'95 Evo III - Going a little extreme

[habitatguy187]

Might just take awhile for your fuel trims to adjust. Beautiful car and build btw!

 

[soldave]

Thanks man.

That's what I thought, but I've locked the ECU in open loop. So it shouldn't be using the fuel trims at all, if my understanding is right.

I did manage to lean it out by about a full point, but if I lean it out any more then on startup it will try to be so lean it will stall.

 

[soldave]

So here's the bit of rust that Taki found at the front of my roof when they were changing the windshield. Kind of explains why:
a, I got a stress crack in the windshield from that area
b, the car wasn't the most watertight thing in the world

All seems to be good now though

 

[soldave]

A bit of tuning done. Estimated 360-380hp or so at only 0.85bar on a hella-conservative map, according to my Blitz Power Meter. Could be even higher than that actually as the Power Meter needs full configuration.

Close to double the boost, add some timing and it should be a nice little ride. Does get a little scary above 8,000rpm though!

 

[98tsifwd]

classic

 

[Purple_Demon]

I request a video of some 8k+ pulls, build looks to be coming along good though!

 

[soldave]

Slow but steady, that was the name of the game with tuning tonight. I had to rescale the load maps so that I wouldn't drop off the end of them, which meant starting a lot of the tuning from scratch. Tuned to stock wastegate boost first, which was 0.8bar. Ended up being able to throw in a shedload of timing into the map before it even started knocking in the slightest.

So with that done it was time to up the boost a little. The car is boosting 1bar now and the difference on the butt dyno was huge. And even ECMLink was supporting that. An increase in estimated power from 280whp to about 330whp. I didn't finish the 1bar tune (had a little knock on my last run) and have only been tuning to about 6600rpm so far, but the car keeps on making more and more power right up to there, so I might get higher figures if I rev it higher. I'm really pleased with those gains though, and if they continue then it's gonna be a pretty quick car.

Tonight was also good as a learning experience for me and getting to know the car, the noises it makes and how it feels under boost when the wastegates are open. Looking forward to either tomorrow or Thursday night for some more tuning and hopefully I'll be able to get it somewhere up close to 1.2bar, or maybe even more before the weekend.

For those with an interest, this is the ECMLink log attached from the last run I made, and also the timing map (I know it's a little all over the place - I need to smooth out the figures tomorrow). At 1bar I'm just between the 1.8 and 2.2 load rows.

 

[black_gst]

looking good, it looks like its hitting full boost right around 4400 RPMs

 

[soldave]

Yeah, although to be honest I think it can be quicker. I'm getting positive boost from around 2700rpm so that's a lot of spooling time. I've a slight wastegate leak which won't help things, but am hoping that some spool tuning and increasing the Gain further on my boost controller might help things.

Lots of potential still though to be unleashed.

 

[black_gst]

Yeah, although to be honest I think it can be quicker. I'm getting positive boost from around 2700rpm so that's a lot of spooling time. I've a slight wastegate leak which won't help things, but am hoping that some spool tuning and increasing the Gain further on my boost controller might help things.

Lots of potential still though to be unleashed.

The Holsets have a long spool time but after about 15psi they hit like a hammer, your not ever running that turbo in its efficiency range yet, get it up above 20 psi then you will be impressed

and the exhaust leak im sure is slowing down spool too

 

[soldave]

Yeah I'm sure that wastegate leak is not helping things. I did notice the 0.5-1bar boost come in a lot quicker than the 0-0.5bar. One interesting comparison I've found so far between my old Evo with its 50-trim is where the power seems to hit. With the 50-trim, you got the kick as boost built, but with the HX40 it seems to be more when I have boost, between 4,500 and 5,000rpm. It was also making power all the way up to 6,600rpm so I'm assuming there is still power to be made as I rev it higher. Will try and put my shift points around 7,500 or so.

 

[soldave]

Tuning got cut short last night due to a little "unwanted" attention. Discretion being the better part of valour (and me not wanting to get arrested!) led to me only getting a couple of runs in. Saying that I did manage to get the boost up to 1.18bar from 1bar previously and picked up 30hp on both my Blitz Power Meter and the ECMLink logs (which is now peaking me at 365whp@7,000rpm). These are just the power gains I want to be seeing, and there's still 20 degrees or so of timing in the map there so potential for quite a bit more.

 

[soldave]

Last bit of tuning done before tomorrow's drags, and it was pretty successful. I picked up another 30-40whp and am now peaking at 430whp on ECMLink and 470 on the Blitz Power Meter. 100whp gain since Wednesday so I'll take that.

