First Impression
After waiting for the inordinate amount of noxious fumes to clear out of my garage due to the PB Blaster boiling off as well as cleaning up, I did what I do after any hard days work--go to Steak 'n Shake. The first thing I noticed was that I thought I accidentally took off a vacuum hose or something. There was a weird whirring noise, like a BB turbo or a jet engine. Even under low load, it was fairly noticeable with the windows up and the radio off.
After warming up for 10 minutes or so of cruising on the local roads and getting up to operating temp, I tried making a pull while getting onto the highway. I quickly discovered that I forgot to reconnect something to my wastegate's input port, and, well, ended up with a surprise. I ended up spiking to ~30 psi or a bit over it before I even knew it. The turbo is spool crazy. On my 2.3L (which happens to spool closer to a 2.0 for some reason, cams I suspect) I saw 15 psi according to the MAP sensor at a hair over 4100 RPM. Within half a second, I was at 4600 RPM and 30 psi, and saw my CEL go off signifying I was knocking above my signal point set in DSMLink (peak of 6.4 degrees knock!). After that I just picked up my friend and went to eat a Chili Mac Supreme.
You can see the log for yourself (run11032007-2 pull.dat) using the DSMLink software, which is free for download off their website. If you do look at it, you can see that I have timing and fuel zeroed out (new turbo = time for a new tune is my take on it). A few things to note--
- The max airflow is ~44.3 lbs/min, at a whopping 4777 RPM and a maxed out MAP sensor (so, at least 30.7 psi)
- The ECU seems to freak out in a big way and dumps as much fuel as is possible. I don't have a wideband up, but 100% on ~700cc injectors (rough estimate based on how much fuel I have to pull globally to get decent fuel trims), while only flowing 43.8 lbs/min (see data at 6.80s) puts me at ~9.3:1. So, running the stock fuel maps was a big big mistake. Not taking the time to set base fuel pressure was also a big mistake.
- The spoolup is moderately fast, but once it hits it hits like a freight train.
First Pulls
Reference run11032007-2 pull.dat for the 2nd gear hoo-ha, and run11052007-2 3rd gear pull.dat for the stock tune data.
After getting everything hooked up I managed to get a (still untuned) pull through most of third gear. The log is listed as attachment "run11052007-2 3rd gear pull". The important parts first.
- 15.6 psi comes on at 3800 RPM in third gear. Please note that this is a 2.3L with spoolup characters similar to a 2.0. In comparison, the old T04B 50 trim spooled up about the same if not a tad bit slower. Unfortunately, I don't have any logs with MAP sensor data.
- Peak airflow at 23 psi was 43 lbs/min by roughly 6200 RPM.
- I really need to tune.
It's important to note that all this is on a completely stock tune, which come to think of it may have been a good idea since it removes an extra variable. With some tuning tricks, I'm confident that the 15 psi spool-up can be attained at least 300 RPM earlier.
Another interesting point is the massive airflow difference between 30 psi and 23 psi. This turbo is
definitely not the same as your average 50 trim which will shine at around 26 to 30 psi--this thing really really likes boost. This is especially apparent when you look at the map, which shows that the turbo should really be happy around 30-36 psi. At this point, I'm considering if I need to pull the head off again and get it O-ringed or something. If you compare the log of the 30 psi spike and the log of the third gear pull at 23 psi, you'll notice that at 30 psi and much less load, the turbo performs amazingly by flowing more air at ~4600 RPM than it did at 23 psi and up through 7000 RPM.
Bottom line, if you're interested in this turbo, be prepared to run lots and lots of boost to get in the sweet spot of the wheel.
After Tuning (sort of)
Reference the file run11172007-5 3rd gear pull.dat for the pseudo-tuned data.
With boost set at 23 psi, the car made full boost at 4500-4700 RPM in 2nd gear, and 3900-4000 RPM in 3rd gear. Given that I haven't increased the boost at all, airflow numbers are still the same as before. The 70-90 mph time is approximately 2.1 seconds throughout these pulls.
All in all, the car pulls very very hard and meets/exceeds my expectations. If you're in the market for a 50 trim/3052/60-1/3065/GT35(61mm wheel) sized turbo, then this or the S258 should be considered. The turbo has the spool characteristics of a 50 trim, but *should* be able to flow as much as the larger turbos.
E85
So, I realized that the Dejon SMIC isn't really cutting it anymore but I don't have the money to drop on a FMIC or injection kit right now. I did however have 20 bucks to upgrade to FIC950's after some hawking on the classifieds, so I went with that and some E85 instead. The stuff is definitely strong enough to make up for my lack of intercooler, and between the latent heat and extra octane all the knock is gone. So far all I've done is adjust my global fuel and adjust for LTFTs, lean the WOT map out to ~10.5:1, and zero out my timing map. The car feels much better now that it actually has some timing and the 70-90 is down to 1.9 seconds. Nothing else has changed, including boost and peak airflow. With any luck the tranny will hold up to a little more abuse and I'll be able to up the boost some more before dynoing or trying to make a pass down the track. Log for this data is run02242008-4 two third gear pulls.