412 BHP...THAT WILL DO NICELY......

[Artie]

John, those are the coils. Usually mounted on the frame rail under the airbox and usually out of site to the casual observer. They are a stock piece, but obviously not in the stock location.

[Iconic Ride]

I knew that. No, really I did. I was just testing you, Artie. No, really I was.......

Riiiiiigggghhhhttttt............ .

OK, smartypants, what it the viscosity of the oil they sit in?

Thanks, Artie

[Bibs]

I see increasing the size of the plenum is a common theme. How does this work, does it not just lower the pressure on the blown side of the turbo due to the increase in volume or does the better flow negate that?

[Vulcan Grey]

That was the annual Lotus Owners Gathering (LOG 25) in St Louis MO in 2005.

That was the car show in a park. The race cars were there, including the STP turbine powered Indy car.

More pics here on my site

https://picasaweb.google.com/lotusse/LOG2005StLouis#

and LOG 27 in Aspen CO with Emmerson Fitipaldi and the Lotus 27

https://picasaweb.google.com/lotusse/Log27#

also LOG 22 in Wisconsin

https://picasaweb.google.com/lotusse/LOG22Wisconsin#

Those are the GM Delco coil packs

[CHANGES]

From The Governor....I see increasing the size of the plenum is a common theme. How does this work, does it not just lower the pressure on the blown side of the turbo due to the increase in volume or does the better flow negate that?

It all to do with volume as well as pressure...the increased volume of the plenum and the charge cooler will only influence the spool up time on the turbo by micro seconds.

what it provides is a larger bank of pressurised air for all the cylinders.....This has two advantages...

.1 a more consistent supply at higher revs so the boost does not drop off ,

. 2 by doing this helps maintain even delivery across all 4 ports. ...

When boost drops off the flow through the plenum nose will supply ports 2-3 slightly easier than 1-4..)..

By maintaining boost at a higher level throughout the rev band , you can achieve a flatter more consistent torque curve plus more bhp.

I have no data of what effect it will have on other engine set ups , only as part of this system...

As it is such a straight forward bolt on mod.... it would be interesting to get an Esprit on the dyno before and after to get a comparison in bhp and torque..

any offers.....(Bibs ?? )

[Jonathan]

Makes sesne - I've seen this before either on Dermots car or someone elses.

There is an issue with the fact the air flow has to do a hair pin 180 to get into the inlet - it would be interesting to see how that affects standard cars on max chat...although I dont think you'd be screaming for joy - at the boost you're running then yes I'd be expecting a result.

(I do like machined aluminium)

Just a quick point to note - you have made a new plenum stay haven't you ?

[karmavore]

As it is such a straight forward bolt on mod.... it would be interesting to get an Esprit on the dyno before and after to get a comparison in bhp and torque..

any offers.....(Bibs ?? )

Ummm, yeah... right here. :-) I'd love to try one out and do before and afters. How much?

[CHANGES]

From Jonathan........Just a quick point to note - you have made a new plenum stay haven't you ?

No just modified the original a bit....

From Lucas ...... Ummm, yeah... right here. :-) I'd love to try one out and do before and afters. How much?

I had mine made by local engineering company, i gave them the plenum cover and a gasket and said make me a 1'' spacer plate....They milled it out of 1'' solid plate and used the plenum cover as a drilling jig ....cost £200.oo uk for the machined spacer plus set of longer bolts and two new gaskets.....Circa £250.oo the lot....

You may be able to get it made local to you even cheaper than that...

It would be great to get a data read back on just that item Lucas , let us all know if you do it......and the results....

One problem i had was the spec i built to was start to finish , engineering wise before it went on the dyno.....so i have no data on how each individual engineering modification effected the performance, I did however get the performance before the fuel and ignition / ECU was done, and the improvement from that area were more than dramatic......

I fear a full piece by piece breakdown with various combinations would be seriously expensive,,, so any input that can be offered regarding qualified performance increases from various mod 's would be of great interest...

Also important to note some mod's on there own have no gains, but when used in tandem with others have significant influence....

