Rod was the lucky winner of our free dyno tune – celebrating the launch of OnPoint Dyno. Unfortunately, Rod’s car wasn’t totally ready to go when the dyno came in, we found a few mechanical problems and he had to have them taken care of. Well we got his car on the dyno and got it tuned yesterday – but not without a few hiccups.
Unfortunately the external wastegate was incorrectly plumbed, so we had to deal with that before the start of the dyno session. Unfortunately, this meant removing the gate so that we could rotate the lower port, as the fitting would have been right up against the header (we could have made it work, but we’re not butchers). Once that was repaired, we boost leak tested the car and started tuning.
Everything went well until around 10psi, when some ignition breakup crept up on us. With only a 2860RS at 10psi, ignition breakup should never have been a possibility. Unfortunately, the plugs were gapped to 0.045″ !!! No wonder. Once we closed the gap up to 0.026″ we tried different coils – and the breakup was gone. Went back to the original coils and the breakup was still gone. Fantastic!
Rod’s car made a healthy 300whp at 17psi, but unfortunately the boost control is very erratic. The control method that the PowerFC uses for boost control seems to be designed for slow responding internal gates, than a large external gate. The external gate was dumped to atmosphere, so you could really hear how the boost controller was working the gate. Fully open, fully closed, fully open, fully closed. The oscillations were aggressive, and it’s obvious in the torque output of the engine.
All in all Rod is happy that the bugs have been diagnosed and he has a healthy car he can rip on for now. Once a new boost controller is in, we will tune that and he will be set to enjoy the car for a long time.
This tune was an example of why you want more than just a tuner when you are looking for a dyno service. Having built and setup many racecars, we can quickly diagnose and problem solve issues so that you’re not coming back to the dyno multiple times trying to sort out a problem. Enjoy the car Rod!
