Buschur Racing dyno testing........

[david buschur]

I am going to use this thread to do some posting over the next few weeks. So keep checking back here and on our own website for actual dyno sheets and such to get updated.
Here's what's going on in our world.

We dyno'd our '03 EVO when it was brand new, think 400 and some miles on it. Car was bone stock, 2wd dynojet. The car made 256 whp stock. Everyone cried and moaned that those numbers were too high, dynojets lie, we used a 2wd etc., etc.

The point of this topic is not to brag how much power we are making or going to make. The point is to take another bone stock EVO, our new RS, start over again and dyno every single part we make.

Today we started out with the car, bone stock as I said. Converted to 2wd on our 2wd dynojet. (DO NOT ASK WHAT TYPE OF DYNO OR EVEN DISCUSS 2WD VS. AWD DYNOS IN THIS THREAD PLEASE!!! IT IS POINTLESS, WE ARE TALKING BASELINES AND GAINS ONLY)

Bone stock the very first pass with the engine cold the car made 207 whp. Yes, that's right, 207 whp. I was like WTF?! So I ran it again and it jumped into the 220's and then once it was at full operating tempurature it leveled off for two runs at 237 whp. WOW! That's down 19 whp from our other EVO both bone stock. Now we are getting somewhere on all the past arguement. Tempuratures in the dyno room are close enough to last year that that is not it, the difference is the stinking cars. Both had 94 octane in them from this same local Sunoco station too. The difference is the CAR. Also, I can see how some other shops are showing some crazy gains, had I wanted to be dishonest here I would have used the 207 or even the 220 whp pulls the car did before it was warmed up. Not doing that, that's not how we play here.

First modification was the BR air filter kit. Just filter, no MAS pipe. Car gained as much as 7 whp. The dyno charts are very rough as you will see on our site when we post them. The gains were across the entire range on and off through the roughness. $80.

Next modification was the boost control and a boost gauge. Turned it up to 20 psi, no fuel management, just turned up the boost. HP was as high as 273 whp BUT the boost was way to high and it did this while I was getting it set. With the boost set stable to 20 psi it was 252 whp. 15 WHP gain here. I was expecting more to be honest. Gauge and pod is $85, boost controller is $75.

Next mod is our 2.5" axle back muffler. This is just the muffler section, stock downpipe, cat and cat back pipe in place. I was SHOCKED at this one. Another 15 whp gain. I am still shocked, another $260 spent. This is where the car is right now. Total retail cost is at this point is $500. That's $16.66 per horsepower gained. Not to freaking shabby.

I am going back out to add the 2.5" downpipe to the system. Hoping to get it dyno'd today. I'm pretty excited about all this. The downpipe is going to retain the stock cat, catback pipe and use the axle back muffler. What I am doing is working towards our complete Economy Stage Package, which retails for $995 and includes the above plus an AFC or a reflash.

Good things to come, stand by....

David Buschur


UPDATE:

Just put the Super AFC on the car. Last HP, as I wrote above was 270. I went ahead and pulled up the torque graphs today too, I hadn't looked at them until now.

Stock the car put down 237 whp and 250 ft lbs of torque.

After the boost controller, 2.5" downpipe, axleback and the filter kit it put down 270 whp and 271 ft lbs of torque.

I added the AFC today and the HP jumped to 295 whp with 272 ft lbs of torque.

The charts and such will be getting added to our site as I said, maybe this weekend.

This completes the Economy Stage. Package sells for $995. It added almost exactly 60 whp to the car. Went from 237 to 295. That is a pretty substantial gain. That's $16.58 per horsepower.

The car is running on straight 94 octane, that is all that has ever been in the tank. The car is also still running the stock untouched catalytic converter and catback pipe. It is extremely quiet. This package would still be able to pass emmisions in anywhere.

I'm pleased as this shows how far off our original Stg 1 numbers are that are on our site now.

I will be testing a BOV change and the offroad pipe on this same kit this afternoon, I would really like to see the car break 300 whp and be able to keep the price down.

Al will be coming here in a couple weeks to do some flashes for all of the staged upgrades again. I really believe we can break the 300 whp barrier with this package and flash, even with the stock cat in place.

David Buschur

UPDATE:

Man, what a headache this testing is getting to be. Tested two more parts. I am shocked at what I am finding this time around.

First off let me say that running this car on the dyno getting two runs within 5 whp of each other is what I would consider pretty consistent and that is when I figure the results are there or they aren't.

I also said I will pick the highest HP of the two runs and post them. When I am doing tuning and such as I just did with the AFC then it may take 10 runs to get where you want to be.

I ended up having to go back and look at all the last 20 runs or so I did to figure out what the hell was going on.

So here is where the car is. Looks like real world results for this package (Economy Package) is going to come in at 290-295. Best run I saw was the 295 whp. That was the absolute best though. Going back and picking a more typical run was in the high 285-290. This is where I actually left the AFC settings at which were in the 11.5:1 range.

I then added the Forged BOV to see if the boost would stabilize some, didn't make much of a difference in boost and HP was up maybe 1-2 whp.

