1996 VR4 Dyno Results with back to back FMIC swap.

[ajc9664]

Hi,

OK, before I start I will state that I am a professional tuner, however, I am not touting for business, I may never tune a VR4 again! However, before taking on this car, I did a fair bit of research and found this site very useful, so thought I would take the time to share the results.

So first a bit of background: A friend with a garage asked me to take a look at a car that came in with a knocking engine; the customer was supplying another engine; but they wanted my opinion on what had caused the failure and would it be possible to remap the car if needed. Upon removing the engine it became obvious that the car had been running lean, had been detting and that the turbos were quite 'tired'. Replacement turbos were acquired and after discussion with the customer we removed the Unichip and fitted an uprated fuel pump in readiness for remapping. The car already had a 2.5" decat and k&n panel filter.

After some tentative checking out on the road and with a few miles on the replacement engine I headed for the dyno to see where we were, not a great 264bhp at around 0.6bar, fuelling was off the scale rich!

After a little fettling we got to 329bhp and 368lbft, boost was now 1.05bar at peak torque tailing to 0.9bar at peak power, fuelling at 0.76-0.77 lambda. I was convinced that there was more to be had but I had to pull 2 degrees of timing and charge temps were now rising 15C in a single run, the graphs really show that there was a restriction somewhere, experience with early Evos pointed me towards the intercooler.

After a call to the customer and letting him have a drive he was impressed enough to agree to trying a better intercooler, a week later I picked the car up again and had another play, the result was 359bhp and 382lbft at 1.15bar peak tailing to 1.05, boost control could be better but not bad for the standard setup and flying blind with no 2byte load on the 7201 ECU. Fuelling at a safe 0.76 lambda and this time a healthy increase in ignition timing to smooth things out.

Graphs below, first is the real reason for the post and all the waffling - the comparison of power and torque with the standard intercooler and the 600x300mm core.

Hope this may be of some use to someone.

Andrew...

[giblet]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Is that 359.6hp at the crank on a PFL Galant VR4? What calculations did you use to go from WHP to crank?

[Davezj]

Hi and welcome to the club,
those are good figures and all the mods seem to be quite comon on our cars, but it just shows what a pro tuner can do.

but gib is right, i presume this ATF figure, what was the wheel BHP, as that is the true measure.
was the car an auto or manual?

[elnevio]

Well, the runs have been done in Shoot 44 on a Dyno Dynamics RR, so there should be no concerns there. This must be a manual (there is no TC torque spike low down), and as the auto loss fudge factor is worked out separately (i.e. not through the dyno software), this would have been a highly suspicious figure approaching 380bhp ATF on stock tubs.

The achieved figure is amazing (i.e borderline suspect! ), but as Dave says, it shows what can be achieved, if *everything* is working correctly, and in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing.

Did you import some air from New Zealand to feed the dyno fan with?!


Anyway, great job!

[chris g]

Well, the runs have been done in Shoot 44 on a Dyno Dynamics RR, so there should be no concerns there. This must be a manual (there is no TC torque spike low down), and as the auto loss fudge factor is worked out separately (i.e. not through the dyno software), this would have been a highly suspicious figure approaching 380bhp ATF on stock tubs.

The achieved figure is amazing (i.e borderline suspect! ), but as Dave says, it shows what can be achieved, if *everything* is working correctly, and in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing.

Did you import some air from New Zealand to feed the dyno fan with?!


Anyway, great job!

Naughty, naughty...!

[chris g]

But sounds good from this PFL...

[ajc9664]

It's a 1996 Galant VR4 manual, I don't know what a PFL is, it's a fairly early model as it has the 7201 ECU with external EEPROM, a bit of a bu99er to set accurate load targets without 2byte load logging.

The aim of the post was to show the difference an uprated intercooler made, not to say 'hey look what I did', the absolute figures are almost irrelevant, to be honest I don't even know what the car is supposed to make as standard, lol.

We use standard Lancashire air, straight off Morcambe bay, seems to be good enough for tuning multiple championship winning rally cars and the current TT course record holding car ;-)

[Davezj]

It's a 1996 Galant VR4 manual, I don't know what a PFL is, it's a fairly early model as it has the 7201 ECU with external EEPROM, a bit of a bu99er to set accurate load targets without 2byte load logging.

