Its good to see that you are making progress.

Would love to see a virtual dyno of the current setup if you have one

^the place I've been doing my pulls is on an uphill grade (because Atlanta... nothing flat here, and hard to find roads that aren't loaded with traffic). Logs are useful for spool data, not so much for Virtual Dyno. I'll see if I can get out of town on a flat highway to get a legit VD pull.

Hey Aaron, sorry for the delay, although it was nowhere near a week.. You ordered at 9PM on the 24th and it was delivered by the 28th - That makes 3 business days sir. I couldn't have done it much faster than that. Priority mail (Flat rate or not) is the fastest option without express shipping.

Otherwise, solid progress/information on your spool. I'll keep an eye on this thread.

^ no worries man. I probably overstated my case, and I'm sorry about that. I was frustrated about the $9 shipping charge for a part that was the size of a thimble, and then it took you a few more days to get it out the door. It was only one day in transit, so USPS did their job. Anyway, thanks for popping in.

I was running errands at lunch, and got out on the highway to try to get a decent 4th gear pull for VD. This pull was the cleanest:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8255841eb7.jpg

The area that I pulled in was actually a little uphill too. The run ended when I hit against my 12psi overboost protection (see the big AFR spike at the end when I hit fuel cut). So my previous post was optimistic, I need to dial back my WG actuator a half turn.

It's showing 200ish HP and torque, with the boost creep at the end there. I think when I get the WG right, it will probably be more like 180ish, before I put the EBC in.

Did you take into account your weight in VD. I found I missed a lot of things when I set mine up. In any case, not bad. Your peak horsepower is way up there like mine. Does it pull progressively?

^ yes, I did put in my weight. I'm probably overestimating the weight of the car, and the pull was on a bit of an uphill grade. The car does pull progressively stronger (more on that in a minute).

After hitting the overboost protection yesterday, I reduced the WG preload by half a turn to +2.5. Results exactly as expected (green line, right between the +2 and +3 lines).

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...904a6d5ecb.png

After that, I did my usual WOT pull through 1st and 2nd gear. Hit the overboost protection again in 2nd gear, around 6500 rpm. I think I have the turbo spooled up nicely after pulling in 1st, and the boost goes higher in 2nd because it's starting with pretty close to full spool. Nonetheless, I'm not that excited about going back to +2 preload; leaving a lot of power on the table. Instead, I'm going to do some more wastegate porting this weekend to see if I can get rid of some more boost creep. After that, I'll repeat my preload experiments a few times. Then I'll feel pretty well prepared to implement EBC.

Also got my catch can in from JEGS. Will get that installed this weekend, VTA from both crankcase vents.

Sounds like you need to up your boost limit a bit.

That would be the easy button. I suppose the occasional 13psi spike won’t hurt anything (he says right before bending rods).

Unless you are flat-shifting, I don't think there will be much turbo speed after a 1->2 shift, as the throttle closure pretty much takes all the stuff out.

More likely the reason is that you are already at 4-5K engine RPM at the start, rather than 2-3K as you were in 1st.

Good Luck with Porting.

.

Took a ride up to the mountains today. Turned my WG preload back to +3, and raised my overboost protection from 12psi to 12.5psi. Never hit against it.

Tons of fog, and a pretty lousy day to drive. Got some decent pictures anyway.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8ed1157ffe.jpg

This afternoon I pulled the turbo out of the car and ported the wastegate. This is now my third time porting, and I don't want there to be a fourth. I opened up the diameter of the hole as wide as I could while still having the wastegate flapper seal against the surface. I also spent a lot of time removing material from the throat inside the flange. I made a dimple underneath the backside of the flapper to allow it to open wider.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...095338c0f3.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ca612f4c1a.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7be02fe934.jpg

Took if for a drive tonight, and logged a 4th gear pull in the same place I always do. Spool data:
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2a85f94bd3.png


The gray line is the new data after porting. The blue and gray lines have the same preload, the orange line has 1/2 turn less. Porting the WG basically had a similar effect as taking out 1/2 turn of preload. Main difference is that it doesn't have as much boost creep on the top end, and it introduced some oscillation into the control system. I should be able to tune out this oscillation with the EBC.

subscribing to thread :likecat:

During tuning, we've noticed that both the MAP and TPS signals were a bit noisy. I decided to clean up my previous shoddy work.

My MAP signal line and boost gauge were both teed off of the FPR line at the same spot. I had a big brass fitting that was probably vibrating around; I eliminated it, kept the MAP signal teed in there, and moved my boost gauge to behind the throttle body.

