Tuner says to leave e throttle in set up mode

[razzjp]

I just had my supercharged 350z tuned and the tuner is saying to leave the e throttle in setup mode.  What safety features are disabled by doing this?

[Adamw]

Do not drive the car with it in set-up mode, all safeties are completely disabled.  This is why a warning pops up everytime you connect to the ecu saying "Vehicle must not be driven"...

[razzjp]

Adam, thanks.  I thought this was odd, but he is one of the high level tuners here in Japan, tuning alot of pro cars for drifting.  If I turn it back on, could it affect some of the settings he made?

[Adamw]

Setting it to on will not affect any settings, only enables the error checks.  

[razzjp]

Thank you, will be turning it back on then.

[curly]

I've been around a Formula D tuner, and he also made this suggestion. Keep in mind I doubt Link employees will ever answer anything except "keep it safe", and for good reason. On the other side of the spectrum, a professional drifter would have their 20 second run ruined by a minor pedal or throttle issue, that they may have otherwise been able to drive around.

If this is a street driven car, don't put yourself and others at risk, run in "ON" mode, fix any issues that cause limp mode. If this is a competition only car, do so at your own risk, but know that you're still risking yourself and others on course running in setup mode. 

[razzjp]

Thanks for the input.  My son will be running FDJ3 this year so it is a comp only car.  I am guessing that is why he chose to leave it in setup mode.  

[wastegate]

So at QR raceway here in Brisbane, Australia, we have had a couple of fatalities from throttle issues being stuck or not closing. Not to say this was ethrottle but more the fact there was a couple of deaths because a throttle failed. 

Disabling safety features because you want to come first is the first way to the morgue. As a father of two, I hope for your son's sake you don't risk it.

To put it in Australian, "Don't be a bloody idiot"

[AbbeyMS]

5 minutes ago, wastegate said:

So at QR raceway here in Brisbane, Australia, we have had a couple of fatalities from throttle issues being stuck or not closing. Not to say this was ethrottle but more the fact there was a couple of deaths because a throttle failed. 

Disabling safety features because you want to come first is the first way to the morgue. As a father of two, I hope for your son's sake you don't risk it.

To put it in Australian, "Don't be a bloody idiot"

so what happens with cars with a throttle cable, been around for years and they do have issues with bad installs or heat from a turbo/fire. What happens when a throttle cable sticks only thing is to turn the car off. 

[razzjp]

Absolutely,  nothing is worth my son's life or risking the lives of others.

I would like to know what the safety features disabled are.  What can actually happen with it disabled.  I do know that if the gear in throttle body breaks the car will still run without throttle control and allow you to limp back, not so much safety as convenience.

ABS, traction control, and even brake bias are safety features that get disabled/adjusted without issue.

Knowing more about this would really help me have a educated conversation with my tuner on why I changed his settings that he has been doing for years.

[wastegate]

1 minute ago, AbbeyMS said:

so what happens with cars with a throttle cable, been around for years and they do have issues with bad installs or heat from a turbo/fire. What happens when a throttle cable sticks only thing is to turn the car off. 

The two incidents I mentioned at QR were from cable throttle cars... a lot of keyboard experts after them always say "if it was me, I would have just turned off the engine" and I'm sure some have got away with doing just that. But you don't hear about those, only the ones where they don't..
 

[wastegate]

4 minutes ago, razzjp said:

Absolutely,  nothing is worth my son's life or risking the lives of others.

I would like to know what the safety features disabled are.  What can actually happen with it disabled.  I do know that if the gear in throttle body breaks the car will still run without throttle control and allow you to limp back, not so much safety as convenience.

ABS, traction control, and even brake bias are safety features that get disabled/adjusted without issue.

Knowing more about this would really help me have a educated conversation with my tuner on why I changed his settings that he has been doing for years.

e-throttle uses dual sensors for TPS and APS, they need to be matching, think of it as an agreement system. If one of the APS sensors fails, the system will flag an error. If you disable those check, and the APS sensor1 reads 100% while APS sensor2 is ready only 4%, it might use that 100% reading. There might be other things like integral limiters, remember a motor is driving the throttle blade, it requires PID control. If the integral limiter isn't there, the throttle might swing to far, giving too much or too little.. There are e-motor limiters too to stop the motor smashing the blade.. the motor might get a voltage spike from somewhere, jamming it open, with nothing to check the voltage of the supply, you have a motor being over driven.. I guess only Link engineers could tell you how the ethrottle works in setup mode and what sensors are read or ignored, but I don't think you will get that answer. Legally it's a mine field even on a race track or competition race car. Frankly, your tuner is risking themselves to a wrongful death lawsuit if something were to happen as he told you to do this.
If he is willing to risk your son's safety, would you trust him?

As for ABS, your brakes still work if ABS fails, there is built in redundancy and most modern cars even have multiple channels.
Traction Control disable or failure won't cause you to loose control, it's meant for a simple job of maintaining as much traction as possible, it can be disabled in most cars. What is very difficult to disable in a almost all modern cars is stability control which is more of a safety feature than traction control is. You almost need to do a secret combo move to disable this in any modern car. But again, that is a safety feature that is about maintaining control. Disabling the safety features on a ethrottle is like disconnecting the SCRAM button on a Nuclear Reactor.

[koracing]

On 4/7/2024 at 10:32 AM, curly said:

I've been around a Formula D tuner, and he also made this suggestion. Keep in mind I doubt Link employees will ever answer anything except "keep it safe", and for good reason. On the other side of the spectrum, a professional drifter would have their 20 second run ruined by a minor pedal or throttle issue, that they may have otherwise been able to drive around.

If this is a street driven car, don't put yourself and others at risk, run in "ON" mode, fix any issues that cause limp mode. If this is a competition only car, do so at your own risk, but know that you're still risking yourself and others on course running in setup mode. 

I've also seen a "Formula D tuner" disable about every failsafe imaginable because they would rather blow a motor than do bad on a run due to a failsafe.  If memory serves me the datalog I pulled off of a Formula D car's ecu showed coolant temps rising to 240-250°F during a run and they didn't seem to care.  I personally have too much mechanical sympathy to do that to a motor.