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Project BPU! DD 945 turbo

linuxman51

Railspeeder Enthusiast #1
300+ Club
Joined
Dec 25, 2002
Location
mont, AL
Because I like more projects than a normal person can reasonably handle, I've kicked this guy off. Really it's to document incrementally the effects of various 'basic' mods (think intercooler, boost controller, exhaust, tune, that sort of stuff) that I was going to do to this 940 anyway, so why not have a little fun with it.

Current status will go up here as I remember to update the post

Full Exhaust: 153whp
Open Downpipe: 162whp

Actual mods:
$10 MBC




Aside from an ipd turbo cam and eventually (read: sooner than most) a plug and play microsquirt, the direction is still sorta up in the air. The a/c works on the car, that will be retained along with heat and everything else. I'll have to go through the suspension in it's entirety as well, 190k and almost 30 years will do a number on a car.

but anyway, after sorting out some title issues (the DMV here is... spastic... to say the least... made a huge deal about a non-issue... whatever) and getting all of that resolved today I figured it was a good time to jump it off and throw it on the dyno as-is to see where we're at..

And here we are:
https://youtu.be/mJEJVfq4s_o

I'll add pics a little later to go along with this (read: tomorrow)

The rest of the videos(discussion and links also posted further in the thread):
Stock car, open downpipe:
https://youtu.be/p5mZwrnEy8c

Stock car full exhaust, MBC (how much psi a stock can support):
https://youtu.be/5Zh_stQg-Ik

Stock car, open exhaust, mbc:
https://youtu.be/42-lMnOPP4Q
 
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I'm very glad someone is doing this, I feel like real world dyno results of basic mods is something that would be immeasurably useful to people thinking about different mods.

May I suggest if the goal is to see how basic mods that many people are looking to do really effect performance to hold off on MS as it seems to be a step beyond the other mods a 280hp DD would get.
Then again your making and selling the kit so showing real world results for that would also be very helpful, so do as you will, looking forward to seeing more
 
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Subscribed! I also agree with the above on the holding off on MS thing. At least as long as you reasonably can without resorting to tuning LH2.4 outside of some injectors and maybe a MAF or whatever.
 
I'm very glad someone is doing this, I feel like real world dyno results of basic mods is something that would be immeasurably useful to people thinking about different mods.

May I suggest if the goal is to see how basic mods that many people are looking to do really effect performance to hold off on MS as it seems to be a step beyond the other mods a 280hp DD would get.
Then again your making and selling the kit so showing real world results for that would also be very helpful, so do as you will, looking forward to seeing more

It'll be the same plug and play kit that I sell (unless I come up with a need and justification to spend a large amount of money installing an ms3 evo or something), so I could go back and forth. I'll just need to track down all my old LH tuning stuff.. I think I loaned that to Sam, it's probably collecting dust on a shelf somewhere in his shop.

I will likely run it mostly on MS for my own needs, as I don't particularly care for the relative inconsistency of LH across time, along with it's reliance on short term skews to handle temperature compensation. But.. that's a topic for another thread lol.


I'm thinking the first thing I'm gonna do is the "free mods", as that will allow me to also check the baseline boost (And give me an excuse to finally take care of the internal wiring on the dyno's DAC to use my cool-guy map sensor.. may as well hook up the thermal couple input as well and maybe check intercooler inlet temps vs outlet temps and maybe even pressure drop across the core.. data galore woooo). So, if things go well, or maybe if things go poorly with the corvette this weekend, I'll look into what kind of power one can get from things like the airbox mod, open downpipe, and their affect on the afr's (oh.. guess I'll put a bung in the downpipe for the dyno wideband too).

seat of the pants and history already gives me a bit of an idea of what it's going to do along the way, but it will be nice to put numbers with it. The car is fairly reasonably stage-0'd, I replaced the exhaust gaskets last fall and at the same time put a new set of plugs in it. the wires aren't old and the cap doesn't look bad so I'm not really concerned with blowout on the short term. Long term, I may put my wasted spark board to use to further facilitate swapping between lh and ms, and ditch the distributor.
 
I don't know what version of LH it's got, but if someone has chip(s) they'd like to see tested, I'm down for that as well... but that could also be a double edged sword ;)
 
I don't know what version of LH it's got, but if someone has chip(s) they'd like to see tested, I'm down for that as well... but that could also be a double edged sword ;)
Haha, yes... lol

Might be good to check valve clearances to make sure they?re near spec at least, too? If you have time. Or you could even tighten them past spec for fun and see how it helps. That may be a bit much to ask, though. Hah
 
Looking forward to following along and liking the common upgrade theme. When complete, we should consider sticky this to performance if you have no objections. Prior to going MS, shoot me a pm and I'll park my daily for a bit and send you the ECU/EZK with TLAO chips for that to be added to the mix.
 
Now we're cooking with gas. I'd like to see dyno results with the only difference being EMS. Well, really I'd like to see dyno results of every change one could possibly do.
 