Before:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5b6a1c511a.jpg
After:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e4ebb85545.jpg

For the TPS, I still had a few extra feet of wire spliced into the harness from when the supercharger was in, and I had to extend the wires to the hotside throttle body location. Eliminated the extra wiring and crimp connections; the harness is wired directly into the TPS now with a single crimp.
Before:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c309f3d418.jpg
After:
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...77d5031f11.jpg

I also rotated my TPS more to ensure that the spring was properly preloaded with the throttle at rest. Hopefully these two changes will clean up some of the signal noise.

That should help. Make sure you re-calibrate tps afterwards, the readings might be a bit different now, if so send me back the updated map

Needed to clear some room in the bay for the catch can, so I decided to move the washer fluid reservoir. Thought about just getting rid of it entirely, but I still drive the car on the street 90% of the time so I kept it. Got the Suzuki Cappucino washer bottle... ordered from some crazy Japanese e-bay like site and paid $30, and it arrived without issue a week later. Made some little metal brackets with tin snips and a drill.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8b414d72d.jpeg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...50af93e10.jpeg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...93ef5f185.jpeg

I dropped one of my bolts down inside the fender by accident. When I unbolted the bottom of the fender, 25 years worth of dirt and junk came out. I was amazed at how much was in there.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1981a72f1.jpeg

That bottle placement is a genius use of dead space.

Got side tracked for the last few months. A bunch of my buddies wanted to do a team for 24 Hours of Lemons at Road Atlanta this past weekend; against my better judgement, I agreed. Of the six drivers, only myself and one other guy were really experienced wrenching. He's an ASE certified mechanic that does work for off-road teams, so he's very good with cages, welding, etc. He also never turned a single lap, or worked on track cars at all, and has a strong preference for 'Murican Metal, which would not have been my preference, but I'm a team player. So we ended up trading a Glock for a 1998 Buick Lesabre, possibly the worst track car in the history of cars.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6d7c93f40b.jpg

For two months, we put an absolutely monstrous amount of work and cash into this car. Those of you considering Lemons- give some serious consideration to your time and your budget before you commit. Finally, race day came on Friday- just as Atlanta got bombed with 6 inches of icy snow. Setting up the paddock:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...41187a2079.jpg

Then we failed tech because they didn't like our roll cage. So we spent the next six hours cutting, grinding and welding in new bars in the wet snow. Running off of batteries and generators. It was miserable. But we got the job done and passed tech, which was a minor miracle. Me getting ready for test laps in the snow:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d7f26a7b8d.jpg

Car was actually runnning pretty well, and the cold wet weather gave us a slight advantage over the real "fast" cars.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...83e0171fcd.jpg

Hooray, we made it to the starting line! The mechanic and I agreed to "anchor" the driving rotation and let the other guys drive first. Twenty five laps in, driver #3 loses power and has to be towed off the track. Back in the paddock, things aren't looking very good.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a1408ef763.jpg

The oil had more glitter than a Southwest flight out of Las Vegas on Sunday night. Spun bearing, seized motor, all hope lost.

I suppose someday I'll look back on this weekend with fond memories. For now I'm fucking pissed. I'm probably $2k and two months work into a car I didn't want in teh first place, and I never even got to race the damn thing. There is a reason there's no such thing as race Buick's. Actually, there was one other Buick there- it also spun a bearing 10 laps after we did. Chalk it up to a learning experience, because this is seriously one of the dumbest things I've ever done.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...76aaf6c470.jpg

Ouch! I've been a part of a couple of these.. Lot's of work for little glory but usually it's a good time. Maybe an oil pickup issue? Sorry to hear you never got behind the wheel though.

I am really really really happy that this was not the weather that I encountered one week beforehand at NASA's Santa's toy run at Road Atlanta!

My chumpcar experience was not as bad as yours but was still rather dismal. I got roped into a 914 Porsche that was supposedly ready to go scca car that was actually a basket case with the motor out of it. After quite a bit of work we ended up with a car that mostly ran on 3 cylinders once at the track until it started raining. Then it was about a 50/50 split between 3 cylinders and two cylinders. The car would lose oil pressure in the corners because it had a bus engine with no oil pan baffle instead of an actual 914 engine. What saved it was an accusump we had installed. The car finally quit running completely at turn one immediately after taking the checkered flag but have been a rolling chicane for pretty much the entire 14 hours.

Do you attribute the engine issue to the location of the oil pickup versus the transverse orientation of the engine and probable lack of baffling on a non performance product?