A little bit of boost isn't bad,.. perhaps even good.

(Note,. I'm not an expert engine builder,.. just amateur observations)

You need to get some pressure behind the rings, to force them outwards.

The cross-hatches will act like a file,.. and will file the rings so they fit the bore perfectly. But the hatches are only sharp enough to do this in the first 20 miles worth of running. (After that, the dulled hatches only serve to hold oil)

I've tried 2-3 methods for break-in,.. most produce compression tests with wide variances and low pressure numbers.

The procedure that has worked best for me is. Start the new engine,.. let it warm up a bit,.. check for leaks. Shut it down and let it cool. 1/2 day later, drive the car,.. go 1/4 - 1/3 of total boost (5-8 psi let's say) in 3rd gear, accelerating from roughly 2k rpm up to 5k,.. then compression brake down to 2k, and repeat that for 8 miles, ending up back at home.

Shut it down and let it cool over night. Then repeat that driving procedure for another 12-15 miles the next day. Shut it off, change the oil. Done.

Sometimes I'll cut open the oil filter,.. stretch out the media on a paper towel and let it dry over night,. then look at it carefully with a magnifying glass, then pull the oil-pan and inspect in there and clean it carefully and re-install.

When I've done it that way,.. the compression has always measured within 1/2 a psi across the cylinders,... and all numbers were 5-15 psi higher than my other engines built the same way,. but broken in more gently (staying out of boost,.. no going above 3,500 rpm for 300 miles etc).

 

It was doing over a thousand on the dyno within 10-20 miles of assembly. This was done by Steve Ott / John Bray to their specifications, I'm not too worried about it.

 

Man.. that is a lot of work Duck.

I can assure you that modern engines dont require a super fancy break in period.

 

my in-laws live near 121, will keep an eye out for the red blur

 

Heard this car did well at TI. Why no updates since 5/17?

 

if you are planning on road racing, I would not recommend at 1000+ (in this case ~1300hp) 3.6L.

 

So this week on Project 121 I was planning on talking a little bit more about the fuel system. The fuel system is one of the most important things on any car, especially for an Ethanol capable car. It is also something that people don't generally talk all that much about. You need a lot of fuel pump, you need a lot of fuel injector, and you don't want it to drop pressure ever.

Conventional injector sizing discussions basically go like this -

"How big of an injector should I use?"

"The biggest one that you can possibly find."

But that's not necessarily true, especially if you want to actually drive the car. Racing is one thing, but people tend to forget how good automotive (especially Porsche) engineers really are. Sure, we are doubling or even tripling the power output from the factory, but they built these cars to do it all day every day, while purring like a kitten. With a warranty. I have a long tradition of over modding perfectly good cars, so I'm trying very hard to make this one as stock-like as possible while still being fast enough people will think its gone plaid.

Just as a small segway here while I'm talking about drivability - I haven't talked a whole lot about it, but the Tilton carbon clutch is amazing. The car drives so well with this clutch it just blows my mind. People talk about how well cars with this clutch shift. I'm a believer - here is a quick video of the 4th to 5th shift at Pump Gas Invitational (Texas Invitational guys). It almost sounds like a sequential in how fast it shifts.


4th to 5th is probably the slowest shift you're going to see - the shift happens right at the beginning of the video, but there's just a little pop and it's going in the next gear. As far as drivability is concerned, all you have to do to take off is let off the pedal slowly and it slips and goes. No need to even touch the gas unless you want to go a little quicker. Might as well be a stock clutch, and holds 1400 ft lbs? I'm seriously in love with it. The only knock really is the price, but when you consider that the ERP/RPS clutch is $4500, the BBI clutch slave is $1200 you're pretty much all the way to the cost of a Tilton anyway. Combine that with the fact the Tilton comes with its own clutch slave, and it's nowhere near as heavy of a pedal as the BBi it seems like the best option out there. If you buy it from John Bray he also includes a full install kit with a RSS clutch stop.


