Garage99

93 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 – dyno tune

x99percent — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 01:21:27 +0000

Displacement is fun. Big turbos are fun. AWD is fun.
Displacement + big turbo + AWD = FUN.

The basics:

AEM EMS Series 2
Stock 6G72 3.0L block with forged internals
Ported stock heads
Brian Crower 280 cams
Borg-Warner S400SX3 turbo
custom manifolds, exhaust, intake, intercooler, and throttle body
RC 1200cc injectors
Aeromotive FPR
E85 fuel
HKS DLI
Blitz Dual-SBC Spec-R boost controller
only 23-24psi… for now

There were no mechanical issues with this car at all, which is always welcome.

Considering the size of the turbo, boost came on at a very reasonable RPM… thanks in part to a device that makes the turbine inlet smaller at low boost levels. Once the turbo was spooled, the boost level was controlled *perfectly* by the Blitz EBC. As the boost was turned up, the car responded very well and power levels continued to rise. Minimal changes in fueling were needed for the additional airflow, thanks in part to the boost compensation mapping in the AEM EMS.

The results:
574.9 hp @ 7500rpm and 477.5 ft-lbs @ 5250rpm

08 STi – Stage 2 – dyno tune

x99percent — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 20:30:38 +0000

Another basic STi… I figured that I’d post it just for giggles.

The parts:

AMR intake
Perrin EBCS
Perrin turbo inlet
TurboXS downpipe
Greddy cat-back exhaust

274.5 hp @ 5200rpm and 304.3 ft-lbs @ 4200rpm in 3rd gear
272.5 hp @ 5450rpm and 318.3 ft-lbs @ 3700rpm in 4th gear (quicker spool, but more heat at high RPM)

94 Integra turbo – GT35R – dyno tune

x99percent — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:01:40 +0000

This car is always a blast to tune. Good choice of parts, NO mechanical issues, and it revs to what seems like infinity.

The last time around, this car put down an impressive 445whp on the heartbreaker dyno. Rumor has it that, at the old power level, a “650whp” Viper didn’t stand a chance. Of course, the owner wanted even more power, so he added some cams to the mix this time. While the car had some downtime, the owner took a quick look at the bearings to make sure things were good… he was happy to report that everything looked immaculate. You just can’t be too careful when you’re regularly winding things out to 9k RPM and the car is putting down over THREE TIMES the stock wheel horsepower.

The parts:

TiAL GT35R
TiAL 44mm wastegate
TiAL BOV
Hondata engine management
stock-sleeved B18C1 bored 81.5mm
JE Pistons
Golden Eagle blockguard
Manley rods
Honda OEM bearings
Micro-polished crank
B16 head
Kelford stage 2 turbo race cams
Supertech valves and springs
ARP head studs and hardware
Type-R oil pump
MSD ignition system
Edelbrock intake
70mm throttle body
Aeromotive FPR
Quiafe LSD
Exedy twin-disc clutch

The results:
Pump gas: 374.8 hp @ 8000rpm and 264.2 ft-lbs @ 6250rpm
Race gas: 470.6 hp @ 8250rpm and 372.2 ft-lbs @ 7000rpm

06 STi – HTA GT3586R – dyno tune

x99percent — Sat, 29 May 2010 22:49:21 +0000

This was a complete build from the ground up, done by Jan and Angel. The car’s previous setup had a Blouch Dominator 1.0 turbo that put down 330whp on the heartbreaker dyno, resulting in a 1/4 mile pass of 11.8 seconds. Of course, the owner still wanted more.

This time around, a custom rotated-mount setup with a large turbo was installed along with a slew of supporting upgrades. The original block was bored over and rebuilt with Eagle rods, CP pistons, ACL race bearings, ARP head studs, and Cometic head gaskets. Killer B Motorsport’s reinforced oil pickup does its part to keep everything properly lubricated.

