Anyone ever try a precooler idea?

[6SENSE]

I will ask again because I think this IS a key question. How fast are you trying to go?
Looking at the times in your sig I can tell you that I have gone 1/2 a second faster @ 4-5 mph more, with a 60ft time .3 - .4 slower than yours (2.2 or 2.3). This was with no alky, no propane, no intercooler. It was also with a wiped cam and a below stock CR of somewhere in the 7:1 range from head gaskets that were more than 3X stock thickness (hey, I didnt know ). Car was the biggest 6cyl pig out there, running rich was an understatement (almost same gas mileage as my Suburban). I would race with my FP set at 32psi . It didnt matter whether it was at 32 or 42, no difference in performance. Boost anywhere from 15-26, no diff in performance. Yes, I even ran with only 32-34psi FP w/ 25~ #s of boost, thats how out of whack it was that it wouldnt blow up! Too much space in chambers + valves not opening up like they should = a lot of air probably sitting around/not pushing through like it should. Oh yeah, too thick head gaskets also caused a inadequate lifter preload issue (probably 0 preload!) that I believe hurts topend. So I was basically f***ed. As if that wasnt enough I had a false KR issue form a faulty ESC. A 20* chip with 17~* of false KR does not help running down the track. If I think hard enough I could probably mention something else like header leaks (which dont help these cars at all), but I think the above mentioned is enough.
Okay, besides making myself feel good thinking of all the lost performance I should gain from correcting the problems (not to mention the head porting I just did) this should be enough to show the potential that is there, before adding an intercooler, or finally being able to effectively utilize the alky/H2O. Granted you dont have the problems I did there is no reason you shouldnt be able to run faster by focusing on improving whats there and through the #1 "mod": TUNING.
Did I mention that I have never ran on slicks either? Nor race gas? I believe that I can get this car to very low 13s/probably break into the 12s through TUNING. If I add slicks/race gas theres no question, but Im going to tune as far as I can in street trim first. Adding slicks, race gas, an intercooler, is only icing on the cake to get to that next plateau(s) of performance when the time comes.
How fast do you want to go? 13s beats 90% of whats on the street.

 

[JayLashua]

Interesting 6sense. My goal was to originally go 13s.. I just dont feel it... but I have noticed something..

I went 15.1 at 91.5 mph.. he went 14.6 @ 92 mph..

1.9 sixty foot, as opposed to my 2.3.. I have an open rear though.. =/

Any how, Id like to know how the hell you got 4-5 more mph with all the crap that was wrong with your car!

if tuning can get you that far, im all ears. I should get direct scan, but I can see most of everything with gauges.. o2 mv, knock, boost rpm, whatever... this is going to turn a different direction.. but ive asked a couple times, different subjects, but the same general idea, but havent gotten any real interesting remarks..I just might get a DS and a laptop next week if it'll help that much..

ive been trying to tune my car out of the 15s for a while now..I get to a point where it feels faster, but then knock becomes more apparent, etc.. things like which fuel pressure, how much boost, what timing... even reading recipes.. i say "I have all that less headers, why didnt I run a 14.3 etc" and the answer is probably very clear.. I cant tune my damn car!

i hate hearing "Get a scan tool" .. that doesnt mean that when I get a scan tool, im going to know how to read everything.. like injector pulse width, or what that should look like.. etc etc.. theres alot of info and its more than just being able to read it, its about knowing what to do with it.. and that what I want to know how to do. I have all the otehr tools already.. software, editors, chip burner.. etc etc.

so why dont we start telling how we acheived our tune? how we got all the performance out of it? what the hell did you do to make the car with such a messed up condition, run 96-97 mph !? you know thats a high 13 right there.. come on!

 

[WFO]

are you still running stock injectors?how much timing is in your chip?for pump gas i'd run no more than 18º.

running my maxeffort i completely stopped looking at o2 mv.i tune with fuel pressure and my knock gauge.i have an egt that will be going in soon that should help me fine tune even more.

don't look for some magical o2 mv #.just because it worked on someone else's car doesn't mean it will work on yours.pay attention to the knock gauge.do your tuning pulls in 3rd gear(don't let it shift into od)cuz that's where the highest load is.tune for no knock or just barely tickle the gauge at the top of 3rd.then do a full pass,you shouldn't have any knock anywhere else if you're not knocking in 3rd.a degree or two on shifts is ok.

since you said you burn your own chips you might want to experiment with putting 19-20º in 1st gear,18º in 2nd and 17º in 3rd.i know this works pretty well for alky setups and i don't see why it wouldn't work with pump gas.you should try it and let us know.

later,sean

 

[Nocooler]

Ask Twins about his Dad's car........