Edited May 6, 2011 by CHANGES

[CHANGES]

Just going back to the Micheal Rodrigues engine set up earlier..... The turbo on there is definitely larger, possible larger than the prototype i now have ,,, There are also some design differences , has anyone got a spec on that particular turbo, and its performance characteristics .

This is a pic of the new prototype i now have fitted , you can see the clear differences.. The compressor and turbine size's i will find out later and let you know...

[karmavore]

This is a pic of the new prototype i now have fitted , you can see the clear differences.. The compressor and turbine size's i will find out later and let you know...

No offense man - and feel free to tell the ladies whatever - but yours doesn't look that big to me....

Seriously, your turbine looks smaller than Michael's (although his is covered up with a blanket) and he seems to have an external waste gate. Did I guess right?

[lotus4s]

X-180R race car

[karmavore]

I don't understand the fascination with the X-180Rs. When Jamie et. al. were racing them a few years ago they'd been fully updated with modern tech from John and others. What they raced with in the early 90s was completely tossed out, was it not?

[Jonathan]

For their time the X-180R was an amazing achievement.

When you read their story you get a huge appreciation for what they did with that car, esp over the pond in America land.

Esp when you think they trounced some of the other runners when the cars were able to finish races.

[karmavore]

riiiiight... but what they did it with isn't relevant anymore. Dave's motor is way more built that the 180s were then or now. Jus' sayin.

[Vulcan Grey]

The X180-R had to conform to RULES.

Dave doesn't...

They are relevant in that they were much closer to a stock motor, and what they were able to extract out of it. Think of it as a gauge bar, not as the end all be all.

If you want to "build" a motor with all the bells and whistles of modern technology, then fine.

BTW, you can still learn a lot from the X180-R. No later Esprit has exceeded it as far as being prepared for the track and successful.

[karmavore]

Just to play devils advocate, not to fight...

The 180R also didnt have to last that long, relatively. We all could boost the hell out of our motors for a while. Also, I'd b surprised if the power they were putting out much exceeded that of any of our motors with bigger, more modern, turbos.

Incidentally, during the 180r's revival a few years back they performed like shit.

[jollyroger]

I clearly remember seeing a picture of Andecorp's GT300 Esprit engine bay, and the chargecooler was exactly identical to the standard one, at least in its appearance.

The turbocharger didn't seem particularly "strange" either, and the car was actually dyno'ed at 444bhp...

[Iconic Ride]

And might you know how this was achieved vis-a-vis Dave's effort?

[jollyroger]

And might you know how this was achieved vis-a-vis Dave's effort?

Absolutely not, but I'd love to find out

[Jonathan]

Lucas - (aka mr Advocate ) - seriously go and have a read of their efforts.

They developed that car in next to no time, with no major backing, about 3c to rub together and still managed to kick ass with the most modern of supercars (keep in mind the Esprit is already an old car by then)

Not so much the power etc but the way they did it, a true Lotus racer with a bunch of American "JFDI" chucked in for good measure.

On HP levels - what you want is 3 runs and an average to take into account heat soak into the chargecooler.

Large chargecooler running same boost will have a lot less difference in the 3 runs becuase of its cooling capacity = higher average HP

In all honesty a 1 off dyno run tells you the MAX HP the car produces on it's 1st run....anyone who knows anything about thermodynamics and turbos knows this figure can vary.......errr 10% downwards depending on ambient temps, humidity, inlet temps etc etc etc and etc.

[CHANGES]

Hi guys all interesting debate about the X180 and its achievements, which were substantial, but have little relevance to my project build..

As Travis said they were built to certain rules , this meant restrictions , so compromises will have been made .....

All race cars are built for out and out performance, This means the drive-ability below 3500 rpm will be poor at best...

Continuous high speed on the track will assist cooling at high rpm ....all part of the design.....

These cars were designed for a purpose.....which will not include driving in traffic......

The only comparison these cars have to mine is similar BHP..... how it is attained will vary ,

When i set out on this project my goal was to see what the best i could achieve without loosing the ability to enjoy an every day drive ......powerful but also pleasurable to drive..!!!

