I've gotten a lot of questions about what exactly this consult stuff is, so here's a quick short summary. 'Consult' is the name of the machine that Nissan dealerships use to 'talk' to your car. The 'consult port' is the grey connector below your fuse box that the machine plugs into. This is similar to the OBD-II connector on later cars. Both B13/S13 and B14/S14 have a consult port (even the B14/S14 cars with OBD-II ports, they have both!), up to 1997. In 1998 they switch to the consult-II, and I do not work with that.
So what does all that mean to you?
Well, some really bright guys reverse engineered the way a consult machine communicates to the ecu. The end result is that with a little electronics hardware people could write computer software to talk to the ecu instead. Cool. What does that mean? Well, besides being able to dump the stock rom from the ecu, you can do cool stuff like datalogging or put your car in timing mode with the click of a button. Neato! It really is just that cool.
So what is this daughterboard with consult stuff?
There are two hurdles with interfacing your laptop to the consult port. First, you've got to have a little electronics. Second, you've got to have the physical plug that plugs into the socket. The daughterboard with consult tackles both those by including the electronics on the daughterboard, then giving you a standard serial cable out the back. You plug this cable directly into your laptop, no further stuff needed (unless you need a serial to usb adapter of course).
What consult software is available for free? For a little money?
Uh, I'll make a list later. If you guys post the site for software I'll add it to this post. There's a bunch.
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