Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

Back in the day before life became complicated we used to tune motors differently at the coast compared to up north.
Does that still apply with modern computerised motors?
I bought my 4.8 Patrol in Gauteng and the vehicle is now based in the Cape. It pings a bit every now and then if I put foot, or it could just be my imagination, and fuel consumption is a bit kakker than it should be even though I drive very conservatively. Will the computer adjust for the drop in altitude living down in DA territory or must I get it tweaked? I've only ever dyno'd racing cars, never bothered with road cars, and don't want to fiddle with it if I don't have to

I know the computer does "learn" but I know that I felt a slight ping every so often at the coast too, but only when I pushed it. I recon its a timing advance issue. I know many Gauteng 4.8s get the timing advanced to improve performance from standard settings.

Spike I recently played around with my timing after reading up on the Aus forums, there weather conditions are fairly similar to ours. I think the ECU has about 5 deg advance and retard over the base timing. Each vehicle will have its own factors to deal with like valve clearance etc over time with wear and tear. I seem to have found that around 8-10 deg advance is my sweet spot. I ran 12 for a while but found that I would start to ping in traffic with high ambient temps.

Check your passenger side of the console ...there is a chip ibet you

"Left side of console " Not really sure where to look but I'll do some yoga in the morning and see if I can spot anything under there. Thanks for the input guys.

Spike wrote: ↑29 Nov 2019 19:09 "Left side of console " Not really sure where to look but I'll do some yoga in the morning and see if I can spot anything under there. Thanks for the input guys.

From your gearlever towards your left front wheel ...pull the carpet away from your console and look down there very rarely you wii get on the driver side

I bought my 3.0 D up in Johannesburg. When I brought it down to Durban it would not idle. I took it to Nissan in Pinetown and they said the turbo was shot. I replaced the turbo at great expense only to find it still would not idle. It turned out to be the altitude compensator on the ECU. The chap said he had to change a resistor, although I was not completely convinced. So yes, it seems there still is a need to compensate for altitude.