at 2000rpm, so I've been climbing at those RPM.

My car has an EGR block, but its intercooler will be gummed full of crud and it still has a DPF. I wonder what will happen under the same driving conditions with my car if I clean my intercooler and remove the DPF (and, of course, retune the ECU to remove the DPF function)?

 

[happy john]

I would love to hear of any member getting 6.5-7ltrs per 100kms in a d40 i call if near impossible.

 

[mike1303]

Mine is Always fully loaded and On my road tires, if im going down hill and play grandpa i can get it down to 9.something....

 

[Old.Tony]

Haven't done enough tankfuls to get a decent average yet, but it's looking very much like the aerodynamics of the Navara are almost as good as a brick with headlights, so the fuel consumption reduction by reducing speed is quite dramatic.

There is another factor involved. At 1500rpm maintaining speed it's using somewhere around 4.5-5.5 litres per hour. Each revolution of the engine results in two cylinders getting fuel and the higher the RPM the higher the fuel rail pressure and the more fuel squirted in, so reducing the RPM alone becomes a dramatic reducer in fuel consumption. That's part of the reason why the V9X is more economical - at "cruise" speed (around 100km/h) it's only doing 1700rpm versus the 4-cylinder's 2000rpm.

So it's a combination of reduced air resistance and lower RPM. After I've done this for a few tankfuls I'll give some more accurate feedback. The figures I'm relying on are the current litres per hour reported by the ECU. Oddly enough, maintaining 95km/h (2,000rpm) on flat ground while NOT towing it's using somewhere in the 9.5-11.5 litres per hour bracket. That's fairly close to what the car consumes measured by tank fills over a gentle(ish) highway cycle so I assume the instantaneous ECU "LPH" figure isn't too inaccurate. The ECU's litres per hundred kilometres (LPHK) calc does seem wrong, so I am not relying on that at all.