I posted this picture previously, but I really like it so here it is again.

Anyhow, on the subject of the injectors you can go too big. With a 2000cc injector it can be tricky to get a car to idle right on gasoline. It's such a big injector, even at 1% duty cycle it's dumping a lot of fuel. It's easier with ethanol/e85 since you need quite a bit more of it. I wanted to make sure the car would idle well on any fuel though. I'm also a pretty firm believer in Injector Dynamics, and as luck would have it am local to one of the owners. I wanted to the best injectors you can get, and to never have to worry about them again. Any time you need to do anything with injectors on these cars you might as well just drop the engine. I can attest to this, after my foray into "The World's Longest Injector Install Ever" a couple of years ago in which I did it with the engine in the car. Never again...

I also didn't want to use the 2000cc injectors because they are not compatible with all fuels.

"Fuel Compatibility – Compatible with Methanol/Ethanol/All Known Hydrocarbon Fuels. Incompatible with MTBE/Nitro Methane/Nitro Propane."

There is MTBE in VP Import for example. Not that I'm going to run around on Import normally, but I wanted to stick with ID1700s or smaller. The ID1700s are good for about ~1200whp on on E85, which is right on the edge of what my turbos support. I wasn't comfortable using up all of the injector, and 1700cc can still be large enough as to not idle well on gasoline.

So the requirements for the fuel system are;

1. 1500whp+ on Ethanol
2. Idles on 93 octane cleanly
3. No wild or loud pumps that can be heard while the engine is running
4. Brushless pumps preferred to keep from heating fuel
5. Flexfuel capability, smooth tuning ramp depending on ethanol content.
6. Dual injectors/cylinder, a smaller more controllable injector for drivability, and a larger one to blend in at higher power levels.

As for the pumps, there really aren't a whole lot of good options when you start looking at brushless. I went with the stage 3 brushless setup from SRM. They are 2 x 700liters/hour pumps, with a CAN (Car Area Network? Right up my alley) bus controller and PWM output. Sean says they're good for 1500whp+. The Syvecs communicates with the controller via CAN, and only spins the pumps as fast as it needs to. While just idling and cruising around the pumps spin slower, and when it's business time it spins them up to maintain constant pressure. This also keeps the fuel temperatures down since you're not running the fuel pumps flat out all the time.


SRM Brushless dual pump setup

The fuel pump setup is really slick. The only time you're even aware of it is when you first turn the key on in the car the initial priming is done at full pump speed to build fuel pressure. After starting the car I've never been able to even hear the pumps. Since I'm using the ID1300/1700 combination it idles great on 93 octane. The secondaries are blended in as fuel needs raise seamlessly by the Syvecs computer. I probably could have gotten away with two sets of ID1300s but why ever have to worry about it again? Had I been doing it from scratch I would have used ID1000s as primaries, but I already had the ID1300s from my previous setup and wanted to re-use them. Below are some pictures of the finished intake manifold, and lower manifold. Steve Ott has some great coatings up his sleeve and we coated them inside and out to help prevent heat from the aluminum from transferring into the intake charge air. I was on the fence about coating it, but the finish on the GT3RS 4.0 tanks doesn't really match the finish on the ESMotor center section anyway. I think it turned out great.


Billet CNC lowers, coated inside and out.


Here's the finished ES Motor billet plenum, welded to the GT3RS 4.0 uppers, and coated inside/out as well.


View of the inside of the manifold from the throttle body flange.

You really need someone who knows what they are doing to install this stuff, the SRM kit is not exactly a a plug and play setup with instructions. There's also enough variability from car to car (fuel rail setups, etc) that you're going to want to have someone experienced route the lines, install the fittings, etc. I felt a lot better with Steve Ott @ Driversource doing it. Steve also added a check-valve that isn't present in the kit to maintain fuel pressure when it shuts down. I'm planning on swapping over to the new Injector Dynamics fuel filter setup as well, from a packaging perspective it will fit a lot easier than the fuel lab filter. Space is really tight up by the pumps and I didn't want to give up what limited frunk space I have with surge tanks, or externally mounting the filter. From what I understand Injector Dynamics will also have a brushless setup for GTRs later this year, and Wayne is working on some things too. Things are looking up for a fully plug and play setup for the Porsche platform but we're not there yet.


