Topic: How to get a extra10hp

[gmtech16450yz]

Tuned engine on stock turbo safely at 7500rpm means same power as a stock engine. Now need to build the engine for high rpms if you don't upgrade the stock turbo, we have a real world case around here, basically the power at 7500 is far lower than 3000-6000rpm where our turbo is efficient.

One of the Fuel System GM engineer who worked on LNF advised not to use E85 on the stock fuel system, probably the injectors will go south, I would like to see a long reliability test on this but nobody have done it yet.

Now wait a minute, I don't want to get into a big battle but I have to comment on a couple of your statements. Keep in mind my opinions don't come from surfing the web or taking what someone else says is gospel, my opinions come from 30+ years in the industry everywhere from Indy race cars to motorhomes. I'll try not to come off snotty, that is NOT my intention, just trying to educate and share knowledge. I know both you and Kenny are regulars on the forums and I value your posts and input. There's just a couple things I know for a fact are not true so I just feel I need to comment. Please don't take offense.

First, "tuned engine on stock turbo safely at 7500rpms means same power as a stock engine." No way am I going for that one. There are SO many things that can be optimized to increase top end power and efficiency. If you only change ONE thing in a tune, that being high rpm/load DAL's, you will absolutely increase power over stock. GM has purposely detuned the high end to minimize engine stress and hitting the rev limiter too hard, remember they need them to last to 100k miles. Changes to ign and cam timing, fueling, torque management, all have impacts on high rpm power. It's not just about boost, remember under that turbo you still have an internal combustion motor that benefits from all the same tuning that we've changed for years to gain or move power. I learned how to jet carburators on a Firebird with a Dualjet carb on a 400! Yes, a two barrel carb was too small for that motor, but I figured out with proper jetting and proper ign timing you could get amazing throttle response out of that two barrel carb that made up for the lack of cfm. At the time GM's Quadrajets had very poor low end response, mostly because the secondaries would open too soon and the motor couldn't use all that cfm, which kills intake velocity. I ended up with a car that would get enough of a jump on guys off the line that their top end power wasn't enough to catch me at the end. This was in the mid '70's.

"Building the engine for high rpm's with the stock turbo" is absolutely a good approach. Doing the turbo first is backwards. Again, there is so much in the engine itself that can be improved on to increase the top end WITH the stock turbo. 7500rpm power on the stock turbo and stock engine is nowhere near the same as 7500rpm with a modified engine and stock turbo. Here's another fact that most any racer will agree with, rpm's themselves relate to faster laps or lower ET's, even if the power isn't still building at that point. Example, the Kappa's have to shift into 4th on a 60-100 run because of the gearing. Raise the stock rev limiter to 7500 AND do some of these mods to increase top end efficiency, and all the sudden you can do a 60-100 run without shifting. I'm at 4.86 seconds for a 60-100 run, stock turbo and big, heavy 275's in back. (Top down even!) Lemme know if anyone else is getting those numbers, even on a bigger turbo.

On GM Engineers...
I've worked with, around, and next to GM Engineers for over 30 years. I've had to deal with what GM Engineers have created, many of them total disasters. I've fought with GM Engineers trying to get them to do things a certain way, only to have them do those exact things, two years later. I've had GM Engineers tell me "No, that absolutely won't work" only to call me back later thanking me for doing what I did, even though they told me it wouldn't work and to not do it. Yes, GM Engineers have given us some pretty amazing things, but they most definitely DO NOT know everything. Kinda like doctors and nurses, doctors have tons of schooling and degrees, but it's the nurses that know what's really going on!

Again, I'm not trying to start a war, just trying to pass on some knowledge that may not always be perfectly accurate, but I believe is pretty solid. I respect most all of you guys on these forums and have learned plenty from everyone's exchange of knowledge.

[wspohn]

At the time GM's Quadrajets had very poor low end response, mostly because the secondaries would open too soon and the motor couldn't use all that cfm, which kills intake velocity. I ended up with a car that would get enough of a jump on guys off the line that their top end power wasn't enough to catch me at the end.

Reminds me of one of my Jensens that has a Chrysler sixpack set up on it.  When they came out, the idiots figured they could out-do the factory and convetred the very effective vacuum secondary to mechanical operation. That opened up 1300 cfm of carb when they punched it and of course they ended up with a flat spot the size of Alaska while they waited for the engine to catch up.  The mind set of 'Bigger must be better' is everywhere, including injector selection, by people without a clue that injectors are NOT the same thing as carb jets.