I then put the offroad pipe in and was expecting a ton. Well guess what folks?! The gain isn't worth pulling the factory cat out for and risking running without it. From what I can tell by laying quite a few runs over each other you might be talking about, at best, and only in parts of the runs 7 whp. Peak power was completely unchanged. Very-very good stock cat on the car from what this is telling me.

So the straight scoop is the Economy Stage (I don't like that wording now that I keep typing it, let's call it STAGE 0 from now on. The way the parts are listed on the site is the way I am going to keep it. Nothing additional is going to be added to that kit as it is just taking you guys for a ride at this WHP level.

I have been shocked at not picking up power from the BOV or the offroad pipe.

I am however happy to offer a kit that gains 60 whp for the $995 and still remains emmision legal and is as quiet as stock.

I would have to guess this package should drop an EVO into 12's with little problem. I am also extremely anxious to see what the flash does for it. Would really like to see the torque come up, which it will, and maybe even break that 300 whp mark on this kit.

I am leaving the car the way it is for the flash to be done in the next few weeks. In the meantime I am going to throw the AEM EMS on it and see what I can do with the HP and also may throw the MAS pipe and upper i/c pipe on it. Those just may prove to make some decent HP numbers much earlier in the game than I have put them on the upgrade list.

David Buschur


UPDATE:

You know, sometimes I get my best ideas at night. This really sucks for me as I don't usually sleep well. As a side note I have taken up drinking some wine before I go to bed and this seems to help

So, last night I am laying in bed sleeping well. Dreaming of the dyno, really, this is how my messed up brain works. Then all of a sudden, since I am asleep and not being bothered by 10 people at once, I get this freaking thought. Why the hell did the car pick up 15 whp with an axle back and not gain anything from the cat and downpipe?! Then my mind, while talking to itself in this dream answers back, "The cat back pipe dumbass." At this point I wake up and walk to the kitchen to get a note pad. Write myself a note, "Get rid of the catback pipe with the two restrictive resonators in it dumbass."

I spend tons of time talking about how to build a correct exhaust for a car. Straight through, no resonators, no baffles, always go from a smaller tube to a larger, never the other way. Here I am picking up great gains with an axle back and non with something in front of it. The cat back pipe while not too bad (I thought) still has only 2.25" diameter and also has two resonators in it which is what keeps it quiet.

Monday morning I am going to drop the exhaust at the back of the offroad pipe for another dyno run on the AFC. I think the problem with no additional power being made is from the catback pipe.

Now I won't be able to sleep tonight, I have to know......

David Buschur

[david buschur]

Well, the results were amazing. The car at the top end went from 279 whp to 314 whp, thats a 35 whp gain. The restriction was in the catback pipe with the two resonators, just as I thought.
I am not going to bother building a 2.5" catback pipe. I feel as though the Stage 0 is priced right at $995. The axle back muffler is $260 and gained 15 whp. Building a complete 2.5" catback system isn't going to be much cheaper than our 3" catback which is $450. I think anyone that needs to upgrade from Stage 0 will be better off just running the 3" catback, even if it is in conjunction with the 2.5" downpipe/offroad pipe they got in Stage 0.

I am going to run the car again in a few minutes with the 3" catback bolted to the 2.5" downpipe/offroad pipe and then bolt the stock cat and then the stock downpipe back on the car. I will be able to tell how much the car looses by doing this and see what the gains would be.

Pretty cool stuff. This is what the dyno is good for.

David Buschur

UPDATES:

Put a 3" catback on the car. It is super a** cold in the dyno bay and the car is hitting fuel cut on the way up at about 4,000 rpm. So when I finally post the dyno sheets for all this there is going to be a dip in them....data is still good, just explaining what is going on.

With the 3" catback bolted to the 2.5" downpipe and 2.5" offroad pipe the midrange is better in quite a few spots by 10 whp or so than with a completely open exhaust right off the offroad pipe. The peak HP happens sooner with the catback exhaust on the car and came in at 313 whp, compared to 314.4 whp with the open exhaust.

We are bolting the stock cat back in place right now and will have more results shortly.

This testing seems so elementary compared to all the high tech things we could be doing. It is just so we can offer hard data and possibly improve the packages we are offering compared to what we collected for data with the old prototype pieces thrown on the car 2 years ago.

I would like to see where we can take this Stage 0 in emmission legal form.

David Buschur

ANOTHER TEST DONE.

Now the car has the stock cat on it, 2.5" downpipe and a 3" catback with the remainder of Stage 0 on it. The car made 293 whp like this. So the cat was a restriction and much more of one than I thought it would be.

Funny that removing it with the restrictive factory catback pipe made little difference, actually it's not funny as I am constantly preaching to people that you HAVE TO DO MODIFICATIONS IN THE CORRECT ORDER! This is the great proof needed for what I babble about.

Back to the test. Run right before this one had a 2.5" downpipe, 2.5" offroad pipe and our 3" cat back. Car made 313 whp. Put the factory cat back in place and the horsepower dropped to 292, a 21 whp difference.

For comparison. 2.5" downpipe, stock cat, stock catback pipe with the 2.5" axle back muffler the car made 289.3.

Looking at it this way you can see why you always start in the rear of the car and work towards the engine when doing exhaust one piece at a time.

