Re: PROJECT FIAT 124, Testing, Measurements, Dyno, etc
Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2019 10:23 am
I have been awake since 2am so I could squish this dyno into my day, will be brief with the details. Assume I will ignore any questions, I just don't have time for them. Very happy with results, OVER 240 ft/lbs for Torque FEELS GOOD, but first a review of how we got here.
Exhaust mods dynos. Lowest Line is Best STOCK Pull. Middle Line is Best Pull with just highflow Muffler Upgrade. Highest Line is Best Pull with full RoadsterSport Crosspipe, Midpipe, Muffler. Note all those exhaust mods make peak HP up 'only' about 15hp but notice total area under the torque curve is massively better, up over 30 Ft/lbs of torque through much of the middle rpm range, peak gains over 50 Ft/lbs at the low end thanks to faster spool for the turbo.
After that above we added several items including our SportCat highflow downpipe, ported and polished exhaust manifold from NGEN, stock style 6 fin stuffed turbo from NGEN, E85 tune. No, we don't have separate dyno for just the tune, or just the sportcat, or just anything else, so don't ask, this is is what we have for all these additions combined, best of three runs that overlayed nicely, and the combined with prior chart of the exhaust mod progressions so you can see the BIG jump we made here from where we were with just exhaust mods and stock turbo:
Then we let it cool 5 minutes and did a three more runs, best two of three very consistent runs over best stock run from long ago just to show how far we have traveled, pretty much over 60 ft/lbs of torque from low rpms to redline is a massive increase of area under the curve, over 70 peak hp gained from stock. Again stock hp was only 145 hp at the wheels, remember factory quotes CRANK hp at 160hp, but you give back a bunch getting through transmission and diff to reach the wheels with just 145hp measured at the wheels. So if we were quoting like the factory does, at the crank, this result is beyond 230 crank hp. More interesting is that we are over 240 ft/lbs of torque at the wheels, that's solid torque for a car that spools better than stock (not like a big 1752 turbo, etc). Somebody asked me if the stuffed turbo spools better than stock turbo and it does not, feels the same as it has been this last year or so, but note that our prior exhaust mods including big diameter crosspipe had ALREADY helped the car spool a lot earlier than stock Fiat 124 does, so it is no better spool than it was with all the exhaust mods and still better than it was when totally stock (notice both hp and torque lines below at low rpms compared to stock baseline best.).
Some notes on what comes next. After trying both the EC and Tork tune, with logs to both for fine adjustment of their respective tunes, settled on the Tork tune as the best. The black arrow high points are where the Air/Fuel is perfect, the fat red arrows are where the air/fuel is a bit too rich for optimal power. In other words, this power curve is good but could be better, with clean up of the tune my expectation is we would see 220 to 225 peak hp for this smallest of stuffed turbo options, and we would fill in that gap in the HP and torque curves where it is a bit too rich. WE actually got the logs to Tork and got a final tune that smoothed out those rich spots but have not been back to our dyno for final....because Covid has kept that dyno closed.
I am thrilled with this result so far, this is now a really fast car, particularly at corner exit where it is right at the torque peak, and shifting can put me right on that 4k torque peak over and over, tons of fun! What remains is some minor fine tune work and my hope is feeding logs back to Tuner and some back and forth will yield an updated result that is more optimized like the blue torque line I added below. Today the conditions were far from ideal, weather report yesterday was 'Monsoon' conditions and this morning it was high humidity, low pressure, over 70f in the dyno room, far from ideal. Also remember we went with the SMALL stuffed turbo choice, not the larger choice that our friends at NGEN have for those chasing max peak hp.
Exhaust mods dynos. Lowest Line is Best STOCK Pull. Middle Line is Best Pull with just highflow Muffler Upgrade. Highest Line is Best Pull with full RoadsterSport Crosspipe, Midpipe, Muffler. Note all those exhaust mods make peak HP up 'only' about 15hp but notice total area under the torque curve is massively better, up over 30 Ft/lbs of torque through much of the middle rpm range, peak gains over 50 Ft/lbs at the low end thanks to faster spool for the turbo.
After that above we added several items including our SportCat highflow downpipe, ported and polished exhaust manifold from NGEN, stock style 6 fin stuffed turbo from NGEN, E85 tune. No, we don't have separate dyno for just the tune, or just the sportcat, or just anything else, so don't ask, this is is what we have for all these additions combined, best of three runs that overlayed nicely, and the combined with prior chart of the exhaust mod progressions so you can see the BIG jump we made here from where we were with just exhaust mods and stock turbo:
Then we let it cool 5 minutes and did a three more runs, best two of three very consistent runs over best stock run from long ago just to show how far we have traveled, pretty much over 60 ft/lbs of torque from low rpms to redline is a massive increase of area under the curve, over 70 peak hp gained from stock. Again stock hp was only 145 hp at the wheels, remember factory quotes CRANK hp at 160hp, but you give back a bunch getting through transmission and diff to reach the wheels with just 145hp measured at the wheels. So if we were quoting like the factory does, at the crank, this result is beyond 230 crank hp. More interesting is that we are over 240 ft/lbs of torque at the wheels, that's solid torque for a car that spools better than stock (not like a big 1752 turbo, etc). Somebody asked me if the stuffed turbo spools better than stock turbo and it does not, feels the same as it has been this last year or so, but note that our prior exhaust mods including big diameter crosspipe had ALREADY helped the car spool a lot earlier than stock Fiat 124 does, so it is no better spool than it was with all the exhaust mods and still better than it was when totally stock (notice both hp and torque lines below at low rpms compared to stock baseline best.).
Some notes on what comes next. After trying both the EC and Tork tune, with logs to both for fine adjustment of their respective tunes, settled on the Tork tune as the best. The black arrow high points are where the Air/Fuel is perfect, the fat red arrows are where the air/fuel is a bit too rich for optimal power. In other words, this power curve is good but could be better, with clean up of the tune my expectation is we would see 220 to 225 peak hp for this smallest of stuffed turbo options, and we would fill in that gap in the HP and torque curves where it is a bit too rich. WE actually got the logs to Tork and got a final tune that smoothed out those rich spots but have not been back to our dyno for final....because Covid has kept that dyno closed.
I am thrilled with this result so far, this is now a really fast car, particularly at corner exit where it is right at the torque peak, and shifting can put me right on that 4k torque peak over and over, tons of fun! What remains is some minor fine tune work and my hope is feeding logs back to Tuner and some back and forth will yield an updated result that is more optimized like the blue torque line I added below. Today the conditions were far from ideal, weather report yesterday was 'Monsoon' conditions and this morning it was high humidity, low pressure, over 70f in the dyno room, far from ideal. Also remember we went with the SMALL stuffed turbo choice, not the larger choice that our friends at NGEN have for those chasing max peak hp.