[gmtech16450yz]

Reminds me of one of my Jensens that has a Chrysler sixpack set up on it.  When they came out, the idiots figured they could out-do the factory and convetred the very effective vacuum secondary to mechanical operation. That opened up 1300 cfm of carb when they punched it and of course they ended up with a flat spot the size of Alaska while they waited for the engine to catch up.  The mind set of 'Bigger must be better' is everywhere, including injector selection, by people without a clue that injectors are NOT the same thing as carb jets.

Exactly! The best I ever saw was a kid in auto shop that had a '65 Mustang with a STOCK 289, he came in one day with DUAL QUADS and a TUNNEL RAM sticking out of the hood! He wanted the teacher to help him 'cause it wasn't running very well. The teacher pulled out a CFM/displacement/RPM chart that showed him he needed to be able to turn that 289 to about 15k rpm's to use those dual quads! At 16 I was laughing my #ss off at the "bigger is better" dumb#sses!

BTW on GM Engineers (and the other makes too), anyone that's been a drivability tech in the '70 and '80's can tell you a thing or two about the kind of engineering they did and how it worked. I had hundreds of customers come back saying "Oh my god it never ran this good when it was new!" Yeah, that's 'cause I had to try to fix the cr#p they built and tried to sell to people.

[Kelu]

gmtech16450yz: I said it before to you and I will repeat it, stop using words like offense, fight, war, etc, this forum is different than the "standards", expressing ideas from different point of views is gold here, nobody will get offended here because different opinions. Around here almost everybody is mature and pretty knowledgeable and wise to see the main goal of a debate, to learn new things and listen different opinions.

Ok, I think you got my ideas pretty wrong, stock motor, when I used this term I referred to an unopened motor with some bolt ons (exhaust, intercooler with pipes and maybe an intake) and a tune.
You are mentioning an upgraded engine with stock turbo is better and you are talking about:
- ignition timing - generally is limited by knock and dictated generally by the type of fuel, using pump gas I can't understand how a rebuilt engine can do that better in our case where we don't have fuel system upgrades available, it can handle more knock I agree, but running an engine with knock is an improper way for a street car as we have over 90% of us
- fueling - no upgrades for injectors/hpfp, without these we are just changing the basics of this engine (DI) if we go on the route which ZZP is trying to do with parallel injectors or how BTF did it in the past
- head - we have graywolf around here who build his head to the most reputable head tuners and used top notch parts for his head, iirc he spend over 5 grand only on the head, also see DDM tests/researches about LNF head.

I don't like to speak in theory, many things can/could help us, but just check Graywolf who completely rebuilt his engine and using stock turbo he barely touched 300hp on race gas, values touched also by snaponbob with a complete stock engine and race gas.

Other than that, all I can say is:
Most power made by LNF with stock turbo on kappa was 335hp - Gardella Drift Solstice, I hope my memory is not wrong.

I think main idea is:
a) rebuilding the engine costs 5000-10 000 and possible gains over a tuned stock engine with boltons 30-50hp?
b) slap a bigger turbo on a stock engine costs 1200-4000 and possible gains of 50-100hp on top of a tuned stock engine with bolt ons

[gmtech16450yz]

But the "GM Engineers" say the stock LNF pistons NEED to be replaced at anything over 300hp. How come they know what they're talking about with not using E85, but nobody listens to them when they try to get over 300hp on stock pistons? (Until they break.)

I've built my reputation on not just taking what people say as gospel, more by figuring things out for myself or coming up with my own theories and testing them out. If I had listened to people saying what does and doesn't work on the LNF, I'd be down about 50hp from where I'm at now. Examples-
I was told there is nothing to be gained by changing the LNF cam tables from stock, it appeared to be common practice to leave them alone. WRONG. I learned about cam timing by my own personal trial and error on a Datsun 240Z when I was barely able to drive one.
I've rarely seen any LNF tuners say anything about actually modifying the entire DAL table, not just the 2 far right columns. WRONG. Guess what? The other numbers in the rest of the table do stuff too!
I was told the "torque management cylinder disable" table should be zeroed out. WRONG.  Zeroing out that table kills DFCO and doesn't fix high rpm misfiring. I figured that out on my own. (Actually all these examples I figured out on my own.)
I've seen many people say you absolutely can't run a 275 tire on the stock Kappa wheels. WRONG. I'd like to take a picture of my perfectly evenly worn rear tires to disprove all the people that say "they will never wear evenly on a rim that's too small", but's it's really not worth my time. I learned about wheels and tires not by surfing the web but by dismounting and mounting car and truck tires BY HAND (with a sledge hammer and big giant tire iron) long before I had a drivers license. I know what works and doesn't work, I don't need to convince the world I'm right or I'm wrong. I just get tired of all the misinformation on forums sometimes and have to comment.

