Adam W

What I don't understand is this . .. The yanks seem to be able to spend $4k on a turbo/manifold/wastegate kit, $2k on a fuel system, and $4k on clutch, management, IC, and misc. bits. Then the car runs 11's all day long, does thousands of street miles, with very few problems. Some of em blow up, no doubt, but most of em are OK. Not saying Chris or Nathan are wrong, but what is it that we do different in the UK that costs SO much more than the big single guys in the US spend?

You may want to consider some of the american turbo kits? I'm thinking of one of the new SP61's for mine, the turbo alone is $1100, I think the full manifold, BOV, everything install kit is about $3000 for the MkIV. And paying £1k for a set of injectors is crazy money, I think the blitz ones come in at half that. Check out the fuel upgrade kits that Powehouse Racing sell, you get everything included from pump to rail at a much nicer price. In short, shop around! Edited to add: Sound Performance make the SP61 and have an excellent reputation for quality and completeness in their kits.

If you're talking Supras in drag racing, then the Carbon-Carbon clutches are what they're all excited about at the moment. Meant to be very streetable as well if that's a concern. I've heard people use a two-step rev limiter to build boost on the line; I'm not quite sure how this works but I'm told it does. Top methanol and top fuel dragsters are a whole different kettle of fish; they use sophisticated mulitplate clutches which gradually release over the quarter, fully engaging at about 1000ft I think. The idea is that the driver can go pretty much full throttle, and the counterweights on the clutch do the job of feeding in the power as quick as possible, but still keeping traction. Neccessary because you wouldn't be able to slip a clutch which can hold 6000bhp on enormous slicks!

I think you've made the right choice there Mark. A built auto transmission with a high stall convertor is the ideal choice for drag racing, and unless you go really silly with turbos in the future (like a T78 or larger) the level one sounds good. I'm sure the board will be very interested to hear how you get on with it! I gues it's like putting a really butch clutch on a manual car, it is a compromise but you can usually learn to live with it OK.

Just because it pumps more fuel into your engine doesn't mean that you'll make more power or that the car will feel better. Running rich may not damage your engine but it can feel really treacly and sluggish. IMHO I would steer clear unless you have strong grounds to suspect you car is running lean - your ECU is a thousand pound bit of kit which has been rigorously mapped by toyota to provide proper fuel mixture under all conditions, assuming that the stock regulator is in place. If you try and fudge the issue with an FSE thingy, you're effectively taking mixture control away from your expensive ECU and handing it to a crude mechanical device. If you want to squeeze more fuel out of your stock injectors you would do better getting a 1:1 rising rate adjustable regulator and increasing the base pressure by five psi or so to give you some more headroom, then use a fuel computer to fine tune. Or just do it the proper way and buy bigger injectors!

Heisenburgs Uncertainty Principle . . .I think . . . but I'm not sure . . . See also, "Schrodingers Cat". The VPC converts to a MAP sensor arrangement, as some people with extra-larg turbos have maxed out the existing air metering setup with so much air flowing through it, not only does it become a restriction but the signal reaches a certain point and then stops increasing. There is no limit on the amount of airflow you can meter with a VPC AFAIK. However, I'm pretty sure that HKS have stopped making them . . .

"I'm not interested in brakes, they only slow you down" - Tazio Nuvolari. Top post Chris, something I'd often wondered about myself.

Does anyone have the foggiest idea of how to read these things? I understand the concept of them but I have no idea how they work! My Mk3 needs a bigger turbo, and I'm thinking of this one (T04E, "60 trim" whatever that means) http://64.225.76.178/catalog/compmaps/Fig16.gif Three litre engine, running to 6500rpm, 20-25psi boost, no backpressure, built bottom end with plenty of fuel system . . . if any more info is required I'll try and provide it! Cheers!

Not a problem AFAIK. There was a post from TDI Nathan or TRL Pete about it a while back . . .

I saw a 3000GTO with propane injection last week, the owner reckoned it was like a nitrous hit when it came in . . . BTW, we're having to pay strong money to dispose of about 50 gallons of methanol a week at work, if it wasn't contaminated with experimental drugs I'm sure us lot could dispose of it much cheaper...unless we just get Justin to drink it?

Nope, it's going to be a very half arsed affair I'll have a play with it and see if i can improve things a bit but I'll see how it goes. It's not gonna be a record breaking, dyno breaking full power run anyway as it's only mapped to 1.2 bar or so when the turbo and the fuel system will bo 1.6 no problem.

Yeah, the skyline is 3", the Mk3 is 2". Plus the things 50% wider and 50% thicker - the reason I fitted it is because it's less restrictive! I'm going to try turning my adjustable wastegate right down (mechanically), running a really high gain and a similar set point. This should give me a nice aggressive boost curve, keep me under fuel cut on high boost, and still allow me to have a meaningful low boost setting for when it's slippery. Failing that, I'll get a restrictor ring made up or plumb in a Tial wategate or something.

