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Subject 2013 STL dyno tuning with SpecialityZ : Full results
     
Posted by maglito on April 22, 2013 at 10:09 PM
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Message This will be long so feel free to skip past the background section straight to results.
First, a cool pic of SeanK (StL) driving my car up onto the dyno as the crowd looks on.

Background:

As many of you know, I haven’t been as involved in the twinturbo.net community as I once was since about 2007-2008. I bought my Z just before moving from Illinois to Dallas in 2002. And by some amazing stroke of luck, happened to move in the same apartment complex as tt.net member aliaZ (Don) when I moved to Dallas -- our garages were even right across from each other! I became very active on twinturbo.net from 2003-2007. In 2005-2006 I spent a good deal of my time with Don (with contributions from many others) working on my build. All of this was documented on here on tt.net, is now in my signature file and on my mod list. But the short version is we were trying to push the envelope on increasing flow on the car from a complete system perspective, from intake filter to exhaust tip. Out of this build we pioneered: the MSP manifolds and turbo inlets, larger 60mm (Stanza) throttle bodies, worked with AshSpec to create the Massive SMICs and larger Intake piping kit, and used one of the first SpecialtyZ expansion downpipes and full dual 3” exhaust. Don also worked hard honing his porting skills, port matching each interface on the intake tract along with extensively porting the heads. Once finally completed and completed again (after the first short long block blew up at Zcon 2006 due to poor machine work), I was very happy with the build. Don and I had similar builds and with his higher compression pistons, I just used his tune on my car as it was pretty conservative already. Here is my first dyno after the car was finished in late 2006, early 2007 running Don’s tune. The first run is the build with a crappy temporary 2.5” exhaust with HKS downturns (loaned by SpecialtyZ to use until their new full 3” exhaust was ready) and the 2nd run was only changing to a full turbo-back expansion downpipe specialtyZ 3” exhaust. The decrease in back pressure also inadvertently raised my wastegate base boost level from 14.5psi to 18.5 psi.


The result was ~540RWHP on 93 octane pump @18.5 psi.


Base boost was already a tad high, so I never installed the boost controller, and ran it this way with this tune from 2007-2009. It was great for spirited street driving and a did a few HPDE/road course events with it and always had a blast.

In 2009 I had an accident that put me out of commission for a couple years, and in 2011 a local Z guy named Petar was flying Greg and Seb into STL to tune his car on GTX2863 turbos. I was starting to drive the Z again a few times and thought it would be a good excuse to get that race gas tune the car never had and see what it could do. I also wanted to swap the transmission to a “lightly used” 98+ transmission I’d purchased in 2007 and switch my carbon-carbon clutch to something lighter and cleaner, I chose the SpecialtyZ “High5” clutch. Don agreed to fly up, install dual fuel pumps, the transmission and the clutch so we could go to that 2011 STL dyno day and get Greg and Seb to tune the car with race gas to see if it could get the kind of power I knew it was capable of. Unfortunately, after Don flew up we remembered the carbon-carbon clutch used special flywheel bolts and they wouldn’t work on a stock type flywheel, and we wasted much of his visit locating flywheel bolts, and didn’t get the dual fuel pumps installed. And never got to the dyno.

Since Don had to come back anyway the following year for the 2012 dyno and my car was still on jack stands in my garage, I decided we could go ahead with what I really wanted to do and convert the whole fuel system to E85 tolerant components(line, tube, fittings, injectors, rails, etc.). We ordered all the parts and shipped them to Don to mock up on his own Z in Dallas and he flew up four days before the 2012 STL SpecialtyZ dyno day. As it turns out, it wasn’t enough time and some of the hoses I purchased were harder to install than anticipated, and his return flight arrived and we were still two hoses and a buch of screwing things back together short of making the STL 2012 SpecialtyZ tuning session. The local Z specialist in the area SeanK (StL) came out to finish the preparation for the 2013 (and likely final) STL SpecialtyZ STL dyno weekend. Don was unable to come back for 2013, even though he wanted to, but he was there via text email and phone, and of course -- in spirit! Sean did an excellent job getting everything back together and even slept at my house twice to have everything ready. Big thanks to both aliaZ and SeanK (StL) for all their hard work. Wouldn’t have been able to get this done without them!

Test:

The car was filled with “E85” at a Motomart about two miles from my house. The Zeitronix Ethanol Content Analyzer (ECA) only measured the ethanol content at 63% making it it really E63. I was actually fine with this because I wanted the percentage a bit lower as I am only getting a single tune made and there is now way to interpolate between two tunes (like E85 and 93octane pump) with Nistune. So there is no way without a standalone like Haltech to run a true flex fuel setup. However, if I tune the car on the low end of what comes out of an E85 pump, I can always add 93 octane to “mix down” to E60-65, but you can’t “mix up” to E85. In the midwest E85 has lots of availability but also the ethanol content can vary wildly (E90-E49.5 is supposedly legal to sell as “E85” for flex fuel vehicles).

Greg and seb strapped the car to the dyno, scolded me for having BOVs (even with the SAFC “dec air” function enabled that overrides the MAF signal on decel and 0% throttle), fixed the timing, tightened up a water hose that wasn’t tight, set up their base tune and went to work.


Greg getting ready to make a pull and telling me how crappy a the 1000cc E85 base tune I used to get the car from my house was...”I was super gentle to it on the way over because I had my doubts about that generic base tune. Although, I might have given it a little gas on the way over.”
(pro tip: always wear shoes that match your car)
Quick video of that


SeanK StL watches as one of the first runs is made



Run 5 was with my car at its base boost / wastegate level (~18.5 psi, 19.5 peak), and run 6 was with the car at the the low boost level Greg and Seb set the boost controller to where they felt the turbo wasn’t stressed and very efficient (22psi). They then left the ECU tuning alone and set off tuning the BDE adjustable intake and exhaust cam gears.


There is no way I’d normally drive the car without the timing belt covers on but for cam tuning it was necessary.


The result of buying BDE intake and exhaust cam gears and having Greg and Seb tune them. Note the difference in torque throughout the range and especially +70TQ @ 4000RPM.


Finally the money shot, turn up the boost and she what she can safely do! 700RWHP and 683TQ all with spool up faster than stock (maybe faster than most any VG30DETT), all on fuel thats cheaper than 87 octane (but you’ll use 30% more) that is available at many gas stations in the midwest. The power isn’t too uncommon, but that much low end/fast spool up is pretty impressive. This can be attributed to using 400+ cams instead of 500 and all he port work, especially my aliaZspec stage 2 heads! I’ll post more about all this soon along with some comparison dynochart overlays (400+ with porting vs 500 cams and GTX2863 vs GT2860RS).

Video of the last run:
La-Z-Link


All my important runs together, stay tuned!



m a g l i t o
E85 conversion in progress
my Z is not for sale
The build up begins - progress - reassembly part one - part two
Links with working pictures of my Z -> Gateway International Raceway HPDE 2007 - Putnam Park HPDE 2007 (data acquisition analysis) - Chicago Z meet 2007

     
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