Ladies and Gentleman, it hauls more than ***! As you can see, it looks completely factory under the frunk. Nothing cut, or sticking out. I was also able to haul some flowers and a "candy vase" back for the kids to give to Mrs. Rix.

Due to some previous multi month delays in getting the headers, turbine outlet mid pipes, y-pipe, and intercooler inlet/outlet piping figured out I was in a bit of a hole. The first step of this was to get the headers built. As previously mentioned I contacted Chris @ Unobtainium Welding to build the headers out of inconel steel. This is before he got his slick CNC header flanges, but they are by no means any less badass.

Here are the full set of pictures I got during construction of the headers:


Under construction in the jig. The IC EngineWorks parts that Chris uses are really cool.


Another angle in the jig. I posted some photos of the preamble before with just the collector section, but you can clearly see it in this angle.


Another angle showing the inlet flange and Chris's jig.


Yes please.
Nearing completion.


Chris did a great job of sending pictures through the process of building my parts... Just wait until we get to the Y-Pipe.


All finished! I have to say when I saw how these turned out I was really happy.


When the headers showed up at Driversource Steve texted me this picture and said - "They look as good in person as they do in the pictures." High praise coming from him. He also makes a good hand model don't you think?


Taking on color nicely after install too. Note the fitting coming off of the collector.

Going to take a little break. More coming tonight hopefully!

 

Subscribed, thanks for posting.

 

Now that Steve has the car, and just about every part under the sun we were ready to get going. Things moved pretty fast from here.

The task: Verify and inspect every single nut and bolt and make sure that everything is good to go, then assemble all the legos, solving problems along the way and fabricating a few things that were supposed to be done but weren't. Sounds easy right?

I need to talk a little about Cobb Tuning Plano here. They had kept the car for me for MONTHS. And were planning on doing the engine installation in good faith. I had checked in regularly and offered to pay for storage, or take the car back amidst all the delays but they were cool with it. I felt really bad taking the car out and sending it to Steve, it was a real hard decision for me. I knew that the scope of work had become so large due to the delays, and also lack of vendors producing parts promised that I needed someone who knew every nut and bolt in the Porsche or the car was going to be a basket case. I generally speak about personal things on car forums very rarely, but my work consumes the majority of my time. I also know my limits, and part of my job is to know when I don't know -- and find someone who does. I knew that I wasn't up to supervising this or knowing what was going to be a problem and what wasn't. After considering the options I decided to take the car to Steve. It was a tough decision but the right one - I would like to publicly thank Chris Fleming, Neil Bywater, Calvin Dotson, and Barry Chappell for taking good care of me.

On to the fun photos I have pulled out for this evening -


Here's a shot of the engine on the stand test fitting the turbos/headers before fabricating the mid-pipes to adapt this turbine housing to the BBi exhaust.



Another cool thing Steve cooked up was modifying the factory turbo hangers and building a turbo/header support to take some stress off of the headers. I haven't seen anyone else doing this, but loved the idea.



Bungs for ehxaust pressure sensors were added to the headers. This let's you know when you're out of turbine housing/exhaust. I would like to add them post turbo to the exhaust at some point too but I think I'm running low on inputs on the Syvecs.



FP sent along their oil feed filter/restrictor to regulate oil flow to the turbos. This is important to get right, if you give the Xona cartridges too much oil you may end up with some smoking/problems.



The turbo install is starting to take shape, Steve custom built/modified the factory lines to be used with the Xona turbos. The line kit from Protomotive is quite pricey, he did a great job with this.



Another progress shot, things are starting to take shape. The turbos are on!



Another angle, showing off the billet compressor wheel on the Xona.