We are bolting on the stock downpipe now with the stock cat and we'll see if the power is effected.

After that we bolt the full 3" downpipe, offroad pipe and catback on the car. This will give us a full turbo back whp gain number and we can do some comparisons between spool up, torque and HP using the 2.5" downpipe vs. the 3".

I love this stuff.

David Buschur

EVEN MORE INFORMATION:

I'm at home now. Finished up all the testing I could think of that would do any of us any good. Now I have a hell of a mess to try and sort out and explain.

Many of the runs that I did were with NO regard to what happened to the boost with the mods. The only thing I attempted to modulate was having as close to 20 psi at the end of a pull that I could. Funny thing I found was the more restricted the exhaust was the crappier boost modulation was. With the full 3" exhaust and no cat and the open exhaust with just the 2.5" downpipe/offroad pipe the boost was quite stable and didn't spike much at all. Some of the runs had up to 24 psi of a spike in them and then fell off to exceptable levels as the RPM climbed. Problem was it is cold as a witches tit here today and so is our dyno room, so this had the car hitting fuel cut in the 4500 rpm range. After 4 pulls back to back it would usually go away but then power would suffer. I ended up pulling some fuel out with the AFC to get rid of the cut in that area.

I did do a test on the Magnaflow muffler VS. the Buschur Racing lightweight muffler. I honestly thought in the back of my head that the Magnaflow would outflow our muffler, that's not what happened. Two runs back-to-back, one was 6 whp less the other was 10 whp less. The full 3" offroad system with our lightweight muffler made the same HP as an open exhaust on the car and did it with less boost, THAT was a shocker. I was right on the money with my estimates for the 3" highflow cat, if I remember right it was almost exactly 10 whp lost at the 315 whp level.

I am going to put together a full run down of all the parts and all the test performed so far in the morning and post them here. The parts will also be listed on our website from now on with the WHP increase that we gained during this testing.

I would have loved to had Al here while I was doing all this, as the flash would have eliminated the fuel cut without having to run the car lean with the AFC at 4500.

I am not going much further with testing until I can get together with Al and do some flashes. I don't want to make too much work for myself.

The MAS pipe and Upper i/c pipe with the BOV is going to go on the car next and that will be the end of the testing until we get some more new custom flashes.

Depending on the time frame I still intend to start tuning with the AEM EMS with all the factory sensors intact.

Something else, as I say, I am at home and am doing some of this from memory. Don't hold me to this. The 2.5" vs. 3" downpipe test was a wash. The HP from the 3" was higher but torque and spool up were so identical I wouldn't call either one a winner or looser. I think the torque was within a few TENTHS of a ft. lb. and the spool up was virtually identical.
As I have said always, run the 3" downpipe, no downside to running a larger exhaust on a turbo car, NONE.

It is going to be interesting to put all this in some type of order and look at it all now that it is done. It has been a very interesting couple of days. I have confirmed what I preach and it has shocked me how right it all proved to be.

David Buschur

[david buschur]

It may take us awhile to actually get dyno charts up. Jarrod and I can't figure out how to get the files opened up.
Here are the results that I feel are important. Please read carefully because it gets confusing. I will do my best though.

2004 Evolution RS. Bone stock, 2wd Dynojet. 237.1 whp/250.6 ft lbs

Parts were added in the order listed below with each part building on the previous:

1. BR air filter kit, 240.5 hp. Added 3.4 whp at the peak and over 7 whp in the midrange.

2. BR manual boost controller set at 20 psi at redline. 252.3 whp. Added 12 whp. This is the absolute minimum increase I would expect to see. Raising the boost later in the buildup would yield even more of an increase.

3. BR 2.5" axleback muffler. 267.1 whp, increase of 15 whp!

4. BR 2.5" downpipe. 270.4 whp, increase of 3.3 whp.

5. Super AFC with BR settings, 289.3 whp, increase of 19 whp.

This with the addition of a boost gauge and the mount for the boost gauge completes our Stage 0 and costs $995. Overall gains with this kit while remaining emmision legal with the stock cat and with a very quiet car was 52.2 whp and 29 ft. lbs of torque. HP per dollar spent is $19.06.

This package really puts the car into a great spot to do further upgrades from. Actually I was surprised by the next test:

We left the 2.5" downpipe on, added a 2.5" offroad pipe and the 3" catback with the Magnaflow muffler. The horsepower jumped to 313 whp and 292.9 ft lbs. For further comparison we ran an open exhaust system from the back of the offroad pipe, in other words no catback at all, the car only made 1 more whp. The open exhaust numbers were 314.4 whp.

We then went to the full 3" turbo back exhaust using the Magnaflow muffler and an offroad pipe. The car layed down 314.9 whp.

*Stage 1 kit is the Stage 0 with a full 3" exhaust and the Buschur Racing lightweight muffler. This means our Stage 1 with 94 octane, the AFC tuned in the 11.7 range on AFR's and 20 psi of boost at redline made 316 whp. This is an increase of 78.9 whp. Stage 1 is $1310. HP per dollar spent is $16.60.

Here are some other interesting numbers we found as we went along:

*On a full Stage 1 car making 314.9 whp (w/Magnaflow muffler) we switched it to our lightweight muffler, gains were minimal with HP going up to 316 whp.

*On a full Stage 1 car making 316 whp with our lighweight muffler we added our 3" highflow cat. The HP dropped to 307.9. Making the whp gain from an offroad pipe worth about 8.1 whp. I would say this isn't enough to justify polluting the air and risking running on public roads without one. The car also keeps the car MUCH quieter.

*Evo with AFC, Boost controller, air filter, boost gauge and mount with the bone stock exhaust on it makes 271 whp. This is a gain of 34 whp. Adding our full 3" exaust with an offroad pipe and the BR muffler to this added 45 whp to the car. In my wildest dreams I would not have expected to see that kind of power increase.

*The boost on these tests were for the most part unstable. I tried different boost controllers and ended up putting 50 dyno runs on the car to do this testing so far. The boost would spike as high as 24 psi on many of the runs and then I would work at getting it to try and hold 20 psi at redline. The least restrictive exhaust proved to be by far the best for getting the boost steady. Our full 3" system on the car left me with a fairly small spike that would go to 22 psi for a short instant and then settle and hold 20 psi. The point and nice thing about this was our highest number so far is 316 whp and it was done with the overall lowest boost numbers.

I think this just about covers all that has been done so far. Very good results and it also makes sense of our Stage 1 numbers on our site being so low. That will get changed as soon as we can get to it.

Thanks for reading. More yet to come.

David Buschur

[rodw]

Any plans to doing some runs with the Water injection kit?

[david buschur]

I am going to test our alcohol injection kits, we don't carry water injection kits.

[jstockdale]

Wow ... I'm really impressed David.

Good to see some proper (ie. systematic and honest) testing being done here.

You just made the short list of tuners I really respect ... so far it stands at (in the order I added them):

WORKS
David Buschur

:thumbsup:

This is going to help me see whether the upgrade path I've chosen (especially as far as my exhaust system goes) makes sense imperically.

Thanks for the hard work.

-S ...

[EVO GRIM]

Very informative. Thanks!

[Buzzard]

Now Dave, my old tired eyes and short attention span have made me all confused. Any chance we could a summary with your conclusions? Getting old is a bitch! :?

[david buschur]

All summarized. The dyno sheets are up on our website. Please go and take a look.

The Stage 0 and Stage 1 dyno charts are what I was talking about above and are the most current posted.

Just click on the Staged upgrades next to the cartoon car on the main page.

[david buschur]

Something else you can do that most guys don't with a Dynojet is print the graphs in number form rather than a graph. When comparing runs it is easier to see actual differences when looking at side by side columns of numbers than some lines on a page.
I printed some off yesterday and would like to share them, here are some different points comparing Stock to the Stg 0.

Stock HP/TRQ Stg 0 HP/TRQ
RPM 2500 59/123 59/124
3500 143/214 145/218
4500 206/241 236/275
5500 229/218 266/254
6500 236/191 287/232
7000 220/165 284/213

When printing this I actually printed every 250 rpm but it is too much for me to type. Other data on the page when done like this is interesting too.

Column MAX stock HP/TRQ Stg 0
236/250 289/279
Column AVERAGE 178/198 220/227

Very interesting comparing numbers instead of lines.

David Buschur

[david buschur]

With the car at 316 whp now, Stage 1, I wanted to see what reversing the some things would do. My thoughts behind this are for stock maybe the stock parts aren't so bad, for modified as the power goes up I know they get worse and worse.

The airbox is one. Today I put the stock box back in. At stock HP levels the gains at peak were only 3 whp. Today switching back made the HP levels fall off 5.2. Starts to show more and more restriction as the power levels go up.

The other that didn't make much difference in the beginning was the BOV upgrade. I had actually left it in as there wasn't a change. Today I took the BOV back out of the mix and was surprised that the car lost 9 whp. More than that on the way up. I knew last time we tried it (on the '03 EVO) there was a gain but we did it later in the game than I did this time.

Back to more testing.

[david buschur]

Ever hear of chasing your tail? That's what I have been doing all morning on this testing.

Last time the car was run we hit the 316 whp mark. Today for a baseline pull we only hit 304, that's a loss of 12 whp for absolutely no reason. I looked some things over and made a few more pulls and it stayed consistant so I tested the BOV and airbox. The losses that I posted in my last post were from the 304 baseline I did this morning.

I put the car back to Stage 1 PLUS the Forged BOV with the stock MAS pipe and stock upper i/c pipe just like I had it when it made 316 whp a few days ago. The car made the same 304-306 whp it was hitting from this morning.

Aggravated I figured what the hell and put the upper i/c pipe on and the MAS pipe upgrade. Ran the car and the power was virtually unchanged, picked up a little. I then pull up the air fuel mixture screen and look to see if something is going on there. Sure enough, the car with the i/c pipe and mas pipe on it is LEAN. I am talking 12.4:1 AFR's on pump gas.

So I end up putting some fuel in with the AFC, do a run and the power comes up. Still a little lean. Add more fuel to the AFC and try again, the car hits fuel cut. (cold here)

At this point I was getting disgusted. I put a call into Al and we talk for awhile and he reminds me that one of the first things we did on our '03 EVO was sent him the ECU and had him remove the fuel cut, nothing else just fuel cut. I didn't even remember ever doing that. Now I am stuck with a car that needs more fuel to make power but can't take it because it fuel cuts.

Bottom line is with the boost turned down a little to try and actually get a number I was still able to get an additional 12 whp from the MAS pipe and the upper i/c pipe. This would not take into any gains from the BOV upgrade as it was on before.

After logging the ignition timing on the Snap On monitor the best timing number we could come up with is a shitty 4 degrees of advance. That is sickly for a timing number.

Bottom line is this. As much as I have sworn by the AFC's and as much as they do add a good amount of power for what is spent it is not working on our '04 while it did on our '03 quite well.

The car needs to have the computer reflashed. Al is coming up the 14th to do some custom tunes for customers and to put a flash together for the Stg 0, 1 and 2. I am anxious to see what is going to happen.

As a side note, a customer/friend of mine with an EVO had our Stage 4 kit on the car this summer. He only managed to run a 12.9 at 106 with it, the car was tuned with the AFC. When Al came up in August for the shootout I asked him to custom tune this particular car. The guy left here smiling like mad and went straight to the track. He came back through a few hours later really smiling saying he had dropped his time to 12.6 at 110 mph. Later found out that his clutch was in horrible shape and the trans needed rebuilt. After those fixes the car has now gone 12.1 at 116 mph on a pump gas flash running 112 octane fuel.

[david buschur]

What a completely crazy weekend. I haven't put in that many hours in a very long time. Al and I were working 16 hour days doing flash work and on the dyno trying new things with our RS.
I am so glad he came down (THANKS AL!) We made great gains and now have what I would consider the ultimate tune for all of our Staged upgrades. The smoothness of the power, the driveability and the power are just unbelievable. I am not kidding here, the difference between this and the AFC is like comparing a crack whore to.....well you get the picture. The flash is what I we will be using with all of our staged upgrades now and we will be offering the AFC as the option instead.

Previously when I started this topic the car dyno'd 237 whp and 250.6 ft lbs bone stock.

With our Stg 0 on the car (2.5 dp, 2.5 axle back, filter kit, boost controller, boost gauge, gauge mount and AFC) the car made 289.3 whp and 279.6 whp.

With the same Stg 0 on the car but tuning with the flash we were able to increase the low end HP and torque substantially and the peak HP ended up at 287.6 and 294.5 ft lbs. Very nice.

This package, as I have said earlier is 100% emmision legal. Uses the stock cat, stock mid pipe and is VERY quiet. Cost on the package is $995. This would easily put an EVO with a good driver into the 12's.

More to come,

[wilson1]

Wow!

That's the stage 0, right?

[david buschur]

On to more information about our results..
Stage 1 went just as good in our testing with the flash.

We went from running the AFR's in the 11.8:1 range (AFC) down into the low 11's with the flash. This makes for a better piece of mind when sending the flash out through the mail.

Previous best for the AFC tune on our Stage 1 (complete 3" offroad system, air filter kit, boost controller, boost gauge and mount and the reflash) we made 316 whp and 296.8 ft lbs of torque.

With the reflash we were able to make the same 316 whp but with an improved curve in the mid range and the torque climbed to 311 whp.

Once again the idle, driveability and smoothness of the flash just blew away what we were getting with the AFC.

I am extremely impressed with these results.

The flash as you guys know is not detectable by the dealer and is a no brainer to install.

Price is the same on both when bought in the Staged upgrade packages. The Stg 1 kit is $1310.

This kit with these numbers should put the car as fast as 12.5's without too much problem. I guess this explains why many of our customers have ran better than our 12.9 we posted 2 years ago.

[david buschur]

More of our testing results from this weekend.

Last post I left off at Stage 1 with 316hp/311 ft lbs.

We went on to our Stage 2 kit which includes our upper intercooler pipe kit, MAF pipe, battery kit and I used the Forged BOV which is available through us with the kit for the same price as the 1g BOV.

While the HP didn't climb much I was very happy with the torque increase we gained. Much of this I am sure was due to the factory BOV letting some boost slip by when it spikes. Either way this kit sure does clean up the engine bay and makes it easy to get in there and work. Also takes just over 20 pounds of weight off the front of the car.

After our flash the car produced 320.4 hp and 329.8 ft lbs of torque. While just over 4 hp isn't astounding the 18.8 ft lbs of torque was very impressive.

As I have said from the beginning, we did the Staged upgrades so that each part continues to build on the next. As the hp of the car goes up all of these parts make a larger difference in hp. I proved that in the last round of testing when I went backwards to stock parts once the car was producing over 300 whp. The losses were higher than the original gains from adding the parts.

Have a great day,

[chris]

keep up the good work david!

[david buschur]

Yet more testing that we did.
Last I left off at our Stage 2 kit. 320 hp and 329 ft lbs.

I wasn't in a hurry to do cams as when I get to that portion of our upgrades I want to test the 264/264, the 264/272, the 272/264, the 272/272 then some racing cams I have. So the cam testing is going to be pretty involved and take quite some time. I am going to do this testing with the EMS on the car and speed density so I can log and watch what is going on.