The basic parts:

GT3586R turbo with HTA billet compressor wheel and Tial turbine housing
AEM EMS
1200cc injectors
custom fuel system
Ported heads
Brian Crower stage 2 cams
TurboXS FMIC with custom piping
GT-Spec header
TiAL 44mm wastegate

This resulted in a set of strong, but reliable tunes on pump and race gas.

The results:
Pump gas: 392.6 hp @ 6750rpm and 335.5 ft-lbs @ 5750rpm
Race gas: 445.5 hp @ 6750rpm and 377.5 ft-lbs @ 5500rpm

04 STi – HTA68 – dyno tune

x99percent — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:00:17 +0000

There has been a fair amount of talk online about the HTA68 turbo from Forced Performance. There were claims that it “spooled earlier than a VF39″, yet made “more power than a 20G”. Well, sorry to disappoint, folks, but I think it’s fair to say that neither of these claims are true. To be fair, I don’t think it was Forced Performance that was making these claims. Still, the HTA68 is a very capable turbo… I just think it would be a better match to a 2.0L WRX motor than the STi’s 2.5L.

Regarding spool-up, the only way anyone could claim that this turbo spools earlier than a VF39 would be if you were comparing a tuned HTA68 car to a *stock* VF39 car. At typical tuned VF39 STi will be making ~280 ft-lbs of torque by 3200rpm in 4th gear, while this HTA68 STi was making ~240 ft-lbs under the same conditions. I certainly would not call the HTA68′s boost threshold “late”, but the VF39 spools up if you just look at it funny or sneeze in its general direction. The HTA68 was in full swing by ~3700rpm during the 4th gear pulls on the dyno, which is perfectly acceptable for a fun street car.

It was clear that this turbo wasn’t going to make peak power like a 20G when the boost started to fall off around 5000rpm. Most 20G-like setups do a pretty good job of keeping the boost up almost all the way to redline.

I’m not saying that the HTA68 is a bad turbo… it is a very good bang for the buck and it offers a wide powerband with relatively quick spool. I’d say it fits between a VF39 and a Dominator 1.0 turbo, leaning closer to the VF39.

This particular car arrived with a tune from another tuner in Texas. During the baseline dyno pull, it was clear that something wasn’t quite right. The ECU was pulling a LOT of timing right where the torque peak should have been… you can see this in the chart at 3900-4000rpm. A quick compression test showed that the 85k mile motor was a bit tired, but compression was very consistent across all cylinders. Once we were sure that the motor wasn’t hurt, I reflashed the ECU with a good “starting point” calibration and got to work. From that point forward, everything fell into place quite nicely.

The parts:

Forced Performance HTA68 turbo
TurboXS front-mount intercooler
TurboXS downpipe
TurboXS midpipe
Prodrive 2.5″ muffler (restriction?)
TGV deletes
K&N Typhoon intake
DeatschWerks 740cc injectors
GrimmSpeed 3-port boost control solenoid

The results:
Old tune – 254.1 hp @ 5450rpm and 271.1 ft-lbs @ 4450rpm
My tune – 287.9 hp @ 5700rpm and 301.4 ft-lbs @ 4450rpm … at the same boost level (within 1psi).

Before and after comparison:

Compared to our baseline stock 2006 STi:

06 STi – 49 lb/min turbo – results

x99percent — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:30:20 +0000

We all love our cars, and many of us want to somehow improve them… to make them truly OURS… to make them “better”. This may involve making some aesthetic improvements, installing a stereo system, or stiffening up the suspension. For me, this idea of “better” typically revolves around adding power. Over time, I’ve developed a pretty good idea of what parts do or do not work to make cars faster, especially with respect to a budget. My experience with many cars with many different parts on the dyno has allowed me to better understand what parts offer the best bang for the buck. This is the story of what happens when a customer is receptive to the advice and guidance that Jan and I offer when presented with the question, “How can I make my car faster without breaking the bank?”.

