I live in Colorado. I am a mile above sea level. I have posted elsewhere about this.
I picked up my car yesterday, tuned by Tobi at TC Performance in Arvada, Colorado (http://www.tcperf.com/). He installed my F/IC, using the Boomslang harness that I ordered for my OBDI NSX (see above). Tobi reports that he loved the harness, BTW. It worked perfectly, and the harness can be ordered by phone for the OBDI NSX at the same price as the other NSX F/IC harnesses.
In the past year, I have added the true high boost to my Whipple CTSC, and then added water/methanol injection. Even running pig rich here, I was running into detonation under load on a dyno. So I needed engine management (duh, for high boost, even at this elevation). I was going for the AEM EMS, then was convinced by Tobi to try the F/IC. He had installed five of them (mostly on S2000 OBDII). He ordered the F/IC.
Bit of a delay: It had to be sent back to be reflashed successfully.
So... in the meantime, I read a lot about the Whipple, high boost, engine management, water methanol, detonation, and the CTSC. When the Prime site was down, I did Google searches using the Google advanced site function limited to Prime's Web address (I highly recommend this...when the site was down, i could still read archives).
This is what I believe, based on what I have read here:
The Comptech Whipple system is truly a wonderfully engineered bolt-on system. As I currently understand it, it works basically by fooling the ECU and increasing the fuel enough under boost (by doubling or less the voltage to the stock fuel pump) such that the engine keeps cool -- essentially, over-fueling... and thus preventing engine damage. It also relies on heat from the Whipple to pull timing... over and over again, I have read here that the safest CTSC is the one on the track, running very hot, such that timing is pulled (I have had dozens of track days that attest to this).
I know there has been some argument about this: Adding water/methanol to cool the engine temps could be a very good thing, or it could be a bad thing. On the plus side, cooling can help with longevity of the engine, or increase performance. On the minus side, cooling with the CTSC prevents the heat necessary to have the stock ECU pull timing. Could be a big boom. The controversy? If there is no heat, then there is no need to pull timing... kind of like driving a CTSC in winter or summer. What's the difference?
In my case, water/meth was a mistake, without engine management, even pig rich at high altitiude. Timing was not being pulled with engine heat. Slight detonation, under load on a dyno, resulted.
So... I added a Walbro, new fuel regulator, the F/IC, and Toni's tuning... and I can tell you that there are no engine codes, no issues with cold/hot starts, idle has been great, and the engine sounds as smooth as a sewing machine.
I know it's been only a day, but I drove around town a lot, went a bit of distance on the highway... without even a hiccup... then headed straight for the mountains. I pounded on the car. Hard. Fifteen MPH curves? Yeah, right. Sand on the road? Fun. I could not be happier. 120 miles today.
Redyno/tune to check everything out (such as possible changes between short/long-term fuel trims, and open loop) will occur when the weather warms up, and the gas changes here.
OK..graphs below. A couple of things to note: A/F was measured at the tailpipe (no bung). It also lags behind other parts of the graph, so take the A/F and move it to the left.
Fun things to note: pushing 5 lbs below 3K rpm. 230 torque at 3k rpm. On my low-boost setup, my top torque was 220... here, top torque is 255.
It's my belief that Comptech perfectly sized the Whipple for a bolt-on unit; putting on a smaller pulley maxes out the Whipple at 5K.. but, in my case, putting on a smaller pulley moved the torque curve much lower (and increased torque), which made the car a lot more fun to drive. (I have also been studying recent turbo stats and, although total torque and HP are very high, I think I have more torque down low.. such is the CTSC).
Dynos:
I picked up my car yesterday, tuned by Tobi at TC Performance in Arvada, Colorado (http://www.tcperf.com/). He installed my F/IC, using the Boomslang harness that I ordered for my OBDI NSX (see above). Tobi reports that he loved the harness, BTW. It worked perfectly, and the harness can be ordered by phone for the OBDI NSX at the same price as the other NSX F/IC harnesses.
In the past year, I have added the true high boost to my Whipple CTSC, and then added water/methanol injection. Even running pig rich here, I was running into detonation under load on a dyno. So I needed engine management (duh, for high boost, even at this elevation). I was going for the AEM EMS, then was convinced by Tobi to try the F/IC. He had installed five of them (mostly on S2000 OBDII). He ordered the F/IC.
Bit of a delay: It had to be sent back to be reflashed successfully.
So... in the meantime, I read a lot about the Whipple, high boost, engine management, water methanol, detonation, and the CTSC. When the Prime site was down, I did Google searches using the Google advanced site function limited to Prime's Web address (I highly recommend this...when the site was down, i could still read archives).
This is what I believe, based on what I have read here:
The Comptech Whipple system is truly a wonderfully engineered bolt-on system. As I currently understand it, it works basically by fooling the ECU and increasing the fuel enough under boost (by doubling or less the voltage to the stock fuel pump) such that the engine keeps cool -- essentially, over-fueling... and thus preventing engine damage. It also relies on heat from the Whipple to pull timing... over and over again, I have read here that the safest CTSC is the one on the track, running very hot, such that timing is pulled (I have had dozens of track days that attest to this).
I know there has been some argument about this: Adding water/methanol to cool the engine temps could be a very good thing, or it could be a bad thing. On the plus side, cooling can help with longevity of the engine, or increase performance. On the minus side, cooling with the CTSC prevents the heat necessary to have the stock ECU pull timing. Could be a big boom. The controversy? If there is no heat, then there is no need to pull timing... kind of like driving a CTSC in winter or summer. What's the difference?
In my case, water/meth was a mistake, without engine management, even pig rich at high altitiude. Timing was not being pulled with engine heat. Slight detonation, under load on a dyno, resulted.
So... I added a Walbro, new fuel regulator, the F/IC, and Toni's tuning... and I can tell you that there are no engine codes, no issues with cold/hot starts, idle has been great, and the engine sounds as smooth as a sewing machine.
I know it's been only a day, but I drove around town a lot, went a bit of distance on the highway... without even a hiccup... then headed straight for the mountains. I pounded on the car. Hard. Fifteen MPH curves? Yeah, right. Sand on the road? Fun. I could not be happier. 120 miles today.
Redyno/tune to check everything out (such as possible changes between short/long-term fuel trims, and open loop) will occur when the weather warms up, and the gas changes here.
OK..graphs below. A couple of things to note: A/F was measured at the tailpipe (no bung). It also lags behind other parts of the graph, so take the A/F and move it to the left.
Fun things to note: pushing 5 lbs below 3K rpm. 230 torque at 3k rpm. On my low-boost setup, my top torque was 220... here, top torque is 255.
It's my belief that Comptech perfectly sized the Whipple for a bolt-on unit; putting on a smaller pulley maxes out the Whipple at 5K.. but, in my case, putting on a smaller pulley moved the torque curve much lower (and increased torque), which made the car a lot more fun to drive. (I have also been studying recent turbo stats and, although total torque and HP are very high, I think I have more torque down low.. such is the CTSC).
Dynos:
I hope someday someone like DDozier can take a closer look into the HKS F-Con offerings. I would value his opinion. A little birdie told me HKS has been looking into re-entering the USDM.
