The rwhp testing was done with an accelerometer (which I find to be very accurate despite others' opinions on the matter that probably don't know the true weight of their vehicle-which significantly throws off readings) on about a 20 deg F night, with pump 93 octane gasoline (from Shell) on a long, straight, and flat stretch of road. Every spec we've gotten has been checked, re-checked, cross-referenced, cross-checked, etc. To be able to do this, I have a radar gun (and both tuning forks to ensure its calibrated & working properly), accelerometer, we have a measured mile nearby, and all sorts of other methods so that we could actually test its capabilities to try to reverse-calculate its power/torque output, speedometer/odometer discrepancies, mpg, 1/4 mile runs, 0-60, etc.
We have seen that in about a half-mile it'd get to 134mph and still be accelerating very very hard even tho the speedo read about 110-115mph varying with each run. We've seen the speedo be off by more than 10% even at highway speeds or slower. We've observed all sorts of things about the cars and are always blown away. The odometer usually is off but in relation to the speedo, indicating about 26mpg instead of 29-30 actual mpg when we check fuel consumption.
What the car is capable of is not normal for a car with even as much as 217hp at the rear wheels (that'd be about a 255 bhp engine'd car), and yet its even further from what the car should be capable of if it truly had the hp output as it was rated from the factory.
I don't know why its ssooo much higher output than what it was rated for. I do know that the power and torque curves are much better than most engines so you would end up with better performance results than a similarly-powered engine in another car since its the area under the curve that matters for performance moreso than the peak HP & peak torque specs. But that still doesn't account for the higher than stock peak HP & torque #s. I'm guessing that Peugeot was very conservative in their ratings so that even if you had the car at 10,000 ft of elevation (electrovalve boost control would compensate for this high altitude by upping boost as long as no high engine temps & no knocking/pinging), was 115 def F outside, and every other possible environmental condition present to reduce power & torque output, meaning that under optimal conditions you'd be getting more power & torque output, better fuel consumption, etc.
Another thing that has crossed our minds over the years is that maybe the engine really did only produce 180bhp when brand new with only a handful of miles on it and maybe it really was only capable of getting 20mpg highway when brand new.
Evidence of this:
Joe's parents got horrible fuel consumption in their Peugeot wagon when new, and it was kinda weak too.
When we have taken apart an N9Txx engine with about 150,000 miles on it and had been abused horribly, the cylinder honing marks were still clearly visible on the cylinder walls meaning that the engine hadn't even completely broken in yet (somehow!!??). I think they used awesome rings & the metal was very hard in the cylinder walls to accomplish this.
Also, the only N9Txx engine I've had thats was rebuilt very shortly after I got it was very VERY weak for tens of thousands of miles after I got it even under about 9psi of boost. Its fuel consumption also sucked horribly - I didn't even check it because I knew it was so bad it would disgust me to check it but I'm sure it was worse than about 15mpg. Like Joe's parents with their wagon, I even thought something was wrong with the car, but many thousands of miles later it finally began to feel like it had broken-in since even with zero boost it was much faster than before and the fuel consumption was noticeably over 30mpg, especially cruising on the highway at about 55-60mph. This rebuild used all original Peugeot parts of course (from a Peugeot rebuild kit), including Peugeot pistons & rings, bearings, etc.
We did quite a few things different than it came off the showroom floor as far as we can tell. See, We've never purchased one new (were in grade school when new) but once we've gotten our hands on one, you can usually tell that things like the fuel injectors, fuel pressure regulator, etc., have never been replaced, especially after looking at a few dozen example cars and all are identically equipped. Also, none have probably ever had the boost adjusted and we've never seen a Turbo yet that had its boost set as high as it was supposed to be - usually at about 9psi or lower (sometimes even as low as 3 or 5 psi) for a N9TEA but should be 780mBar +/- 20mBar according to manual (which is 11.6psi if I remember correctly). The fuel injectors were the wrong ones according to the manual - they had a lower flow-rate than the ones that were listed in the manual as being correct for the '88 & '89's N9TEA engine. Even the fuel pressure regulator Joe found out on some parts fiche listings (or was it in the manual as well?) had a different (higher pressure) regulator for some reason that what was installed from the factory. Its almost like from the factory the cars were set to about 8.5 or 9psi, along with the fuel injectors and fuel pressure regulator for that boost level - maybe this has something to do with the rated power output levels as well, but I'm not sure 3psi more would account for 75 bhp over stock ratings.
All of the parts that were listed in the manual were installed, as well as following the manual very carefully (like a perfectionist) to set the car up as far as ignition timing, mixture, idle rpm, tps adjustment, tire pressure, oil level & grade, etc. (everything in the manual), re-checking each one after the other was adjusted to make sure it was still set properly. I doubt the cars were set-up as precisely to the specs in the manual as Joe did & maybe this has something to do with the car's performance as well.
We also used lots and lots of BG Chemicals 44k, aerosol internal combustion cleaner from dealerships (manufacturer branded like Ford Motor Co. or Mopar, etc.) as well as Gum-Out carb cleaner. These made a very noticeable difference as well - seemed to run cooler, ping less, electrovalve seemed to overboost more often & for longer, less emissions, more power, better fuel economy, less exhaust smell, and more.
