wstar's Journal

wstar · 04-24-2009, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RCZ

You cant rev the car past 5XXXrpm in neutral. You guys ever notice this? Might be a built in limiter to protect the engine.

Yeah I noticed this pretty early on. Clearly the car must be capable of being higher in neutral when driving though, or that would totally screw up some shifting scenarios. I haven't yet tried putting my 7AT in neutral at freeway speeds and seeing if the limit is still there. Those kinds of behaviors might be very different between 7AT and 6MT though.

semtex · 04-24-2009, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RCZ

You cant rev the car past 5XXXrpm in neutral. You guys ever notice this? Might be a built in limiter to protect the engine.

You can if you press the clutch in. I found this out when I was making one of the initial sound clips for my exhaust. And I seem to recall that it limited the revs to 4500, not 5000, if I didn't press the clutch in.

Edit: I just remembered that in addition to pressing the clutch in, I had to slip it into 1st gear in order to rev past 5k (or 4.5k or whatever it was). So technically you are correct, RCZ. You can't rev past 5k in N.

wstar · 04-25-2009, 02:56 PM

I tested the "revving in neutral" thing on the freeway last night. In neutral rolling at highway speeds, 7AT will rev well past the 5k mark (I didn't try to hit the 7.5 limiter though). So the 5k limit on 7AT must be triggered by being in park, or being at low/zero speed, one of the two.

wstar · 04-25-2009, 03:05 PM

Also, today I removed my spare and subwoofer (radio actually sounds ok without it, to me), and removed the XM and Voice/Bluetooth modules. I left all the carpeting and plastic in afterwards. No pics, sorry

My car is Touring w/o Nav, which is "Bose without Navigation" in the Service Manual. The removed peices are 7, 8, and 9 on this diagram:

The stock head unit responded fine to the changes. The voice buttons on the steering wheel and the SAT button on the radio now just do nothing, there are no wierd errors or anything.

I can slightly feel that the backend got relatively lighter from this, but it's not too bad, since my bag of tools and emergency equipment (which I had behind the passenger seat before) was pretty hefty and made up for some of the lost weight.

The spot I removed those units from looks like a great place for either battery relocation or to install a Magden performance computer. Although on the other hand, mounting them further to the rear (sub/spare) area will help with weight distribution more.

RCZ · 04-24-2009, 12:37 PM

You must be able to rev it past that once you get moving, otherwise the synchrorev match wouldn't work at high rpm, nor would heal-and-toeing. You would just get locked out at 5k. I think I've almost misshifted trying to go into 6th but hitting the gate of 4th before and i think i remember seeing the revs go up pretty high while being out of gear.

miguez · 04-25-2009, 08:16 PM

So the compartment (or rectangular whole, from what I can tell from the images) that these units came out of is basically the size and depth of a common battery, huh?

Also, I was unaware of Magden performance computers, so i looked them up. the website looks nice, but not much info, and it seems a lot of features are Coming soon. I am interested in something of this sort, and was looking at Cypher. Do you have any experience with Magdens? Sounds like you need to provide your own screen, they seem to transmit in a variety of signal protocols, so you could just use a random flatscreen, but I am interested in how the information is presented.

Thanks,

wstar · 04-26-2009, 12:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by miguez

So the compartment (or rectangular whole, from what I can tell from the images) that these units came out of is basically the size and depth of a common battery, huh?

It's not a comparment, it's more of a side-to-side channel through the car, just behind and below the big grey bar you see behind your seats. The Bose Amplifier is also mounted in this channel. Lots of stuff could be fit there, and if I get a Magden (or something similar) I may mount it there. A battery would fit fine too, but I really think I'll end up putting the battery further back just to help with balance.

Quote:

Also, I was unaware of Magden performance computers, so i looked them up. the website looks nice, but not much info, and it seems a lot of features are Coming soon. I am interested in something of this sort, and was looking at Cypher. Do you have any experience with Magdens? Sounds like you need to provide your own screen, they seem to transmit in a variety of signal protocols, so you could just use a random flatscreen, but I am interested in how the information is presented.

Thanks,

Are you talking about Cipher from UpRev? When they finally release their 370Z stuff, I'm planning to set up a laptop with Cipher+Osiris from them for tuning and detailed datalogging, BCM access, etc, etc. The Magden unit is more for use while driving, so I can keep a better eye on some of the ECU stats that we don't have (good) gauges for stock, and set limit alerts, etc. AFAIK the magden already works pretty well from what I've read on forums, etc. They're still releasing new software updates as they go though, to enable more features.

