So the record is now at 2 for me. Two blown motors that I've tuned. 1, My own. and 2. Mr Chingone himself.
Reflection on what happend, we dialed it in pretty well last night, and wanted to make some minor tweaks and get it tits. Last night we were pulling 51lbs/min, @31psi, 16* of timing peak, at a 10.8ish AFR. We were having trouble with the GM MAF and Vtec not wanting to play with each other. Today, we were having a strange knock problem, like a good amount of it, but I couldn't and still cant pin point what the cause was. AFR was still on dot, boost on dot, and timing. Why would one day be perfect and at most we would get .4* of knock, and today we were getting tons. There is where I should of stopped, looked over everything and solve the answer of WHY it is doing it. But, installed my balls and decided to play it by ear, and keep it conservative relative to last nights results. We were doing good and got up to 404WHP, and 350ish Ft Lbs of torque. And if you saw that torque curve...I fucken kid you not....It was a god dam table top from 4K to 7K. This was power under the curve like no other. Then it got scary when the over flow puked. Ruh'roh. Shut it down, looked over the logs. Temps got as hot as 213 during the pull, which is not scary, but as it idled, it climbed...climbed up to 234 and puked. Now i'm thinking head gasket, but the dyno pull looked clean, the log looked clean, WTF mate? We let it cool down, topped it off, and started it and let it idle. Temps stayed where it should. So now I'm thinking, maybe cap just popped and way too much puked out. Wanted to do 1 more test run just to see and confirm that it wasnt the HG, and told jerry to watch for puke during the pull, and Yes there was puke. So I'm thinking Head Gasket. Fuck, no biggy, not too bad, Go to let off, and as I do, I see a good puff of smoke come out of the catch can. Now Im thinking...really not good. Shut it down. Jerry is mentioning the puke and I'm more worried about the catch can. I asked him to start the car as I watch the catch can, and he goes to and it wont start....Really not good. Comp test time, and as Im pulling the plugs out, #4 nice clean, no specking, perfect. #3 looks like a kid strapped an M80 to it. #2, looks god damn perfect, no specking, clean. #1, Blown up, not much of it left.
Trying to figure out wtf happend, and somehow the Vtec line popped off. When I put it in, I yank on it, hard, that thing was not going to pop off unless you wanted it off, and even then, you had to work to make it come off. How it happend, god knows. Mistake #2 was, we got impatient and tried to rush something that should be done without comprimise. We were running this off of LinkV2.5 so I don't have the option of Jesus control and map switch on failure. We used the AEM controller with a pressure switch due to the HX35 spooling so god damn fast that the airflow velocity wasn't high enough to keep the Man Butter off of the GM Maf and cause it to flip out. The AEM controller highest setting to start kicking Vtec was 11 when I wanted it to come on more around 15~17psi. 4psi doesnt seem like much, specially with the HX35, thats about 150 ~200RPM, but that was the difference between bogging or making enough tq to pull trees out of the earth.
So my guess is, dont know what the original knock was caused by, obviously wasn't real due to actual inspection of the plugs and the car actually making power. Forced me to make the decision to ignore it, and give up one saftey net, the knock sensor. Boy Butter line tripped, no knock sensor safety net, no map switch safety net, race gas tune, race gas boost, no race gas. Just a fucked up order of events that lead to it. So Me and Chingone is going to have to open up the motor...and replace the piston rings I fried... *crowd goes OOOOHHHHHHH DANNNGGG!!*
2nd car, I did tonight 1G...kinda had a feeling the motor wasnt too healthy out of the bat. After we installed the catch can, there was a ton of blow by out of the box...and I was thinking errr.... Dont look healthy but I'll give it a run, and see how it does the first pull.
1st run, 12 psi creeped up to 20psi. No serious knock, .4*~1.0* of timing pull here and there after just loading my standard base maps that I start with that has 100's hours of work on just partial throttle, really conservative WOT areas, but not the stupid stock 9.6AFR. Usually most cars on my base map will put out a clean flat 10.2~10.5 AFR on the first pull with just that map. So Im thinking...It smoked like hell, catch can is spitting oil out like hell, but it made good power, gave me a clean run, and virtually no knock. So I set out to keep his peak numbers where they were already at (280hp) and work on the mid, (he was lacking a ton of power mid area due to low boost and power is just off of creep. Played more with it, and eventually got to where his peak was the same, but he had a nice power band, and making that power on 3 psi of less boost. Called it quits cause I was happy with how much power it made, but not happy with how much oil it was burning, and the fact it puked out a good 2 qts of oil out of the catch can after 6 pulls (he was only a half qt low when I checked after all 6 runs) Just wanted to find out what was up with the blow by. Comp test pointed out #4 to #1: 70, 155, 110, 90 PSI. Really bad motor, but how the eff did it make power on par with a car with a healthy motor. I compared the graphs to my stock 6 bolt with 272's (he has 264/272) and I was only 10~15 hp higher, but again I was running more boost on my car back then. That motor was 165 across the board. How the hell did this limp leg motor do that? maybe the oil pushing up past the rings is helping it seal? Sorta like a wet comp test is my only theory.
Well, just thinking out loud, and Sorry Jerry. I'll help you get that beast back together, finalize it, and make it come back more pissed off than before. Most people I tune I stay way on the conservative side. You and I are alike in the sense we want every bit it can do....safely...but more emphasis on the every bit. Set High expectations for the set up, and go for it. See people make 350whp on a 16G in their tuners signature and try to figure out wtf are they doing. Either I'm not doing it right or they are lying. As for the 16G part, 330hp is all its got, more boost in the world isnt making anymore power. I'm at 30psi, and I tried 32psi, and it didn't make one fuck more hp so I turned it back down. HX was still making power, and last nights logs showed we had a ton of room to go. Tonight was a screwball, un-expected. But what can you do, lets fix it, and rock it harder.
_________________1/4 ET-11.657@121.18mph w/ 1.682 60'
445whp/427tq on RRE Dyno
All on 91 pump.
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