N9T modification

[keebs]

So let's start the madness. Here's my current mod list jut for reference.

Stock pistons, rods, crank

VEMS ecu

Siemens 630cc injectors

Ported head

Danielson grind

Front mount intercooler

Electric fans

T3 super 60 .48ar turbine

Tial BOV

Stainless 2.5" exhaust

[keebs]

Ok Rabin lets continue. Our log manifolds are a great casting inside and out. Restrictive isn't really the word I'm looking for, but too short to dissipate heat. A proper heat wrapped equal length manifold should perform nearly the same down low but give us more head room up top with a safer turbo temp. Now those borg warner turbos are cool, but as I understand they are geared more towards racing. What I'm getting at is titanium is slightly flammable under certain conditions, and they may be less robust at the price of performance.

[Bean]

Excellent... (Rubs hands together gleefully)

Keebs: If you're running the turbo that came on your car it is a T3/T4 hybrid with the stock .36 A/R exhaust housing and a T04 compressor housing and turbine on it. If it's different - I'm curious what exhaust housing it's using.

My engine as it stands:

Danielson head (crown jewel)

Danielson cam (installed)

Stock pistons and rods

Forced Performance custom T3/T4 hybrid in the stock housings. (They machined the compressor housing to fit a larger turbine, .36 exhaust housing and turbine stock.

Additional parts:

"3/4 race cam purchased from Mike Aube - no specs.

VEMS v3.3

75mm Wilson bullet TB

Used set of billet forged alloy pistons - possibly by Diamond (parts motor, slight skirt scuffing)

DSM 465cc (?) injectors

Plan going forward:

Modify exhaust manifold to T25 with port and polish. (Possibly extrude hone, likely ceramic coated)

Borg Warner EFR 6758 (was thinking 6258 as design goal is super fast spool - but the 6758 is supposed to spool *almost* as fast, but have much longer legs higher up.)

630 Seimens injectors

Custom modified intake manifold - changing TB to feed into the side over valve cover

Custom bottom end: 94mm air cooled VW pistons, custom rods, offset ground crank to use 4G63 big end rod bearings. (This is the last time I spent time on it - totally open to a better combo)

Custom ground cam to Stewart's specifications.

VEMS tune to bring it all together.

Design goal is 300 RWHP with peak boost as soon as possible. Useable boost sub 2500 rpm ideally. Not ridiculous power goals, but I want the powerband to be massive.

Ive actually got two Danielso heads, so the high end build gets the best of everything and goes in my 89 505. The second motor I build will get the "best of the rest" and be put in my 86 GL-Turbo.

Rabin

[Bean]

What draws me to the EFR is that its more complete with the built in bypass and internal WG that still flows really well. I thought for my goals itd be the better total package. I have always been a Garrett turbo fan and initially was wanting to do a GTX28** turbo with external WG and separate BOV (I like the Synapse Engineering WG and BOV).

Staying with the stock manifold and going with the EFR simplified the build substantially, and since the goals were modest I figured it should be fine.

I also looked at Precision Turbos as well since they're highly regarded - and I'm honestly still open to anything as the turbo will really be the last thing purchased once the engine is built.

Rabin

[Bean]

Short and retaining as much heat as possible is why I wanted to stay with the stock housing (& why I was looking at ceramic coating it)- plus its a gorgeous casting with nice fluid passages and large radius curves inside.

I did a bunch of research in the search for fastest spool and log manifolds spool fastest, but bottleneck high HP with poor flow. After looking at how nice the factory manifold is - I knew it would spool fast because it's so short, retain heat due to it being cast, and it would flow unusually well higher up as its so well done. (It's MILES better than stock Volvo manifolds for instance).

I did not run across anything about the flamability of the titanium wheels - I thought they were a titanium ceramic matrix so assumed it would be excellent in the heat.

As mentioned previously - I have a lot of theoretical knowledge, and I can turn wrenches with the best of them - but I lack actual build experience. I'm stoked to hear how your experience adds/changes what I've gathered over the years.