Anyway, not being in a hurry to do cams I figured I would throw our standard FMIC upgrade on the car to see what would happen. Now, it is cold as hell in Ohio right now and the gains from any intercooler upgrade I would think will be lower in this weather than on a hot summer day. As a matter of fact these dyno pulls were done with less than 15 minutes between any of them. Most were done with two back-to-back, then as quick as we could make a change and go again for atleast two again. So the car has been abused to say the least. Right now I am on the 209th dyno pull on my new RS. (poor car got the wrong owner!!)

The front end of my car is off as it makes it easier to swap FMIC's and get to the engine bay, the FMIC swap took all of 15 minutes (probably not that long) with the fascia off the car already. This kit uses the stock plumbing in and out or in our case uses our upper i/c pipe kit. The standard kit that we did this test with is exactly the same size and tank design as our deluxe kit, just doesn't use the shorter lower i/c pipe.

First pull I noticed the boost was a good 2 psi higher than before. I had to turn it down just a little. Power went up, 333.5 hp and 339.1 ft lbs. Really pleased with this, that is a 13 hp increase and 10 ft lbs.

As you guys are hoping to plainly see, each and every step keeps increasing the HP and Torque of the car. While many of the parts aren't leaps and bounds higher they just keep adding up.

These peak numbers are actually slightly lower than we saw on our Red 2003 EVO. They have been down about 20 whp comparing the stock cars up until right now where Stg 2 on the '03 was 343 compared to only 320 whp on my RS. Very interesting that the beginning HP and the modified HP are both 20 whp different. Shows that not all cars are created equal. Also explains how some guys get bigger numbers than other with the same parts.

I am very happy with the 333/339 that the Stage 2.5 has put down.

[david buschur]

I love testing, the knowledge gained is very cool. Too bad I didn't like school this much, maybe I could have passed a few classes!!
We took our standard FMIC off of our EVO yesterday. We replaced it with a straight piece of 2.5" SS tubing.

I wanted to get an idea how much pressure loss we were actually getting and see how much the whp was effect without an intercooler, using the same tune and alky that we had in the car.

I was pretty surprised. It is COLD in our dyno room. I am guessing it is in the 20 degree F range in there. So if ever not having an intercooler wouldn't hurt you much it would be on a day like it is today. Well, it still hurt and hurt pretty big.

Remember, when testing the car we only make a single 3rd gear pull, all pulls start at 2,000 rpm and run to 7,500 rpm.

The peak boost was completely uneffected by having the straight pipe on the car, the boost at redline, after two pulls, looked to be about 1 psi higher. We were reaching 21-21.5 psi at redline with alky kit on the car before and the boost looked to be right at 22 psi with no intercooler.

This is good as we do advertise this intercooler as having .83 psi of pressure drop. Looks to be right on the money with that number, maybe even a little less.

Now for the other surprise. Going from the exact same tune with an intercooler and the alky to NO intercooler and the alky the car lost 29 whp. That is pretty substantial considering the inlet air temps to the turbo being in the 20 degree F range.

Try and tell me now that a good intercooler doesn't make a difference

David Buschur
http://www.buschurracing.com

[david buschur]

Pulled the car yesterday afternoon. The temps are over 20 degrees F hotter in the building today than last time. Ohio's weather sucks.
Using a non-corrected actual HP pull changing intercoolers in 20+ hotter weather did nothing although spool up was slightly better with the deluxe core, still would not make more peak hp. Now in the SAE corrected mode, which is what most of you want to see and have requested that, the Deluxe FMIC core made more HP from around 3500 up. Looks like around 6-8 whp. Personally and honestly, I don't believe it.

Next test and I was only doing this one because they were on my work bench to test and I was tired of moving them, plug wires.

For goodness sakes, the car only has two short wires on them. In the DSM's of the past plug wires have proven to be a big PITA. Get a customer to call here and tell you what is wrong with his car. First thing you ask is what plug wires do you run and what spark plugs. If they answer anything but NGK or Magnacore wires or if they run Platinum plugs then you have them change those first. Usually never hear back.

My RS has only about 2500 miles on it. It also has about 230 dyno runs on it right now. I pulled the two plug wires off and replaced them with the Magnacore 8.5 mm wires we stock, but have only sold a set or two of. You would think on a new car it wouldn't make a difference. Wrong. The HP went up a few 3-4 whp in parts of the curve. The really amazing thing was how much smoother the curve was. The plug wires got rid of some small dips I had here and there in the curve. These wires, I have to say are a must have part even on a new EVO, atleast when the HP goes up from stock they are. I'm very impressed. These two wires are $55. I am going to have to do some hunting to double check that as it seems a little high for two plug wires, they did make a very nice difference though. I higher mileage EVO would be even larger.

David Buschur
http://www.buschurracing.com

[vtluu]

I'm surprised plug wires would make any difference at all; in general I've always been suspicious of stuff like (aftermarket) plug wires and grounding kits--especially on a fairly new car. You're sure you can rule out effects due to the car heating up or any other differences that might have been present only after you put on the wires?

