Hey everyone, my names Cody. I'm new to the forums.

I'm looking for my next project car, I just decided to sell my 20th Anniversary edition VW GTI that I've been building over the past 4 years. Ended up making 450whp out of the 1.8T engine, but I am ready to move to a sportier platform.

I'm thinking of building an SC300, and taking care of everything in stages. The plan is as follows:

Phase 1: $3250-3500 Buy the car and clean it up. Basically get it where I want it in terms of appearance.
-Suspension (Coils?)
-General engine bay, brake, interior, and body refresh
-Replace any leaking gaskets
-Straighten out any body imperfections
-Pick a sweet color to paint or plastidip the car
-Get a nice set of wheels and some nice summer tires to go with
-Retrofit some HID projectors into the factory housings

That should get the car to a very nice starting point and make any further modifications easy and less risky to the car as a whole

Phase 2: $2500-3000 Install a basic turbo kit and shoot for ~300-400hp on lower boost levels
-Intercooler: ebay core and piping kit
-Exhaust manifold: Ebay manifold with divided T4 flange
-Gauges: AEM UEGO and boost gauge. Possibly others
-Oil/coolant lines and fittings etc.
-Wyntonm 38 or 44mm wastegate and VTA BOV.
-Precision 6266/GT35R sized turbo.I want to run a ballpark 60mm sized turbo, haven't really decided yet but will be going with a good name brand (Garrett, PTE or BW most likely). I want something that spools nicely for my initial power goals, but also has the potential to put down serious power on higher boost levels for a broad torque curve and versatility

Phase 3: $6000-10000 Shoot for some serious power. Crank the turbo up as much as I'm comfortable with, transmission swap or build, ignition upgrades, big brakes, big injectors, and full standalone. Looking for more power than I have in my current car. From my understanding,500 should be no problem, low 600s would be ideal, 700s would be insane and probably a little over the top for what I'm looking for but if it happens then it happens.


So now here's the questions...

I'm a little lost on how to tune for Phase 2 of my build. I'm coming from tuning a factory Bosch ECU which is wideband native, has MAP and MAF inputs, excellent knock sensors etc. I havent found anything on remapping stock SC ECUs to work with updated hardware. and it seems that most people swap to a full standalone for a NA-T build or even for high hp GTE builds. I would prefer not to buy an SAFC or piggyback device since I do plan on a standalone down the road, but I'm not sure what protocol is for a moderate HP boost on this platform. Ill shell out for whatever it takes to get it done RIGHT but I dont want to waste time saving up for standalone if it can be done on a Toyota ECU. Somebody please steer me in the right direction!!

 

I would always say go Standalone. Changing a tune and injectors for whatever upgrades you can think of, is at your fingertips. Plus you can remove the standalone unit and install it in another car if you decide to switch make/models again.
I don't think you can add say 700cc injectors with the turbo ecu upgrade and have the engine run correctly. You can with a standalone. 1,000cc injectors for E85 or whatever size.

Do some searching on all the Standalones out there. Example Megasquirt 3 and their Pro unit will cost a grand or less. Some of the others are $1,500 and more.

 

It seems to me that the AEM PnP is popular in the MKIV crowd. I was planning on taking that route eventually, or possibly the MS3 depending on which suits my needs better. Totally unsure of what either offers over the other at this point. So what I'm really getting at is this.. Is is possible to get full or even partial control over the factory ecu?

I know lots of other platforms have cheap or even open source tuning options for OEM engine control units with full fuel and ignition control. This includes Injector scaling, target lambda, switchable ignition maps for alternate fuels, boost control, etc. All in legit 3D format and retaining factory wiring. One that comes to mind is NismoTronicSA for the 240sx, and Maestro for the VW/Audi platforms. If its not there then that explains why I haven't found it yet, I just want to look at all of my options in terms of function vs cost and proceed from there.

 

Read about the Turbo ecu mod, Dont think you get partial control of the ecu. lot of times your going to have to do a lot of reading to find what you may be looking for.

Standalone wins for me hands down.

Hope you find what your looking for.

 

On the 2JZ , ordinary users have no control of the stock ECU . A piggy back kinda just fools the ECU so it changes let's say the amount of fuel it injects. You can do very limited things with a piggy back. There are hacked ECUs coming from Japan which are reprogrammed like boost cut removed or rev limiters are adjusted but are sold at a premium too. In my opinion, you might as well go standalone.

If you are looking at what standalone you will use, ask your tuner. A standalone is good only in as much as what the tuner can do. You might have the best ECU in the market but if there is no tuner who can help you then it will be useless.

I might have missed it but what transmission are you looking into ? That can be a big factor in your quest for power. And can become quickly expensive.

 

Thanks for the reply gerrb, Thats exactly what I was wondering.

I'm sticking with whatever tranny is in the car until I really NEED to upgrade it, hence sticking with a lower power level for a while. I'm hoping to find a car in decent shape with the W58. When I crank up the boost I plan to run a later model Z33/Z34 transmission, or a built auto. We will see when the time comes.

As for who is tuning it, I plan to take care of that myself. I really can't imagine the AEM software being much harder than the stupid torque based ME7 I'm used to. I mean it's great for creating nice smooth torque delivery and refined power, but God is it finicky...

 

Just realized that you are new to the forum and new to the SC flatform. Welcome to the forum !

As somebody new maybe you can check out this thread sometime. Some of your questions about the SC can be answered.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc-...tart-here.html

There is also a thread where you can introduce yourself if you want to

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc-...self-here.html


If you can tinker around with ECUs and know the principles of tuning then that will indeed make you so versatile and save you tons of money. For that matter I would advice going standalone in the future. What standalone will all depends on the features you want from an ECU and your budget. You got AEM, MegaSquirt, MOTEC and ProEFI which are some of the commonly used on the JZ communities.

Sticking with the SC300 stock A340 auto tranny or W58 manual transmission wont get you far if you want to up that boost. Both wont survive above 400rwhp if indeed that amount of power is used on the road with those stock trannies. Sooner or later , they will give in . Beyond 350rwhp actually you are on borrowed times or they become ticking time bombs not unless you don't really abuse the car or don't use that power.

A built A340 auto tranny from ATF or Boostlogic or SP can handle around 800rwhp . An R154 can get you around 700rwhp and a V160 above 1000rwhp. Some others have started using other tranny like the Z trans as you mentioned since the V160 is kinda very pricey.a

Once again good luck into your endeavour and welcome !