Last Friday I got the guys here locally at Pressurized Solutions to put the white beast on their dyno. They have a 1800lb single drum Dynacom Dyno. And it is a stingy stingy dyno. They also have some of the best boost tuners in the world. They only work for big time drag car owners. They don't have a sign outside. They don't have a current Facebook page. They don't even have a public phone number. I went to school with these guys and we all know each other. Every time I would ask them about doing something in the past they would be nice and just say that they had to much on their schedule to work me in.
Well after last week at the Indy event I had some issues that had been bugging me. I noticed that in the upper RPM range I would have a miss. It would appear on my log as knock and that would kill the timing. I still had enough power to run 137mph but it was just not pulling me back in the seat like it should. So when I got home I thought about what it could be and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to call them here locally and see if they could help me. So I gave the owners cell phone a ring and explained that I had a mile event coming up and I was worried about damaging my engine. He surprisingly said " can you have it here at 9 in the morning?" To which I said "YEP"
When I arrived they aligned me on the left side of the roller and turned all my boost off and started making pulls. They would shut it off before it ever idled down and pull the spark plugs and put them in a magnifying type holder and 2 other people would take turns reading the "colors" . The owner was reading log files each time they made a pull. He told me to run grab some colder spark plugs and I did. When I got back they explained that basically each spark plug was like having a TIG welding torch lit up on top of each piston. And that for me to make it 1 mile I would need to cool the spark as far as I could. They also closed my gaps down so far that I thought it didn't even have a gap. But after looking closer they had about 20 thousandths.
Once they had the popping out and the curve super smooth they started adding boost. They went into the transmission software and locked the torque converter in 4th gear each time and made pulls from 3000 to 6000 rpm. Each time adding about 4 PSI. Each time they were making subtle changes to the tables. They finally got to 479hp and 498lb of torque at 19.1 PSI. (REMEMBER THIS DYNO IS A BITCH TO GET A HIGH NUMBER ON). I notice them huddling around the computer after that last pull and I had to walk over and ask what was going on.... He said at that level I had 48psi of fuel pressure but I was loosing about 2 PSI of fuel pressure every second that it was at full throttle. He explained that I needed a boost referenced fuel pressure regulator and a return to tank fuel system. He said he wanted to make a quick pull at full boost just to see how it acted and to find out how much boost I could generate with the 7163 turbo. So they went to 100% on the boost controller and wound it up for a quick pull. They didn't quite make it to 6000 before they guy let out. He said that it was over 100% on my injector load. Basically my fuel injectors were just wide open and feeding fuel as fast as they could. We found out that I have a max of 23 to 25 PSI that I could work with. This also told me that my safe spot till I make some change in my fuel system would be 17 to 18 PSI. And he said that 1/2 mile would be a very long pull even at that level. And that I should not make the 1 mile pull even at that safer level. He just said it wasn't worth the price of a new engine.
So at this point we had made many pulls on the dyno and we had tuned it so perfect that it had NO knock detectable in the log files. We had found the safe top boost limit of my fuel system. We had found the max boost that the 7163 could shove into the engine. We had fixed the misfire issue and changed the plugs out to a much cooler series and closed the gap up to keep it from blowing the spark out. And the best thing is that we have a game plan made to get all the boost available and make it usable. They gave me a list of goodies to get from Summit Racing to make a return fuel system and control it with a Weldon boost referenced regulator. I will have the ability to pump 485 liters per hours of fuel now. When I'm done with it this weekend (or by next weekend) I will feel safe holding the gas pedal to the floor for a full mile.
If your reading this and you are wondering if you need to make these changes. It is very unlikely that you would need to go as far as a return based fuel system. As I mentioned above you should be ok up to 16psi. And ok for peak moments up to 18psi. However if you plan on turning a 7163 EFR turbo wide open and lock the wastegate in the closed position AND hold the gas pedal to the floor for 1 full mile...… Then yea.. you will need more fuel to keep from melting the engine down.
My goodies were ordered today and should be here. by Wednesday. If I can install everything and get it ready to for them to tune this week I will post some pictures and some results. I am doing the hardware install here at my shop. These guys get 200.00 an hour and they will charge from the time it rolls into their shop to the time it rolls out. So everything I can do saves me money for sure. I should just need 2 hours of their tuning time on the dyno to make the last adjustments for the new fuel system.
As far as its current power,,,,, All I can say is WOW.... After they cleared up the misfiring and it no longer thinks it has a knock it pulls like a beast. And I am really happy with the 479hp and 498lb of torque. I cant imagine what she will do when we give it some more fuel to drink.... And I would love to put the beast on a Dynojet and see if it would smack the 550 to 600hp mark when I am all done. On the current dyno I should get right at the 540 to 550hp mark once we go to 23PSI and it has plenty to drink.