The car in question is a 2006 STi; the parts list is surprisingly simple:

Blouch Dominator 1.0 with 7cm² turbine housing (49 lb/min turbo… think “FP Green”)
Externally-gated uppipe
3″ turbo-back exhaust
Turbo inlet
Cold-air intake
TurboXS top-mount intercooler
3-port boost control solenoid
Samco blow-off valve (the stock bypass valve is slow to close)
Power Enterprise 850cc injectors (NOT “hard to tune”, as rumored on the interweb)

With my tuning, this combination of parts resulted in a strong setup, putting down about 330 whp and 330 ft-lbs of torque on the heartbreaker dyno.

Track results:
(please excuse the phone camera quality)

11.83 @ 119.3 mph, run at Milan Dragway on 93 octane pump gas

02 WRX wagon – VF39 – feedback

x99percent — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:54:06 +0000

It’s always nice to hear back from people with their results at the track. In this case, the car is a 2002 WRX wagon. It is running the stock 2.0L motor, a used VF39, 93 octane pump gas, and was tuned on the dyno by yours truly.

Got a chance to take the wagon to track earlier today. I spun hard in first and bogged second, but managed a 1.8 60ft and a 12.5 at 113mph. With a little more practice on the new setup im sure I can do better. I’m very impressed with the car. Thank you so much for the killer tune. STis with GT30s and WRXs with FP18Gs couldn’t even keep up! And my all time favorite is the LS2 GTO cammed, intake, full exhaust that I put a car on from a roll! Nobody sees it coming. Thanks Again!

This car made 260.8 hp @ 6000rpm and 257.4 ft-lbs @ 4250rpm.

How many “350 whp” cars have you seen or heard of that aren’t this fast?

02 RSX turbo – dyno tune

x99percent — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:05:54 +0000

Mikey has been wanting to turbocharge his RSX for a long time. Over the past winter, he put lots of effort into this project, fabricating many of his own parts. In the end, everything came together very nicely to produce a car with a strong and wide powerband.

The parts:

Garret T3/T04E 57 trim turbo
Bosch 750cc injectors
Hondata K-Pro
Treadstone manifold
custom downpipe
AEM 3-port boost control solenoid

The results:
294.3 hp @ 8000rpm and 207.0 ft-lbs @ 6500rpm

The short story is that Mikey put a turbo on his car and picked up 109.3 hp and 71.7 ft-lbs over the old NA numbers at only 10psi. A higher-reading MAP sensor is on it’s way, so a bit more power will be made soon.

Compared to his last NA numbers:

05 STi – Stage 2 + cat – dyno tune

x99percent — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:49:08 +0000

This 2005 STi was brought in by a customer from Windsor. Due to the emissions testing done there, the car was equipped with a catted downpipe. An off-the-shelf Stage 2 map from Cobb was flashed into the ECU with a version 1 AccessPort, but I knew there would be room for improvement.

The parts:

TurboXS catted downpipe
TurboXS standard cat-back exhaust (2.5″)

The results:
253.4 hp @ 5200rpm and 294.7 ft-lbs @ 3700rpm

Compared to the Cobb map:

Compared to our stock ’06 baseline:

MKIV Supra – built and on race gas – dyno tune

x99percent — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:05:12 +0000

This Supra arrived in need of some help. For the most part, the car was mechanically sound, but there were a few loose ends to tie up. Once those issues were addressed, I took at peek at what was going on in the car’s AEM EMS. From the first glance, it was obvious that the tune was pretty haggard… there would be lots of work to do.

The parts:

Garrett GT42 turbo
AEM EMS
1680cc injectors
fully built motor
HKS 272 cams

The results:
After correcting the basic parameters within the AEM EMS, the car behaved beautifully. Once the car was running nice and strong at the wastegate level, I started to turn up the boost and the power output just kept on rising. Somewhere north of 25psi, there was a hint of a miss at high RPM, so we decided to take a look at the spark plugs. The plugs Jan removed from the car did look a bit old, so he replaced them with new ones that he had in stock. This alone resulted in a gain of 30whp.

730.6 hp @ 8250rpm and 532.5 ft-lbs @ 6750rpm

As compared to our “measuring stick” stock ’06 STi: