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They even sell E100, which I buy for a 10% mix with Chevron 94. (ie. 6 Litres of E100 with 54 Litres of Chevron 94)
This gives a fuel the equivalent of US 92. I have been running this mix with COBB Stage 3 91 tune on my 997. Timing is not pulled and the logs are normal without knocking whatsoever.
On straight Chevron 94 (0 Ethanol), the ECU pulls timing on the same 91 tune. With Chevron 94, you can only run the ACN91 file tuned for the crappiest gas found in Arizona, California and Nevada.
They even sell E100, which I buy for a 10% mix with Chevron 94. (ie. 6 Litres of E100 with 54 Litres of Chevron 94)
This gives a fuel the equivalent of US 92. I have been running this mix with COBB Stage 3 91 tune on my 997. Timing is not pulled and the logs are normal without knocking whatsoever.
On straight Chevron 94 (0 Ethanol), the ECU pulls timing on the same 91 tune. With Chevron 94, you can only run the ACN91 file tuned for the crappiest gas found in Arizona, California and Nevada.
Oh awesome. Had no idea these guys existed. Thanks!
+rep.
They are way out of the way for me.
Best still I'm thinking is to go with a meth injection kit.
I know that the meth kits have failsafes etc but even our old pal Dzenno from PTF managed to make a mistake with his meth kit which led to an engine build (he told me this personally so it's not speculation). Since you are likely building the engine with stronger rods and studs I would recommend a set of appropriately sized Xonas or whatever and pumpgas and I think you'll be able to make great, reliable power even with the limited octane of Ultra94.
I know that the meth kits have failsafes etc but even our old pal Dzenno from PTF managed to make a mistake with his meth kit which led to an engine build (he told me this personally so it's not speculation). Since you are likely building the engine with stronger rods and studs I would recommend a set of appropriately sized Xonas or whatever and pumpgas and I think you'll be able to make great, reliable power even with the limited octane of Ultra94.
Aaah thanks for the heads-up!
I'll give Dzenno a shout to see if there's any learnings he could pass on.
...and that's a given, will be adding much stronger connecting rods.
Will be working with Sam on the tune and the setup, local shop on install, and priority will be given on reliability over pushing limits.
And yes, I'd want to ensure that we have all the fail safe's in place in case there's a pump failure, or otherwise.
Unsure about the xonas - not sure there's that much more we could pull from them that would justify replacing my Champ.68's.
I replaced my Champion 68s with Xonas. Other components changed at the same time - intercoolers, y-pipe, throttle body. On the same gas (ultra94) and even with less boost than I ran the 68s at the 60-100 went from 3.0s down to 2.6s with far less knock sensor activity. Boost response is not sacrificed and they feel significantly stronger. Third and fourth gear pulls are even more impressive. And I'm just getting started with optimizing them, lol. Chasing gremlins can be a full time job, but most of them sorted out now. With stronger rods I think 24-25 psi on pumpgas is doable without too much knock sensor activity and the Champions wouldn't be able to compete...ask Sam, he knows. The 68s just generate too much heat if you keep the boost high above 6k rpm and you can see the intake temps climb rapidly above 200km/hr. Mind you, it's not all that often that this is an issue, but if you have to spend $$$ on a build then every bit of performance matters...and mine are the equivalent of 3073s, there's a bigger version that is based on the 3076.
Which Xonas do you have? Not too familiar with the different types. Also, I think I read somewhere that the BOV's needed to be installed into the intercoolers - correct?
It may be worth considering, but curious what the work/effort is in getting all that installed right. As too the gremlins, what are you facing?
I have the XR980 kit (from Sam). My shop had another shop weld the BOVs onto the endtanks of my intercoolers. No issues with that. They made a point of welding so that the threads were oriented in such a way that the bov port was pointing in the right direction.
Gremlins:
ticking noise - turned out to be a nail in my tire..fixed
wing not going up all the way on the left - bought the EBWerks fixed wing option and removed the hydraulics
small brief rattle at low rpm when accelerating modestly - I think it's because of a missing heatshield clip. I chased this sound everywhere, lol, and hope this is it.
The wastegate arm has an inboard and outboard nut that holds it in place at the wastegate trunnion. On the passenger side the inboard nut is very hard to get to with normal tools because
it goes behind the header. I bought a short right-angle wrench and I think I got it tightened. If not I'll buy a "crowfoot" wrench and do it again. My shop hadn't tightened it when the turbos were put on. Neither they nor I had a
lot of experience with aftermarket turbos. I've learned a lot since then!
As you may have seen, wcarson had an engine build done with 3.8 upgrade and stayed with vtgs. He was getting performance times that were similar to what one would get without an engine build, limited by pumpgas.
With meth you would definitely see a performance increase. If the kit costs say 2k and the labour is say 500bucks that brings your cost to around 2500bucks. Xonas with the appropriate lines and boost controller obviously cost more than that but I managed to recoup more than half of the cost when I sold my 68s.
I have H&R shocks which have a bilstein piston in them. I had them custom valved, but so far I have not had any issues. Bilstein digressive pistons are really good and if you wanted them with a better shock body then get the H&R street coilover.
Turbo tech has come a long way. Honestly, I can't say that I find much in the way of lag. I've had almost every upgrade step - started stock, then just tune, then 63s, then 68s and now Xonas. It's hard to remember exactly what each step feels like but off the cuff memory says that the lag is not a major issue at any step. Lag and boost response are not the same thing - if you are in 3rd gear at 3500rpm and up the turbos spool very quickly and build boost nicely. By 4200-4300rpm they are really hauling butt. I do my 60-100 runs the same way when comparing - start off around 3k rpm and floor it. I haven't done my 75-110mph 4th gear pull test on these yet but will do it soon. That's a measure of a real-world highway pull. This car is my dd in nice weather so I wasn't looking for a laggy high rpm powerhouse. These turbos are a great "street" turbo imho. Like vtgs on steroids.
Wow, you were lucky. I've experienced the coolant shower and it isn't as refreshing as it sounds.
Yeah, no kidding - my mechanic was amazed that they were still holding together.
Really, Really, Really good advice for any Turbo owner to have these replaced with steel / welded elbows.