Rabin

[keebs]

I was running the t3/t4 hybrid, it was a .48 housing with a 40 trim compressor. Worked great until I pulled of the afm, then after that it was surge city. I swapped it for the super 60 and a normal pug .48 turbine housing.

I also had a ponder about vw pistons, but I wanted a more readily available rod bearing. The 2jz rod journal is 51.982-52.000mm, rod length 141.986, rod width 1.015, pin end 22mm. Starion 92.5mm pistons 35.3mm comp height -17 dish. This combo is about as good as it gets with minimal machining and you end up with a slightly better rod ratio.

[Bean]

The Pug .48 A/R exhaust housing is an 89 only housing and is quite rare. I tried verifying my 89' has it, but I can't make it out while its installed. All my other turbo's are .36.

All the newer turbo's use .63 or bigger A/R housings, so my thought is that the newer turbos should flow way better than the stock housings, so I'm curious if that would alieviate the temp increase you're seeing assuming its coming from compression in the manifold...

What air fuel ratio is it running? Boost level? And most important - what kind of power are you making now?

Engine recipe looks awesome - I forget the numbers now - but how close does that combo get to the block deck height? I'm all for readily available parts and minimal machining. Offset grinding costs a ton of $$, but I thought it could be used as needed to get piston protrusion perfect as well as a little stroke. If this recipe gets us close with just custom pistons and stock 2JZ rods - I'll be ecstatic.

Guys overseas documented using Saab rods and Ford 2L turbo 92.5mm flat top pistons, but none of the parts were available here so I gave up on that recipe.

One question on the Starion pistons - do you think they can be used stock? I wondered on matching the dish shape to combustion chamber shape so that the quench pads were the same - idea being I could order the pistons from somewhere that has the Peugeot dish already programmed and they could add it to the VW or Starion piston top.

Shallower dish to support static compression of 8.5:1 was what I was wanting so that off boost the car still had decent power.

VEMS: figured I'd mention a couple things I did so far: I modified the distributor with VW parts to make it a cam position sensor. (Vw had a model with a 1 window wheel in the distributor - so I installed that into the N9TE distributor). With a cam sensor you could now do more accurate injector tuning.

Wilson billet TB uses a Ford TPS and IAC controller, which should be easy to get VEMS to control.

Flyweel is going to get cut with a 60-2 pattern for the crank sensor.

Only other thing I wanted to do was install an incoming air temp sensor as well.

Your system sounds way simpler - but knowing nothing I just mined the VEMS forums for cool set ups.

Rabin

[keebs]

I found the housing on ebay. I have another .48 on my 85 turbo. A .63 might slow down boost response too much, even then I would need a different manifold to bolt it to.

Boost is about 15psi. Air fuel tapers from 13.5 at 0psi to 10.8 at 15psi to keep things cool. It makes good power, Bryan said it made 190tq at 12psi so maybe 210-220.

I do believe the starion pistons can be used stock. As long as my measurements are good it should be less than 1mm difference in height. While it would be nice to have the quench pads match up, maybe just mod the head so all parts are off the shelf.

I have a solution figured for a crank trigger I just haven't made it yet. My plan was to run full sequential to keep higher injector pw's. Right now it idles at 2.1ms which is close to the edge of being non-linear.

I'm confused about this incoming air temp. Do you mean as an ambient temp sensor only? If so its not needed. If you're running an intercooler iat will almost always read ambient unless under sustained boost.

[Bean]

Bryan's numbers were way low since it was in dire need of a proper ECU. Evan with the sub par control of the stock ECU you could tell there was a ton of potential since he was making the stock rated 156HP at 3000 RPM at the wheels.

I'd be very curious to hear what kind of numbers its running now as it should be pretty decent. Can you tell me at what RPM you start building boost, and when it peaks?

