Finally tuned and running nicely

[jwmelvin]

I've had some struggles since I got my car, like a faulty boost-a-pump connection, leaking bypass hose, my fuel pump failing, the engine lifting the heads off the block, and an overwhelmed FPR and clogged vacuum hose. But having to get the engine rebuilt provided a good opportunity to change the fueling from the stock Comptech setup of RRFPR to larger injectors and a piggyback (need to maintain OBD2 emissions testing). I've always been unhappy with the idea of the stock fueling.

So today, John Kerr of JK Tuning set up my maps for me. Let me start by saying what a great person he is. He does nothing but tune cars and develop ECU modifications for Nissans, called the NismoTronic, and he was extremely helpful and engaging during the process both before and during the tune.

I have a smaller pulley but because I am just recovering from an engine rebuild, I'm scared of running it. So I kept the standard, low-boost pulley. Based on comments here, I did pick up a water-meth spray kit from the marketplace, and have it in the trunk. I'd like to set it up with a post-blower spray but haven't had the resources and understanding that I need to so that. So I set it up to spray before the blower, to help manage temps a bit. Just water, and it seemed to cool things a lot. We were getting at least 30 degF lower IAT when spraying.

I asked John to tune for safety over performance, so he maintained 0.5 deg/psi of retard in boost.

Here is the final result, 399.3 whp and 278 lb-ft:

The torque curve is nice and flat all the way to redline. And it really feels great in the car. It's now so much smoother and stronger than it has ever felt.

I laughed when I logged with the Zeitronix during one of the pulls and looked at the AFR. The stock Comptech setup never was this flat:

It looks like boost is falling off a bit at higher RPM, which suggests belt slip. I tightened it at one point, which seemed to help. The Dynapack reported a higher pressure than the Zeitronix. Also, it seems like the water spray may raise the boost in the mid-rpm range.

Here's a picture of the nonfinal, somewhat hurried spray setup:

In all, it was a great experience and a great day. I stopped in at Daisy to see Ben [MENTION=14909]redbird92[/MENTION] on the way home and give him a hug for building me a great engine. And to change the break-in, dyno oil to some fresh synthetic.

Thanks to Ben [MENTION=14909]redbird92[/MENTION], Dave [MENTION=4799]DDozier[/MENTION], Regan [MENTION=20915]RYU[/MENTION], and John Kerr. All played a critical role in my education, setup, and results. I still have a little work to do on the spray setup but I'm very happy. -jason

 

[jones83]

Congrats on getting everything sorted out and having a successful run on the dyno. It looks like the car is running pretty healthy. Did boost stay at 6.8psi after you tightened the belt? That definitely looks like belt slip.

 

[jwmelvin]

The boost did not stay steady even after I tightened the belt. I may try a Gatorback, which this was not. I have TitaniumDave's solid tensioner block too.

And thanks to Mac Attack for helping me with the Time Set install jig.

 

[RYU]

That's great to hear! Congrats. Wishing you many happy miles ahead.

 

[peiserg]

i find it amazing how much power guys are getting out of the CTSC nowadays vs. way back when. I think the most people could get back in the 90s was something like 70hp? 300-320rwhp was considered very typical. No E85, AEM, boost a pump, fueling systems etc...and at 7 psi... wow..

 

[Jinks]

Science!!!!:biggrin:

i find it amazing how much power guys are getting out of the CTSC nowadays vs. way back when. I think the most people could get back in the 90s was something like 70hp? 300-320rwhp was considered very typical. No E85, AEM, boost a pump, fueling systems etc...and at 7 psi... wow..

 

[DDozier]

I still have a little work to do on the spray setup but I'm very happy. -jason

You need one of these:

Dave

 

[jwmelvin]

Yes I completely agree!

 

[Jinks]

Where is the buy it now tab?

 

[RYU]

Water spray is awesome. I finally tuned mine so I use the minimum amount of water with the maximum amount of cooling. On an 85 deg day under hard driving my IATs seldom go higher than 140F. I'm also able to go thru only about half a gallon of water for a 20-25min track session under boost almost all the time. I had it spraying more to keep temps at around 120-130 but it used up twice as much water and was starting to mess with my combustion.

H20 is great! Dave's kit looks top notch

Dave my only concern is 2 nozzles might be too much. I'm using the smallest nozzle size I could find and only one of them and also only have my water pump at about 70% duty.

 

[DDozier]

Where is the buy it now tab?

