Alfa giulietta QV ecu tuning.

[Rilly]

G'day Bam Bam,

I can't speak for Superchip but in March this year, I purchased a Novitec Powerjet 3 additional ECU from Squadra Sportiva (Europe) for my 2011 Guilietta QV.  She's about to have her 30,000km birthday and has only just come out of warranty.  Let me just state up front, that I only ever drive her in 'Dynamic' mode.  From what I can tell during my research of ECU's, Novitec is a bit like Alfa Romeo's tuning arm.  Total cost for the ECU (including freight to Perth and additional bypass plug) was 433.96 Euro or approx. $628 AUD. 

The ECU box has a potentiometer dial on the base that goes from 0 - 10.  It took less than 30 minutes to fit. Would've been closer to 10 minutes if I could've levered the original Bosch sensor plugs off quicker as removing the throttle sensor in particular, gave me a fair bit of grief.

Once the six sensors on the wiring harness had all been connected, I cable-tied the ECU box horizontally to the front of the battery so that I could still access the dial on its base and also the top of the box, which is where the wiring harness connects to (I also purchased the additional bypass plug, which allows me to return the car to standard factory set up for servicing - to do this, you remove the wiring harness from the aftermarket ECU and attach it to the bypass plug, which causes the QV to access it's factory ECU).

From memory, the dial on the base of the Novitec ECU was factory set at 6, which was OK but didn't excite me all that much.  The Novitec blurb that came with the unit (which is nothing more than a couple of photocopied black 'n' white sheets I might add), says moving the dial to any setting other than 5, 6 or 7 may cause electrical errors (they don't tell you this on the website).

Of course, I had to try the '8' setting and was reasonably impressed by the power surge but it did cause strange things to happen from time to time (e.g. bluetooth dropping out, random power steering failure, 'dynamic' mode to return to 'normal' randomly, etc.)  All these problems could be rectified easily enough by flicking the negative lead off the battery for one minute.

But rather than live with electrical issues, I did what any red-blooded male would do and turned the ECU all the way to '10' and Holy Mother of God!, this thing is a different beast altogether.  Suffice to say, for the past few months now I've had zero electrical faults and the additional power is just sensational (the QV is also on its second set of p-zeros  ). I haven't performed any official dyno testing since fitting the unit but I'd hazard at a guess that it's taken close to a second or more off its 0-100km time.

The official blurb states that the Novitec Powerjet 3 will increase bhp from 235 to 261 (380Nm).  Whilst I realise there are other ECU boxes out there that will probably extract more power than this unit, I'm genuinely happy with the results achieved (and the fact that Novitec seems to have some affiliation with Alfa Romeo).

Ultimately, I'd love to mate my QV with a sports exhaust (Raggazon or similar), which I'm fairly confident would unleash more Italian fury but I had a hard enough time sneaking the ECU past the Commissioner for Finance, let alone a pricey sports exhaust (which is far more noticeable than a black box in the engine bay).  I have fitted a K&N sports air filter to her though.

Here's the website if you feel like checking it out: 
http://shop.alfisti.net/Tuning-Styling/Alfa-159/Motor-Airfilters/Novitec-Powerjet-3-Additional-ECU-for-18-TBi::5132.html

Best of luck with your ECU tuning, BB.

Regards, Mark

Hey Mark,
Thanks for the info above. It was enormously helpful, when i started my mods. I have also ordered and recieved the powerjet 3 for my white QV. Also a full Super Sprint exhaust including down pipe and cat. Custom cold air intake and BMC high flow filter. I have to ask one question though. The Powerjet 3 settings range from 0-9 according to Novitec and Squadra Sportiva. 0 being turning the system off basically and 9 being the max setting. I'm confused at your "10" setting being the most Alfatastic! 9 seems to be the premium setting imo? What is your experience having tried the settings now?
Thanks again, your advice set me on my QV mod journey 

[Ando117]

Hey Bam,
I noticed in some of your other youtube videos you had the Alfa logo projection lamps under the doors,
where did you get them from? and how hard was it to install?
Looks awesome! Love the sound of that exhaust! Definitely need to look into that for my GQV

[Asiertito]

shipping was not cheap! 120 euro's to be exact and honest.

I have it and fitted it now. I VERY happy with this! it's exactly what I wanted!
The quality is top notch, and it was very easy to fit.
The remote works a treat too!
I'll post so vids, but they don't do it justice! you really have to hear it in person!
With the flap open, it's pretty loud, but there is still no droning when just cruising around.
Pump it up to hear it properly in the vid.
Loving the popping and cackling when getting off the throttle!
With the flap closed, it's not too much louder than standard, but has a way better sound!

Where can I buy this exhaust?