While Steve was making oil lines and mounting the turbos, I was doing some work of my own. Yes, I actually know where all those cables go and what they do



I have more pictures of this that I'm trying to dig up, but the exhaust pressure sensor is installed behind the dampening chamber in order to protect the sensor from super hot exhaust gas and even out the readings from individual pulses. It is plumbed via tubing up the side of the head and installed there for access to it while the engine is in the car.



Getting really close to final assembly on the stand! When Steve sent me this picture it really felt like things were finally coming together. He also always seems to have super cool cars parked next to my engine too, which I had fun with.



Another challenge we ran into (with Steve doing his excellent hand modeling) was that Xona/FP did not have off the shelf wastegate actuator arms that were long enough for this setup as it's still really new. Steve to the rescue, he built them from scratch.



There are a few interesting things going on in this shot. He's now working on sensor installation, the boost control Solenoid is mounted to the intake manifold, and you can see the MAP sensor mounted near the oil filter. This ended up getting moved but it is still accessible. We also modified the factory fuel cooler (You will need to do this if you use the ESMotor intake)
for clearance, and adapted it to the new fuel system so that it can be retained.



Here's the passenger side, you can see the fuel pressure regulator, and fuel pressure sensor here.



A little out of sequence, but here's a shot of the turbo RPM sensor install done by Scotty @ FP. This allows us keep track of how fast the turbos are spinning and push them hard without damage. Robert at FP flow tests these extensively and can tell you exactly how fast to spin it.



Looking good on the cart! I love how the BBi exhaust bronzed a bit in color after use.



From the business end of the cart. Good view of the Tilton clutch and turbos.



I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. He labeled the tranny (with my initials). One does not simply just label the tranny....



Yeah baby. Mid pipes are on, trans is installed, this thing is ready to go.


We still had some work to do, as the install on the body of the car wasn't completed for things like the fuel system, intake pipes, etc. I also needed to get the Y-pipe fabbed up and that turned out to be a challenge as the throttle body isn't in the exact same location as stock.

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong right? It just so happened that Tilton was changing a fitting size on the clutch around the time that my kit shipped, so as luck would have it they sent the wrong line.


Oops, bad Tilton! Lost a few days on this one to get the right parts.

 

What a great build thread

That 4-5 shift speed with the Tilton sounds great... I'm assuming you have a no-lift shift feature in your tune? That sounds just like a PDK shift.

I wanted to go with Tilton setup, but was worried about longevity with street driving since I had a Tilton wear out very fast in another car.. was about to go with one again and hope for better luck, but found a great deal on the newest ERP triple from jordonmusser I'll be interested on your thoughts with the Tilton as the miles add up and see how it wears for you, as well as the rest of your build

 

I do have no-lift capability on the Syvecs, but am not using it yet. Still trying to get used to the car. It's surprising how fast it shifts with the Tilton. I've made a few shifts into 5th gear in anger before on the Sachs clutch and it was not easy. Now I'm revving higher, and it just flies into gear.

We'll see how the Tilton lifespan is. I'm not really driving it much, will have the trans out at the end of the season for some upgrades so I'll measure the disc thickness then and see how much it has worn.

 

Rix - thanks for sharing these photos. It's awesome to see how builders are setting up ancillary mechanics such as fuel pressure reg and senders.

question on emap. Does blending both banks into a single sensor effect anything?? Does it hide one turbos efficiency or issues by mixing it with the other one?

 

I suppose that's possible, but blending together gives you better numbers for tuning. We have it setup so either side can be capped off depending on the requirements if something is suspected to be out of wack. You can also keep an eye on this through turbo RPM, if one side is spinning substantially faster than the other for example.

 

yes you want to use 2 EMAP sensors ideally actually even 4 (pre and post turbo) but that's getting too crazy. I use one per side and an EGT in every header runner.

turbo rpm will let you know for sure if you have a leak.

 

I'm not even running an EGT in one runner, let alone 6