As for screens, Magden recommends and sells a 7" Lilliput touchscreen that works with their unit. For touch input, it needs to be USB (basically mouse/trackball/tablet emulation). What I'd really like to be able to figure out, is how to get a single touch screen with a decent GPS and the magden hooked up, both using the touch interface (switch between the two). Really, I could do that with the recommended Lilliput display and a VGA/USB switch, except I haven't found any decent headless GPS units that have USB touchscreen input... Someday I'll do some googling and get this sorted out.

travisjb · 04-26-2009, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wstar

...I haven't found any decent headless GPS units that have USB touchscreen input... Someday I'll do some googling and get this sorted out.

I had a pioneer avic that had touchscreen gps and it had a remote a/v (composite) input... but there's no way i know of to get the touchscreen signals sent remote to another unit.... i just don't see that as a likely consumer electronics solution - you're prob going to have to do something custom... or go with something like the avic and figure out another way to manage your inputs... e.g., remote mouse

wstar · 05-06-2009, 10:39 PM

Changed my oil to 300V this evening. I was able to do the change without lifting the car or using ramps, as predicted.

The only snag I ran into is that the magnetic drain plug I ordered had the wrong threads (too coarse, the stock drain plug has finer threads). I didn't end up ordering the Kics one semtex did, but I used the same thread specs when ordering from another place. Either those thread specs are wrong (someone else would have noticed by now I think) or they shipped me the wrong part. So the stock plug went back in for now with a new crush washer. I'm using a FilterMag on the filter anyways, so the magnetic plug isn't that big a deal.

I'm going to take the mag drain plug with the bad threads to Home Depot tomorrow and test it on some nuts there to verify what size they sent me, that should illuminate this issue.

The Nissan Ester Oil that was in the car is bottled up for Blackstone, we'll see what they say about it.

Various pics:

Supplies:

The view from above while the oil was draining:

Tried to get a shot of the clearance between the drain pan and the oil pan, but the lighting is pretty bad under there. This was shot while trying to hold a flashlight on it. This was a generic low-profile-looking round black drain pan I found at Wal-Mart, they probably stock the same ones nation-wide:

And this is a shot of the inner and outer surfaces of the FilterMag. It's got a bunch of Neodymium magnets set up in rows on a curved plastic surface. You just snap it onto the outside of your oil filter and leave there for the duration, and slide it off and move it to the new filter at each change. Later I'm going to cut open the filter I just took off (which was using the FilterMag) and see how much metal shavings were laying in there from the magnets:

wstar · 05-06-2009, 10:43 PM

Oh and back on the subject of Motul...

Yes, it smells great, you really do want to drink it. The metal cans are retarded. The outside is flimsy and they're completely filled with no real air inside (I guess to preserve the oil better). I made a mess opening and pouring the first one, but I learned quickly and the other cans went fine. Set it down on a flat level surface, don't squeeze the outside, and remove that inner plastic seal very slowly and carefully

When I test drove the car on the new oil, it really did feel like the engine was happier and smoother. Then again, given how small the effect could possibly be, and knowing what I know about human psychology, most likely that was all in my head as I prayed for some visible benefit from an oil that's priced like liquid gold.

miguez · 04-27-2009, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wstar

Are you talking about Cipher from UpRev? When they finally release their 370Z stuff, I'm planning to set up a laptop with Cipher+Osiris from them for tuning and detailed datalogging, BCM access, etc, etc. The Magden unit is more for use while driving, so I can keep a better eye on some of the ECU stats that we don't have (good) gauges for stock, and set limit alerts, etc. AFAIK the magden already works pretty well from what I've read on forums, etc. They're still releasing new software updates as they go though, to enable more features.

Yep, that's what i was talking about. I am considering having a small laptop permanently hooked to the car, maybe tucked in somewhere, with a remote screen mounted so that I could have the desired parameters a fingertip touch away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wstar

As for screens, Magden recommends and sells a 7" Lilliput touchscreen that works with their unit. For touch input, it needs to be USB (basically mouse/trackball/tablet emulation). What I'd really like to be able to figure out, is how to get a single touch screen with a decent GPS and the magden hooked up, both using the touch interface (switch between the two). Really, I could do that with the recommended Lilliput display and a VGA/USB switch, except I haven't found any decent headless GPS units that have USB touchscreen input... Someday I'll do some googling and get this sorted out.