[snaponbob]

GMtech - show time. I have read all I want to read about all things LNF. So ............. it seems that people, FAR smarter than me, say that the stock turbo just does not do any serious work past about 54-5500 engine rpm. Small, quick responding turbos are hung on small engines to make a lot of torque, NOT horsepower at HIGH rpm. If I am reading things correctly, it seems that you are saying that you have worked around this issue and get the LNF to produce big numbers at much higher rpm's than the 5400 ceiling that so many tuners have experienced. Answer this - HOW?

[gmtech16450yz]

GMtech - show time. I have read all I want to read about all things LNF. So ............. it seems that people, FAR smarter than me, say that the stock turbo just does not do any serious work past about 54-5500 engine rpm. Small, quick responding turbos are hung on small engines to make a lot of torque, NOT horsepower at HIGH rpm. If I am reading things correctly, it seems that you are saying that you have worked around this issue and get the LNF to produce big numbers at much higher rpm's than the 5400 ceiling that so many tuners have experienced. Answer this - HOW?

Re-read my posts please. No where did I say "big numbers".
Here's some of my quotes...

"All the sudden you have a motor that still has a ton of low end and will make power to 7500 easily ON THE STOCK TURBO."

Power, not BIG power. There is a BIG difference. I even clarify that with this statement...

"Here's another fact that most any racer will agree with, rpm's themselves relate to faster laps or lower ET's, even if the power isn't still building at that point."

How about this one...

"NOW add a big turbo and you can actually use that added boost and airflow."

Obviously these motors need a bigger turbo if you want to make BIG power at HIGH rpm's, I'm not disputing that. My point from the beginning is I believe spending money on a big turbo before doing supporting mods (internal engine) is backwards. Again, re-read EXACTLY what I wrote. How many "Infiniboost" tuned motors have we seen breaking pistons? I believe I've heard of at least 2 or 3 here on the 'net, and I've seen a few personally that have broken pistons from too much boost. I'm sitting at 16-17lbs boost, 30-32 VE lbs/min at 7500rpm, and I regularly see max air loads of 360-370% (not at 7500 obviously, but usually still over 200% at 7500). Yes more boost will make more top end power, but how much more do you think you can safely add to a stock engine, and how often are you running between 6000 and 7500 rpm's? One thing people forget when they rely too heavily on what the dyno shows is high rpm hp is only good if you can get the motor quickly up into those rpms. Yet again, re-read what I said about the 2 barrel 400, having a motor that makes power quicker is sometimes better than a motor that makes more peak power but slower accelerating up to it. You being an autocrosser would know this first hand, going from turn to turn quickly means building power quickly and having enough over-rev to not have to make that shift right before braking for the next turn. Power from 5500 to 7500 with a poorly accelerating low end is useless for autocross. (Or at least makes it really hard to drive).

As far as reading things from people "far smarter" than you, how many of them are actual techs? How many of them are so-called "tuners" that played around with HPTuners on their own car and then decided to sell what they know? Not trying to slam anyone personally, but the majority of the "tuners" on ALL of the forums (not just LNF) are not actual techs.  How many have had their hands on literally tens of thousands of cars? How many of them have actually been trained by GM to understand the technology in these cars? I worked on 14 cars in one 8 hour day last week, everyone of them a driveability, fuel injection or computer system issue. Again, I don't get my opinions from the internet, I get them from experience.

Hey, I wonder if the guy with the GT500 that blew up did anything to his engine to support 800hp and 24lbs boost? If he didn't I bet he wishes he did!

[Imaj]

gmtech16450yz, I love that you are sharing your knowledge with us here on the forum. Thank you! I agree with what you are saying. When I am tracking my car on any course and running with STI's, Porsches, Lotuses or BMW's...I always want my motor to make the power quicker. Also, another issue for me after talking to others that I race with...I find I need to shift into 4th where others can stay in 3rd. If I stay in third, I am at 7000+ rpms. Not a place I like to be at for a long time. I guess what I am asking is...Can anything be done to the stock 5speed GXP gearing that will help with staying in third for a longer duration? Sorry for the OT.