[david buschur]

I cannot believe the work involved with the amount of testing we are doing. I was here all day on Saturday trying to figure out problems then it ran over into Monday then Tuesday. Just baffling the hell out of me.
Quick run down of where I left off:

Stage 2 w/flash 320/329

Stage 2 w/flash, standard FMIC intercooler. 333whp/339ft lbs

Stage 2 w/alky and alky flash, 345whp/360ft lbs

Stage 2 w/AEM EMS, speed density, deluxe FMIC, magnacores, 335whp/331 ft lbs

Now for the real updates.

Stage 3. Put the 272 cams in the car. The car just absolutely came alive. The tires tried to just rip off the rollers. The tire spin was absolutely nuts. The tire spin will cause a spike in the curve and this part of the curve cannot be used as an accurate measure of horsepower. We tried to move the car around and drop the air pressure all the way down to 20 psi to keep it from spinning and just really couldn't get it under control. Using the most accurate pull we could get we still had a large curve where the tires spun and read 382 whp. This is not a number I am advertising, just explaining what is going on in testing. After the car hooked up it layed down a beautiful flat curve. Numbers were 368 whp/351 ft lbs.
A very nice 33 whp gain and 20 ft lb increase in torque. As a side note there is NO place on the curve that the 272/272 cams made less horsepower than the stock cams, so no loss in low end power at all.

After this I was finally getting concerned with the stock fuel pump still being in the car. We dropped in our high output pump. There was no change in air fuel ratios, telling me that the car still was not out of pump. Good to be safe. BTW, car is still on stock injectors.

Now is the really messed up part that has left me scambling since Saturday morning.

We started testing throttle bodies last week. I posted the results. I WAS DEAD a** WRONG ABOUT THE RESULTS. I don't know if I was seeing what I wanted to see or what. I had the two dyno charts flipped. In other words the last one was on top and the first one was on the bottom. This lead me to believe there was NO gain from the throttle body bolted to the stock intake. I WAS WRONG. I read the chart wrong. The 65 mm throttle body, both ours and Works, did gain HP. No peak HP was gained but it smoothed out the dips in the run and in those dips the gains were 3-5 whp. This is even with the stock hole still in the intake. Sorry for posting the wrong information.

Next thing we wanted to try was the Extrude Honed intake with the 65 mm throttle body. This is when the testing went down hill and has cost me 5 nights of sleep. The power dropped. The boost dropped. I had the intake off the car 3 times, the throttle body off atleast 8 times. No matter what I did I could NOT maintain more than 16 psi of boost at redline. EVERYTHING was checked or eliminated. The only change was the intake and throttle body. The low end tire spinning monster was gone. The car was lazy to spool and had no boost at redline. Before the intake we were able to hold 19 psi in the 7,000-7500 range. Now max boost in that range was 16 psi. Power was down but I have to attribute this to the dropped boost as I know the Extrude Honed intake will make more power. Ended up no matter what we tried all we could make was 356 whp and 359 ft lbs.

We then decided something was terribly messed up. I bolted on our sheetmetal intake (Magnus builds it for us) with the 3" throttle body. Results were the same. 16 psi of boost at redline and even less power than the extrude hone with the 65mm!

Put the Extrude Honed intake back on and bolted the stock throttle body to it. With the intake hole opened up it made the 65 mm throttle body perform even better. 8-10 whp across the board was lost using the stock throttle body.

We (as a whole at the shop) came to the conclusion that the car was being choked down by the stock turbo assembly at this point. Yes, I know more power than this can be made on the stock turbo. Although on straight pump gas 368/351 is getting up there.

The next parts we wanted to test was the ported exhaust manifold, 02 housing and turbine housing. All of these parts are also ceramic coated, they can be seen on our website. We bolted the bone stock turbo back into these ported housings. When unbolting the old stuff we inspected it all for any exhaust leaks or boost pressure leaks, nothing was found.

HOLY FREAKING CRAP!!! All of the low end power was back plus some! The boost was back too. Crazy-crazy power now. You could smell the smoke in the dyno bay from the tires spinning.

Peak power with that spike I explained earlier was 407. Once again I can't use those numbers but I am just explaining the results. Once the tires grabbed the curve from there out was again nice and flat. 373 whp and 366 ft lbs of torque.

The boost was now back up where it was, close anyway. 18.5 psi in the 7,000-7500 range. The stock turbo just cannot keep up with the engine at this point. (WE NEED THE 20g!!)

I only made the one single pull last night and those were the results. I need to add some fuel to the car now and plan to dyno again later today. I would like to try and settle the tire spin down some and get a nice flat 375 whp curve on straight 94 octane. As violent as the turbo hits now it may not be possible to get rid of the spin. Going to try after lunch.

Take care guys,

[david buschur]

vtluu,

It was definetely the plug wires that made the gain.

Also, be sure and read my latest post as I was backwards on the throttle body testing I did.

[david buschur]

Alright, the results are in. The only way I can repeat the 378 whp runs are to have the tires spin.
I think we got the tire spin under control. Tie the car down with all you have and drop the tire pressure.

With the car not spinning the tires at all we got a really nice curve and I am happy with the results.

