Wazza
16-10-2005, 11:41 PM
On Wednesday I was lucky enough to have James from Hondata fly down to Tassie to install a S200 and tune my 1994 VTi-R. My previous mods include a Toda header, JDM ITR cat, Mugen Twin Loop cat back exhaust and an Injen RD-1450 CAI. As I wasn't keen to modify the internals of my engine, the obvious next step like for most people was to purchase an ECU. After weighing up options like an Apexi VAFC, Apexi Power FC, Uni Chip, Power Chip etc I decided on Hondata based on the great wrap Hondata receives on this forum, and basically because it is relatively inexpensive when compared to the other ECU's available.
Anyway, after picking up James from the airport, the S200 was installed in around an hour, leaving the whole day free for road and dyno tuning. On the only dyno dynamics dyno in Tassie, my car pulled 116kw in 4th gear, with the air temp being only 15 degrees, and the car running 95 RON fuel as Tassie doesn't have Optimax/BP Ultimate. As the dyno operator explained, cars in Tassie always seem to produce less power than mainland dynos because of the cold climate. So with decent fuel on a mainland dyno, the power output should have been even more... Although I was very pleased with the result, the major difference came after the car was road tuned.... At low rpm it feels so much more responsive, it actually pulls up hills now, while at high rpm I almost feel scared, its unbelievable.. As a bonus with the current fuel prices, it's also more fuel efficient. From filling up on Wednesday, with a fair amount of hard driving I got an extra 50km from the tank before having to fill up today. In this respect, the ECU over a year will basically pay for itself. Well that's what I am telling myself anyway as justification for spending that amount of money.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b361/wazzaj11/DynoGraph.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b361/wazzaj11/DCAM0078.jpg
Overall I am very happy with the result, and very grateful to James for flying down just to tune my car. I wish there were more people willing to provide so much assistance as what James has provided for me. I must say I was sceptical at first, especially being from Tassie and not being able to experience different ECU's in different cars etc, but Hondata exceeded all expectations, and I totally recommend it. And I almost forgot, the launch control and full throttle shift on the S200 is absolutely awesome, unfortunately I havn't been able to try it out against any decent cars at the traffic lights yet.....
Waz
Anyway, after picking up James from the airport, the S200 was installed in around an hour, leaving the whole day free for road and dyno tuning. On the only dyno dynamics dyno in Tassie, my car pulled 116kw in 4th gear, with the air temp being only 15 degrees, and the car running 95 RON fuel as Tassie doesn't have Optimax/BP Ultimate. As the dyno operator explained, cars in Tassie always seem to produce less power than mainland dynos because of the cold climate. So with decent fuel on a mainland dyno, the power output should have been even more... Although I was very pleased with the result, the major difference came after the car was road tuned.... At low rpm it feels so much more responsive, it actually pulls up hills now, while at high rpm I almost feel scared, its unbelievable.. As a bonus with the current fuel prices, it's also more fuel efficient. From filling up on Wednesday, with a fair amount of hard driving I got an extra 50km from the tank before having to fill up today. In this respect, the ECU over a year will basically pay for itself. Well that's what I am telling myself anyway as justification for spending that amount of money.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b361/wazzaj11/DynoGraph.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b361/wazzaj11/DCAM0078.jpg
Overall I am very happy with the result, and very grateful to James for flying down just to tune my car. I wish there were more people willing to provide so much assistance as what James has provided for me. I must say I was sceptical at first, especially being from Tassie and not being able to experience different ECU's in different cars etc, but Hondata exceeded all expectations, and I totally recommend it. And I almost forgot, the launch control and full throttle shift on the S200 is absolutely awesome, unfortunately I havn't been able to try it out against any decent cars at the traffic lights yet.....
Waz