If I have the boost controller with a set of 1 (out of a possible 100) it's almost the same as having it switched off, and the boost can do it's thing without getting near fuel cut. What happens is, it starts at 0.7bar, and climbs to 0.9bar as you load the engine up, in a really high gear, high speed pull it almost hits 1 bar. Could it be that whatever is happening now (lets say boost creep, caused by the exhaust) was always happening before, but was negated by the breathing restriction the piddly stock intercooler caused at high boost and high rpm? Ie, the turbo wanted to spin faster and faster cos the wastegate couldn't bypass enough exhaust gases, but it couldn't force that much more air through the IC, and the two cancel out.

The boost controller is a Blitz DSBC (older 1/4 DIN type). I've tried turning it off, and the same thing happens really. External wastegate needed?

THnaks for the reply Pete. I made a mistake in the post above, it's not the gain I've adjusted, it's the other one! ("Set" I think, or "ratio"). I've turned down the peak boost it's aiming for, not the speed it tries to get there, in order to avoid fuel cut. My boost controller solenoid goes inline between the port on the turbine exit and the wastegate, is that what you meant? The boost gauge reads off the fuel pressure regulator line, and the air is metered by a Karmann Vortex type airflow meter that sits upstream of the turbo (air is sucked through it). I could try turning the gain right up and the setpoint right down, perhaps that would give me a big overboost hit at lower revs which would get me closer to the boost curve I had before. I just want to make sure that there are no "mechanical" issues before I try and solve this with the electronics!

I hope you boys don't mind me hijacking your forum for a Mk3 related post, but I reckon you'll have the best idea what's going on here. Last weekend, I got my stock intercooler replaced with a mahoossive Skyline GTR IC, with all lovely custom stainless pipework. I also have a very free flowing exhaust but that's been on there a while now. Before, with the boost controller off, I'd hit 0.8bar at 3000rpm and it would pretty much stay there to the redline, maybe dropping off slightly right at the top end. Even really loading the engine up at very high speed in top gear didn't affect the boost reading. Now however, boost starts a tiny bit earlier, and I hit 0.7bar at 2800rpm, but as I accelerate through the revs, the boost starts to climb up and up, hitting almost 1 bar at 5500rpm. This wouldn't be such a big problem on it's own, but when I have the boost controller set to high, the boost used to jump to 1.2bar and sit there nicely. Now I either hit fuel cut as the boost creeps way past that level under WOT, or I have to turn the gain of the boost controller right down and I don't get proper high boost until the top of the rev range where I used to get it bang on at 3000 rpm! The car is definitely faster even with this boost problem, but it could be faster still if I could hold a consistent boost level just under fuel cut, as I could last week! I can understand how low backpressure in the exhaust could mean the wastegate would no longer do it's job properly, I don't see how an intercooler could do this! I've checked everywhere for boost leaks, but Ireckon if I had a leak I would loose boost at high rpm, not gain it! Any suggestions gratefully received!

Yep.

yeah but Brian, health warnings are like speed limits. If you were a perfect human being, you'd follow them . . . but most of us are far from perfect :flame Dev I agree, it is harmful as a vapour but no more so than the atmosphere in your local pub . . . unless you were working with it eight hours a day, seven days a week, a modest exposure to it will do you little or no harm.

Turbo XS ones come in at about £150 or so, and they're great . . . But you do ahead and buy an overpriced, inaudible HKS Super Squeaky Quiet Valve (or whatever it stands for) . . . mine will be more exclusive that way

I'll have a play around with a lump of ali and some methanol at work tomorrow if I get chance . . . I have a feeling it will oxidise the ali to some extent but probably not enough to worry about. Ethanol will be less reactive than methanol, but you don't want to use this as you'll get all sorts of sticky goop produced when you burn it!

Turbo XS do some good stuff. Cheaper and simpler than the HKS and Blitz units, and very well made. I have the Type H-RFL, which is, as the name suggests, Really Fairly Loud (or something like that . . . )

Lets not get too paranoid here guys - I work with buckets of methanol every day and as long as you wear gloves and eye protection you're fine. Especially as you're only going to be using small quantities of it, and not particularly often. Don't sweat it.

You'd be able to run a whole load more spark advance on boost, reset the ECU after filling up and you should feel a mighty difference! I guess if you were running really high boosdt on a big turbo it ould enable you to run a couple more psi without detting also, but that's probably not a concern for most of us.

Surely all it needs is a set of 720cc injectors, a decent pump (if it doesn't already have one) and a tuning session by someone who can work the F-Con. 800 american bhp = 600 english ones, and you don't NEED to run it flat out. I'd be a LOT more worried about how high it has been boosted on the crappy stock injectors!

DITCH THE BITCH! You know it makes sense