The car is set up like this:

Full Stage 3 with the deluxe FMIC, offroad pipe, BR lightweight muffler, 272 cams, fuel pump, AEM EMS, extrude honed intake, ported and ceramic coated stock manifold, 02 housing and turbine housing. Bone stock turbo, head, shortblock and injectors.

The difference that the ported/ceramic coated parts made were most impressive throughout the curve and no so much at just the peak power.

Peak power before was 356whp/359ftlbs.
Peak power after was 361whp/367ftlbs.

Interesting part is the spool up was much faster making 16 whp more on the way up and 12 whp gains in most of the areas once over 4500 rpm. Same thing with the torque, 23 ft lb increase on the way up and 10 ft lbs the rest of the curve over 4500 rpm.

I'm happy with what the car is doing. I don't want to get into how I tune too much but to give you guys some ideas. This is straight 94 octane. AFR's are 10.9 to 11.4 most of the pull, at the end towards 7500 it works it way up to around 11.8:1. Timing numbers are way low and as low as 2 degrees and at redline only as high as around 8 degrees.

This is not an aggressive tune at all. These maps I am building are meant to be sent out to customers when this is all done, they have to be safe. Knock voltages on the last pull and final tune never got over 1.5 volts, that is very low.

Thanks for reading.

[david buschur]

These 280 lift cams are LOPEY LOPEY LOPEY. I am sure someone will put them in a flashed, afc or stock EVO sooner or later but to be honest I cannot imagine the idle being that great.
There is an absolute horsepower increase. Right out of the box and into the car it picked up 15 whp or there about.

The turbo in this car is just flat out done and out of wind. It will NOT maintain any high boost levels at all. We tried three different boost controllers, no change. We even tightened the wastegate actuator all the way down today to try and maintain more boost at redline and have less of a spike. No matter what nothing works, it is just under turbo'd now.

Once again the car spiked way over 400 whp on the tire spin and boost spikes I was getting but would settle down.

The last two runs I tightened the straps as tight as I could (believe me, that's tight) and dropped the boost to what I think is "reasonable". The boost would spike to 24 psi and then by redline it was down to 18 psi. If I could tune this car with a turbo that would keep up and just run a steady 20 psi the power would be unbelievable.

So here is what has happened the last few days:

Added the ported/coated exhuast components to the car 361 whp (341 at redline) 367 ft lbs

Added the clipped stock turbo to the car 358 whp (341 at redline) 361 ft lbs

Added the 280 degree HKS cams to the car 382.4 whp (358 at redline) 368 ft lbs.

The cams themselves did not allow this huge gain in power. As I said just dropping them in gained about 15 whp. The extra came from some additional tuning. The car needed more fuel with these cams from about 3600 rpm up to redline and then I was also able to add another 1-2 degrees of timing throughout the entire curve. Total HP gained was 24.4 and only 7 ft lbs of torque.

It's been a good week. 300+ dyno runs on the RS. NO signs of any head gasket pushing water, no plugs burnt off nothing. I don't want to blow my own horn but I am very proud of fact that I have been able to make this much power on a honest 94 octane fuel.

We are talking about a stock appearing EVO here laying down 382 whp on 94 octane fuel. That is mid-11's with a good driver in the car.

[david buschur]

Been dyno testing constantly as is apparent by this thread.
Been going back and forth with different stock turbo combinations. The stock turbo clipped, ported, 10.5 housing, ti-al turbine wheels etc.

Here is what I have found so far.

By far the best spooling turbo is the ti-al turbine wheel in the ported stock EVO turbine housing.

Highest HP number was achieved with the 10.5 housing, ti-al wheel.

Best dyno chart overall is the clipped stock turbine wheel inside a ported stock turbine housing.

Right now we are going to try one more change and run the clipped turbine wheel in the 10.5 housing. This is the only combination I haven't tried yet, I am expecting the best results from this.

David Buschur
http://www.buschurracing.com

[brwnrice]

clipped stock turbine wheel

whats that?

[Eclipse]

clipped stock turbine wheel

whats that?

That is a turbine wheel that has its vanes trimmed to increase flow at the top end. Usually increases lag as well.

[david buschur]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/jrod@buschur/coldair.jpg
BRJrod: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/jrod@buschur/sexyenginebay.jpg

Here are some shots of the engine bay and such as the car sits right now.

Enjoy guys,

David Buschur
www.buschurracing.com

[94565EVO]

Something else you can do that most guys don't with a Dynojet is print the graphs in number form rather than a graph. When comparing runs it is easier to see actual differences when looking at side by side columns of numbers than some lines on a page.
I printed some off yesterday and would like to share them, here are some different points comparing Stock to the Stg 0.

Stock HP/TRQ Stg 0 HP/TRQ
RPM 2500 59/123 59/124
3500 143/214 145/218
4500 206/241 236/275
5500 229/218 266/254
6500 236/191 287/232
7000 220/165 284/213

When printing this I actually printed every 250 rpm but it is too much for me to type. Other data on the page when done like this is interesting too.

Column MAX stock HP/TRQ Stg 0
236/250 289/279
Column AVERAGE 178/198 220/227

Very interesting comparing numbers instead of lines.

David Buschur :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: suuuuuck