My name is #8. Hear me roar.

#1

I’m spending the weekend at Chuck Baader’s near Birmingham. Today we pulled Skeen’s '07 motor out, which will become my spare, and put in #8. #8 is the one that overheated at RA last Dec, I had the head fixed, pulled the pistons and checked the rings, and then it failed 4 laps later at CMP in Feb because apparently the rings lost their springiness when they were overheated. For those of you that are keeping track, that was failures 5 & 6. Chuck rebuilt the bottom end. This the first engine that I’ve had dynamically balanced.

If Skeen did well in 2007, it wasn’t because of this engine. I’ll have to do something with it. No sense having a spare motor that is a wuss.

We got the motors swapped today in ~4hrs, but then we struggled for a couple hrs to get it started. We checked everything. What finally got the engine started was just persistence.

Scott: “I’m out of ideas”.
Chuck: “Lets keep trying”.

The theory is that because the ring’s weren’t seated yet compression was low. We had to keep at it long enough for the rings to at least warm up enough that they’d seal well enough for the motor to start.

Once we figured the motor was likely flooded, Chuck pushed high pressure air into the intake. Our supercharging seemed to do the trick and the motor started catching. I would never had thought of that.

Tomorrow we head for the dyno. Jim Levie should be showing up too, if all goes as planned.

One of my front wheels has always clunked a lot. Folks told me several times that it was just camber plates flexing. We figured that out today too. One of my ball joints is practically seized up. I’m lucky that it didn’t break. That would have been a bummer at RA turn 12.

#2

Go get em’ Ranger. You have more persistence than any 5 people I know, being on engine #8. I haven’t changed 8 engines in all my race cars, over the entire length of time I have owned them. Thats why I dig you.

#3

rock on ranger. see you at vir in ten days :slight_smile:

#4

woot ranger!! now let’s keep #8 together!

#5

Scott, Can’t wait to see the dyno results!

#6

We did 7 dyno runs on Sunday. Here’s the last one. Not quite what we hoped for, but the rings seem to still be breaking in. The mixture is scary lean until 4700rpm. Then the DME seems to pull timing back too far which makes the engine run poorly from 4700 to 5300. Because it runs poorly during that rpm range, the engine doesn’t draw as much air and the mixture goes too rich. BMW’s M20B25 doesn’t really seem to get it’s act together until about 5600rpm. So from now on I’m keeping my revs between 5600 at 6200. [file name=Run7.jpg size=116233]http://spece30.com/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/files/Run7.jpg[/file]

#7

The DME does pull 7deg of timing off from 4800 to 5100 rpm and it very slightly increases fuel flow over the same range. But I’m not so sure that explains the big drop in A/F ratio. Were you using an e body or i body AFM?

#8

the dyno sheet i got when i bought my car looks quite similar, although a bit less pronounced. fairly high a/f until about 4500 when it starts to drop, bottoming at 5100. peak power is also between 5600 and 6200.

#9

Was this the .20 over block? Were there any other SE30’s there to compare against?

#10

It is .20 over. No other SE30’s there that day, but it has seen Jim Levie and Ironman’s cars recently. My perception is that Dynojet’s are pretty comparable to each other.

#11

I see how it is. You come to Birmingham and can’t even drop someone a line. I will remember that in August. :wink: I am glad that #8 is in and running and that the oil pan issue has been resolved. I have not seen the sheets from my Dyno runs. How do they compare to yours?

#12

theironman9154 wrote:

We called you guys. Your dad came out with his M3, which is vy nice. I’ve not seen your dyno runs. The trick is to get the data and then download the WinPep software. That gives you an opportunity to really study the graphs. Go by the dyno place with a USB memory stick and get your data.

#13

Something goofy has to be going on there.

Here is a link to an old dyno on my bone stock original motor. 153hp / 154trq dynojet.

http://dtomracing.com/uploaded_images/Dyno-Runs-11-15-08-751859.jpg

Wonder if the AFM is hurting the power and torque. That curve certainly doesn’t look healthy.

