SCV8

Have been looking around and not many people offer anything at all,but one place that appears to be the main source is G-Force i California.
They want $1500 for a re-map of the fuel/ignition curves.
Was wondering if anyone knows of the real world effects that this work will give in our cars?

MadMaxSC400

The chip Rod Millen sells is a damned ripoff. I accidentally talked to owner Muhammed at Swift Racing and he's making an intake and chip combo for about 600 dollars, and he claims it will be a major improvement over other things offered, he's also applied to get the supercharger legalized for use on the street.

TheKevin

iTrader: (6)

cant you just do the superchips thing. you tell them what mods you've done to your car and they'll send you the reogramming device. pretty much just call then up and see what they can do.

The Ikon

SCV8 a member named "Kutsired" has a JET ecu modification also "BananaGS" has a thread about the Apexi-AFC or SFC that will probably do the same thing for a 3 - 4 hundred $$$....

SCV8

Thanks for the tips!
I did call Superchips,and they don't offer anything at this time.
Next will be JET;I don't want to have to use an a/fc if I can get a chip,and hopefully be able to swap back again if desired.
I have an a/fc in another vehicle and it works pretty good,especially since that car is an OBDII car and no one makes anything for it either.
I'll wait and see what JET wants for their stuff,maybe I will wind up with the a/fc after all.

smooth8

iTrader: (1)

You can get a chip from http://www.lexussc400.com
That really helps in the low end. The main problem with our car is the timing being retarded too much. I have a chip that has redone the timing curve and helped alot. The price is alot cheaper than 1500, even less than 1000 I think.
Later

MadMaxSC400

That looks more like www.Ideas-Jacked-From-ClubLexus-Forums.com... I wonder who runs it. Pretty cool though, it's most of the good stuff you can do for an SC400. I think FINALLY after like 3 months of messing around Weapon-R will be available to put in the Intercrew ECU and we'll be able to dyno it middle of next month. There won't be much of a baseline, I've already mod'ed the car. But, you'll be able to see what a fully N/A tricked SC400 can do. I like the reprogrammed chip idea also, but for me personally I'll go with Weapon-R because we can tweak it for my car specifically and get max output. Then I can give you guys the specs for exhaust and intake to really extract the most from the car.

smooth8

iTrader: (1)

I run the lexussc400.com site with a couple of other people, and some people from the Lexus dealer. We can get factory parts from the dealer for better than dealer prices.

The site was started to support the SC400, not enough people appreciate the car.

You are the man on mods I hear. Do you think the AFC works good for the sc400? How much did you get it for? Where did you install it and what specs did you use to program it?

Thanks in advance for your help

MadMaxSC400

The AFC was pretty interesting, I didn't have enough time with it to get a good feeling for it though. Really, the only thing the AFC lets you do is increase or decrease the amount of gas shot into the motor by tricking the computer. I think the computer pegs the injectors at WOT so there's no top end effect. for some reason, I was able to affect the torque of the car by messing with the adjustments per RPM. I dislike having to nail it to get the car going sometimes, and the AFC allowed me to make different power mappings for different throttle positions.
AFC's aren't of much help unless you mess with the timing also, that's why an ECU upgrade of some sort is better. The AFC is best for people who have turbos and need to get their car running with the right mixture. If you use a supercharger, I would say definitely get a reprogrammable one and do some dyno runs to get the best timing and mix.
According to Sport Compact Car (and Weapon-R) the best exhaust is 2.5 inch mandrel bent tubing for a n/a ~4 liter engine. Companies talk about air filters and cold air intakes all the time, but so far I've never seen something big enough and well insulated enough to be called a high flow cold air intake. The stock systems run hot too, in case you're wondering. I like the heat shield you have on the site, but it doesn't have a backing and is nowhere near thick enough to really insulate the incoming air. I think the same guy who had those made also mentioned that a similar thing would be possible if it was made from Magnesium, which is light, strong, and above all a good insulator. Wor about the same weight you could have a magnesium heat shield twice as thick. If you made it seal well (there's enough surface area in there to do that, too) and made the shield from magnesium, with a rubber seal for the intake pipe, with a super high flow (foam, etc) filter you could get a real, significant increase. So far, everything I've seen is kind of loosely fit, and not really well built.
I'd say that it's possible to get another 50 hp and torque from the engines just by doing a quality, insulated CAI, good kink-less exhaust and a timing/mixture chip. A lot of people think performance parts are kind of useless, and a lot of the time they are unless you can put them to good use.
Remember, TRD got 400 horsepower out of one of these engines. They didn't turbo or supercharge it, they didn't bore and stroke it, they just improved the flow to and from the engine and reworked the timing and cams.
Let me know if you wanna do anything.. etc.

