Eugene Turkov is an amazing tuner that I have had the utmost pleasure working with on tuning my whipple super charged Nissan 370Z. With his help, I was able to get my car sponsored by ECUTEK and be the first whipple 370Z to be tuned on ECUTEK using speed density. This is a tuning challenge that isn’t for the faint of heart but Eugene has made it a breeze. Using algorithm based tuning to include creating airflow models has been impressive to say the least. He has also educated me and help me understand everything that he was doing to my car/tune throughout the entire process. He created custom coding to provide added safety measures to help protect my engine which has saved my motor twice. The first being when my heat exchanger pump stopped running and the second when my high flow catalytic converter failed. He was able to diagnose major issues with the engine knock detection system as well as help resolved bugs within the ECUTEK software. All of his tuning has been remote as his shop is in California and I live in Maryland. Eugene is a trusted master tuner that will not steer you wrong.
As seen in videos on my YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...wDXVWtuu1vPDOb the car starts up without any issues and idles smooth even from cold starts. My Z runs smooth which can also be seen in videos. As for power, the videos I have posted does not do any justice as the mph is read by gps so there is a delay but the car is making power even without timing thrown at the car yet. I will update this post as my tuning continues.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BtlnEfRn8RX/
Update: 2/14/19
This is a review of my experience to date, not a review of the finished product. As stated above, I will continue to update the post as I am able to make progress with the car. To summarize, I ran into several issues that brought me very close to having the engine fail.
1) ECUTEK knock detection wasn't working. I was getting zero ignition correction even though we could see the noise crossing the threshold. After some time Eugene figured out it was a bug in the software, and he has contacted ECUTEK to patch it in the next release. I'm not sure what the current fix is, but I'm sure he can chime in and provide any additional details if anyone wants to know more about the issue. He was able to work around the issue and get knock detection working.
2) Poor ground connection to supercharger water pump/heat exchanger pump. Caused my IAT to spike. When Eugene set up the tune he worked with Bobby to determine an appropriate temperature curve, anything outside the curve is set to trigger a fault code. I don't recall what that curve is set to, but it's based off worst case scenarios such as heat soaking on the dyno. The engine was protected due to the failsafe. Thanks to this fail safe it saved my motor when the heat exchanger ground came loose and stopped running/stopped cooling the air going into the motor.
3) Excessive back pressure. I had a local shop install my full Stillen exhaust system (headers, high flow cats, cat back). When I took my car to Hill’s Garage he noticed one of my bolts was missing before he tuned my car via UpRev. This was over 3 years ago and surprisingly my car ran amazing. When Eugene first started tuning my car he showed me that my short term fuel trim had excessive oscillation and the car strugged for proper fuel control. Not following his advice, I didn’t take the time to check for the exhaust leak as the leak was not causing any codes. Apparently the Stillen exhaust does not have any flex so over time a bolt from my headers to the high flow cats came out which was the cause for the exhaust leak. The leaks caused the ECU to assume the car was running lean, so the cats were processing extra fuel being dumped in by the ECU and over time they failed but it only became obvious when we started tuning the car. Boost would be excessively high and the car started to detonate/knock very easily even on very safe timing. Once I replaced the high flow cats with test pipes the issue was resolved.
"Why road tune first before dyno tuning?” I don't fully understand the complete details, but the general idea that I have is that the engine's volumetric efficiency model needs to be as accurate as possible before setting timing. Eugene is able to do it with some programs that he wrote that process very large log files. I've sent him log files as large as 50 MB and he is able to update the tune based on those files. If all goes as planned, the airflow modeling on the car will be dialed in when I go to dyno the car and all that will be left to do is adjust timing. Street tuning first also helps work out all the other possible problems the car might have which mine clearly did. Imagine all that wasted dyno time which equals wasted money.
Also, I still have the stock flexplate on the car which are known to fail in high torque applications. Before I replace that flexplate I don't want to push the limits of the car. My funds are limited right now as my family life comes first. I have the Fast Intentions Flex plate and RJM torque converter ready to be installed but I am saving up the funds for install. If you want my dyno numbers you can either wait or start a gofund me for the above install and dyno time (average shop price is $150 a hour for dyno).
If there is something you feel is being left out of the post, please ask what you would like to know and I will add those details. Nothing suspect about Bobby or RJM as he has helped the community and has made countless lasting built motors and other products. What details do you need about the issues I stated? As of now, my cars average temps even after hard driving around remains at around 30C. I have not had any heat issues since resolving the above problems. Anything else you would like to know?
Update 4/12/19
Attached is my first dyno from a cheap dyno day to see where my build is at. What is odd is street tuning I am seeing 11psi but on the dyno only 10psi which supposedly they did the final run under load but I don't believe it. This was a heart break dyno so numbers are realistically higher. Look at the instant torque and it's curve. I am currently set to have my flex plate and torque converter installed in two weeks. We have since adding a few more degrees of timing in some areas of my timing map, mainly on the higher end to correct the drop off you see in the graph.