I Think we have already established that a larger turbo of a specific design will provide various improvements. However on its own it will not reach its potential , and is more likely to create problems exposing other weaknesses within the engine...... As part of an overall tuning package it is essential to achieve the desired figures...

The exhaust coming of the turbine is a critical tuning part,. .. originally i had the Quick Silver 2.5'' straight through system.... The manufactures told me it could handle my spec....wrong.!!!! . It was the first thing to come to the attention of N'hampton motor sport... ..they straight away said it was too small for my spec, and said 3.5'' minimum was required.

The 2.5'' system also had restrictive bends as a mandrill was not used.... this was another point they insisted on to improve the exhaust flow....

For those who are unaware of the difference and think an inch is not much , make your own assessment..

On the induction side i used Dermot O'hares 100mm system , because the maths were good and it would provide my requirements... I slightly changed the fitting position to his , enabling more easy access...

A Turbo must be allowed to breath freely...

[jollyroger]

Here is the link to the GT300 engine bay picture, straight from Andecorp's thread here in the forum...

It **looks** remarkably stock and once again, it dynoed at 444bhp!

P.S. I will shut up now, this thread is about Dave's car...

Edited May 7, 2011 by jollyroger

[CHANGES]

From Francesco.......It **looks** remarkably stock and once again, it dynoed at 444bhp!

P.S. I will shut up now, this thread is about Dave's car...

Although this thread was started to share the spec details on how my Esprit 910 engine came to produce 412 bhp , it has raised some interesting debate on dyno's and how 400+ claims are achieved..!!!!

I personally would need to see dyno info and spec sheet , on any engine making such claims, before i could take it seriously. Its easy to publish figures , the trick is to have the data to back it up..... we all know how numbers tend to get exaggerated and fudged to gain market recognition ...

To qualify my claims i can only say , It is in nobodies interest to falsify such , plus there are no commercial interests on my part.... my project is about finding out , not making up.!!!!

In the early part of the thread Lucas / Artie challenged the validity of the corrected flywheel figure.... I will in the near future provide the full dyno data which will include the WHP , fueling , pressures, timing, temps, etc etc.. There is still some fine tuning being done to smooth things out ....

The facility i have used at Northampton motorsport is extremely accurate and recognised as being so ......

Lucas and Artie and possible others reading , all endeavor to reach 400+ .. by sharing what we have all done will help find the area's which have the most benefit towards achieving such..

I can only give info on my findings and spec....not claims of others.... It is also very important to remember my spec is not about out and out BHP , it is about smooth power the BHP figure is a by-product of that.......

If anyone has a specific area they wish to have details on , post question and i will try to answer...

.

[NMS]

First of all my I apologise for what may be a long and boring technical post about dynos. Some of you will find it interesting others may not, but at least the next time you use one you might just get a little more from it by having an idea of what’s going on.

After reading the posts regarding Dave’s Esprit I thought I should try to address some of the comments regarding the dyno and the results we have seen with the car.

Our dyno is a Superflow AD30 2wd chassis dyno and is rated at 1200 bhp for transient power runs and 900 BHP at steady state whilst I have no desire to prove these figures we have mapped some cars making 500 bhp at the wheels with no traction issues.

Superflow is an American company and is well known in the tuning world for their excellent engine dynos, they also make flow benches, transmission dynos, bike and chassis dynos. There’s more info here if you want it http://www.superflow.com/Company/index.html.

Some people seem to have issues with the word “corrected” on the graphs. This refers to the fact that the figures are corrected using an internationally accredited set of tables that use the raw power and torque values and the correct them for ambient conditions on the day. This means that you can run a car on different days with different conditions and get a repeatable result. The dyno sensor box has internal sensors for temperature, pressure, humidity and vapour pressure (whatever that is)

You can set the dyno to use ISO, DIN,SAE or STP correction tables and we chose the STP values as they are as close to the raw values as possible.

Some chassis dynos and hub dynos measure wheel power and then apply a calculated transmission loss to allow flywheel figures to be quoted, others like the Superflow measure wheel power and torque and then calculate a coast down transmission loss or drag which can be added to the wheel figures to give a flywheel figure.

