Dynos at Nationals

#1

Howdy folks,

Were there dynos performed at Nationals? I am wondering how the "built" motors looked in comparison to the junkyards or BMW crates.

Thanks and congrats to all those that participated.
Jon

#2

Yes, but…

Any car that was dyno’d for tech purposes did not receive a dyno sheet. They were only given to paying customers. NASA will keep the others and maybe Carter will have permission to post them.

My car (stock) dyno’d ~150. Others tended to be mid to upper 150s. Some may have topped 160 but I didn’t see them myself. (you could watch the dyno screen, so that’s just what I remember)

#3

This is the exact same dyno that I did 150/150 on in July. Off the top of my head this is what I remembered. Donny Edwards car was weak at around 145hp from what I can remember. Ed Davidson was around 154hp/149tq. Stephen Kappy was around 153hp/153trq. John Allen was around 155hp/164tq. That’s all I know.

#4

mine made 157hp and 152tq. Freshened head with junkyard bottom end.

#5

To continue with our openess, I’ll ask NASA (the paying customer on these runs) if I can scan and post the sheets.

Carter

#6

michael davidson wrote:

Michael,

Just curious…did you do anything to the bottom end or just run it as is? Like installing new rod/crank bearings…that sort of thing.

Thanks,
Scott Neville
NorCal SpecE30

#7

I can answer for Mike (I helped with the swap). We just took the 200K+ bottom end and bolted it up to the freshened head. Our advisor, BMW master tech Dave Pallister suggests that messing with the factory build is really not worth it if the bottom end is intact (no bearing noise, knocks, etc.) We will be building our scrap motor this winter with an overbore, new bearings, cleaned up crank, etc., but for the short time we had to do the swap, it just made sense to run the old bottom end. It ran fine at nationals.
Ed

#8

Thanks Ed for the information. For a junkyard bottom end it made great HP. I may go the same route with my car just to get it on the track for the 2008 season.

Regards,
Scott

#9

Simon Hunter wrote:

Our car has an overbored engine built to the rules (or so we thought). The engine put out a peak 149hp on the dyno at Mid Ohio. We did not play with the AFM and only had the engine milled per the SPEC rules. I have viewed the videos from every session and it was rare if we got pulled on down the straights. There seemed to be parity with respect to terminal speeds with everyone except Chris Cobetto. His car was insanely fast, I attribute it to driving a better line and being a better driver all around. His runs thorugh 7 and 8 were almost picture perfect. The other difference was the use of smaller diameter pipes on the east coast cars, we were still running 1 big pipe which we knew would cost us mid range torque. In retrospect our head was an aftermarket unit which we were told was not legal. It was swapped out for a low mileage OEM head for the final race on Sunday. The car seemed to pull harder according to Donny but we have not dynoed the car with the "new" head. The intake ports on the AMC head are oddly shaped and may have cost us the additional HP, we will know in a few days. We have a Mustang Dyno in house but a neighbor of ours has a Dynojet so we want to run the car on a simialr unit.

#10

Walter Ford wrote:

[quote]Simon Hunter wrote:

Our car has an overbored engine built to the rules (or so we thought). The engine put out a peak 149hp on the dyno at Mid Ohio. We did not play with the AFM and only had the engine milled per the SPEC rules. I have viewed the videos from every session and it was rare if we got pulled on down the straights. There seemed to be parity with respect to terminal speeds with everyone except Chris Cobetto. His car was insanely fast, I attribute it to driving a better line and being a better driver all around. His runs thorugh 7 and 8 were almost picture perfect. The other difference was the use of smaller diameter pipes on the east coast cars, we were still running 1 big pipe which we knew would cost us mid range torque. In retrospect our head was an aftermarket unit which we were told was not legal. It was swapped out for a low mileage OEM head for the final race on Sunday. The car seemed to pull harder according to Donny but we have not dynoed the car with the "new" head. The intake ports on the AMC head are oddly shaped and may have cost us the additional HP, we will know in a few days. We have a Mustang Dyno in house but a neighbor of ours has a Dynojet so we want to run the car on a simialr unit.[/quote]

Hey Walter,

I was standing there when Donny’s car was run (as well as several others) and IIRC this car’s AFR was all over the map, literally. I don’t think there was a smooth section. I’m sure that’s a large part of any dip in power. Since you didn’t dyno it after the new head perhaps some of this was taken care of. Just an FYI if you didn’t hear about that. I think this was one of those that was chosen to be dyno’d so perhaps you didn’t get a copy of the plots.

Cheers.

#11

Thanks for the info. Since I don’t consider adjustment of the AFM to be a factory setting we never broke the seal. All we could do, in our interpretation of the rules, was to add or subtract fuel pressure. Our AFR was not too bad, it did fluctuate but I was not alarmed at all. (Maybe I should be!) Anyways we are headed off to the dyno this week so it will be interesting to check peak HP and torque with the OEM head. The weather out here is very similar to the conditions in Ohio when it was dynoed at the track.

EDIT: I found an image of our dyno sheet. The AFR shows a drop in the upper rev range.

#12

Walter Ford wrote:

[quote]Thanks for the info. Since I don’t consider adjustment of the AFM to be a factory setting we never broke the seal. All we could do, in our interpretation of the rules, was to add or subtract fuel pressure. Our AFR was not too bad, it did fluctuate but I was not alarmed at all. (Maybe I should be!) Anyways we are headed off to the dyno this week so it will be interesting to check peak HP and torque with the OEM head. The weather out here is very similar to the conditions in Ohio when it was dynoed at the track.

