Joined
·
11 Posts
A few months ago I purchased a mail order ecu remap for the big DI from Jamie down at Border Automotive Engineering and Tuning (BAET) in NSW. Have had some time with the remap in the car now and felt like sharing my experience with the remap. Going to run through as close to everything as I can, including why I chose BAET and what I've noticed since having the remap in the car. There's only 3 mentions of BAET I could find on this forum and hopefully this post can help people who are considering the BAET remap for their Patrol.
This post does contain my opinion and what I say here should not be treated as gospel, but instead should be used to help people form their own opinion.
Why BAET?
I stumbled across BAET while I was looking for a remapping service for my patrol. The ZD30 DI's are not renowned for being fast in their stock form and the blanking of the EGR brings about that dreaded thing called limp mode. Tillix/Dawes and Needle valve combos are the most common solutions for limp mode and can reap some performance gains. Personally I have played around with two different needle valves on my ZD and although there was some performance gain, dialing them in was tedious and an incline or a highway on ramp would still cause some mild anxiety.
The ZD30 DI ECU is notoriously difficult to remap and as a result there are only a few businesses around that offer remapping services. BAET was one of those businesses that I found in my search. The reviews on the website are glowing and although these could be manipulated in some way, I thought it unlikely due to the volume of reviews on the website. Another factor in my decision to go with BAET was the cost, they came in hundreds of dollars cheaper than the competition. Primarily due to them not having a dedicated in house dyno. I sent a couple of emails to Jamie, just wanted to find out some more information, and he was incredibly helpful and informative.
Although, dyno tuning would obviously yield better results, a mail order remap is significantly cheaper and not far behind the in terms of performance. If I was changing turbo and deviating from the stock intercooler configuration I would definitely opt for the dyno tune, but with a relatively stock motor the remap would be perfect.
The Purchase
The entire process was seamless. There is a send in service where you send your ecu, it gets remapped and sent back to you. I opted for the loaner ecu service as the patrol is a primary mode of transportation for me and putting the car out of action for a week was not really an option. I received the loaner ecu (Stock ecu without NADS) and sent my ecu off. When it returned I simply swapped out the loaner ecu and we were good to go. You receive instructions on how to remove and reinstall the ecu with your purchase and it only takes about 10 minutes, mainly because the mounting bolts can be a pain to get to. Definitely disconnect the battery for a few hours before so there is no residual charge in the ecu. From purchasing through the BAET website to having my ECU back in the car took about a week and cost $700. That is including shipping to the Sunshine Coast from NSW. The send in service is roughly $150 cheaper.
The Drive
This is the important bit, the bit I know those who have read this far have been waiting for. I had planned to collect some quantitative data to compare but foolishly deleted my 0-60 and 0-100 times on the ECU talk without writing them down. So all that you have to go by is my word.
The thing hammers. It is by no means a rocket ship, but it is night and day to what is was before. As most know 1st and 2nd in a patrol a quite short and from a standing start it eats those first gears, but by 3rd it's pulling hard and I'm giggling like a schoolgirl. I'm only running a dawes valve so the spool up is not as aggressive as it could be with a needle valve, but in 3rd it's making 6-10 psi by 2000 and 12-16psi by 2500 with max boost being around 18psi somewhere past 3000. On the highway I can hold a 100 with <20% throttle, overtaking is a breeze and it will pretty comfortably hold 100 up most inclines. On the beach is where the performance gain is the most noticeable. A section of soft sand no longer means banging it back a gear and wringing the poor things neck, instead a gentle squeeze of the throttle gave me all the power and torque I needed to hold my momentum. My partner loves driving it now and her dad, who formally owned a 230hp 900+nm TD, remarked at how smooth the power delivery was.
Outside of the performance gain I have noticed a number of other changes.
The most major change is fuel economy; on my last tank I averaged 12.1L/100km, this was about 60/40 highway to city driving and by my rough estimates the highway driving was almost 10l/100km. The around town fuel economy is not significantly better but I do find myself going longer between trips to the servo.
EGTs are another noticeable change. Mainly that they will climb a lot quicker than before, this is not unexpected due to all the additional fuel. On the highway it will sit between 340c and 380c, that being said on an incline I can hold it to ~400c while maintaining 100kph. Previously on the beach getting it near 500c was a challenge, it's now not afraid to get past that 500c mark and I did see it spike to 550c in particularly soft sections. This is only on soft sand. On hard packed sand egt's were only marginally higher than on road. A needle valve would most likely lower these numbers, but I am not overly concerned with the temps, just requires a little additional monitoring on my behalf.
