Is there demand for Leaf Tuning? Show your interest

Please let me know if you are seriously interested in Tuning up your leaf. I have been chatting with a large Company who specialises in GTR Tuning and they are considering swapping their Model S project for something more accessible for tuning work. I got chatting about my dream of a hot hatch leaf and my project i am about to start. If you are interested please post and show your support so that i can show the demand if there is any for them to begin work on one of these.

It's nowhere near april 1, in other words, I have no interest in this.

None. Last time l tried I got a horrible spark knock and my MPG dropped drastically.

Once higher performance battery packs are available the interest will rise sharply.

Nissan themselves have a "hotter" inverter available for the LEAF, albeit only in Japan. There is no reason why an aftermarket company couldn't do the same. Apparently Nissan even changed the function of the Eco button for a "sport" mode. :shock:

aarond12 said:

Nissan themselves have a "hotter" inverter available for the LEAF, albeit only in Japan. There is no reason why an aftermarket company couldn't do the same. Apparently Nissan even changed the function of the Eco button for a "sport" mode. :shock:

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I don't think they have a "hotter" inverter, Nismo has a VCM, and about equal to $1300 retail. An inverter would be much more than that.

It's only for the 13+ leaf with less torque than the 11/12s so I would put a good bet that it is simply the 200 lbft torque of the old leaf added as an upgrade to the new leaf.

I think there's very little money to be made in this segment and anything that they want to market should have the cross benefit of increased range (ie light weight or more aerodynamic parts).

If they want to shoot for the stars make a rear sub frame with 2 sizes of rwd electric motors and multiple battery choices. For example cheapest option a DC only warp 9 that works at city speeds only, add's about 32 hp 70 ftlb, gives a good bump in acceleration when used as awd and will add range in the city. Step up to a AC 50 and you can add 50 hp and 120 ftlb and have it pull a car up to 65 mph. Drive it in awd for the performance bump and a range bump, program it to start out with the leaf in N and drive rwd only till it's dead and you can probably get a very good range bump. In between they can do a warp 11 DC with 175 lb ft or for all out race use and to get in the press they can run a dual warp 11.

My guess would be they may get ecutek involved and try mapping the vcm. Also hand wound motor upgrade, suspension upgrades, lightening and maybe a custom body kit: they are also a Nismo specialist so may work towards getting the official kit etc if there is any interest.

OK, I'll bite: what is a "hot hatch"?

I think there will be more demand as these cars drop in value.

MiM: Tricking the inverter for better performance

Anybody mess with the CAN Commanded Torque Message ID 0x1D4?

The Nismo VCM is for 2013 and newer models in Japan only. Good luck getting it here. They're quite strict on that...

LeftieBiker said:

OK, I'll bite: what is a "hot hatch"?

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Hot hatchback (golf GTI) = hot hatch Megan's RS and focus RS for example.

The problem with electric cars is there is no glamour and fun associated, hence the idea of a hotter version. I'm making one for myself, I don't get why there is no interest but there's potential for a quick leaf or at least a quick mode and some handling. Ecutek know their way around a Nissan ecu so cracking a vcm shouldn't be hard for them if motivated by demand. These cars are cheap now and easily available for those wanting some Jdm fun added to their commuter car.

Probably for the same reason as why there is no interest in such things for a Versa... People simply don't buy them for that. Or to put it another way, those who do buy them don't much care about such things...

Perrin21 said:

I don't get why there is no interest but there's potential for a quick leaf or at least a quick mode and some handling.

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I'm interested, but true car enthusiasts who really want to do it will do it on their own. As people have mentioned the main purpose for the Leaf is a daily driver, you let it get dirty, door dings, drive it everywhere over nasty potholes. Big rims and tight suspension doesn't interest those people. It'll be a while before it takes off, certain companies like Saleen have already broken ground with the Model S, but that's a whole other level of the market.

You can even see it here on this message board, the interest is there but it's only a fraction of an already small population of owners. Some are hardcore and some are mild modders. I'm considering my build a mild build only because I already have a fun project car, but that still doesn't mean my daily driver has to be boring . Because in reality, the Leaf is anything but boring.

I like the idea. particularly of on the fly changeable power delivery modes. I would like to have the standard calm every day leaf, but at the flick of a switch let it gobble up tons of amps. Sure might only have a 10 mile range at that mode, but it would be fun to switch on and off, if such an option existed.