EDIT: I found an image of our dyno sheet. The AFR shows a drop in the upper rev range.

[/quote]

Hey Walter,

Nope, that’s not the one I saw then. Well, make that I was wrong that yours was the one with the funky AFR. That AFR actually looks pretty good for a stock motor, especially compared to many I’ve seen. Simon’s was pretty messed up back in July but we found the throttle cable to be loose and it was not hitting true WOT. Fixed that and the AFR smoothed right out.

What I meant about the head replacement was that maybe there was a vacuum leak or something that was unnoticed and inadvertantly got fixed, not that you guys cracked open the AFM or something.

Cheers.

#13

No worries… the head was not legal so it had to go before Sunday’s race. Some people think that cracking the AFM is legal. I guess without a rules clarification it is considered a grey area for now. There is no BMW technical sheet or manual etc that I am aware of that indicates that the AFM is serviceable other than by replacement. Since the rules speak to original BMW technical manuals and specs I apply this to all aspects of the engine etc. I was alarmed at the number of cars with obvious rules issues at the Nationals. All that after Carter’s post regarding simple things like wipers and painted calipers. We crossed our T’s and dotted our I’s, showed up with a car that was 100% legal to our knowledge (sans head!) only to see a bunch of non-compliant cars. I guess I’ll have to put on a firesuit now… :slight_smile:

#14

Walter,

I see no need for a flame suit. I am like you and feel that my car was 100% legal as well, including the head. I looked a most of the other cars and nothing jumped out to me as illegal. I for one would like to know what type of things you saw and if you saw anything on my car. I was the #36 red car with green flames. You can be specific on what you saw on my car if you like and just not identify the other cars who you feel were illegal. We are all a big happy family and everyone I talked with do thier best to be legal.

In addition, if the head on your car was not legal it needed to go way before sundays race. Would not be fair to quilify either.

Michael

#15

We didn’t know it was illegal untill Sunday, the head was the one on the car when we bought it. As for the others…
Some people were running basketweaves, some were missing package shelves and inner rear panels. Some were running "adjusted" AFM’s. I did not pay attention enough to who it was, if it really mattered to me I would have protested every car that was out of spec. The post race tech inspections were also a joke. To my knowledge the top 3 cars were not torn down and this was a NATIONALS level race.

#16

I understand the head problem. When any of us buy a donor car it is hard to know exactly what the previous owners may have done unless you take everything apart and check it to the factory manual.

I was the only car at Nationals who I saw that had basketweaves. My basketweaves are 15X7 euro (and maybe iX) wheels which to my understanding are legal. It is the 14X6.5 size that is not legal. I have two sets of the 14X6.5’s that are going with the sale of my ITS E30. The three sets of 15X7 I am keeping for the Spec E30. Someone correct me if all basketweaves are illegal.

I am pretty sure the interior parts you speak of are allowed to be removed. There has been much discussion on this topic and I believe the rules specifically say they can be removed. I will check again to make sure myself.

AFM’s are a tough one. I believe you are correct in that it does not state in the rules they can be modified. So legally they cannot. When my car was running poorly I opened up an old AFM and moved the sweep hand to a new contact patch on the sweep. It did not do much for the condition I had. I opted to get a new one as well as some other new parts and my “shotgun” method of just replacing parts fixed my problem. Adjusting the sweep or even the spring is a well known method of getting more life from an old AFM. I guess the spring could get you some more fuel but that would take some dyno time to get it just right. Maybe there need to be a clarification to either specifically allow the adjustment or disallow the adjustment. I have a new one now and don’t plan to adjust anything.

Tear downs at the Nationals would have been nice especially since there was some pretty big money from Toyo. There were some cars that seemed much faster than others. Some of that could be exhaust like you state or any number of items we can’t see. Tear downs take money and I for one would rather Toyo put up some money for the tear downs and give a little less to the winners. Spec Miata cars went through a pretty elaborate inspection process.

All in all I had a very good time at Nationals. I got knocked out of contingent during the first qualifying race and still am upset about that. But, all the guys I talked with all are trying to legal. Some think they are legal where someone else may think they are illegal. I have no problem with protests just make sure whoever makes one that you yourself have read and understand the rule.

Respectfully,

Michael

#17

Walter Ford wrote:

[quote]We didn’t know it was illegal untill Sunday, the head was the one on the car when we bought it. As for the others…
Some people were running basketweaves, some were missing package shelves and inner rear panels. Some were running "adjusted" AFM’s. I did not pay attention enough to who it was, if it really mattered to me I would have protested every car that was out of spec. The post race tech inspections were also a joke. To my knowledge the top 3 cars were not torn down and this was a NATIONALS level race.[/quote]

Walter and all:

Michael pretty-much addressed your concerns and I want to add that the lack of tear-downs after the Championship race was due to the fact that many cars (the top three for sure) were on the dyno during the weekend. This is not a guarantee of a legal drivetrain of course but is a lot better than nothing. And as we grow, we will do more indepth inspections that will probably include full tear-downs after the championship race. With your skills and experience, I’ll need your help on the tear-downs next year.

Also, your engine was certainly held back by that aftermarket head. Robert Patton had one and after driving the car at VIR, I told him that the car was way down on power. Plus, watching my video, Donny drove past me on the Championship race (BMW head) start as we went up the hill to the keyhole and Mark Welch built a legal .020 over motor for me. Let us know what numbers you get with the BMW head.

Regarding adjusting the AFM, this and other items will be addressed after the Barber race this coming weekend. We’ll need about a week and then the group can expect to see a few clarifications in the Rules.

The exhaust regs will be posted in the next day or so.

Carter