It sparys N20 before the turbo! I've never been in it when he's played with it but, Twins says its nuts.

 

[6SENSE]

Just looked through some of my timeslips. I seem to have some missing but found a couple that are decent examples. One was a 14.2@96.1 w/ a 2.17 60ft, and I had a note written on it that I had let off in 3rd gear do to some KR. Its funny that Im even talking about tuning with respect to my car at all, as it was so difficult, almost impossible at times, to tune the darn thing with the issues it had. I felt at times that I was getting nowhere. I really did not think of any of my times as good. I didnt care about the Mustangs I was beating, I wanted the Corvettes. Maybe my expectations were too high, having two brothers with '86-'87 cars around and a GSCA club with nothing but intercooled cars didnt help either..... but then again thats what also fuels me. I built the car with very low 13s to high 12s in mind. I did not know of the issues that I had internally in the engine, but I have learned alot since then and now can see a possible reality to achieving that "first" goal.
Do a search in this forum on tuning. I always felt I understood tuning pretty well but had started to doubt myself before I realized how many issues I had with the engine. I know for sure there are good tuning tips already posted because some of them were in an attempt to help me. I recall a thread I had titled "AC CR43TS or AC CR42TS" where there were some great tuning tips from WFO and FJM568 (among others). Check the 2nd page of the thread.
Unfortuneatley there help couldnt do anything for the unknown condition of my engine at the time, but when I get it back together tuning is the first thing Im thinking about. It was instilled early on in my Buick TR experience how important tuning was by watching Scott Keller tune his never opened stock engine '87T with stock turbo and nothing more than blue tops, chip, and exhaust for mods to a 12.1et. Dan Smith took his '84 hotair to a 13.0 et back in the early or mid 90's (not sure what year exactly). His words to me were that he was tired of having the "slow" car at the track and so he finally converted to a '87 setup. I think I was supposed to be discouraged from wasting my time with the hotair setup but the opposite happened. For one, Scott seemed to think that Dan may have been able to get more out of that hotair setup than a 13.0, and as far as I am concerned he is a tuning guru. The main thing I was thinking though, was that I dont even know if Dan had a ported intake or some of the other things that weve been doing with our hotairs over the last few years or so that have been becoming more the main stream as more and more have become serious about these '84-'85 cars. These are the type of things that inspired me to get up for the challenge.
Black Ttype, I understand where you are coming from with wanting to add something that you dont have to toy with. Sounds like the best thing for you would be a intercooler if that is the case. Im not sure what your experience or what youve heard about alky/H2O injection, but its not like you are always filling it up everytime you drive the car. Take a look at the info on the aquamist site, H2O injection is used world wide on many different makes. If you dont want to really add anything then think about what was said in the last few posts about tuning and improving on what youve already got. Sooner or later depending on how fast you are trying to go, everyone winds up adding something, its normal. '86-'87s add alky injection, or bigger intercoolers, etc. Its not just a '84-'85 hotair issue.

 

[6SENSE]

Sorry for such a long post above, just feel like Ive been there Black Ttype, so just trying to give my $.02 .

 

[cool 84]

I guess all cars are different. I went 13.8 @ 101mph with only 13psi, K&N, and a spearco intercooler. No fuelpump, no chip, and street tires and pump gas. Just start with the 02s near 800 and start turning up the boost and turning the FP down a little at a time until you see knock and then back off a bit. With my old combo I only went 110.3mph at 13psi with a plugged cat that was so bad the boost fell to nearly 8psi on the top end and it was knocking like crazy. But once I got the cat removed, turned the boost to 24psi and leaned it out a bit I pulled two Viper GTSs from a roll and a stop. Tuning is everything.

My dad's car back when it was a hotair went 14.0@100mph with a chip, K&N, 19psi, adjustable FPR and dragradials. Absolutely nothing else was done to that car. It ran with the stock IC cars with $100 in mods. That thing was tuned to the max so much so that a small change in the weather (especially colder) would make it knock and run like crap but it goes to show how important tuning is.

 

[turbowrenchhead]

Install a Liquid to air i/c and an ice box for it. Put in some dry ice and a way you go.
I have also seen guys who weld up there stock i/c's and run the A/C compressor to them. Anyone know how well these work? I had a dream the other night I had a small box made with 3" inlet and outlet and as A/C evaprator inside it. I was installed after the front mount and before the t/b. But my dream didn't tell how well it worked. I need to get my car done so I can sleep.

