400 real whp from a VG33ET @ 15psi boost

[340ZXTTAZ]

I just want to say that this is one of the more insitful topics/conversations on this forum. thank you to all the contributors for their input and a special thanks to Gollum for the graphs, examples,and hard data to back up his statements during the course of the conversation.

I look forward to reading the progress the OP makes mving forward.

[260DET]

Interesting discussion but it does not explain why my VG33ET does not deliver anywhere near the power plenty of others claim. I'm not going to spend more time and money on it because the VG30DET does what is required and because the only advice I have that makes sense is that to get 400whp bigger inlet valves and higher lift cams are required. Plus the attendant head work of course. I do suspect that the single cam's inlet runners are restrictive, they certainly are significantly smaller in diameter than the VG30DET ones but who knows? Pity that all the race knowhow on these engines has been lost, I should have coughed up $15K years ago for a complete, genuine Electramotive donk

 

EDIT The local opinion suggests if there is a problem then it is likely to be the cams. S2 JWT cams no good?

Edited October 13, 2013 by 260DET

[Gollum]

So what may cause inlet temps to rise to the point where in practical terms there is no point in using more boost?

 

Are you using a MAF or MAP sensor, or both? If you have a MAF sensor with the datalog we can look at exactly how much air was going in versus how much boost pressure there was and figure out EXACTLY where the turbo was on it's flow map. Knowing that will go a LONG way to figuring out why there's such an increase of heat per PSI increase all of the sudden.

 

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this earlier, but that turbo can reach 50psi within it's PEAK efficiency range, meaning very little added heat to deal with in perspective to PSI level.

 

If you really feel that there was no way possible that there was any error in the setup when dyno'd, then I'd think good and hard about an air to water intercooler, or some type of water/meth secondary injection. That would handle ANY heat issues as long as the system is in good working order and tuned to the current system.

[340ZXTTAZ]

260DET,

 

It was mentioned earlier (around page 2 I think) to go through the motor and verify that everything was working properly. If the motor was blown and scraped then this is a useless exercise. U both agree that the Turbo is perfect for the HP and TQ number you are looking for. The system when on the VG30DET performed properly, but not when on the VG33ET. Again yes it could have been a shit motor built by a inexperienced individual but the Dyno numbers you posted for the motor suggest that it was on par with several other single cam VG's.

[260DET]

MAP sensor only G. I guess that it will have to remain a mystery as to why the VG33ET apparently delivered a lot less power than other engines, I hate mysteries but sometimes enough is enough. It's just not worth the $10K I'd guess would be needed to be spent on the heads, valve train and so on plus a decent exhaust manifold system to give it a real go. Which is a pity because the engine was all set up to with a VG30DE crank and oil pump with custom adjustable cam wheels etc, oh well, thanks for your tenacity G and good luck with your build.

 

Edit: The local view is that the cams are causing excessive exhaust back pressure into the cylinders. Anyway, someone may find something helpful out of all of this.

Edited October 16, 2013 by 260DET

[RedBeauty84ZX]

IMHO 357whp is about as good as can be expected from the head restricted single cammer. Stock VG30ET delivered what, a bit over 200hp at the flywheel? 33 as it stands will do very little better than a 30 due to head restrictions. More than doubling stock power using fairly modest improvements is pretty spectacular I reckon. More than that? Hmmmmm.

 

 

I'd have to disagree. Put a proper modern turbo on a VG30E(T) or VG33E and you will see plenty of power. A proper turbo and aftermarket cams and valve springs and you can see a nice improvement to the powerband and plenty of power. 

 

My brothers Z is still on a bone stock bottom end with a 1/4 of a million miles. He's replaced the cams and is running a billet PT6262 turbo, front facing tubular manifolds, NISTUNE and E85. Were expecting a solid 500+WHP and similar torque on high boost...already been for a few pulls and it pulls good   .

 

 

SHORT vid i took of a quick 2nd gear pull:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X93SP7586mg&feature=em-upload_owner

 

 

 

 

UPDATE:

     Brother took his car to the dyno yesterday and put down a best of 545WHP, several runs were over 500WTQ as well. Found out his wastegate is too small as its causing bad boost creep, once he gets a new wastegate installed he will go back to the dyno looking for more. Keep in mind this is a bone stock 86 VG30ET bottom end (actually worse it has small dents in the pistons from when the valves collided 4 years ago), with well over 200,000 miles on it and plenty of hard pulls at high boost levels.This was also on the stock mass air flow sensor.  At 14PSI and the boost controller turned off it dynoed at 403WHP and 388WTQ.

 

Heres a vid from yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJa5qr4RIIM

 

For a list of his modifications and a discussion on the dyno look here:

http://z31performance.com/showthread.php?23396-545-RWHP-540-RWTQ-Stock-Bottom-End-MAF-Ignition-etc&p=357886#post357886

 

Edited April 10, 2014 by RedBeauty84ZX

[BLOZ UP]

I tried to find a 6262 compressor map, but failed to. I have a (I believe) slightly smaller turbo (50 trim T04E) and 0.3L more displacement; I'm hoping for less peak power but a powerband that starts a bit lower. Say, from 3500 to 6500. That would give me that elusive 3000 RPM spread you want.