#14

Well, I guess my Dad got the message and didn’t pass it on. Shocker. No big deal. I will have to take one next time I swing by the dyno. I am looking forward to seeing if replacing my slipping clutch and rebuilding the diff will allow me to put a little more power to the ground. :cheer:

#15

IndyJim wrote:

[quote]Something goofy has to be going on there.

Here is a link to an old dyno on my bone stock original motor. 153hp / 154trq dynojet.

http://dtomracing.com/uploaded_images/Dyno-Runs-11-15-08-751859.jpg

Wonder if the AFM is hurting the power and torque. That curve certainly doesn’t look healthy.[/quote]

In addition to yesterdays runs, I did 2 dyno runs last Fall, testing multiple AFM’s and DME’s. It’s a little hard to compare info without seeing A/F data, but your hp & torque curves are better then anything I’ve been able to do.

Last Fall when I focused on this a bit, I tested and/or replaced pretty much everything ignition and DME related. Getting fat smooth curves is not infantry simple.

#16

Dipping back into history…
http://spece30.com/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,94/func,view/id,39046/catid,16/#39052

cwbaader wrote:

[quote]…Looking at your dyno report, I strongly suspect operator error…it just does not look like a M20 motor dyno plot.[/quote] :laugh:

On a serious note, I am sorry to hear the motor isn’t an immediate improvement. If I know you, you will keep at it until it is optimized. Hopefully you are one easy-swap part away from a better A/F curve.

#17

note that high ambient temps will cost you a few ponies

#18

A couple of notes. Rings will take probably a weekend to seat and motor will definitely pick up. (I posted a dyno chart last year and I expect this motor to equal that) We will check leak down after the next race weekend. Jagged line usually indicates timing too low…damn(!!) stock ECUs. We would have tried a couple more ECUs if our helper from Huntsville had showed:angry:

Note to all…there is no majic bullet to make the F/A reasonable. Each motor must be individually tuned with multiple AFMs and ECUs to get acceptable results. Sure would be easier/cheaper the use an adjustable FPR:ohmy: Chuck

#19

Steve D wrote:

[quote]
On a serious note, I am sorry to hear the motor isn’t an immediate improvement. If I know you, you will keep at it until it is optimized. Hopefully you are one easy-swap part away from a better A/F curve.[/quote]

Make no mistake, the engine is fabulous. I just have to chase after some engine management issues. I’ll retest the TPS, I’ll double-check fuel pressure, I’ll do a smoke test, replace the dirty air filter, swap in the chip we got with the Lemons car, and fill the Accusump with NO2.

#20

cwbaader wrote:

[quote]A couple of notes. Rings will take probably a weekend to seat and motor will definitely pick up. (I posted a dyno chart last year and I expect this motor to equal that) We will check leak down after the next race weekend. Jagged line usually indicates timing too low…damn(!!) stock ECUs. We would have tried a couple more ECUs if our helper from Huntsville had showed:angry:

Note to all…there is no majic bullet to make the F/A reasonable. Each motor must be individually tuned with multiple AFMs and ECUs to get acceptable results. Sure would be easier/cheaper the use an adjustable FPR:ohmy: Chuck[/quote]
That is why I like to dyno a motor only after it has a few hundred miles on it. DE weekends are safer than race weekends, just in case the A/F ratio is whacked. Street miles are even better.

While a DME fault is possible, that is more commonly seen as extremely lean (like 18:1) at lower rpm and then normal or near near normal at the top end. This trace was a touch lean low and then super rich high. Unfortunately we don’t know what the A/F ratios were with the previous engine.

I didn’t expect you guys to have so much problems. The car had run well the last time on track, if a touch down on power, which could be attributed to a well used engine. Domestic issues and the desire to make sure my car was ready for Charlotte took precedence over coming down for the dyno session.