July 14-15 it was finally time to put the engine in the dyno.
We packed Nalles Astro full och the engine, electrical harness and methanol.
All systems shall be tested and evaluated in the dyno. Target is set to 1200hp
and if anyone can help us reach it, Dr Ernie, DTE Racing is the guy.
Naturally one goal is to get as much prooved power as possible, but the goal must
never exceed its purpous. Gaining more power than expected rarely occurs.
Yet gaining much power is not the main purpous of going to the dyno.
The most important thing is that you can safely tune the engine good.
If a good tuning turns out I only got half the power expected, that
probably just means I built it or something in it wrong.
Putting the engine in a dyno is fairly much work. The dyno has a modifyed Chevy bellhousing.
To fit various engines, a wide range of adaptor plates are made. One is marked Woken SR20.
Sometimes new engine brackets have to be made, exhaust systems needs to be fitted and the
electrical system has to be conected to the dyno. Some things like oil pressure is measured by the dyno.
Filip fills up the tank with fresh methanol and Dr Ernie checks
that all is under control. Then its time to be seated behind the lever and computers to start tuning.
The good thing with tuning in a real dyno is quite obvious.
After each pull we can calmly discuss the results and our next moove behind the glass.
To begin with we had some nasty problems that would more or less have guaranteed us a major breakdown at the track.
The EGT started to act up, and some small miss firings made us suspiscious.
Last time I saw my plugs look like this, I completely blew the engine shortly after.
Now we had to go thrue all our knowledge and figure out our next moove.
A nearly impossible problem showed up. One of the problems was that the water bound in the concrete
started to boil and pushed its way into the cylinders. After drilling all frost caps in the block the problem disapeared.
During the tuning an oil hose popped right after the oil pump literally covering the room in oil.
The until recently so nice looking chem-nickeled exhaust manifold didnt like the heat and oil combination.
What about results then?
Two whole days of tuning made us realize, 1200bhp was not within reach.
I had made some bad descitions while building the engine. Not super-bad,
but not super-optimal either. At 2,9 bar the 2 litres engine delivered 830bhp at 8000rpm.
We could have reved higher and the 80mm turbo was far from its limit.
My plan was to boost 3,4 bar and rev 9000 but there was no point in pushing it that far.
After some grown up concideration we deliberately stopped at 415bhp/l.
Instead of pushing it until someting might breake, we could happily take a fully functional
and safe tundes engine out of the dyno.
Now there are only a few weeks of work left until we can actually run the car.
We are looking at taking it to a track soon. =)
A small clip from the dyno:
Back