I recently had an issue with my ecu that was nistuned, I used it for over a year and loved it. I had an issue finding another stock ecu so I jumped the gun an bought a Haltech plug and play (1300usd).It showed up and I plugged it in, got the car running after a bit of research. Throughout using it, I started to feel like it was overkill for my setup and wasn't necessary. I felt that Nistune provided more than enough with the software, Including the constant support from Matt that I email on occasion and receive a reply in a quick manner. My purpose of posting this is that Nistune really is the best bang for your buck and that it can do more than enough for you. I am Not knocking Haltech or anyone who uses it, but I believe Nistune is more user friendly and provides more than enough options to tune the car. I ended up selling the haltech on fb and people couldn't fathom how I didn't like the haltech, I just honestly think its overkill and prefer Nistune. In the end I ended up going back to Nistune and it was the best decision I ever made
Wow thanks for the feedback! Many tuners will get familiar with a particular system and then onsell customers that they reguarly tune. Given that Nissan already provides the hardware, you definitely get best bang for buck with retuning the factory ECU, and is suitable for many applications
The main difference with tuning the two is the Haltec (and other MAP based systems like Link) where you use a MAP (and IAT) sensor and target AFR tables, whilst Nissan ECUs (using Nistune to tune) uses the factory MAF setup and you trim the fuel maps to get the AFRs you need on the dyno
Tuners get used to the fact you target the AFR table and then trim another table, and it gets difficult when moving tuning another system where you trim the fuel map directly and monitor your AFRs at the wideband.
Fuel map 'Estimated AFR' view which I really want to remove since the Nissan ECU has no idea of actual AFRs further confuses tuners moving to Nistune (but some customers want it there, since they trim VQ map). So new tuners think these are using 'target AFRs' where in reality this map just directly trims the mixtures
Also MAF sensors can be a problem with placement, reversion and other issues. Slot sensors and blow through placement can work around some of these issues but at the end some customers/tuners prefer MAP based systems. I've thought about implementing MAP but each ECU code base requires extensive modification and there is a lot of time and testing involved (plus then supporting it). At this time I'm focusing on the newer Nissan ECUs due to requests from tuners.