[snaponbob]

1) I am rather sure that Lyndon Wester knows what he is doing.
2) My comment about who is claim what was not directed at ANYBODY here.
3) Our turbo is not efficient past about 5500 rpm.
4) It does not matter how many rpm an engine can spin before it pukes. It matters only where in the rpm range the most "work" is being produced. If an LNF engine is spinning a lot of rpm and not producing as much power than it is in the middle of the power band, there is no sense being at 7000 when the car will pull harder at 4500-5000 rpm. Torque is king, horsepower is a mathematical formula. The maximum engine "power" is where the horsepower and torques intersect. 

[gmtech16450yz]

gmtech16450yz, I love that you are sharing your knowledge with us here on the forum. Thank you!

You're super welcome Imaj! I love sharing my knowledge and helping guys I work with learn and become better techs. Yesterday at work I was surprised when one of the techs remembered something somewhat trivial I had told him years ago. I said to him "Wow, I can't believe you remembered that", to which he said, "John, I can't figure things out on my own like you can so I try hard to remember EVERYTHING you tell me!" It was quite a compliment and the reason I keep trying to help, even when it's difficult, like this thread has been. Honestly I was thinking to myself "Why am I bothering with this thread?", then I saw your post and it reminded me why. Thanks! I just wonder how many other guys out there have a bunch of knowledge they'd like to share too, but realize it's not worth the bother. That's ashame.

3) Our turbo is not efficient past about 5500 rpm.

I'm not as efficient past about 4:30, but my boss is still glad I'm there.

Bob, "show time" is over, I give up. Sorry.

[Brad Kenny]

BOB and JOHN, You both have a lot of experience in your respective areas of expertise. BOTH of your opinions are wanted and desired on this forum. I trust my dealership techs for their knowledge, they have the experience fixing the 2.4L for years. Most of us have our cars and the knowledge herein (KP Forum).

JOHN, thank you for your honest assesment of the 2.0 LNF (power vs. rpm vs. HP) and sharing your real world experience in the shop and your "tinkering" with your own cars. I wish all the GM techs had as much hands on experience as you.

BOB, your racing experience and knowledge far outway most if not all the other members on this forum. Your real world driving experience is invaluable. Your punishment of your baby, pushing the edge of the operational envelope is not only desired, but required for the rest of us to learn form.

It is a shame when two very knowlegable and dedicated indivduals cannot see eye to eye on an open ended question. Personally, I KNOW the only safe way to get about 300WHP is to modify the engine (pistons, rings, sleeves, etc), if not the GT 500 incident WILL occur EVENTUALLY. So from the outside looking in (2.4L guy), I would say, BOB, get GMTECH's tune and drive it!!! Maybe he really does have something here... You just never know.

A great example of this is my 17 year old son and computer sciences... he is taking an internship for GPGPU technology. I never even knew what he is working on is possible. Just a little code and tweeking and boom, every home computer is a super-computer.  Amazing what a 17 year old can teach his father.

Just MY thoughts, now I will don my flame retardant suit for the ensuing car crash and high octane fires that will ensue.

[Arabas]

CT Solstice, like father like son (and i mean it in the best possible way)
Your son is overclocking his PC and u are overclocking your car!
so, modding is actually running in your family blood 

encourage your son to participate in the worlwide oc events. lots of money in trophies and good job percpectives once he gets to be known 

[kennysabarese]

I have a very good feeling that the Wester's tune is achieving everything that gmtech is mentioning here. I'm pretty confident that the Wester's tune does more than just turn up the boost as high as it will go.

[spicy3480]

The Westers tune does a lot more than just allow more boost...you are right Kenny.  I emailed Lyndon a while ago asking him what changes he made to my latest tune, and he gave me a list of 6 or 7 things.  I don't have the email still, or I would look back.  I won't post it, though, because what he changes might be different than others and I do not want to give away what he did in his tune.  I have both the tranny tune and ECM tune, and it is a WORLD of difference. 

[LatinVenom]

You have to have an open mind folks.

[2.0 tspeed]

If gm only made a high reving engine like a Honda then all our problems would be solved
Actualy I just want to know why gm hasn't made a high reving engine. I know they can do it

[kennysabarese]

The LS7 revs to 7,000 which is pretty high for a V8 with that much displacement.

The way our engines is setup is great for street driving. Push the pedal down, you get gobs of power/torque down low. Yes less peak horsepower, but more usable power/torque to the ground because most people are never going to rev the engine high enough to get all that peaky power.

The 1% of car owners that want a high revving engine can go ahead and do it if they want.