Perrin21 said:

LeftieBiker said:

OK, I'll bite: what is a "hot hatch"?

Click to expand...

Hot hatchback (golf GTI) = hot hatch Megan's RS and focus RS for example.

The problem with electric cars is there is no glamour and fun associated, hence the idea of a hotter version. I'm making one for myself, I don't get why there is no interest but there's potential for a quick leaf or at least a quick mode and some handling. Ecutek know their way around a Nissan ecu so cracking a vcm shouldn't be hard for them if motivated by demand. These cars are cheap now and easily available for those wanting some Jdm fun added to their commuter car.

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Thanks for the definition. I was picturing a fiberglass hatch. ;-) There is at least one Leaf being drag-raced, and they post about it here. Others have suspension mods, and many more have Big Wheels. There is some interest in the idea. There is equal interest in adding a spare tire, and in using the car as a giant UPS...

knightarmor said:

You can even see it here on this message board, the interest is there but it's only a fraction of an already small population of owners. Some are hardcore and some are mild modders.

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I see it the same way. The high rate of leases will also cut down on the potential population willing to modify their vehicles.

There is definitely some interest in suspension tuning, but not a ton.

ECU tuning, etc is also difficult as I'm sure that people would be very wary of anything that might give Nissan a reason to deny warranty on expensive bits like the battery, motor or inverter.

There might be interest anything that improves efficiency (and thus range), but most LEAF owners tend to be pretty frugal - so again, though market.

I don't own a Leaf. I would like to buy one soon but the thing that keeps me from doing it is the Leafs anemic performance. There appears to be no problem getting the handling half decent but the acceleration is one area that I've worried about. I'm an old school hot rodder, i'm more comfortable with carburetors than control module tuning. If/when I get a Leaf I would gladly she'll out some money to get the Leaf "sucking" more amps. Range isn't a issue since my commute is less than 15km round trip. If it could drop 0-60 times in the 7's I'd gladly give up half the range.

Get a pre-'13 Leaf and start ripping out steel. Then fit wider, lower tires and wheels for a lower effective gear ratio and better traction. You could probably get into the eights, anyway.

I think you're better off with a post 13 leaf. It starts off 129 lb lighter and it's the stuff that isn't easy to change that is lighter. You can easily fit pre 13 aluminum parts to the post 13 car. The 20 lb ft difference is probably not much in the real world with the way the car controls torque at low rpm.

For $600 to $2000 you can get a wheel tire set in 15" that will weigh in the 25 to 30 lb range. Stock 16s are 41lb and stock 17s are 46-49 (guess from lifting them haven't put them on a scale).
so 50-70 lb of rotation mass from the driveline gone. Cheap high performance tires are available in 195/50/15 (A Miata size so you know there will be some serious performance tires in that size) and are 8.8% smaller. This will also cause you to put more miles/kms on the car as you drive and your top speed will go down too.

I've thought about doing that if I wanted to autocross the car. I have 10.4lb SSR Comps on snow tires that really help the acceleration (haven't tested it with numbers, I can pull out the g-tech pro if you really want to know) but they are on 205/65/15 so the gearing is slightly taller than 16s, same as stock 17s.

As for 0-60 times with a smaller wheel I'm not sure it will help a lot. It would definitely help in the low end, 0-30 or 0-20. Since the car tapers off at higher RPM and slows down the lower gearing will cause it to reach that point quicker. A larger wheel may help with the top end. Our motor is more like an old school V8 that had high torque and low HP and didn't need the transmission to drop a gear to go fast.

I'll repost the image from http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5323&start=20 here:

I would love to get sport mode to make the car a bit more peppy. For example if it could be programmed to engage the sport mode once you have accelerator pedal more then 60% down....

NasGoreList said:

I would love to get sport mode to make the car a bit more peppy. For example if it could be programmed to engage the sport mode once you have accelerator pedal more then 60% down....

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Most of the cars that have something like that are just giving you a re map of the pedal and change the shift points (not applicable to us). You can think of normal as sport if you keep the car in eco all the time. Then when you want that feeling of going fast take off eco and suddenly normal feels way faster.

Since cars are all marketed with peak HP, peak torque and best 0-60 runs any button of that sort on any car can never achieve anything without first dialing down the default setting. The key word is that it feels faster. Floor it in any mode that doesn't actually limit power and you get the same result.