[260DET]

To be blunt, some US dyno figures are rubbish, obviously created to make the customer happy. Not to say that this sort of nonsense is confined to the US, it's not. The easiest way to check this is to look at the power outputs of modern sports engines which benefit from decades of development, particularly in their engine management systems. Anyway, I'm over the VG30ET hype, carry on

[BLOZ UP]

Wut? So his graph doesn't count because some graphs are exaggerated/setup improperly? Why would the easiest way to check for a "fake" be to compare it to a completely different engine? Because those darned old VGs can't make that much power, no matter what?

 

The correction factor (still think those should be turned off, as per SAE guidelines) and input weather variables are plainly visible.

[FlawleZ]

To be blunt, there are some people in this world that just "never get it."

 

First of all, the dyno you used for both engines was a Dyno Dynamics. A 60 second Google search will yield that Dyno Dynamic dynos read on average 10-12% LOWER than a Dynojet. If you have any experience or knowledge of comparing dyno figures, you would know that no two dynos are equal. There's always a margin of error, change, etc. It's SIMPLY a tool.

 

Having said that, your VG33 made 357 RWHP on a Dyno Dynamics which if we add on the conservative side 10%, that's 394 RWHP. Essentially, right at your goal of 400.

 

My first question (among many), is why would you spend some unknown amount of money to have an engine professionally built, install, and tuned only to have not done the proper research before hand?

Secondly, What is with this random arbitrary number of 15 psi? Why not 16 psi? Why not 14? The reason you turbocharge an engine is to add the amount of power you want. You're in control of the power it puts down based off the setup.

 

So let me get this straight...You SUED your engine builder because the engine didn't make xxx power at someone else's control of the setup? All I can say is WOW and I feel sorry that guy...

 

It's humorous to me you claim to be "obsessed" with the VG30ET yet not only did you have someone else who doesn't specialize in the engine or car build/tune it, you come here AFTER the fact looking for answers and information. I guess we should hand all 16 year olds the keys and tell them to go take their drivers test after they get into a wreck.

[Gollum]

Not all dynos are create equal, but they CAN be accurate. I'd even say that ALL dyno types CAN be accurate under the right conditions/operations. What's more, there's documentation by people the dyno OEM engines for a LIVING for the OEM's themselves, who admit that they can vary peak output numbers by as much as 10% without cheating the numbers....

 

It's just like the weight of an engine. It means nothing unless you know ALL the parameters. How were they cooling the engine? How were they getting air flow to the intake? What did the exhaust system on the dyno look like? If it's a chassis dyno, what type of resistance did the rollers offer? Was there traction loss? How were the tires loaded?

 

I know of a reputable local shop that has ZERO reason to inflate their numbers, as their customers care about winning races, not numbers on a sheet. When they build an engine, they rely on data from data logs to calculate the power curve, because it's MORE reliable and MORE to-the-fact than their 6 figure AWD dyno... But some customers want to see the dyno in the shop, and have "proof" dynos, so they have a dyno. But at the end of the day, they could care less what the dyno says, they look at data logs.

 

What does THAT tell you about dynos?

 

But I agree that there was more power to be had with more PSI. The fact that the engine in question "stopped making power" past 15psi means that something was wrong with the setup. Either for some unknown reason there was a severe mismatch with the turbo, or there was something wrong. But we'll never know because racecar....

[BLOZ UP]

It seems there's this idea popping up in the background that all dynos should output some perfect fixed power output for any given motor, otherwise they are completely unreliable. This is impossible, and it's not so black and white. To generate power, an engine depends on lots of things more or less external to itself. Coolant temperature, Air temperature, Air pressure, humidity, bearing grease temperature, etc. To discard all dyno results because they vary so much between days, dynos, and moon phases is dumb.

 

Like FlawleZ said, it's a tool. The dyno is a really, really, useful tool. I would never seriously tune a car without it. It provides information, that it's. How good the information is depends on a variety of factors but if you know what you are doing you will control these as best as you can when you tune. The more data you have, the better.

 

You pick one dyno and one day to tune, and you get it all hammered out. Max output numbers are meaningless--you focus on maximizing the area under the curve the best way possible for whatever engine configuration you have.

Edited May 21, 2014 by BLOZ UP

[260DET]

Revisiting this ancient thread just to try to make some sense here. Car makers when publishing engine power figures have to comply with strict standards so that various makers figures can be compared fairly. This is not the case in the aftermarket game. Need I say more?