[wspohn]

If gm only made a high reving engine like a Honda then all our problems would be solved
Actualy I just want to know why gm hasn't made a high reving engine. I know they can do it

Why would you want that?  There is no magic in RPM for its own sake.  To have an engine produce good power up top and also have a bottom range that is worthwhile means a VVT engine.  GM could certainly do that if they wanted, but they chose the turbo route (with a bit of VVT thrown in) to get excellent bottom end as well as good power up to a reasonable RPM.

Have you ever driven an engine that runs to 8500?  Not sure why you would want that - you just like the sound, perhaps?

[gmtech16450yz]

FWIW, someone mentioned the number of changes in a particular tune, of the two that I've been working on, an LNF and a LS V8, here are my numbers...

Out of 74 parameters on the LNF, I've changed 44 of them. I number my tune files whenever I do a "save as" (usually has to be a significant change, not every little number change). On the LNF I'm at tune #434. (Yes, I said 434 different tunes that have been loaded and evaluated.)

On the LS motor, I'm showing 123 parameters changed, and strangely enough I'm very close to the LNF at tune #449.

Neither one of these are "done". Anyone that gives you a tune and says "here it is, it's done" isn't learning new things. (Not saying that anyone on here has said that, they haven't. And for the record I know absolutely nothing about Lyndon Wester, therefore I would not, and did not, attempt to judge him or his work.)

[kennysabarese]

For racing is the only reason I could think... revs are how you get power out of small displacement. F1 cars rev to 18,000 and they used to go higher!

[wspohn]

For racing is the only reason I could think... revs are how you get power out of small displacement. F1 cars rev to 18,000 and they used to go higher!

Don't need ultra high RPM for a turbo engine.

Conventionally tuned, yes. I own two cars (one street one race) that red line up around 8000 rpm. 

Unless they went the same way Honda did (and why would they?) the RPM aren't going to get you anything.

And it is a bit silly to expect GM to build a race engine the way you want it (you meaning slowsol, not you, Kenny) when they had no need to do it that way.

With some port work, the LNF will operate just fine to 7500 and I doubt we ned any more for 99.99999999% of the cars out there and what they are being used for.

[2.0 tspeed]

i  should of been more specific. the high performance engines found in the civic si and s2000 why is it when those guys strap on a turbo they get 400-500whp  easily  on stock internals. i know it has something to do with the compression being so high.

[spicy3480]

FWIW, someone mentioned the number of changes in a particular tune, of the two that I've been working on, an LNF and a LS V8, here are my numbers...

Out of 74 parameters on the LNF, I've changed 44 of them. I number my tune files whenever I do a "save as" (usually has to be a significant change, not every little number change). On the LNF I'm at tune #434. (Yes, I said 434 different tunes that have been loaded and evaluated.)

On the LS motor, I'm showing 123 parameters changed, and strangely enough I'm very close to the LNF at tune #449.

Neither one of these are "done". Anyone that gives you a tune and says "here it is, it's done" isn't learning new things. (Not saying that anyone on here has said that, they haven't. And for the record I know absolutely nothing about Lyndon Wester, therefore I would not, and did not, attempt to judge him or his work.)

Nobody said you were judging.  I think the fact that you made that many changes is fantastic...everyone who tunes for our car does it slightly differently, and that is totally fine.  All work is much appreciated from each and every person on the forum, vendor or not.  I tested the tune for the automatic, and have over 30 different updated tunes...each and every one got a little bit better, with substantial changes for the better in the last update.  I am sure your tune is fantastic, and nobody is judging it against anyone else's.  The fact that you know how to tune the engine is impressive.  I would never mess with that myself.

[kennysabarese]

FYI Well based on some wikipedia, the turbo F1 engines of the mid 80's revved almost as high as the NA engines. NA engines would rev to 13-14k vs the turbos to 11-12k.

NA engines (3 Litre) would make 400-500hp the turbos (1.5L) would make from 500-900hp
(qualifying engines would go up to 1,500hp but only last a few laps)

Only in the 90's when pneumatic valve springs were introduced would F1 engines rev to 20,000RPM

Fun fact: they would run at least 60psi. Sometimes much higher. Even in 88 when 35psi  was the limit they still made 700hp at 12,500rpm.

Turbos are coming back to F1 in 2013. They will be 1.6L engines and only allowed to rev to 10,000rpm they expect a 50 percent reduction in fuel consumption. With the regenerative electric boost system (KERS) they will hit 600-750hp

[Uranium-238]

BOOO! Just when I start to get into F1 they have to go green and ruin everything. Race cars are supposed to be all about performance, not environmental "friendliness."