 

[cool 84]

From what I understand the stock AC system doesn't come close to having the heat rejection capacity to serve as an intercooler. The only way it would work was to have it chill water and then it was only good for a run or two then it would take quite a while for the AC to chill the water again. Even the near ambient air coming out of the turbo during normal driving would put a load on it. It was an awesome idea but I think some kind of an upgraded system would be needed.

 

[cool 84]

I forgot to add our actual date. My dad's car has had a chargeair temp guage from the time it was a hotair to it's current form as a stageII IC car. 21psi stock turbo, no intercooler chargeair temps hit ~300 degrees and about 120 just cruising on a 55 degree day. He converted to a stockblock IC 87 setup with a TE62 and KenneBell BigBoy IC. On a full 22psi run chargeair temps hit ~120 on a cool day. Then we added alky injection and the temps hit very close to ambient, about 60 degrees on a 55 degree day.

 

[WFO]

a couple of things to add:

.1 in the 60' is good for .12-.15 in the quarter.look at turbo6x2's 12.31 @ 106 vs my 12.58 @ 107.their low 1.6 was worth over 2 tenths on the big end over my high 1.7.

when tuning a car don't get too spazzed out about running high boost.start low(15-16 psi) and get it tuned lean and mean there.then start turning the boost up slowly,like .5 psi at a time.i guarantee a lean car running 16# will be faster than a fat one running 18#.plus throttle response and lag time will be greatly reduced.

later,sean

 

[joereitman]

You may wish to consider a phenolic spacer if you do the TB coolant blockoff. I am considering this mod.

Joe

 

[JayLashua]

Well I dont know hwo you do this I dont see any way to edit the timing for each gear.. only the main spark advance table is all i know about, except highway mode whatev.er.. and WOT spark advance which is only good up to 2000 rpm or so..

My current chip is 18* and the boost is 14~15 psi, fp was ~38 or so, and i barely got any knock at all, but like i said..there is more in that combo then im getting out of it.. my o2s usually sit in the 860-840 range maybe 820

tuning with fuel pressure would be interesting, if i set the pe trim and locked the blms at 128, if i got the pe trim to work good, at wot 255lv8/maf it should rely on static FP then..?
well, i can always try one thing at time until i get results..

i might even get a egt gauge soon as well, autometer unit for $138 i saw..

Originally posted by WFO
are you still running stock injectors?how much timing is in your chip?for pump gas i'd run no more than 18º.

running my maxeffort i completely stopped looking at o2 mv.i tune with fuel pressure and my knock gauge.i have an egt that will be going in soon that should help me fine tune even more.

don't look for some magical o2 mv #.just because it worked on someone else's car doesn't mean it will work on yours.pay attention to the knock gauge.do your tuning pulls in 3rd gear(don't let it shift into od)cuz that's where the highest load is.tune for no knock or just barely tickle the gauge at the top of 3rd.then do a full pass,you shouldn't have any knock anywhere else if you're not knocking in 3rd.a degree or two on shifts is ok.

since you said you burn your own chips you might want to experiment with putting 19-20º in 1st gear,18º in 2nd and 17º in 3rd.i know this works pretty well for alky setups and i don't see why it wouldn't work with pump gas.you should try it and let us know.

later,sean

 

[cool 84]

Having the BLMs lock at 128 made tuning so much easier. Before I had that my 02s were different with every run, sometimes way lean and sometimes way fat. After, I could actually tune it and it was much more consistant. I've also learned that running too rich will make it detonate too.

 

[BLACK Ttype]

Now how are you locking the BLM's? In the chip right? Because that if one of my main problems is that my car runs way rich in the bottom end. Keeping it that way is the only way I can keep the o2's up in the top end. I need a new chip. No I need chip editing software and burner

 

[BLACK Ttype]

Originally posted by joereitman
You may wish to consider a phenolic spacer if you do the TB coolant blockoff. I am considering this mod.

Joe

Never heard of this! Please elaborate!

 

[JayLashua]

Erll uoh err
Well you got to understand the chip before you can edit it!