Now some people will argue that an unloaded drivetrain and tyres will absorb less power than a loaded one and therefore coast downs are not relevant, but during the coast down we are at least measuring something and by doing so drastically reducing the fudge factor of chassis dynos that don’t do this.

The roll set on the Superflow weighs 600kg and is calibrated for windage and parasitic losses at the factory up to its maximum design speed of 225 mph. these values are then embedded into the calibration files within the sensor box. It takes 55hp just to spin the rollers to 225mph.

With this information the Superflow engineers can calculate how much HP it requires to accelerate the rollers and also how quickly they coast down from any speed. So at the beginning of a tuning session we get the engine and transmission fully warmed up and then accelerate the engine to its maximum rpm usually in 4th gear and then dip the clutch and engage neutral. The rollers coast down and the system records how quickly this happens and calculates the HP losses.

Now, when we do a power run the system can add back the transmission losses at each recorded data point and give a flywheel power and torque figure. This can be further refined by tweaking the drivetrain inertia figure in the Superflow software.

On an engine dyno the engine only has to accelerate its own internals during a power pull so all of its power at the crank is measured by the dyno. On a chassis dyno the engine is also accelerating the gearbox internals, drive shafts, wheels and tyres and all of this can absorb a fair bit of power. After the first power run we check the rpm at which peak wheel power occurred. We then drive up to the same rpm and hold the engine against the retarder and again measure wheel power. If the static wheel HP figure is higher, the drivetrain inertia figure in the software is not high enough; we adjust this figure until the static wheel power matches the figure we get on the power run. This effectively nullifies the effect of drivetrain inertia getting even closer to an accurate flywheel power figure.

You can see from the two graphs that the transmission loss value is almost identical from the initial baseline run to the last power run. These two sessions were over a month apart

]

You will also see that the graphs show flywheel power and torque, wheel power, boost pressure, and transmission losses. the only value I didnt measure on the original power run was fuelling

Moving onto Dave’s car we didn’t build the engine but only supplied and installed the engine management. At no time during this project have we felt under any pressure from Dave to achieve a specific figure.

We recommended that Dave move onto standalone management not because the original ecu could not cope with running the engine but because it was not designed to be easily remapped / configured for the major changes in engine spec.

We decided that to make this power we would need to run 4 large injectors rather than 4 smaller injectors with 2 supplementary injectors. This was not because the Omex ecu can’t do this (it can run up to 12 injectors) but because the installation was not very tidy.

We deleted the two plenum injectors and converted the original charge cooler pump to be used as a cam phase sensor by machining up a trigger pip and attaching it to the shaft and then fitting a hall sensor to the body. This allows us to run the injectors sequentially rather than batched giving good idle and light load control over the fuelling.

Despite the big injectors and uprated pump the engine does run lean on high boost which we think is down to the standard fuel filter and plastic fuel pipes which need to be uprated to flow more fuel.

I am perfectly happy that the figures achieved are accurate and will stand up to any scrutiny in fact with a little more work on the fuel system and final mapping I am confident there is more to come from the engine

If anyone is interested in learning more about our dyno and the cars we work on then have a look at our website http://northamptonmotorsport.com/ and face book page http://www.facebook.com/northamptonmotorsport#!/northamptonmotorsport

Troy Robinson

Northampton Motorsport Ltd

[CHANGES]

Thankyou Troy, I feel many people were confused and unclear how the figures were arrived at.. Hense the negativity , I did personally feel the comments that discredited the claims early on in the thread, did take the shine off the accomplishment both your company and myself had achieved.....

However......It did bring to a head the different thoughts on how dyno's work....and that some are not as technically up to date as others... Hopefully this point has now been cleared up.

SO..... The WHP is 385...... on a dyno from an American company , ( not a sexed up European dyno. as suggested....) sorry could not resist that...!!!!!

Back to the project....All the hard engineering is done as we know, I will continue the thread next with how the head / intake manifolds was modified and small discrepancies that were found .

Before i do so does anyone have any final comments on the dyno's before we put that area to bed...????

In the mean time Troy and Cooper at N'hampton motor-sport will continue the refinements to the tuning to improve the fueling and spark capability......

The final results will be published once completed and approved..

Dave.......