Good luck getting the rest of the way. Looks like you are getting there.

 

It's about playing it safe, if you don't want to see a hole on the side of your block, when you boost it. Like gasoline and fire, high compression and turbo do not mix very well.

But hey, you are the envy on this board, and you are doing the smart thing by letting people comment, whether it's good or bad.

 

That is why I asked about the dyno. That will tell you how much headroom you have.

 

Hopefully one day. Not in the near future or anything, unfortunately.

And I appreciate the comments. That is the reason I have kept the boost very low to this point. I think once in a while it will get to 14 PSI, but not until the cams are dialed in will I turn up the boost, one step at a time and hopefully after this weekend I will be able to start turning up the boost.

 

What's the SP gap now? When was the last time you had an oil change?

 

Spark plug gap was at .026, went out to .028 because I run so rich at WOT, may move them out to .030 to see if it leans it out a bit. Oil change is about every 4k miles with Mobil 1 10W40 High Mileage. Less than 1k miles ago was the last one.

 

I would talk to the guy at Viva and see what he says. It's his program anyways. He might tell you some helpful things. Did he run a simulator? You can DIY the simulator yourself, if you are willing to do it.

 

I'm coming along with this cam timing. Set them to 1* ADV EXH and 2* RET INT. My vac was a little lower than the previous adjustment, sitting at 15-16 at idle but when I let off the gas the vac will drop down to 20 in/hg which is still really good, however, this is the smoothest power band I've had yet thus far. 1st gear is worlds better, and the wall is damn near gone. Probably a couple more minor tweaks and I should be good.

 

Thought I would write everything out that I've done, copied and pasted from VS:

I'm getting closer. Right now I have the smoothest power band through the RPM range that I've had. Each time I'm getting closer, 1st gear is getting the most improvement. Before I started doing this I could not boost in 1st gear until about 5k RPM, now I have a nice even boost range through the gears. I'm just not quite sure which way to really fine tune it now.

This is what I've done so far:

2* ADV EXH / 2* RET INT = No. Horrible acceleration and performance, low vac and running lean
3* ADV EXH / 2* ADV INT = NO. Same as above
3* RET EXH / 0* INT = MEH
3* RET EXH / 3* RET INT = Meh. Vac was 15 in/hg
3* RET EXH / 4* RET INT = Better, wall is fading
2* RET EXH / 4* RET INT = Better, First gear noticeably better, vac = 15.5-16 in/hg, wall is still slowly diminishing
1* RET EXH / 3* RET INT = Better again, vac= 16-17 in/hg, wall still fading even more
0* EXH / 2* RET INT = Still getting better, wall nearly gone, still slight hesitation around 4-5k RPMs, vac= 17 in/hg
1* ADV EXH / 2* RET INT= Best yet. Power curve through the RPMs is great. Wall is is nearly gone if not completely gone, 1st gear noticeably better, vac dropped slightly to 15-16 in/hg

That is where I'm at. I'm undecided what my next move is. Now I feel like I'm so close I don't know which way to go. I don't know if I want to advance the exhaust cam one degree and be at 2* ADV EXH / 2* RET INT or advance the intake cam one degree. The vac dropped slightly with this last adjustment but the smoothness of the RPM range was awesome. So I don't know if I should try and get the vac back down to 17 in/hg (which is at idle, when I let off the gas it goes down to 20 or 21 in/hg).

Anyone have any ideas which way I should go now?

 

AFR numbers (idle, WOT)? Boost? What octane?

 

Just keeping it fresh.


Idle the numbers bounce between 14.7 and 15.3, which is right where they should be. WOT they start in the 12s/11s and by the time I'm really on her at WOT they are 10s, super rich, I'm also running about 10 psi below what the car is tuned for.

Boost right now is 14 PSI max at WOT, stays at 5 psi until I start accelerating, goes up to 10 psi (which is what I have the boost set to before I go WOT), than once I get WOT and the system goes open loop, it goes from the 10 psi to 14 psi.

93 octane.

 

Vacuum at 2000 rpm?