Looking forward to following along and liking the common upgrade theme. When complete, we should consider sticky this to performance if you have no objections. Prior to going MS, shoot me a pm and I'll park my daily for a bit and send you the ECU/EZK with TLAO chips for that to be added to the mix.

if someone as a readout of the chips I can use that too, I don't have to have the physical chips themselves, I can flash the rom to the ostriches I have
 
Looking forward to following along and liking the common upgrade theme. When complete, we should consider sticky this to performance if you have no objections. Prior to going MS, shoot me a pm and I'll park my daily for a bit and send you the ECU/EZK with TLAO chips for that to be added to the mix.


I have my old TLAO chips removed, but don't own a chip reader. If you go to a 012 maf i'll send them your way
 
https://youtu.be/p5mZwrnEy8c

Today's shens: Free mods.

the setup for this took a little bit of time, I went ahead and put a bung in the downpipe for the dyno wideband (some fairly shocking information there), ended up breaking off one of the bolts for the cat, so that'll be fun to fix later on. I tried to get the dyno's map sensor hooked up but didn't get the calibration values until a little while ago, so I've left that information off for the time being. Gauge on the dash goes halfway, whatever that is worth.
I also faked the funk on the airbox mod, lifted the lid up from the box and matt directed the fan more towards the filter (it was actually pretty clean, and the stock filter flows a ****load so I didn't see a need to pull it out and test without it at the current power level)

Upon removal of the airbox lid, it was discovered that the flapper appears to be gone (along with the preheat hose and bracket that you normally find on the downpipe. I may have removed this, but I don't think I did).

170454447.jpg


so, we have the blue line, which was today's baseline (complete with AFRs now!)
Green is open downpipe (look at that rich dip right there)
Pink is with the airbox lid and filter lifted up and cool air blowing up there.


So.. what's the takeaway here? I was a bit surprised the exhaust didn't pick up more power, though at the current boost level, it probably isn't too terrible. It is somewhat obvious the ecu is still adapting back in from having had a dead battery, this can be seen in the pink graph where it got richer than the green one even with more cool air available.

With the airbox configured as such, it actually made no difference with the lid and filter up (I did a verification run after the video ended and it threw down the same 134hp)

With all of these runs the car had been fully warmed up ahead of time, but the changes up top over the course of the session probably points to the car being even more rich the other night when it made ~117. The very first run was somewhat erratic today, I didn't include that (didn't want to clutter up the graphs), but it was very noticeable that it was insanely rich at high rpms.

After I fix the broken stud on the cat, I'm going to bolt all of that back up and start driving the car, and let the adaptation work itself out, and get some fresh gas.. and maybe revisit these tests (since they're relatively easy). I still don't think it's going to pick up some massive amount of power between now and then, but I do think as the trims work themselves out the graph will look a bit better, more along the lines of the pink one vs the green one.
 
all the lh-hate is starting to come back again lol. So, I've reached a bit of a quandary here.. Do I start tuning the LH ecu (and by tuning I'm really only talking about fuel table mods for the moment so it doesn't run 15:1 at the torque peak, and 9:1 above 5000 rpms) and use that get things to be a more direct comparison?

This time around it all went to hell around 5300 fairly consistently until about the ~6th run or so (when I'd moved on to the airbox shenanigans), and then things cleaned up a fair bit. It backed that up on an un-recorded pull after I put the airbox all back together (completely shooting down my hot air theory espoused in the video). Looking at the curves from the other evening (where it was likely still trimming itself out in bulk) the graphs all looked good, just a little lower than expected (I expected roughly 125whp based on previous cars and experience).. you can easily drown out 5-10hp without misfires and such.

I guess my idea on this was to get a little better idea of the effect of the modifications, not so much the adaptive qualities (or lack there of) baked in to lh 2.4. It's usually a good idea to drive the car for a hundred miles or so, and that may be beyond the time scope here. It would be easier (and still informational depending on the direction of the fuel curve) if I turned that off and just worried about power/torque and add the caveat that some tuning may be required to see dem gainz. Whatchall think?


Realistically, all of the pulls should look like the pink line
 
I was wondering about how the LH2.4 learning thing is affecting your results. I know everytime I adjust something on my daily it needs about 100 miles to feel "good."
 
yeah, I'm already not exactly a patient person, so I'll probably just start tuning it and turn off lambda feedback(learning). Sam had all the lh tuning stuff in a box, so I picked that up yesterday. I have a PLX I can install I reckon (got it forever ago and never hooked it up, probably need a new sensor for it).

Short term though, once the rain today moves on out, I'm gonna start driving it and put some miles on it, start figuring out what all needs attention besides the absolutely devastated suspension and the non functional speeeeedo. abs light is on as well, reckon I need to pull codes. could be related to the speedo not working, may not be though.
 
I'll probably just start tuning it and turn off lambda feedback(learning). Sam had all the lh tuning stuff in a box, so I picked that up yesterday. I have a PLX I can install I reckon (got it forever ago and never hooked it up, probably need a new sensor for it).
That's my vote, as it will be a never ending time suck and question in your mind as things go along.

That being said, most people won't be doing their own tuning, so it would be nice to see what LH can do on it's own after learning at some point once you get through some round of modifications...
 
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