They use e-cool

 

<p>Love the hard lines.&nbsp;</p>

 

Intercooler is air to water, the two aluminum parts on the right hand side of the picture are the inlets. I don't think it's so much because German as because packaging.

Wastegate actuators look pneumatic, yes.

--Ian

 

They work extremely well too. I know mercedes advertised >80% effectiveness under continuous duty for a couple of their new engines with w/a intercoolers. That's NUTS! I'm sure yours is just as good if not better, Audi is pretty good at that kind of stuff.

Hot V V8's look badass! I bet 10 years from now people will be yanking these kind of engines and putting them in other vehicles.

 

Loaded up on the trailer, leaving for the FM Open House in Grand Junction tomorrow:



Anyone else going?

--Ian

 

Called it!

California Lawn Crew checking in

 

So what engine is that? v6tt? Or what year is your car so I can google it?
I know very little about audi's.

 

Come on now, that's clearly a V8. Just count the plug wires.

 

we talkin bout this pic?
http://www.codrus.com/audi/s6/s6-turbos.jpg

 

It's a 2016 S6, as listed in my sig.

It's a twin-turbo V8, 4.0L, nominally rated at 450 hp. The 2012-2015 cars got a rating of 420, but made almost that at the wheels, so were generally considered to be under-rated. The 2016s get a rating bump to 450, but AFAIK nobody's dyno'd one yet, so it's unclear if that's a bump in actual power or not.

--Ian

 

Yes

I also enjoy the proximity of the wideband O2 sensors to the turbine housings.

 

I think I just jizzed. Very cool car

 

<p>Looks like simple, straightforward engineering.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p></p>

 

They kinda have to be, the cats are between the motor and the firewall! OTOH, at least they'll be easy to access if they ever need to be replaced...

Somewhere in Nevada, on the way to Grand Junction.



--Ian

 

Oh yeah, no criticism intended. I just think its kinda funny how OEMs can get away with that where we can't even think about it. I wonder what the replacement cost is for one of those sensors.
That looks like its going to be one hell of a fun trip.

 

Well, the truck blew its water pump as I crossed into Colorado, but I managed to limp it into the Chevy dealer in Grand Junction and transfer to the Miata. Made it!




--Ian

 

Damn, lots of "driving to Colorado drama" today. Glad to hear you made it! See if they'll let you drive the ND

 

Spent the day playing with the car at the track here in Grand Junction. It was somewhat frustrating -- the MS3 didn't cope well with the altitude change, it was running pig rich in boost, I don't know why. Rather than try to solve that, I went out and did a bunch of auto tuning runs for fuel last night on the freeway.

Then when I got to the track, it started giving me sync errors in the first session. This is a little go-kart track, think of it as really being a fast autocross with elevation changes and berms, but the same course every time. Since it's small there's no room to pass, so the format is 5 laps -- 1 out lap, 3 timed laps (via transponders), 1 in lap, with 5 cars on track at the same time. Laps run a hair over a minute.

So I was guessing the sync errors were from the cam sensor heat soaking, it was pretty warm today and I haven't run the car hard in 95F+ temps in a while. It mostly behaved itself in the second session, but the third was a washout too. I managed to track down a spare to try out for the fourth session, and it ran great.

Compounding the problem is that when the car starts doing strange things, my inclination is to cycle the key. Doing this at sea level when it's running is fine, because the barometric sensor reading comes in at full vacuum, the computer throws it away as being out of range, and just uses 100, which is pretty much what it always is in San Jose. Not so much here in Grand Junction, and I think doing this to try to clear sync errors was massively compounding my problems.

Given that I have a GM 3 bar external MAP sensor, why do I have the MS3 running in the combo MAP/baro sensor mode, anyway? Good question, I don't know. I thought I had configured it to use both, but apparently not. I fixed that too.

I'm still not sure why the car was running 20% rich, though. I know there's a VE dropoff due to turbo working harder to make up the lower ambient pressure, but is it really that much?




I got a ride in Atomic Bettie (not pictured -- that's Igor above, which is a turbo NB. Bettie is a V8 NC). I wasn't overwhelmed by the power in it -- that's probably because it's down 80 hp (from a nominal 430) due to being a naturally aspirated car at altitude. I think the driver was taking it easy as well, he said the cars were getting pretty hot from running all day. Don't get me wrong, it was fast, it just wasn't the awesome V8 torque sensation I'd been expecting. Maybe it's harder to feel that from the passenger seat.

After 4 sessions I was hot and tired and called it a day. Plus, my truck was fixed, so I needed to go retrieve it.



Here's hoping it holds up for the trip back to California in a few days!

Running the car on FM's dyno tomorrow, will be interesting to see what it puts down at 270 kpa.

--Ian

 

Put the Miata on FM's dyno today.



It worked well up to 215 kpa. At 240 kpa I started having spark breakup issues, looks like I either need to gap them down or upgrade from the Toyota COPs to the GM coils. Still, it turned out 325 at the wheels at 215 kpa, which I'm not displeased by. The spoolup is slow because of the altitude and because FM's dyno doesn't given the same kind of roll-in load that a dynapack/etc does.



--Ian