Saturday, December 2, 2023

CONSULT to the Rescue/Benetec Dry Carbon Rear Wing

Some of you may have seen me on social media paying more than one visit to Nismo Omori Factory recently.  And in fact, just a couple of weeks ago my friend Matt met me at Omori Factory where we picked up my car for our trip to Trust Kikaku. (Thanks for the photos, Matt!)


But why was my car there, and what work was getting done to it? Two things actually...

First, about a week earlier I had removed the RAPFIX II steering wheel boss for my old Daiki one, which somehow caused my Airbag warning lamp to blink continuously.  So the day before Matt and I visited Trust Kikaku, Friday, I dropped the car off before heading into work so that Ochiai-san could hook up the CONSULT to my car and figure out why. 

Seems like each time my car has a problem, it's raining...


A Short 24 hour stay this time!

Incidentally, I have been told that replacing my ECU with something more modern like a Haltech or MOTEC, would result in not being able to use this CONSULT tool for stuff like this. Not sure if true, but if so it sure explains why so many Japanese tuners stick to using the stock Nissan engine ECU as the basis for their tuned ECUs (such as Mine's VX-ROM, HKS' F-Con, etc.). Anyone know if I can use CONSULT with a MOTEC?

But in any case, Ochiai-san told me that CONSULT showed that my taking the airbag resistor out and replacing with the older one during the steering wheel boss swap had triggered the ECU to record an error, hence the flashing warning light. Via CONSULT he reset it and the flashing was gone.

Second and more substantively, Nismo Omori had gotten one of their paint shops they work with to apply a clear UV coat to a dry carbon wing I had been lucky enough to pick up through sheer luck.

Last December another friend alerted me to a stock clearance sale at Benetec.  So those of us who know, know that Benetec is a small shop in Shizuoka specializing in dry carbon fiber products.  Some car stuff, some industrial things, but most interestingly, wheelchairs as well (makes sense actually). So I was curious to see what part Benetec might have on sale - and it was the BCNR33 rear wing


Here is the description, as translated by me:

"BCNR33 Rear Wing, Normal Shape Specification"

Wing outer surface 3K twill weave, UD fiber, adhesive film FVE9, Foamac, Wing attachment surface has AL2017 inserts
Wing under side 3K twill weave, 12K flat weave, adhesive film FVE9, honeycomb 3mm
Weight 1.19kg

So yes I got a crash course into carbon fiber terminology thanks to this other company's website but to be honest I was getting tired of the "old style" carbon fiber bits on my car.  Even Nismo has upgraded their B pillar carbon sticker pattern from the 1K flat weave to the 3K twill.  And their exterior parts that are genuine carbon fiber, use the 3K twill weave.

Hard to make out but it is not the old style weave

So already, with the install of this license plate frame front and rear, there were 2 patterns of carbon fiber on my car, this new weave but also the old pattern which I have been running forever.

The 1K flat weave matches my old Yahoo Auction wing and
 the "Carbon fiber" Nismo Stickers on the B pillars...

However, for me to justify spending money on something that is otherwise for cosmetics only, I had to have a functional reason - and this time, the functional reason was weight savings, because the Yahoo Auction special carbon wing I had been running for quite a few years was a wet carbon product.  

Of course, I quickly emailed, got a response that it was still available but that it had not been painted with a clear coat with UV protection.  I figured I could easily have it professionally sprayed so I completed the transaction and then a few weeks later it arrived! 

I was right! The wet carbon wing with the same style and dimensions weighs 1 kg more! 

In anticipation of an eventual installation of the new wing, I had gone ahead and also picked these new Yahoo Auction carbon fiber wing end caps from the same company where I had gotten the previous end caps.


It didn't quite fit... so....

Unfortunately, the Yahoo Auctions special did not quite fit - barely too big but ALSO slightly too thick, so out came my Dremel...

There was a LOT of dust generated, I had to wear a mask to keep this epoxy dust from going up my nose.

Did I mention there was a LOT of dust?

Anyway, shortly before I removed the RAPFIX II, Ochiai-san at Nismo Omori Factory had called me to tell me their paint specialist shop had finished clear coating the Benetec wing. Naturally, when the Airbag light started going off after I removed the RAPFIX II, I scheduled a time to drop off the car on a Friday to be picked up on Saturday.  I was hoping that the flashing light could be reset via the CONSULT tool, and meanwhile, the properly clear-coated dry carbon wing could be installed. I also dropped off the slimmed down wing end caps to be fitted as well.

And that is why I am inspecting both the new wing and the side cap here.


But the final result - wow! I cannot complain...


Tapping on it makes a different sound too... Anyway, tomorrow is the 2023 Nismo Festival and I have to get up early - I may do a post on it so stay tuned, although I am sure there will be several other people with many more pictures to share...

7 comments:

Emil said...

I saw that wing for sale and was so close to buying it, glad it went to a good home.

Aki said...

Emil I will treasure it for sure.

Anonymous said...

I thought Nismo uses Benetec for their carbon parts? Anyhow, I thought about buying the carbon wing they make for the BNR32

Anonymous said...

You cant use the oem consult anymore but you can use the motec version. Which is better and newer technology more precise readings etc.

マット said...

I love Benetec dry carbon parts!

jho96 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jho96 said...

Regarding Consult: You won't be able to communicate with the engine controller anymore to pull Consult data. However I'm pretty sure you can still talk to the remaining modules connected to the Consult port. So ATTESA, ABS, Airbag, HICAS, etc. I have to try this for myself though, this is just my best guess based on seeing how the protocol works and reading over the wiring diagrams. For the ECU specifically you can just plug in a USB cable and use the aftermarket ECU software to pull logs and all the same things you would normally do with Consult. In theory it is possible for an aftermarket ECU to implement the Consult protocol, in practice they can't be bothered.

Actually, one of the main barriers I think to adoption of ECUs like Link, Haltech, Motec, etc in Japan is probably a combination of poor JP language support and the primary supported load sensing being alpha-N on the RB26. These ECUs really want to use speed density, but the RB26 being an ITB + turbos means it doesn't really work. If you look at the manifold gauge a good amount of the gas pedal travel is narrowly concentrated around 1 atmosphere of pressure. To get around that issue they use throttle position sensing instead. This nominally works when combined with boost compensation (2 atm of pressure -> 2x fuel for same throttle position) but in practice it is a very, very brittle setup that requires a lot of compensation tables to reduce open loop error. Most likely bad memories of PowerFC D-Jetro as well are part of it.

I am currently working on fully replicating the OEM R33 GTR ECU map for Haltech NSP, if you are curious to see what that looks like I can email you about it in the future once I feel confident sharing what I have. Haltech has support for the dual MAF setup of the RB26 and contains support for MAF load which is more annoying to set up correctly due to lack of calibration data but once that is all loaded into the software it should be easier to work with and yield a better tune in the end.