As for the .63 housings - I was following what the turbo Miata and turbo Honda guys were running since they're small displacement engines as well, and the on Miata running the 6258 it was building boost at 1800 with 12 psi peak boost at 2500 on a 1.8l. I figured on a 2.2l it should be even better. Miata forums is where they also concluded that the 6758 boosted almost as fast, but made quite a bit more power over 4000 RPM.

I have not done any research on the longevity of the EFR turbos, but I know they had a terrible time meeting demand and there were reports that build quality took a hit as well.

Yup - just a t-couple to measure incoming air. From memory it was helpful for cold weather tuning - but I could be wrong. It's been a while since I was stoked enough to research all this stuff.

Pistons: If the 2JZ rods fit the crank with minimal work, then I'll be quite happy to spec out custom pistons using the basics of the Starion slugs for rings, but adjust pin height and dish pattern so that its a better suited. Forged pistons are the usual upgrade for a boosted motor anyway, so if its a matter of changing a few things for a custom set I'll be happy to do it. Flat tops worked for the guys in Europe with valve clearance to spare, so curious what that would but static compression at. With proper ECU and tuning 9 or even 9.5:1 might not be an issue for detonation as the Dani chamber design is very good.

Rabin

[andrethx]

question about the danielson head: is it a custom casting, or is it a normal n9t head with special machining?

andré

[Bean]

Supposed to be stock castings that were machined to Danielson spec. I can't see any evidence of welding and machining, so it was either done exceptionally well, or the rough stock casting was machined directly to Danielson spec.

Biggest change is the plug type is a 10mm motorcycle plug, and its more centrally located and there's no plug shroud in the chamber.

Rabin

[keebs]

I would say half boost around 2500 or less not too sure. Peak is 13psi by 3000rpm, and creeps to 15psi by redline. The t3/t4 hit its peak a bit further up and wasn't too enjoyable on the street.

Forged pistons run about 100f cooler anyway so you could run even more advance. Could you post some pictures of a true dani head I would like to know the difference. Btw the n9t rod measurement I took is about 137.25mm +/-.25mm

[Bean]

This will be worth a read, and there's pictures of the Dani head in it: http://www.505turbo.com/forum/index.php?/topic/2656-comp-cams-dynosim-5/

I also caught that I was wrong on the exhaust A/R of the EFR - I posted that it's .48 in that last post - compressor side A/R is .63.

Rabin

[keebs]

The differences seem pretty subtle. I would imagine mine looks about the same. I have a cracked head laying around, maybe one day I'll see if it can be opened up to be more hemispherical.

I like the look of those dynosim numbers 300hp and near 400tq would be a laugh coming out of a 505.

[Bean]

They are subtle, but to replicate the plug relocate would be tough. My thought to modify a stock head would be to weld up the combustion chamber, then drill and tap the existing plug hole through the weld. The later 2006 V70R uses plugs with a longer thread, and this would allow the electrode to come farther into the chamber allowing more options to reshape the chamber.

The 00' V70R uses the same rated plug as the N9TE, but in a 5/8" size. The OEM Volvo plug is very highly regarded plug in Volvo circles, so I run them in my N9TE with excellent results. Same plug except for being longer in the 06' which is where the idea for the mod came from.

Heck of a lot easier than welding the plug up completely and redrilling a 10mm plug hole in at a steeper angle...

Rabin

[my3AWDgst]

This thread is pointless with out pictures guys :-)

DSM injectors are all 450cc that's including black or blue top. US EVO injectors are 560cc,I have them on my MI16 that will be used with E85.

Rabin why just not go with 560's and E85?

[Bean]

BTW - stock numbers for the 89' @ 12 psi stock boost is 180HP / 210 ft*lbs.

Curious how your car would compare as your turbo is flowing a lot more air.

Still thinking on the EGT's your seeing as it still baffles me that it would the cause of issues when I see some of the cast aftermarket manifolds for Audi and VW that support pretty high HP.