This was a one off piece I designed and built for a local guy with a CTSC Whipple. It worked flawlessly and we were able to reduce the amount of fluid being sprayed by over 100% and achieved IATs under 120*f. I can have these made but to do them as a one off makes them very expensive. My machinist said the only way to get the price down on these is to make them in a run of at least 10. I am not sure I can sell 10 so I have not made any more.

Dave

 

[Jinks]

Water spray is awesome. I finally tuned mine so I use the minimum amount of water with the maximum amount of cooling. On an 85 deg day under hard driving my IATs seldom go higher than 140F. I'm also able to go thru only about half a gallon of water for a 20-25min track session under boost almost all the time. I had it spraying more to keep temps at around 120-130 but it used up twice as much water and was starting to mess with my combustion.

H20 is great! Dave's kit looks top notch

Dave my only concern is 2 nozzles might be too much. I'm using the smallest nozzle size I could find and only one of them and also only have my water pump at about 70% duty.

Hey Ryu, I know your running the ctsc as well. What blower do you have? Whipple, autorotor, lysholm?

 

[RYU]

Hey Ryu, I know your running the ctsc as well. What blower do you have? Whipple, autorotor, lysholm?

I have a stock 91' 3.0L with the 1.7L Autorotor on Cometic stock compression head gaskets. I'm pushing 6.9-7.2 psi on avg but can peak to 7.8psi on a cold and damp day but tuned on an HKS F-Con Vpro on crappy 91 California piss gas. I peak at around 380rwHP on a Superflow but have it tuned to a conservative 350rwHP for track and everyday use. I suspect I can hit over 400wHP on e85 but I have no desire to try

 

[Jinks]

This was a one off piece I designed and built for a local guy with a CTSC Whipple. It worked flawlessly and we were able to reduce the amount of fluid being sprayed by over 100% and achieved IATs under 120*f. I can have these made but to do them as a one off makes them very expensive. My machinist said the only way to get the price down on these is to make them in a run of at least 10. I am not sure I can sell 10 so I have not made any more.

Dave

I am hoping that with the upturn in the housing market and economy, that more people start to spend money and make more options like these and DA intercooler readily available. I think we are heading in the right direction.

 

[RYU]

From what i've seen the wHP will be higher on a Dynapack but honestly, I seldom spend a lot of time near redline so peak whp matters little. The car feels great with the HKS and on JDM short gears. Congrats on your new Lysholm!

 

[Jinks]

I have a stock 91' 3.0L with the 1.7L Autorotor on Cometic stock compression head gaskets. I'm pushing 6.9-7.2 psi on avg but can peak to 7.8psi on a cold and damp day but tuned on an HKS F-Con Vpro on crappy 91 California piss gas. I peak at around 380rwHP on a Superflow but have it tuned to a conservative 350rwHP for track and everyday use. I suspect I can hit over 400wHP on e85 but I have no desire to try

Awesome. I thought I would have an autorotor myself so I bought the breather kit relocator for it,but low and behold I got a lysholm blower which may be cast, but I really dig the looks. I guess I got the first set of of fuel rail covers in aluminum too with ct engineering etched into them.

 

[DDozier]

Dave my only concern is 2 nozzles might be too much. I'm using the smallest nozzle size I could find and only one of them and also only have my water pump at about 70% duty.

What size nozzle did you end up using?

Devil's Own has 63cc/min nozzles if you need a very small nozzle.

We were spraying about 400cc/min before the blower and could barely keep the IATs in the 130-140* range, added the plate and I used two 126cc/min nozzles and run the pump at about 70-80% duty with a 3PSI start. The smaller nozzles flow about 200cc/min together in this configuration but the spray mist is so fine compared to the larger single nozzle we were using before. I am certain that the two smaller nozzles is the way to go when spraying after the blower discharge. There is so little time to mix in with the charged air before it is consumed and the smaller droplets offer a much better mix than the larger nozzle would allow for.

Dave

 

[RYU]

Awesome. I thought I would have an autorotor myself so I bought the breather kit relocator for it,but low and behold I got a lysholm blower which may be cast, but I really dig the looks. I guess I got the first set of of fuel rail covers in aluminum too with ct engineering etched into them.

Apparently they made some improvements in the Lysholm design vs. the Whipple so hopefully all is good. As long as you're happy and have a huge grin on your face then that's all that really matters.

 

[Jinks]

Apparently they made some improvements in the Lysholm design vs. the Whipple so hopefully all is good. As long as you're happy and have a huge grin on your face then that's all that really matters.

I do, thanks. Later on down the road may be a aem fic, fuel system upgrade, and new head gaskets. But quite honestly I do not like the idea of pushing limits for maybe 50 more ponies. But we shall see. I may or may not have, caught the boost bug. Yeah, I will never take ownership of comments, I date a lawyer.:smile:

 

[RYU]

What size nozzle did you end up using?