Think the wastegate leak is costing me a couple of 100rpm in spool time though. Another thing I noticed was that at peak boost, the boost was fluctuating by 0.04-0.05bar or so. Could be the boost controller, or could be a tiny bit of surge (but I really doubt it). Was also thinking it could be the wastegates. The springs are about 0.73bar and I'm sure I read somewhere that springs with a boost controller are good until about double their original value. So I'm going over that which could account for the slight fluctuations.

A lot of tuning to do, but I've got something I can work with tomorrow at the drags.

 

[olmytsi]

Results?

 

[soldave]

This was what greeted me at the drag strip:

Some of the worst rain we've ever seen up there. Rearranged for May 20th which isn't too bad as it means I'll be able to get a much more finely tuned tune on there.

 

[soldave]

Mixed evening of tuning to be honest. I managed to up the boost to 1.7bar and got another 40-50whp gain according to ECMLink so that's pleasing. Could have done a bit more but I blew an intercooler hose off and couldn't really tighten it up while everything was still hot. And I say the coolant leak at the end of a hose that I had before has returned, so I decided to call it a night and do some fixing tomorrow. Just needs tightening up a little more I think but need things to be cold to get to it.

Am still thinking spool could be better. Threw another 3 degrees of timing in from 3-4000rpm and it didn't make a lick of difference to be honest. Boosting to 1.7bar I'm not reaching full boost until about 4900rpm. Still thinking I should be able to bring that down a fair bit. Maybe my gain needs to be set even higher on my boost controller, or the springs on my wastegates need changing from my current 0.7bar ones to some 1.5bar springs.

Not sure at this point.

 

[black_gst]

I would say go with a heavier spring i have 20 psi springs in my WGS if they are opening early they will definitely slow your boost.

what RPM do you hear the WGs cracking open at?

theres no reason an HX40 should be taking that long to boost

 

[soldave]

Not exactly sure what rpm the wastegates are cracking open at. I'll give it a boost leak check tomorrow and also get some stronger springs (probably 14.7psi ones) ordered.

 

[soldave]

Boost leak test results are in!

And I have good news to report. There were a couple of big leaks! Mainly the injector seals where the injectors go into the intake manifold. One of the seals was askew, and 3 out of the 4 were cracked and a little dry rotted. So have just ordered a set of brand new seals from Fuel Injector Clinic which should be here in the next week or so. The leak there was pretty substantial so fixing that might help with some, if not all, of my spooling issues. And we found another few leaks near hose clamps which we managed to tighten up and get rid of.

So once these new seals come in I'll get them thrown in and see if boost comes in a bit more quickly. Am pretty positive it will have an effect though

 

[Sirnixalot]

I disagree that you will see any difference in spool, it will make your boost more consistent though.

I had a 4" long crack in my intercooler end tank, i still made full boost by the same 3700rpm i am making it now but the boost curve was always moving around +/- 2psi.

I forgot you were S/D but it did make tuning the fuel map easier for me since since I wasn't chasing random rich spots.

 

[soldave]

Might not solve it completely, but a boost leak will cause a slower spool in most situations.

 

[soldave]

This thing has got to be cursed.

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Yup, that's a wheel stud and nut. Went to change out tyres to my new ones today and an 8-month old Mitsubishi OEM wheel stud just broke in 2. Spectacular.

Am gonna try and get the ARPs to replace these ones with. If one of these new ones has gone I don't really trust the others. More expense...

 

[soldave]

Done a few little bits recently to the car. Rear brake rotors and pads replaced. Nothing fancy - just some stock replacement rotors and Project Mu B-Spec pads. Still got to change the studs to ARPs on the front driver's side but then that's all done.

And last weekend an 8-point cage was put in. I figured that the car is going to disintegrate at some point so when it does at least I'll have the cage around me. Bolted in at the moment but will be welded in at some point. It has meant I've had to get rid of the back seat though - No big loss as most of my friends have more sense than to get into the car with me!

And I still haven't finished tuning it yet! Once the studs at the front are changed then I'll be on it. The only other thing left to do is fit my JDM mad tyte shift light and I'm good to go.

 

[Tiki2777]

The only other thing left to do is fit my JDM mad tyte shift light and I'm good to go.

Without that....This entire build was worthless

Such a beasty build....Can I has EVO?

 

[soldave]

Still trying to fix a pesky oil leak at the top of the engine. I fixed the leaking turbo oil drain to oil pan seal by replacing the normal gasket with some copper RTV, but this one at the top I'm having no luck with. At first I thought it was coming from the original turbo oil feed hole from the head, so I changed bolt and used a bigger washer, but it looks like the leak is still there. It's definitely coming from that driver's side (here in Japan) front part of the engine.

Am going to order another valve cover gasket and hope that does the trick. Mainly because if it doesn't the other possibilities I don't even want to think about.