NBA power gains?

ja9 · Postby **ja9** » Sun Nov 24, 2013 10:54 pm

I have an Adaptronic on my NABA. The truth is the ECU doesn't give you as much of a difference as you would have hoped. What it does is it allows you to tune your car for optimal performance when you decide to make modifications eg cams, exhaust etc. obviously it costs more if you don't do everything all at once but sometimes that cannot be avoided. Mine is naturally aspirated with nowhere near the hp you get from a turbo at triple the spend.

Postby **NitroDann** » Sun Nov 24, 2013 11:01 pm

Double the spend, double the FACTORY hp. More like 10 times the N/A gain.

Dann

sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Sun Nov 24, 2013 11:07 pm

My thoughts are,

Avoid computers until you need them, they are alot of work and expense for minimal gains of you don't have the mods requiring one.

If you want to do a naturally aspirated build, that's cool. But budget the same as a basic turbo build.

If you want to do some basic low cost upgrades, extractors and intake and cams that will run on a stock Computer and leave it there. Firstly though if your busy wanting a bit more punch around town, consider changing to a shorter diff ratio.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

Postby **NitroDann** » Sun Nov 24, 2013 11:09 pm

Very good advice.

Dann

tescoking · Postby **tescoking** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 1:47 am

$200 can get used K&N typhoon.
Around $1400 can get full exhaust system in Perth, WA.
Another 400 may be spend on lower springs.
I just can't think of an ECU will be less than 1000, even used.
Please don't worry about the labour, you can always do it yourself.
Those modifications are easy.

This is what I will do IF I were you.

Mr Morlock · Postby **Mr Morlock** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 7:53 am

T&C exhaust- cat back and not expensive and reputedly adds KW and its not big $. And working on exhausts is actually a cow of a job unless you have the facilities including oxy and mig etc-most of us don't but pragmatic advice goes down like a the temp in a arctic blizzard. I happily go to my local exhaust guy who knows how to do it.

16bit · Postby **16bit** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:34 am

unless you can't drive a manual the cheapest thing you can do to gain performance is going to be a manual conversion.

wiz043 · Postby **wiz043** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:44 am

16bit wrote:unless you can't drive a manual the cheapest thing you can do to gain performance is going to be a manual conversion.

...yeah, I can certainly drive a manual & that is the obvious solution isn't it?

I only bought the auto coz the wife wanted to have some fun too but could not drive a manual.

The auto is surprising though & according to performance charts it only loses about half a second compared to the manual version on a 0-100kph run. It would still be nice to have a bit more grunt though.

Magpie · Postby **Magpie** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 10:41 am

From personal experience changing a NA6 from auto to manual WITHOUT changing the ECU will give a power loss and possibly other issues.

Whilst this may not be related to the auto ECU, it was not untill the manual gearbox go in did the car suffer from oil temp issues. If the car does not suffer from oil overheating issues with the Haltech ECU then the issue could be blamed on the auto ECU. Yes the auto engine was replaced (oil temp issue) with a 'normal' NA6 engine, but the ECU never was. Plus when I drive the other manual NA6 that is at home it 'feels' a lot more nippier in the engine department than mine (mine has a 6 speed as well as a 4.1 torsen diff).

tescoking · Postby **tescoking** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 7:24 pm

try ECU refresh perhaps

wiz043 · Postby **wiz043** » Wed Nov 27, 2013 8:47 pm

A certain Mazda dealership have suggested that there is a gain of 10 to 14 kwatw to be made in my standard '99 NBA by fitting a CAI , XForce headers and custom 2.5" exhaust incl. cat, resonator up to existing muffler. Cost around $2,000.

Apparently an Adaptronic ECU would add another 6 to 8kw with these exhaust mods but would make little difference on it's own as previously mentioned by ja9.

Is this plausible...I would have thought only a few kw could be gained by doing this?

Postby **NitroDann** » Wed Nov 27, 2013 8:49 pm

It is probably a little optimistic but close enough. I doubt it would do that 14kw change without the ecu.

Dann

16bit · Postby **16bit** » Wed Nov 27, 2013 9:32 pm

in my experience its about 8 to 10 wkw with full zorst and intake on an nb8a.

wiz043 · Postby **wiz043** » Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:10 pm

16bit wrote:in my experience its about 8 to 10 wkw with full zorst and intake on an nb8a.

Do you know the approx. increase in torque (from 165nm) & did you feel an appreciable difference in performance. I am assuming it's your car that had the mods?

Just wondering whether it's worth spending that sort of money if there is not much improvement in performance....

rascal · Postby **rascal** » Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:39 pm

wiz043 wrote:
16bit wrote:in my experience its about 8 to 10 wkw with full zorst and intake on an nb8a.

Do you know the approx. increase in torque (from 165nm) & did you feel an appreciable difference in performance. I am assuming it's your car that had the mods?

Just wondering whether it's worth spending that sort of money if there is not much improvement in performance....

While it may only be 10kw, keep in mind that a 10kw increase is ~15%. It's noticeable.