BTW: I don't think you are super rich at WOT, given your factors / tune. A little rich maybe...

 

Your numbers tell me that you are not taking full advantage of overlap. If you want asphalt-busting numbers that's not good. If you want balance --driveability and power, you might be right around where you should be, but I don't think you will get high 200s at full boost. Maybe I should have asked first -- what are you trying to achieve?

 

vac at 2k RPM? I mean, it could be anything. Could even be boost at 2k RPM. Depends how I'm driving.

I mean, it is rich. My car is extremely tame compared to some on Volvospeed and their AFRs are right where they should be, right around 12. Obviously, they're mostly stand alone or using Turbo Tuner, so they have full access to their fuel maps to make any adjustments.



What do you mean "get high 200s"?

Well, I'm looking obviously for a balance of some sort. Where I was before with the timing when the car was running horrible with low vac wasn't going to work regardless. I could barely accelerate. I took me all of the gears to get up to 65 because the car just wouldn't go. Last night when I did my one pull on the on ramp I was at 70 in 2nd gear before I even got to the highway to merge.

I think I'm getting a bit much overlap right now with the vac being lower than what it was before, which is why I'm going to try and retard the intake cam. What I'm really trying to achieve is a low end power band from my cams followed by the boost taking over the upper end of the power band, that way I can limit my boost in RPM. I think since my cams are finally moving so far out of retardation, that that is what is happening and that's why my first gear keeps improving and why before I wouldn't get any real power until 4k or 5k RPMs.

This is what I'm using and referring to for my cam timing. The guy who runs ARD is Lucky from IPD who was responsible for a lot of IPD's custom tunes, especially for those amongst the VS community, so he knows his stuff:

Text quoted from here: http://ardideas.com/tuningfaq.html

 

2000 rpm is about the borderline when you can measure load on NA, before boost kicks in meaningfully. Theoretically, your vacuum should be half-way at that point, 7-8. Absent dyno numbers, this is a "play-by-ear" way of making some sort of judgment about engine's HP curve.

And your NA cams skew this picture, plus you are under-boosting and tuned differently. So not quite apples to apples.

HP and TQ.


I apologize, I thought your goals were somewhat different, which explains why my interpretation of overlap (max hp, safely) is different from yours (balance):

 

Actually took a glance when just accelerating to see what vac is around 2k rpms, and it's right around 5-10 in/hg, obviously that was just slowly accelerating and not pushing it otherwise it would have been lower if not starting to boost.

I have no reason to believe that I won't be in the high 200 whp and torque when I'm finished doing this fine tuning and turn up the boost. I should be, at least.

I obviously want max hp from my cams, but I'm not going to achieve that if they're not allowing the car to run properly. When they have too much overlap and the vac is low, the car runs like ****, I'm not going to have any power with those kinds of settings.

Yesterday I advanced the intake cam to 1* RET, so I was at 1* ADV EXH / 1* RET INT, and again the vac dropped a little bit and it didn't run very well. I spoke with Lucky who sent me this email:

So I am going to retard the intake cam back to 3* and will be at 1* ADV EXH / 3* RET INT, which is almost right where I was at before. So this should hopefully have the car running pretty good. And these settings, almost where I was, is actually what Lucky suggests for the 19T with NA cams. So it sounds like I did pretty good with the timing.

 

I brought up the vacuum at 2000 rpm to see if you had some whacky numbers, but it sounds like you are ok.

Overlap is not a friend if you want driveability, but is a very good friend if you want top-end ripping power.

Yeah. It sounds like you found the G spot. I would just go ahead and crank up the boost now. You may still play around with timing.

I am a skeptic for high 200s, for several reasons, but hey, if you get there I would be happy for you.

 

Once I turn up the boost, I'm sure I'll have to tweak them a bit more.

But if you don't mind me asking, what are your reasons? My friend with similar mods (besides his built engine, however, he's only running an 18T at 18.5 PSI and IMO does not require a built engine) is putting down about 307 WHP.

 

Is there a dyno sheet?