Dtronic

When I went to a Safari open day last year, this question was asked.
While Safari were obviously not privy to internal Nissan workings - they did have one theory which sounded OK.
Apparently the European emission standards are much stricter that those in Aust.
The ECU in the Patrol is the same in the European market as those sold in Aust.
The Dtronic does increase emissions (particularly down in the rev range) - still well within the Aust standards but would not pass the European tests.
Maybe someone with some knowledge could comment on the Aust diesel emission standards?

Impressive setup at Safari BTW.

Sav.

Actually just to make it clear - this was the conversation that stuck in my mind. There was also plenty of the normal engine stress, reliability etc discussions also.

Sav.

You will get a slight performance boost below 2200 rpm. This is more noticeable when towing though. All in all it is well worth the money.

Peter,

Safari are obviously never going to make direct comments regarding increased engine stress.
They did however run us through the test process they follow and the way the vehicles are instrumented during the development phase.
It was stressed to us that they always leave a sizable safety margin (gee - I sound like a salesman).
Every performance mod for a vehicle potentially introduces these sorts of issues.
I think it comes down to trust - do you trust them to have done enough ground work and testing to ensure that adverse effects are minimized.
Part of the reason I went to the open day was to see some of this first hand...

Made me happy anyway.

Sav.

Hi Guy's

I'm certainly no diesel engineer, but in all the research that I've done on the Dtronic, I cant find anything that says that it will over stress a motor by the way it operates. All it does is control the fuel timing more precisely than the factory ECU, by shortening the RPM parameters in the fuel timing curve. (Well this is how it was explained to me) So in theory there should be no more stress on engine components under normal driving conditions, however I'm sure anyone could shorten the life of their turbo diesel by over revving, not warming up and cooling down etc. Increasing boost levels would almost certainly put more stress on the engine as would over fuelling, but the Dtronic doesn't do that. If anything, the motor would over stress the driveline with the additional power and torque, but once again, driving habits could come into play as well as tyre size, gear ratios etc.

So far I haven't read or heard of anyone that has had an engine failure or any adverse effects that have been caused by or blamed on the fitting of a Dtronic

I fitted a Dtronic to my Patrol and immediately found it started easier, drives smoother and overtakes at speed much safer than without it.
Money well spent.

Chaz
http://members.bettanet.net.au/~conody/index.htm

What I'm waiting for is someone who's done 2 or 3 hundred thousand K's with a dtronic, then taken it off and see what the compression tests and dyno readings reveal.

I recon it would have to shorten the life expectancy of a little 4 cylinder engine pushing a big car, and quite often a trailer of some sort.

The question remains, whether it's nissan or yota or whatever, are these motors built to handle the extra output a dtronic can acheive ?

Con rods, crank shafts, pistons, main and big end bearings, I'm sure engine manufacturers have a load limit that these components are built to, but would they overcompensate if they don't need to ?

Why would they build an engine to ultra high performance specs if the motor was never intended to be used in this manner ?

Hi Paul,

Not a dumb question at all Paul.

I am not sufficiently familiar with DTronic to know how they adjust the calibration / injection timing.

However, as for Nissan, I notice that they have in fact changed the calibration on the GU IV Patrol but only for the manual. While max power is unchanged, max torque has been increased from 354Nm@2000rpm to 380Nm@2000rpm. Given the manual g/box is same as in the 4.2 it will handle the torque. Perhaps the auto box is torque limted, or perhaps they feel the torque is well matched for driveability already.

How does the revised torque compare to that claimed by DTronic?

Hugh