You know, with a little code writing one could create their own interface to display GPS data. I was working on something similar a while back, using GPS and accelerometer data. It would be up to Magden to allow us to interface their data into our own graphics. Wouldn't that be cool? Totally something I am willing to explore if you're interested. If we do go that route, by the way, there are some amazing GPS receivers we could use, some that work off of reflective signals so they work even indoors. One I recall was tested inside a mall, and worked all the way through. Precision goes down, but still very acceptable. This same GPS worked very well when it's antenna was located underneath the driver's seat!

Anyways, sounds like an awesome project.

wstar · 04-27-2009, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by miguez

You know, with a little code writing one could create their own interface to display GPS data. I was working on something similar a while back, using GPS and accelerometer data. It would be up to Magden to allow us to interface their data into our own graphics. Wouldn't that be cool? Totally something I am willing to explore if you're interested. If we do go that route, by the way, there are some amazing GPS receivers we could use, some that work off of reflective signals so they work even indoors. One I recall was tested inside a mall, and worked all the way through. Precision goes down, but still very acceptable. This same GPS worked very well when it's antenna was located underneath the driver's seat!

Anyways, sounds like an awesome project.

Well, I happen to be a coder, too, but honestly it sounds like a lot of work, and I don't think Magden's box is very open to modding anyways.

If you want to go that route, it would probably be easier to install a generic Car-PC and use open GPS and OBD-II software with, as you said, a really good GPS receiver. However, I'm not sure if you'll find any generic open hardware interfaces to write software against for high-speed data acquisition that talks our Nissans' CAN protocol. The low-speed generic OBD-II updates are too slow for some gauges (like RPM warnings).

I'm really looking for something more turnkey this time around (well at least, more turnkey than writing my own software).

The more I think about it though, I rarely use GPS. I have a small Garmin Nuvi unit I occasionally stick on the window, I may just stay with whipping that out when necessary and just hook up the Magden unit to the LCD alone and avoid a lot of complexity.

miguez · 04-27-2009, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wstar

Well, I happen to be a coder, too, but honestly it sounds like a lot of work, and I don't think Magden's box is very open to modding anyways.

If you want to go that route, it would probably be easier to install a generic Car-PC and use open GPS and OBD-II software with, as you said, a really good GPS receiver. However, I'm not sure if you'll find any generic open hardware interfaces to write software against for high-speed data acquisition that talks our Nissans' CAN protocol. The low-speed generic OBD-II updates are too slow for some gauges (like RPM warnings).

I'm really looking for something more turnkey this time around (well at least, more turnkey than writing my own software).

The more I think about it though, I rarely use GPS. I have a small Garmin Nuvi unit I occasionally stick on the window, I may just stay with whipping that out when necessary and just hook up the Magden unit to the LCD alone and avoid a lot of complexity.

Yep, that last paragraph is definitely true, and the easiest solution. I know nothing of the Nissan CAN protocol or OBD-II, although I am sure the latter could be learned online. The former might be tricky.

That would be an awesome piece of hardware (with software) to have in the car, though, huh? A screen to tell you all kinds of parameters being read from the car, and to provide GPS data. Throw in a 3-axis accelerometer and you can do your own acceleration, braking, skid pad, speed traps, etc. testing, all in one. I imagine there might be a decent market for that.

Hmmm, off to look for Nissan's CAN protocol. The guys at UpRev figured it out, I wonder how. Do you have more info on it?

travisjb · 04-26-2009, 01:14 AM

If you mount stuff against that beam, I'd suggest installing it on the aft side of the beam... braking always produces the most g's... that's how I installed my battery

theDreamer · 04-28-2009, 10:31 AM

OMG, wstar it is horrible the past two days. If the wind was not so bad the rain would have been ok, but the wind just poured buckets onto my car as I drove home, glad I do not have my Z just yet.

What part of town are those pictures?

04-25-2009, 02:56 PM	#3 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3595	I tested the "revving in neutral" thing on the freeway last night. In neutral rolling at highway speeds, 7AT will rev well past the 5k mark (I didn't try to hit the 7.5 limiter though). So the 5k limit on 7AT must be triggered by being in park, or being at low/zero speed, one of the two. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

04-25-2009, 03:05 PM	#4 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3595	Also, today I removed my spare and subwoofer (radio actually sounds ok without it, to me), and removed the XM and Voice/Bluetooth modules. I left all the carpeting and plastic in afterwards. No pics, sorry My car is Touring w/o Nav, which is "Bose without Navigation" in the Service Manual. The removed peices are 7, 8, and 9 on this diagram: The stock head unit responded fine to the changes. The voice buttons on the steering wheel and the SAT button on the radio now just do nothing, there are no wierd errors or anything. I can slightly feel that the backend got relatively lighter from this, but it's not too bad, since my bag of tools and emergency equipment (which I had behind the passenger seat before) was pretty hefty and made up for some of the lost weight. The spot I removed those units from looks like a great place for either battery relocation or to install a Magden performance computer. Although on the other hand, mounting them further to the rear (sub/spare) area will help with weight distribution more. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

