Promotive Engineering

Porsche Motorsport Preparation Brisbane

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Never enough room in the engine bay…

February 2, 2017 by Promotive

The current 911 trend of backdating and Singer look makes life hard when you are also trying to squeeze a couple of turbos under a ducktail or electric wing.  I am a huge fan of a normally aspirated engine with throttle bodies or flat slides, but sometimes you just need more power and bigger flames.  With a Masters Degree is Tetris, you can get a decent size intercooler to fit without needing an aggressive tail (as seen in the photos below of previous projects).  The problems are compounded when you are trying to increase drivability by using long intake runners, and then need to find room for an air conditioning compressor.


The other option is to use water to air intercoolers.  These are quite effective in a road going 911 because there is enough thermal capacity in the system to sink the heat generated by relatively short bursts of power, and the average road speeds are less than on a circuit so where the airflow over an air to air intercooler comes into its own.  A current project uses twin barrel intercoolers on a twin turbo 3.4 engine arranged so there is ample room in the engine bay for easy maintenance and an electric C2 wing.  The base motor hasn’t been touched so there hasn’t been an opportunity to tidy the old muffler up and detail the engine.  Unfortunately it is function before form on this build…

The engine is being run by the enormously capable Vipec Thunder ECU.  That allows me to data logging everything from EGTs, dual lambda and every pressure and temperature we can think of.  One advantage of having so many inputs and outputs on the ECU is being able to take over the control of the electric tail to make it heat and speed dependant; and more importantly use a drive by wire throttle body.  I try and use DBW on all the projects here these days, the simplicity in setting up traction control, and idle control make me look good!  This engine had an old school throttle kicker for antilag so that was also eliminated and updated.

The easiest way to make everything fit nicely is to cut the manifold balance tube and reweld it on a shallower angle.  The standard throttle body holes were welded up and redrilled to suit the 996 Turbo DBW throttle body which also has a larger butterfly.  This 3.2 manifold had already been put on a flow bench to equalise the flow through the runners so the whole job was fast and painless.  Just the way I like it!

One other upgrade we did while the engine was being rewired is ditch the old coil packs for the twin plug setup and update to coil on plug.  These have plenty of spark energy for the amount of boost that this engine will run and clean up the engine bay.

This engine has a date with the engine dyno before it is put back in the car so I can see how efficient the barrel intercoolers are compared to other systems I have tried.  We are going to continue of our fuel testing with this engine as well to show what a massive difference the ETS Racing Fuels make to power and throttle response….

Filed Under: ETS Fuel, Porsche Tagged With: Fabrication, Porsche race preparation

Porsche dyno testing

December 5, 2015 by Promotive

It seems like I have been spending a lot of time testing fuels these days!  I have tested the ETS Extra Max fuel in most of the standard late model Porsches to see what sort of gains can be made just by pouring in the oxygenated race fuel.  The various Bosch ECUs respond well to the fuel and the gains have been at least 30hp at the wheels with no other changes made.  On cars that have the ability to retune and add boost then the gains that can safely be made are significantly more!  It is cheap power and great for track days…

996 Turbo DynoPorsche 996 ETS Graph

Testing on the chassis dynos has been a great way to check the tune and show the relative gains to be made from the fuel but using a ‘rolling road’ can be a bit problematic.  There are drivetrain and associated losses through the tyres, inconsistency with overheating tyre temperatures (particularly with race rubber), wheel spin and the electronic diff controls on some of the Porsche four wheel drive models just don’t get on particularly well with some dynos…

An increase in power is one thing, but what doesn’t don’t show on a dyno graph is the increased throttle response which gives that extra punch out of the corner, and sound of the engine is so much smoother!

I have been using my engine dyno to do a fair bit of comparison testing too.  It is no secret that I have never been a fan of premium 98 fuel, the lack of consistency from the pump has always scared me.  It is Ok on a car with a factory ECUs that have closed loop controls that wind back the timing when detonation is detected, but on highly strung engines that are used in competition – it is a bit like playing Russian Roulette.  Using the repeatability of the my engine dyno, I did some back to back tests comparing P98 fuel to ETS Extra Max.  The engine I used was a relatively standard air cooled 911 turbo engine.  Like most 911 turbos, it doesn’t have enough airflow over the intercooler so has high inlet air temperatures, and it has the same problem with the oil cooling, particularly after a few laps at the track on a hot QLD summer.  It is the sort of engine that is a bit scary on P98 with any reasonable amount of boost.