 

Without NISMO heads to work with it would still be possible to make great power starting with a stock VG30ET engine while incidentially keeping the stock exhaust manifolds. Rubbish? Check out the Mercedes F1 turbo engine, it uses similar type log type manifolds. In my country that head work would involve many hours of virtual head reconstruction, costing say $15K. Normal porting, a hot cam, bigger valves? Pffft, never, I'm talking a complete redesign of the ports and combustion chambers with matching pistons and that costs the big dollar. Then you will start to make power that relates to engines like that of the GTR, Porsche and so on. But only then. If you want to believe otherwise then who cares,  I don't, I've moved on.                                                                                 

[BLOZ UP]

Revisiting this ancient thread just to try to make some sense here. Car makers when publishing engine power figures have to comply with strict standards so that various makers figures can be compared fairly. This is not the case in the aftermarket game. Need I say more?

 

Some people only care about peak numbers. Others it's just a tool to finalize a build, so they just want consistency during the day and only care about area under the curve, not peak numbers. And for that, it's pretty damn accurate. Also, I think you'd find manufacturer standards not "strict" so-to-speak, but more realistic. Take your brand new car to your nearest engine dyno shop, and the numbers will line up just fine.

 

Without NISMO heads to work with it would still be possible to make great power starting with a stock VG30ET engine while incidentially keeping the stock exhaust manifolds. Rubbish? Check out the Mercedes F1 turbo engine, it uses similar type log type manifolds. In my country that head work would involve many hours of virtual head reconstruction, costing say $15K. Normal porting, a hot cam, bigger valves? Pffft, never, I'm talking a complete redesign of the ports and combustion chambers with matching pistons and that costs the big dollar. Then you will start to make power that relates to engines like that of the GTR, Porsche and so on. But only then. If you want to believe otherwise then who cares,  I don't, I've moved on.

So, no. Your original request for a 3000 RPM torque spread doesn't look possible with stock top end. The VGxxET just dies after 5000 RPM. Maybe... maybe you could get close with a drastic compound turbo setup to boost the low end, but that's a lot of effort. Like a stock T25/T3 with a 60mm or whatever turbo taking over.

 

If I had more time and money that's one of the things I've always wanted to do with the VG.

[260DET]

A bit of spare time to go back over this thread to try to do some sort of comprehensive summary. The reasons why originally I wanted to try a VG33ET was, one, because I just liked the engine and, two, because I took notice of the numerous power claims concerning these engines. As far as I can remember at the time I wondered how, with the mods that were listed, such an engine could make the power outputs claimed. Short answer to the latter is that they can't and any claims to the contary and involving the usual bolt on mods is irresponsible rubbish or delusional.

 

What I noticed throughout this thread was that my documented experience and results with a VG30DET using hardly any mods were ignored. Same boost, same turbo, same engine management, same dyno, same tuner, same car, both used factory exhaust manifolds and basically the same exhaust system. The 33 had in addition cams and oversize valves. An ideal comparison one would think but apparently not. As were factory power figures for various sports cars, most highly developed. Ignored again, apparently a few bolt ons make a 35 year old taxi engine more powerful than anything today.

 

If I sound pissed off I am, or was, led astray by what seemed like almost an orchestrated effort to justify a choice of engine by in effect or in reality making false claims. Yeh I've moved on with my LS3 engined 280ZX and the past is what's behind me but the facts are still the facts. For anyone who objects to this summary, tough titties.

[Xnke]

260DET....Hate to break it to you but there's a VG30ET at my local strip that's ticking off times fast enough to make 505WHP...Has been for two years. It's a STOCK engine, just has an upgraded turbo, injectors, intercooler, and Nistune, and runs with an open downpipe.

 

You can't escape the physical laws that dictate how much power it takes to push X amount of weight to X trap speed over the 1320. He's got to have at a minimum, 505 to make the trap speeds.

 

You paid someone a lot of money to build you a dud, using all the best parts. It happens. To say "it can't be done, because I couldn't do it", well, that's childish.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Xnke

[G-E]

Exactly, we all know how it goes...

 

Excitable owner spends $20k building engine, promptly blows it up, transfers most of the bolt-on parts to a spare block "temporarily", re-tunes, runs for 3 years just fine...

 

The only consistent theme in this whole thread regarding the sohc VG is headwork, headwork, headwork. Literally everything else is secondary to a good port and valve job. You can start with a low compression turbo block, or a medium compression non-turbo block, it doesn't matter.

 

Get the right turbo, get the right cams, and get the headwork done, that's the secret sauce to making it sing. It amazes me how much of a pissing contest this thread is, speculation, bs, random assertions, for what? To prove that one engine didn't put out? Pfffffffft!

[BLOZ UP]

[popcorn]

[260DET]

 No agenda here, I've moved on but like to cut through the nonsense and present the truth because originally I took notice of said nonsense and it cost me $. Presenting an estimate of power based on a drag racing time is a joke, it's obviously a joke because of the infinate number of unquantifiable variables involved yet it's still presented as fact. On the other hand I present real information including comparative dyno graphs and other real comparisons which are consistently ignored. They are ignored simply because they are facts which can't be challenged.

 

Weird attitude, it's just an engine, why the ballship?

[260DET]

Now I think about it a bit more, the dyno graph of my VG30/33ET looked a lot like the very few that the big power claimers actually put up, it's just that the figures were different. Not too hard to understand why that was is it?