Oh and it soots now too. Not really something major just something to be aware of.
Congratulations for getting this far, I hope that you have learnt something from this rather long post. Happy to answer any questions people may have.
RED484
This post does contain my opinion and what I say here should not be treated as gospel, but instead should be used to help people form their own opinion.
Why BAET?
I stumbled across BAET while I was looking for a remapping service for my patrol. The ZD30 DI's are not renowned for being fast in their stock form and the blanking of the EGR brings about that dreaded thing called limp mode. Tillix/Dawes and Needle valve combos are the most common solutions for limp mode and can reap some performance gains. Personally I have played around with two different needle valves on my ZD and although there was some performance gain, dialing them in was tedious and an incline or a highway on ramp would still cause some mild anxiety.
The ZD30 DI ECU is notoriously difficult to remap and as a result there are only a few businesses around that offer remapping services. BAET was one of those businesses that I found in my search. The reviews on the website are glowing and although these could be manipulated in some way, I thought it unlikely due to the volume of reviews on the website. Another factor in my decision to go with BAET was the cost, they came in hundreds of dollars cheaper than the competition. Primarily due to them not having a dedicated in house dyno. I sent a couple of emails to Jamie, just wanted to find out some more information, and he was incredibly helpful and informative.
Although, dyno tuning would obviously yield better results, a mail order remap is significantly cheaper and not far behind the in terms of performance. If I was changing turbo and deviating from the stock intercooler configuration I would definitely opt for the dyno tune, but with a relatively stock motor the remap would be perfect.
The Purchase
The entire process was seamless. There is a send in service where you send your ecu, it gets remapped and sent back to you. I opted for the loaner ecu service as the patrol is a primary mode of transportation for me and putting the car out of action for a week was not really an option. I received the loaner ecu (Stock ecu without NADS) and sent my ecu off. When it returned I simply swapped out the loaner ecu and we were good to go. You receive instructions on how to remove and reinstall the ecu with your purchase and it only takes about 10 minutes, mainly because the mounting bolts can be a pain to get to. Definitely disconnect the battery for a few hours before so there is no residual charge in the ecu. From purchasing through the BAET website to having my ECU back in the car took about a week and cost $700. That is including shipping to the Sunshine Coast from NSW. The send in service is roughly $150 cheaper.
The Drive
This is the important bit, the bit I know those who have read this far have been waiting for. I had planned to collect some quantitative data to compare but foolishly deleted my 0-60 and 0-100 times on the ECU talk without writing them down. So all that you have to go by is my word.
The thing hammers. It is by no means a rocket ship, but it is night and day to what is was before. As most know 1st and 2nd in a patrol a quite short and from a standing start it eats those first gears, but by 3rd it's pulling hard and I'm giggling like a schoolgirl. I'm only running a dawes valve so the spool up is not as aggressive as it could be with a needle valve, but in 3rd it's making 6-10 psi by 2000 and 12-16psi by 2500 with max boost being around 18psi somewhere past 3000. On the highway I can hold a 100 with <20% throttle, overtaking is a breeze and it will pretty comfortably hold 100 up most inclines. On the beach is where the performance gain is the most noticeable. A section of soft sand no longer means banging it back a gear and wringing the poor things neck, instead a gentle squeeze of the throttle gave me all the power and torque I needed to hold my momentum. My partner loves driving it now and her dad, who formally owned a 230hp 900+nm TD, remarked at how smooth the power delivery was.
Outside of the performance gain I have noticed a number of other changes.
The most major change is fuel economy; on my last tank I averaged 12.1L/100km, this was about 60/40 highway to city driving and by my rough estimates the highway driving was almost 10l/100km. The around town fuel economy is not significantly better but I do find myself going longer between trips to the servo.
EGTs are another noticeable change. Mainly that they will climb a lot quicker than before, this is not unexpected due to all the additional fuel. On the highway it will sit between 340c and 380c, that being said on an incline I can hold it to ~400c while maintaining 100kph. Previously on the beach getting it near 500c was a challenge, it's now not afraid to get past that 500c mark and I did see it spike to 550c in particularly soft sections. This is only on soft sand. On hard packed sand egt's were only marginally higher than on road. A needle valve would most likely lower these numbers, but I am not overly concerned with the temps, just requires a little additional monitoring on my behalf.
Oh and it soots now too. Not really something major just something to be aware of.
Congratulations for getting this far, I hope that you have learnt something from this rather long post. Happy to answer any questions people may have.
RED484