The graph below shows the runs from the two fuels.  Obviously the line labelled ‘Hp(1)’ is P98 and ‘Hp’ is Extra Max.  It is a pretty huge difference and the only change I made to the tune was trimming the fuel sites on the Motec M800 to make the lambda about the same.  The blue line is MAP pressure so the engine is just running on waste gate pressure for this test.
ETS vs P98 Fuel comparison low boost

The engine with a bit more boost.  Unfortunately it is running out of airflow but it does have very conservative cams and heads…

ETS ExtraMax boost

And this isn’t the worlds most exciting video but here is the engine in action…

https://youtu.be/O6oYyzDm1aA

Filed Under: ETS Fuel, Porsche

Dyno upgrades

July 2, 2015 by Promotive

I have been busy lately on a few big builds and have managed to find some time to do some upgrades to the engine dyno that I have been wanting to do for too long.  While some of the upgrades are purely practical and allow engine changes to be quicker, I have also added significant over capacity to the cooling system to engine temperatures can be optimised.   engine on dyno

I have become really interested in the fuel testing lately and comparing different race fuels.  I have added a flex fuel sensor to the dyno now which show how the ethanol content some of the cheaper competitors race fuels have and the consistency (or lack thereof!) !  It is a cheap way for them to increase knock resistance but it isn’t the best way of producing power…

dyno windowI have upgraded the knock sensing in the cell as well.  In addition to the two channel Vipec knock amplifier and headset, I have added a dedicated vibration sensing module.  It is now easier to fine tune the knock sensors on a setup so there is less false readings and make it easier and faster to setup individual cylinder tuning.  The new system will also analyse the vibration signature of an engine over time (FFT) and will show well balanced the engine is and the point of the imbalance.  By looking at the spectral analysis you can distinguish the imbalance from a weak cylinder, a clutch or the cooling fan etc.  Cool stuff!

Just need a more room on the console for all the readouts and instrumentation now!  Maybe a lounge chair as well.

 

Filed Under: ETS Fuel, Porsche, Workshop Tagged With: Dyno tuning, ETS Fuel, Technology

The Rally Golf…

June 30, 2015 by Promotive

Normally only 911s are allowed into the workshop.  I have made a couple of exceptions lately, one being the short wheelbase Group B Audi replica and the other is the classic rally Golf Mk1 that is destined to run in the Australian Classic Rally Championship.  This has been a massive ground up build which I will elaborate on in a later post and actually take some decent photos…

Golf engine

The exciting news is that the Golf is finally alive!  I am yet to tune the massive 50mm carbies (- yes old fashioned carburettors!) but the induction noise of this engine is amazing.  It should be too considering how ridiculously high compression is, and of course it is designed to run on the ETS Extra Max race fuel.

Golf engine bay

I am sure the sound of this car will be confused for a big bore sports bike in the distance because the ratios in the dog box are so close…

Golf interiorWith just a few final touches to be made, the test day is not too far away!

Filed Under: ETS Fuel, Rally Tagged With: ETS Fuel, Fabrication, Rally preparation

GT2 Update

April 4, 2015 by Promotive

GT2 Shell side

The  The GT2 shell is back from the sandblasters!  I have finished all of the major fabrication at last.

It doesn’t look like much at the moment but after a splash of paint and the composite panels are bolted or bonded on, it might actually look like the Porsche it was.  Just a lot lighter, stiffer with better suspension geometry!

GT2 shell front

The new engine is going back together at the moment and should be on the dyno in the coming months.  As in its previous incarnation, the engine is controlled by a Motec with one of my lightweight tefzel looms which saves just over 60kg compared to the factory loom and all of the various ECUs!  This engine has some trick bits inside with a couple of Borg Warner turbos that I have found to be the performing turbos at the moment.  More on that later…

Interestingly (to me anyway!) the chemists at ETS Race Fuels in France have recommended ESR GC4 as the fuel that has the best burn characteristics to suit this engine spec.  It will be interesting to do another fuel comparison on the dyno.  The gains by switching to the right fuels so far have been nothing short of amazing!

I can’t wait!

 

Filed Under: ETS Fuel, Porsche Tagged With: Fabrication, GT2

Liquid Power!

March 4, 2015 by Promotive

I have to say that I am pretty chuffed with the ol’ twin turbo Canyonerro.  It isn’t a bad workshop hack.  It could be improved with a set of DS3000 brake pads so it stops from speed more than twice, and the 22inch wheels make what is normally a really capable 4wd, utterly useless and barely able to traverse an average sized pothole without total destruction to the rim and tyre.

Cayenne Turbo on dyno with ETS fuel

I want more power but every time I start plan on giving it a bit more boost and a tune,  I can’t help thinking that getting more than 350kms to a tank of fuel would also be nice.  It is actually becoming a bit embarrassing – the girl at the petrol station down the road thinks I am a bit keen on her because I am visiting so often!  To avoid my second visit in a week, I decided I would see what happens if I filled up with some ETS ExtraMax race fuel…

Well, I did actually know what would happen.  The Bosch Me7 engine management in these beasts might be getting a bit antiquated compared to the latest tech, but it was happy to keep winding in the spark and fuel until the dyno showed about a 30hp gain at the wheels!  To be fair, the actual horsepower number falsely showed a bit more than 42hp but there was a spike at the end of the run each time as the traction control woke up and tried to outsmart the dyno.  The airbag suspension also decided it need to take action too.  Watching the electronics try and fight the dyno was like watching 50 Shades of Grey with your mum.  Not good.  Porsches just don’t like to be tied down and abused…  I will upload the graphs soon.

One thing that is actually amazing is how much better the throttle response was on the way home.  The exit from corners was addictive!

Cayenne Turbo on dyno

Unfortunately it wasn’t all good news.  After driving it home from the dyno I realised that I am like a fat boy with cake.  I need more.  More power in this case, but more cake in my life would be good too.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: ETS Fuel Tagged With: ETS Fuel

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