Slow... slow... slow...

[Ricardo]

my car is _SLOW_

It was slow before I installed the AGP T28 and it's still slow. I raced a GST w/ a body kid and stock turbo at 12psi and lost... badly! I also raced an older m3 (240hp) and lost for it. I don't know what's going on. The M3 battle was not too bad, but the stock turbocharged gst was awful, he killed me bad. Is it so much difference because I'm an A/T or is there just something wrong with my car ?

I'm running about 12psi by the way. The only problem I can think of is improper oil feed, but that only happened for a couple days. Any tips ? Maybe I'm running too rich with a walbro 255 ? Should I get a datalogger ? It's really sad to work my ass off on this car and lose to clows with stock parts....

 

[larryd]

well one an auto trans is that much slower.. yes..

two, your only running 12psi.. WHY??

 

[MitsuE95GST]

Hey Ricardo I hate to hear your car isn’t performing the way you want. Have you taken it to the track yet to see where you stand? There are several things that can make a potently fast car perform under par. If you your car is seeing to much knock it could be pulling timing decreasing horsepower as much as 20-30 HP throughout the entire RPM band. You can use a pocket logger to see how much timing advance the ECU is giving you. Also you said that there was improper oil feed, not sure what that means but if you had bad oil feed to your whole engine than you could have scared your cylinder walls causing low compression, of course this to can severally lower your power. You should be producing plenty power with the T28 even though you have an auto. You should do a pressure check on your intercooler lines, and also check to be sure that your waste gate and waste gate actuator are functioning properly. Asides from that I doubt you are running to rich except for at idle from the Walbro but you can probably take out your lower honeycomb to fix that. You could probley get away with raising your PSI to at least 14. Good luck!

 

[Ricardo]

The improper oil feed I'm talking about is because I had an oil leak from the return line which I already fixed. I didn't know that was happening, I only noticed later and put some more oil on it and then fixed the leak with some gasket sealer.

 

[Ricardo]

and I don't see why the a/t has to be so much slower because there's only one gear to be shifted on highway racing, besides there should plenty of torque available.

 

[Ricardo]

I haven't taken my car to the track yet, I was expecting low 14's high 13's but after last night I'll be expecting 15's if I'm lucky.

Also, sad thing is that when I spoke to the guy in the M3 I was pretty confident it was a 333hp car and therefore the guy in the gs-t could have lied to me saying he was stock turbo, but he told me the older models (his) were 240hp and then he added "I kept it in 5th gear the whole time" meaning he never even down shifted and beat me

 

[FourG63 97GST]

needs some Tuning, i havent figured out how to tune yet.
is there a tuning thread/forum?

 

[Ricardo]

Originally posted by FourG63 97GST
needs some Tuning, i havent figured out how to tune yet.
is there a tuning thread/forum?

That's not funny man. I've spent a lot of time working on my car, I assured that every mod was done in the proper order, I only put a bigger turbo on it after having all supporting mods. Go make fun of civic ricers, not me!

 

[jw]

Have you done intake leak test? Use NGK copper plugs with the correct gap and a good set of wires? A few things may seem trivial but it's also the key to make your car run right. If your car is not running in good order with stock setup. Do not expect it to run well magically by just putting mods. What other gauges do you have? It's good to get a logger as your next mod. Walbro 255 will bump up your base fuel pressure and make it run richer. Most of the time people with almost stock setup run slower with the walbro with no other form of fuel control. At low boost even on a bigger turbo isnt going to help much.

 

[doug]

He just put in a new set of plugs and wires (NGK for both).

I think an intake leak test would be good-- hey Ricardo, call me up sometime and we'll do that.

 

[GSX]

I can talk from experience .. a friend [mike98gst] of mine went from the stock T-25 form to the AGP T28 and w/o any tuning he was intially disappointed in the turbo upgrade...

Long story short, we hooked up a pocketlogger, tuned the thing by pulling tons of fuel [still relatively safe ~.94 O2s]. And the car came alive. Now the guy is big time on the AGP T28 band wagon.

And I have to agree, the car was a dog before ... now it easily breaks first and second loose. BTW, we're talking about a 5 speed here.

As the general direction of the thread states ... get some sort of data logger, tune, and then come back and post your results. Chances are your post will read Fast... fast... fast

Now go tune the thing...

 

[SPEEDY]

Being automatic will definately hurt you in the performance dept. You have more power being soaked up by the transmission as compared to a manual transmission equipped car. Also... 12 psi of boost isn't nothing. Crank it up! I ran 17 psi on my ported Big28 with the stock 450's, with egt's around the 850c to 875c mark. Good luck!

 

[doug]

Originally posted by SPEEDY
Being automatic will definately hurt you in the performance dept.

Nobody's arguing that, but it's not like he installed the A/T at the same time as the new turbo, he had it all along. So the new setup should still feel faster (if tuned).

 

[SPEEDY]

Originally posted by doug

Nobody's arguing that, but it's not like he installed the A/T at the same time as the new turbo, he had it all along. So the new setup should still feel faster (if tuned).