Rabin

[keebs]

I threw in some ngk br8es they're non projected and a step or so colder. When it comes to plugs all that matters is reach and heat range. A copper plug still gives the best "read" and performance, but need frequent changing. Best plugs you can buy are ngk/denso iridium after your engine is tuned, they last forever.

DSM injectors have a dual cone spray pattern, which work well with a 4v head. Siemens 630's are one of the few modern injectors that use a single cone pattern which makes them a better choice for a 2v head.

[Bean]

Savo - your project retrofitting the DSM ECU to the Mi-16 had me thinking about doing the same with the N9TE engine, but I already have the VEMS set up, and with Keebs there is someone else to bounce ideas off off.

For you being as deep onto DSM's it makes total sense - but for me - Im not attached to any one system so I'll just take the path of least resistance.

And yes - this thread does need more pictures.

Rabin

[keebs]

Rabin you're not the only one that's baffled. I've checked and re-checked cam timing, valve lash, etc. I've checked it all.

[Bean]

I loved my Bosch WR7SR (Silver) plugs back in the day. Better than copper for conductivity, and they lasted way longer as well.

When Bosch stopped making silver plugs I went to NGK Copper v-grooves in my turbo cars. Now with the Volvo's I use the factory plugs which have been proven repeatedly by tuner after tuner of being exceptionally good.

In an attempt to find silver plugs that were good I ordered a set of Brisk LGS Racing plugs to try, and while they were OK in the summer months as soon as it got cold the car started acting. Swapped Volvo plugs and it was perfect. BRISK makes a regular silver plug that might be worth trying later, but OEM Volvo will suffice for now.

Rabin

[keebs]

Longevity is the only reason not to use copper. If you're looking for a repeatable performance increase spark plugs aren't it.

I used to work with an old man that told me a story. They were tuning a ferrari flat 12 on their dyno for the 24h LeMans. They started in the afternoon tweaking this and that and kept making more power. He said at first it was 5 or 10hp here and there making airflow adjustments with popsicle sticks and putty in the runners. They did this for hours and kept gaining 1 or 2hp with every change. At around 4 in the morning they called it quits and decided to come back to it the next day. The next day the old man and his crew ran it up again for a baseline and find they've lost 20hp. So they thought about it for a while and scratched their heads. Then one of them says hey what was the temperature last night. The old man told me all the minute tweaks they made had done nothing. It was all the 20 degree temp change.

[Bean]

Awesome story - and so true.

In 2004 I got to work alongside Geoff Paige on a Ford RS200 Evo at Pike's Peak. I learned more in those 6 days of wrenching on that car then all the years previous. Up until then a lot of where I thought power gains were to be had turned out to be complete crap.

It was after that experience that I started paying serious attention to stand alone ECU's. At the time the RS200 was running a Pectel ECU and my mind was blown - so much control it was incredible. Pectel was out of my league price wise - but I started researching SDS, Megasquirt, and VEMS to see which one most appealed to me.

Rabin

[keebs]

When it comes to performance parts there's more snake oil out there than anything else. Ever seen carbon fiber stickers.

Pikes Peak rs200, you lucky sob.

Haltech and ms3 pro almost got their hooks into me but I couldn't see ever needing so many I/O's. For the price VEMS cant be beat. All said and done ecu, weatherpack connectors, crimpers, injectors, iac valve, and labeled wires probably didn't cost any more than 1500usd.

If you haven't made a harness yet don't be like me and find out econoseal pins are just different enough that weatherpack crimpers aren't ideal.

[Bean]

Best part about the PPIHC opportunity is that me listing my Peugeot, and living "out in the boonies" and daily driving a Peugeot is the reason the team principle picked me. I had also been a crew chief on a pro-rally team - but it's the Peugeot that made me stand out from the other guys that applied.

Haven't made the harness - did you remake the entire harness? I've toyed with making an adapter harness to plug into the stock harness and just making sure stock was 100%, to completely redoing the entire harness from scratch. Curious what your advice is having done it already?

Rabin