z28_2000

Are these chips smog legal in CA? That's the biggest concern I have. Thanks.

smooth8

iTrader: (1)

Hey Max,

Thanks for the detailed post, you make good (cents).
Do you know exactly what they did 2 get the 400 hp.
I would love to do it. I have been waiting to supercharge, but I can't find a good enough shop to customize one. Swift probably won't be done for a while.....

Your help is appreciated and if you need dealer parts at cost let me know.

smooth8

iTrader: (1)

Yeah they are legal.

MadMaxSC400

I talked to this guy at California Street Rods, who built the Lexus Hot Rod chassis in which that motor was placed. Apparently they put in race cams, reinforced parts, headers, and I think they were turning it pretty fast. They said that it wasn't smog legal, and that's what the '32 Ford chassis was about I'm guessing. I worry about running a belt driven supercharger in the car, and 4 grand to start is too much. I would have paid the 5500 for Toyomoto's kit if I could easily turbo an SC300 around here, but that's because it more than doubles the output of the motor and is adjustable.
Camming is an interesting thing. Back to the (mostly) ricer magazine Sport Compact Car... They put a Jim Wolf street legal (I think) cam in a little Nissan Sentra. JWT's best "C3" cam setup got the SCC people a negative hp gain for lower end and a lot extra at the top end. -4.9 hp average from 2100-4400 RPM then jumped at about 5500 and got a 37.8hp 27.2lb-ft gain at about 7000 RPM on the little 2 liter I-4. This was done with an ECU upgrade, a header and an injen intake (the ECU netted 3 horsepower, heh).
Not all cams lose low end, though. They also mentioned that the idle would be rough for cams that radical, so I guess it fits with the "street rod" design. I don't know how the size of our motors would relate to it, and I can't think of anything that gets tuning work done on it in that same class (4 liter V8) but I'm pretty sure we can make quite a bit of power with some more comfortable cams. The C3 needed titanium valve springs to hold it all together.
The bottom line is, also, that TRD spent several assloads of money making that thing make an extra 100 hp so they could parade the car around and get people to buy GS400's and SC400's. So, we might not be making 400 hp but we could definitely make an N/A set-up with the right parts that could make supercharger hp at perhaps a little less than the cost of one. As an added bonus, we could supercharge that setup and start passing the turbo guys!

smooth8

iTrader: (1)

You're a good man Max!
I am glad to have people like you on our team.
Give me one month and I will have a custom supercharger on my sc400. I am sick of waiting around, or maybe I am just impatient, probably both.
I will keep in touch with you, so let me know what other mods you are up to and vice versa.

Thanks Again

rboorgu

I am in the process in doing a custom exhaust on my SC400. I can't find a shop that does mandrel bends, so I am going to try and do it with the pre bent types sourced from JC whitney and others. I am debating between the 2.5 and 2.25 inch pipe. What do you think Max. I know you mentioned 2.5 already per SCC, but is that for duals or singles. Any other suggestion?? BTW, smog is not an issue for me (based in Alabama) so I am thinking of losing the convertors (all of them). Thanks for your input.

Raj