I know it's been a short period of time since I've updated this, but not much had been happening since the dyno breaking and the actual tune date pushed back. In that time I made some small fuel tweaks myself, nothing to get me into trouble, but enough to keep the engine happy while in boost. I ran wastegate pressure during this time as well, because we(the tuner and I) weren't entirely sure how the engine would react.
During my "drive time" I wasn't aware of the VVL engaging. That maybe because I wasn't looking for it. Any how, I couldn't get the VVL to engage while the engine was idling and it perplexed me. One would think that the cams would switch and the idle quality would change drastically. So naturally, I started poking around with the wiring, since I've had so many problems with that aspect of the build. I didn't find an error here, surprising right, but it made me start to think about the actual mechanical components and how they worked together. I used a stethoscope to listen to the solenoids as I forced them on via laptop and I could here them clicking. Wiring was good, the ECU had control over the solenoids. Then I realized, that at idle, I have no where near the oil pressure or volume as I would at say 4k rpms or higher. I buttoned things back up and took the car for a spin, sure enough it worked and there was an audibly noticeable change in engine tone/pitch, just as one would expect. I called Harry and told him I was ready to get strapped down when he was available.
Somewhere in between the scheduled date and the day of, Harry injured his leg. He called me and asked if I could push back for a week or so, until the pain subsided or at least eased up a bit on him. Seeing as how this initial tune time was suppose to be at the end of Oct, I said that's fine, what's another week at this point. So, Wed or Thursday rolled around, I gave him a call to see where he stood with his leg. He said he'd manage. PERFECT, I'd been anticipating getting the car strapped down all week.
Thursday night I started loading the car with everything I think I'd need. Fresh plugs, Qt. of oil, the GoPro w/ tripod, misc. batteries for gadgets, the Canon and the laptop. I made sure it was all there, if not laying out in plain view so I wouldn't forget it in the am. I don't think I slept much Thursday night. After all, this has been a 4yr project and this was a final chapter waiting to be documented and written. Morning breaks and I'm up 30mins before I normally get out of bed. I decided I was going to go in early so I could roll out early to the Dyno.
Friday Harry asked if I could call him when I left Venice. His shop is roughly 45-60mins north of me, depending on traffic(these old people can't drive worth a damn). I arrived at his shop and he was no where to be found. The shop was locked up tighter than Fort Knox. 15mins go by and he rolls in. Hell ya! It's on.
We get the car strapped in and he starts to fiddle with the tune. We made slow progress, but it was all in the name of safety. Half pulls, verifying the AFR's were where they needed to be, minor adjustments here and there. We stay until roughly 10pm. We had gone from a whopping 125hp at 4k rpms to just a hair over 400. We called it quits here because we started to get spark blowout at 17psi. No worries, the car could probably use a break for the evening.
Noon today, I arrived at his shop and immediately pull the plugs. They look great, just need to be tightened up some. I asked Harry what he recommended, he said .025" should be good, any tighter and you can have idling issues. First pull of the day at 17 psi was a solid and clean pull. She made 450whp. Over the course of the next few hours we tweaked and cleaned up rich/lean spots. At the end of the day the car laid down a very impressive 485whp/370wtrq. I'm extremely happy where we are right now. In the future I do plan to head back for some tweaks to setup various safe guards and added features. Burn outs coming soon to a
tread near you... I'll get some videos up as I edit them.