Devil's Own has 63cc/min nozzles if you need a very small nozzle.

We were spraying about 400cc/min before the blower and could barely keep the IATs in the 130-140* range, added the plate and I used two 126cc/min nozzles and run the pump at about 70-80% duty with a 3PSI start. The smaller nozzles flow about 200cc/min together in this configuration but the spray mist is so fine compared to the larger single nozzle we were using before. I am certain that the two smaller nozzles is the way to go when spraying after the blower discharge. There is so little time to mix in with the charged air before it is consumed and the smaller droplets offer a much better mix than the larger nozzle would allow for.

Dave

I'm using the CM2 from Coolingmist. It flows 180 to 250 cc/m. From my research a few years ago, they seem to have the best atomizing nozzles at the time. Not sure if this is still the case.

I'm running mine at 80% duty at a 5psi start but honestly, I have a dial style adjustment from an old Snow Performance pump controller so who knows when my pump truly starts up. I'm just going by the tick marks on the casing.

I found starting at 5psi instead of lower really helped me conserve water when driving in the streets. In the streets I really don't care if my IATs shot up to 150+ (it rarely ever does since I got the phenolic plate but have more testing to do). I'll be hitting Laguna Seca in June 28th and it should be pretty darn hot. That'll be the ultimate test for me. I still have headroom in the duty cycle and can lower the PSI start but I don't think i'm at lower than 5psi at the track so lower the start might not matter much. This year, at my last track day with my current spray settings, at around 75F ambient.. My IATs were probably too low - around the mid/high 90s.

FYI: I was going thru water jugs a lost more aggressively when I was pushing water before the blower to maintain ~130-140F IATs. I was running CM5 (280-340 cc/m) before the blower. I first started with a CM7. In retrospect I was pushing too much water for my 3.0L.

- - - Updated - - -

I do, thanks. Later on down the road may be a aem fic, fuel system upgrade, and new head gaskets. But quite honestly I do not like the idea of pushing limits for maybe 50 more ponies. But we shall see. I may or may not have, caught the boost bug. Yeah, I will never take ownership of comments, I date a lawyer.:smile:

From someone who's been deep in the bowels of CTSC tuning try to stick with the stuff you bought from CT. Unless you track regularly I'm not sure i'd advise to follow my path down the rabbit hole. Ignorance is bliss! I mean that in a good way!

 

[Jinks]

Thanks for the advice. I'm still only on a few days with the turn key kit. As much as I enjoy a high powered car, I enjoy jumping into my car to fetch groceries or booze at high speed without issue. So, maybe some driver education to see if I like it first, which I am sure I will hate it.

 

[jwmelvin]

Ha. That's how I felt until I was watching my car go away on a flatbed.

 

[jwmelvin]

I set up my spray with a solenoid so I will probably use my own controller to modulate flow that way. I like the idea of two smaller nozzles.

 

[MvM]

But having to get the engine rebuilt provided a good opportunity to change the fueling from the stock Comptech setup of RRFPR to larger injectors and a piggyback (need to maintain OBD2 emissions testing). I've always been unhappy with the idea of the stock fueling.
I asked John to tune for safety over performance, so he maintained 0.5 deg/psi of retard in boost.

I laughed when I logged with the Zeitronix during one of the pulls and looked at the AFR. The stock Comptech setup never was this flat:

It looks like boost is falling off a bit at higher RPM, which suggests belt slip. I tightened it at one point, which seemed to help. The Dynapack reported a higher pressure than the Zeitronix. Also, it seems like the water spray may raise the boost in the mid-rpm range.

Nice results you have, I think 399 WHP is quite a lot when running a Whipple CTSC.

I had problems with my engine and had to replace it. Picked up the car only recently and am very careful at this point. Don't want to do this exercise again. Am using a Walbroo 255LPH pump, 550 CC injectors from SOS and a AEM F/IC-piggy-back on the OEM ECU and, like you have it tuned for safety more than for power.

I was wondering how you read the Fuel pressure and TPS signal in the Zeitronix??
I have a Zeitronix unit as well, but currently am reading only AFR (front bank), boost and IAT temperatures.

 

[jwmelvin]

The Zeitronix has a dedicated TPS wire, which connects to the ECU harness. Same with rpm. Fuel pressure required buying a pressure sensor from Zeitronix, essentially the same as the boost sensor but measuring gauge pressure rather than absolute. That is connected to the User1 input, while the IAT is connected to User2.