True! He could possibly over come some of that power loss by going to a Translab shift kit, but he still needs to turn the boost up some from the very low 12 psi that he's at now IMO. It would help alot!!

 

[FourG63 97GST]

Originally posted by Ricardo


That's not funny man. I've spent a lot of time working on my car, I assured that every mod was done in the proper order, I only put a bigger turbo on it after having all supporting mods. Go make fun of civic ricers, not me!

I wasn't making fun of your car or calling you a ricer.
just saying by tuning you can get most out of your car. there's another 2G GST around me that has less mods than me, an his car is much faster than mine. which made me realise that tuning is important as well as adding performance parts.

 

[doug]

Originally posted by SPEEDY
he still needs to turn the boost up some from the very low 12 psi that he's at now IMO. It would help alot!!

Absolutely. I think he's still just a little gun-shy from the whole wastegate problem he had on the stock turbo. It was stuck shut and the boost would shoot up past 20 with any decent amount of throttle. It's why he had to replace that T-25 with the AGP T28 to begin with. Plus, I think he wants to make sure there's no more leaks in the oil return line before he opens things up. I can't wait to ride in it once he gets things working right!

 

[Ricardo]

Originally posted by doug


Absolutely. I think he's still just a little gun-shy from the whole wastegate problem he had on the stock turbo. It was stuck shut and the boost would shoot up past 20 with any decent amount of throttle. It's why he had to replace that T-25 with the AGP T28 to begin with. Plus, I think he wants to make sure there's no more leaks in the oil return line before he opens things up. I can't wait to ride in it once he gets things working right!

Yeah, he's right. I just wanted to make sure the oil leak was done with, that's why I have been running low 10-12psi of boost. Today I raised the boost to about 15psi since I haven't seen a drop coming out of the return line. The car seems to be going pretty good now... I'm waiting to race someone to see where it stands.

 

[Z1500]

Hmmm. Is something wrong with your boost controler? Why did the old turbo just jump to 20psi? What was sticking? Do you have an air bleed for the MBC?

Kevin

 

[doug]

Originally posted by Z1500
Why did the old turbo just jump to 20psi? What was sticking? Do you have an air bleed for the MBC?

We surmised that it was the wastegate flapper or actuator keeping the wastegate closed. I don't believe he's dismantled the old turbo to inspect everything to verify-- but I think he needs to send that to you, correct? The new turbo works perfectly.

He's using the TurboXS HPBC-- that one does have a bleed valve, I'm pretty sure. I have that one, too.

 

[Ricardo]

Ok guys, update : boost raised to 16psi, went out to put some gas tonight and find myself a race, yeah I know running around looking for races isn't cool but I had to test the new turbo at higher boost.

So I found myself a 95 GS-T w/ manual transmission, he said let's launch at second gear and then I told him I was auto and then we launched on 1,2,3. I started slowly pulling away from him, I think I took about 2 cars from him by the time I stopped racing which was about 90mph.

What I thought it was funny is that there were bout 3 high school kids on that car and the one in the passanger seat said "automatic transmission ? That's fuc---- g-y!" I told him "I won you though" and then told him some of the benefits of an automatic transmission like less traction loss on fwd cars. Still those guys didn't know much what they were talking about and he said he only had intake/exaust mods. When I asked him about his intercooler piping and bov he looked like he didn't know what I was talking about, although he said he was running 15psi.... i wonder if the stock bov can handle that !

I guess I just need some tuning now, next mods will definitively be pocket logger and s-afc.

 

[SPEEDY]

Originally posted by Ricardo
Ok guys, update : boost raised to 16psi, went out to put some gas tonight and find myself a race, yeah I know running around looking for races isn't cool but I had to test the new turbo at higher boost.

So I found myself a 95 GS-T w/ manual transmission, he said let's launch at second gear and then I told him I was auto and then we launched on 1,2,3. I started slowly pulling away from him, I think I took about 2 cars from him by the time I stopped racing which was about 90mph.

What I thought it was funny is that there were bout 3 high school kids on that car and the one in the passanger seat said "automatic transmission ? That's fuc---- g-y!" I told him "I won you though" and then told him some of the benefits of an automatic transmission like less traction loss on fwd cars. Still those guys didn't know much what they were talking about and he said he only had intake/exaust mods. When I asked him about his intercooler piping and bov he looked like he didn't know what I was talking about, although he said he was running 15psi.... i wonder if the stock bov can handle that !

I guess I just need some tuning now, next mods will definitively be pocket logger and s-afc.

Nice run!!

 

[dukmahsik]

i think u were running too low of boost and were way too rich... thus bogging down ur engine

 

[mike98gst]

Originally posted by GSX
And I have to agree, the car was a dog before ...

Gee, thanks, Pete!

Seriously, the car runs awesome now. Get those 550's and AFC in there, pull lots of fuel, and have fun.

Mike

 

[FourG63 97GST]

Does it hold the boost you set it at? I'm expecting that same turbo soon. Just wondering if it falls like the T25 at hih RPMS

 

[mike98gst]

I run 17psi on the street and it holds past redline, just as advertised. No boost creep for me either.

Mike