I locked the low blm limit to 112 on my last chip ..

a chip i made along time ago, when i went to the race track, based on kb 9006, i had some extra fuel trim and the timing was 18 degrees, directscan showed 19.3 or something like that though? anyhow, it was rich according to the o2, only ran a best of 15.1 and i got 4degrees of retard on like 2-3 shift i think.. Also each blm cell was going down to about 105 with the exception of the last one..which was going to like 112 or so.. but I am curious about what WFO said about the different timing..

now ofcourse he wont mention it again right? i mean.. how do you do that if theres only one spark table !@@#

And another thing..
do you just lower the timing at say, 88-100% lv8, 3600rpm+ or what? Ive tried different levels, but like i said, after 15 psi it just knocks..

If i turn the static fp up to give more fuel at wot, do i need to take fuel out of the chip to compensate for extra pressure? perhaps thats where another problem lies?

 

[WFO]

Originally posted by BLACK Ttype
I need a new chip. No I need chip editing software and burner

you need a maxeffort.

jay-i don't know sh!t from shinola about burning chips but i know you can get variable timing chips from bob and steve yaklin.maybe post this in the chips section?

 

[joereitman]

Originally posted by BLACK Ttype
Never heard of this! Please elaborate!

http://www.dsmtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81313

http://www.dsmtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36589&highlight=phenolic

and this is from a thread that is MUCH too long to read through:

"However, another possibility is to reduce the heat conduction from the hot engine to the intake manifold by thermally separating the two. By replacing the steel intake manifold gaskets with an insulating spacer, heat conduction to the manifold can be greatly reduced. The best material for the spacers would have a low thermal conductivity, high compressive strength, be able to withstand up to 300°̊ F, and be affordable. Phenolics, with a thermal conductivity of .2-.5 W/m*K, high stiffness, and the ability to withstand 500+°̊ F are commonly chosen for similar applications. Additionally, the coefficient of thermal expansion is similar to that of aluminum which will help to reduce sealing problems in this particular use. When compared to the .025 steel gasket it replaces (thermal conductivity of 10-20 W/m*K), a 1/4" thick phenolic insulator will conduct 200-1000 times less heat!

Although the insulation benefits increase with thickness, 1/4" sheet was chosen because this is the thickest one could use and still utilize the stock mounting studs and bolts.

There are several questions and comments people have placed regarding the effectiveness and potential problems with phenolic insulators. Here are a few. I will add more as they are offered.
. Won't moving the fuel injectors 1/4" higher mess up the "aim" of the fuel stream and cause drivability and mileage problems? Doesn't the injector have to hit the back of the intake valve perfectly to work properly?

This was one of my initial concerns, so I spoke with someone who had already done this modification. He assured me that there were no such problems. After having the spacers installed on my vehicle for a month now, I would have to agree. I have noticed no degradation in drivability; in fact, I have posted some of my best gas mileage numbers lately. It would seem that injector pulse placement is not as critical as some may feel. Also, we have two intake valves and only one injector per cylinder. If you take a look at one of the injectors, there is a "splitter" that breaks the fuel shot into two streams to shoot it in the general direction of the intake valves. Hardly a precision aimed component.
. What about the EGR? Doesn't the hot exhaust gas heat up the intake manifold anyway?

During EGR operation, exhaust gas is fed into the intake stream near the throttle body during part throttle operation to dilute the intake charge. This is done to cool combustion and reduce NOX emissions. The amount of exhaust gas bled into the intake stream is minimal and does not appreciably heat the intake charge. In addition, the EGR valve is closed during full throttle and doesn't dilute the intake charge at all. Take a look at the temperature data, my insulated intake is much cooler.
. Won't the additional length added to the intake runner mess up the power curve or VRIS resonance points?
The 1/4" (6.35 mm) addition to the runner length will move the torque curve down in RPM ever so slightly (~50 RPM) and will not be noticeable. At least I haven't noticed!

What about turbo or supercharging?
The strength of the phenolic material is high enough to withstand any level of boost. Remember, the increased pressure of the intake charge is contained within rubber and silicon hoses held with hose clamps."
http://home.san.rr.com/scmorgan/spacers/Theory_FAQ.htm

Also, I think there are some old threads on here about phenolics.

Hope this helps.

Joe

 

[6SENSE]

Many chip makers have been setting BLMs to peg 128 at WOT. Im pretty sure all the chips I have tried were set like this.
Also, joereitman that is some interesting info, and definately not a new idea. Be nice to see the benefit it would have on a TR, especially Hotair. The '86-'87s at least have the air tunnel that runs through the middle of their intake like Edelbrock's air gap. Well, at least our intakes are made of aluminum, could be worse .