The aim of the post was to show the difference an uprated intercooler made, not to say 'hey look what I did', the absolute figures are almost irrelevant, to be honest I don't even know what the car is supposed to make as standard, lol.

We use standard Lancashire air, straight off Morcambe bay, seems to be good enough for tuning multiple championship winning rally cars and the current TT course record holding car ;-)

Hi Andrew,
i don't think anyone is disbeliving you say you have tuned this car, it just a surprise you got so much out of it. the stock bhp is 280 for a manual PFL (Pre Face Lift model 1996-1999). Just for completeness FL (face lift model 199-2003)
The wheel bhp would be helpful as a comparison to other cars in the club, to see how we are doing compared to a pro.
you may well get many other people on here to come and visit you for a remap as you seem to know what you are doing. there are quite a few north west members.
Out of interest, which company do you represent.

For future reference, you can remap the 7201 ecu without messing with the eeprom itself (i presume you are removing it reprogramming and refitting in a socket), you can use MMCflsah to read and write the eeprom remotely, via the diagnostic port. a license for MMCflash module 0 can be bought for about £135 from evoscan website.

And ecuFlash (free) can be used to remap 7202 and 7203 ecu's

hope this helps for the future.

dave

[CANDEE]

Looks like ~ 220kw/299hpatw which isnt shabby. Andrew, was the fuel loop between the fuel rails upgraded at all?

[exevoowner]

Nice to see someone taking on these cars with nice out come

[ajc9664]

I know very little about the history of the car, it came into a friends garage (CAMS Performance in Darwen) with a blown engine. Any pipes or hoses which appeared damaged or brittle were replaced during the engine change, although the fuel loop hose looked OEM. Experience with other split rail engines is one of the reasons I left the fuelling slightly richer than some may think is optimal.

The ECU was reflashed in situ using MMCflash tovarich

I work for myself, although most of my business comes through various specialists I do tuning work for, including TEGSport in Carnforth where I run the dyno 2 or 3 days a week.

[Trotty]

I've just noticed that ur running 3rd gear. This would change the power figure somewhat as 4th is closer to direct drive.

[Trotty]

For reference I've been dyno'd recently and it was done in 4th with speed cut removed. Here were my results.

[Davezj]

For reference I've been dyno'd recently and it was done in 4th with speed cut removed. Here were my results.

Do you guys from down under aways run in 4th gear on the dyno. i only ask as we in the uk always run in 3rd gear. does it make a difference?
question is open to all.

[Trotty]

Do you guys from down under aways run in 4th gear on the dyno. i only ask as we in the uk always run in 3rd gear. does it make a difference?
question is open to all.

I'm pretty sure if the correct gear ratios are entered then the dyno will/should calculate the hp/kw. But if not u always try for a 1-1 ratio.

[CANDEE]

If the dyno is setup correctly, then it shouldnt matter.

However ive always had mine done in third, as even though I have no speed cut now, my first runs were done in third, so its all comparable.

[giblet]

I would be interested in seeing whp figures

And a price for mapping a 7202 ecu auto VR4

[ajc9664]

We always use ignition or injector sourced RPM input so there is no need to 'teach' the dyno the gear ratio, if you use roller speed derived RPM and get it even slightly wrong the power vs torque plot won't cross at 5252rpm (assuming both axes use the same scale.) plus on a DD at least, the torque figures are different.

In actual fact all the runs were done in 4th gear!

I will get the wheel power figures, but I fail to see the relevance of comparing 2 different cars on 2 different dynos?

I wish I had posted the graphs without any numbers on now, lol.

[ajc9664]

Trotty - you're cheating, you've got 2 extra cylinders!

[giblet]

There seem to be differing ways on calculating crank figures based on the at the wheel numbers. The calculations change yet again when your talking about an automatic but that isn't an issue with this manual car.

I think the highest confirmed remap figure from a UK car on stock turbos is 350bhp, I believe that was from a low mileage car with the usual mods (plugs, exhaust, downpipes etc). I would be interested in seeing what you can manage from a 7202 ecu'd automatic VR4. If its anything like the figures above then you will have a few people lined up for remaps. I'm happy to be the test case!