05-06-2009, 10:39 PM	#9 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3595	Changed my oil to 300V this evening. I was able to do the change without lifting the car or using ramps, as predicted. The only snag I ran into is that the magnetic drain plug I ordered had the wrong threads (too coarse, the stock drain plug has finer threads). I didn't end up ordering the Kics one semtex did, but I used the same thread specs when ordering from another place. Either those thread specs are wrong (someone else would have noticed by now I think) or they shipped me the wrong part. So the stock plug went back in for now with a new crush washer. I'm using a FilterMag on the filter anyways, so the magnetic plug isn't that big a deal. I'm going to take the mag drain plug with the bad threads to Home Depot tomorrow and test it on some nuts there to verify what size they sent me, that should illuminate this issue. The Nissan Ester Oil that was in the car is bottled up for Blackstone, we'll see what they say about it. Various pics: Supplies: The view from above while the oil was draining: Tried to get a shot of the clearance between the drain pan and the oil pan, but the lighting is pretty bad under there. This was shot while trying to hold a flashlight on it. This was a generic low-profile-looking round black drain pan I found at Wal-Mart, they probably stock the same ones nation-wide: And this is a shot of the inner and outer surfaces of the FilterMag. It's got a bunch of Neodymium magnets set up in rows on a curved plastic surface. You just snap it onto the outside of your oil filter and leave there for the duration, and slide it off and move it to the new filter at each change. Later I'm going to cut open the filter I just took off (which was using the FilterMag) and see how much metal shavings were laying in there from the magnets: __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

05-06-2009, 10:43 PM	#10 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3595	Oh and back on the subject of Motul... Yes, it smells great, you really do want to drink it. The metal cans are retarded. The outside is flimsy and they're completely filled with no real air inside (I guess to preserve the oil better). I made a mess opening and pouring the first one, but I learned quickly and the other cans went fine. Set it down on a flat level surface, don't squeeze the outside, and remove that inner plastic seal very slowly and carefully When I test drove the car on the new oil, it really did feel like the engine was happier and smoother. Then again, given how small the effect could possibly be, and knowing what I know about human psychology, most likely that was all in my head as I prayed for some visible benefit from an oil that's priced like liquid gold. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

04-28-2009, 10:31 AM	#15 (permalink)
theDreamer A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Texas Posts: 30,879 Drives: 370z Rep Power: 4211	OMG, wstar it is horrible the past two days. If the wind was not so bad the rain would have been ok, but the wind just poured buckets onto my car as I drove home, glad I do not have my Z just yet. What part of town are those pictures? __________________ theDreamer's Z // Fast Intentions // Uprev // GTM // HKS // TEIN theDreamer's Silvia // URAS // GREDDY Houston Zs // Facebook // Twitter // Instagram

04-24-2009, 12:37 PM	#5 (permalink)
RCZ A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Miami Posts: 6,403 Drives: '09 370Z Rep Power: 1119	You must be able to rev it past that once you get moving, otherwise the synchrorev match wouldn't work at high rpm, nor would heal-and-toeing. You would just get locked out at 5k. I think I've almost misshifted trying to go into 6th but hitting the gate of 4th before and i think i remember seeing the revs go up pretty high while being out of gear.

04-25-2009, 08:16 PM	#6 (permalink)
miguez Enthusiast Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Columbus, Ohio Posts: 359 Drives: '04 Cavalier Rep Power: 182	So the compartment (or rectangular whole, from what I can tell from the images) that these units came out of is basically the size and depth of a common battery, huh? Also, I was unaware of Magden performance computers, so i looked them up. the website looks nice, but not much info, and it seems a lot of features are Coming soon. I am interested in something of this sort, and was looking at Cypher. Do you have any experience with Magdens? Sounds like you need to provide your own screen, they seem to transmit in a variety of signal protocols, so you could just use a random flatscreen, but I am interested in how the information is presented. Thanks,

04-26-2009, 01:14 AM	#14 (permalink)
travisjb A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: GSO Posts: 2,803 Drives: VIR Rep Power: 189	If you mount stuff against that beam, I'd suggest installing it on the aft side of the beam... braking always produces the most g's... that's how I installed my battery

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