Hi everyone

I spent a great day yesterday with Dale at Bailey Performance my turbo buggy mapped with megasquirt.

My buggy is a autograss class 8 frame
1998 Kawasaki ZX9 engine all standard except barnett HD clutch springs
TD04-HL 13T turbo
Landrover 90 intercooler

I had been there about a fortnight before but some problems showed themselves when we got going, one was due to me using some nice flexible radiator hose that I found, looked really good and got rid of a lot of jubilee clips, but when hot it went all floppy and leaked. Luckily Dale had some hose I could use and we continued with the mapping.

The second issue that finished the mapping for that day was one of the exhaust seals blowing out under a full throttle run. This was due to another fault on my part in the design of the manifold but that ended the mapping for that day.

After fitting a larger radiator, correct radiator hose/pipes and fixing the manifold so that it would seal, I booked another day.

After getting it strapped down, and engine warmed up, Dale started to work his magic.



On one of the runs there was suddenly no clutch and pedal stayed down on the floor. We found out that the clutch cable had come out of its place because of an obstruction that was easily fixed, on went the mapping.

Once the fuel map was sorted, dale started to graph the power of the engine and then add more timing into the igition map, looking at the power increase against the amount of timing he put back in so that he could find what amount of timing was 'enough' and not how far he could push it.

The engine started out with 141bhp from the factory, it now makes 181.6bhp at 7ish psi of boost. Here is the dyno graphs, top one is HP, bottom one is torque and also a few videos from the mapping (before timing was put back in)











I got the road tyres (needed for the dyno) changed over to my rally tyres by the tyre place just down the road from Dale and we let it loose in the fields.... just getting used to the new power, also no brakes at the moment due to pinching a brake line in a bit of an 'accident' Friend is driving and I am filming WARNING: a gear is missed and rev limiter is tested, prepare to wince



All in all excellent outcome, Dale is a great guy to deal with and knows a wealth of informaiton.

For all your megasquirt mapping needs

Dale Bladen - www.baileyperformance.co.uk

Thanks for reading
Dave

Taking my car there once the turbo engines in

Dales already given me loads of help over email

I'll probably be heading up there once I've tracked down whatever is causing my ECU to reset every minute or so

quote:

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Originally posted by scudderfish
I'll probably be heading up there once I've tracked down whatever is causing my ECU to reset every minute or so

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That looks like a whole load of fun!!

quote:

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Originally posted by dave_424

quote:

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Originally posted by scudderfish
I'll probably be heading up there once I've tracked down whatever is causing my ECU to reset every minute or so

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Isn't ECU resetting usually down to low battery voltage? ECU grounds should all be separate and on the engine block also

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quote:

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Originally posted by scudderfish
I'll probably be heading up there once I've tracked down whatever is causing my ECU to reset every minute or so

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One thing Dale, after looking at the rev limiter settings, they may be slightly too low.

I currently have

Retard to 10 degrees
Soft limit at 11500
Hard limit at 11800
Cutting 7 from 7 sparks.

Stock engine red line is 12000

Is it worth increasing this to like 12000 soft, 12200 hard and keep an eye on what's going on? or just leave is as it is?

Dave

Is this "a guy in a shed" with a dyno ?

As he might want to look at developing his "housekeeping" skills in-line with his obvious mechanical/electronic skills...

The chair to set the lap top on made me blow my coffee over the screen.

That seems very peaky for only 7psi, have you used a decompression plate or something? Log manifold maybe?

quote:

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Originally posted by dave_424
One thing Dale, after looking at the rev limiter settings, they may be slightly too low.

I currently have

Retard to 10 degrees
Soft limit at 11500
Hard limit at 11800
Cutting 7 from 7 sparks.

Stock engine red line is 12000

Is it worth increasing this to like 12000 soft, 12200 hard and keep an eye on what's going on? or just leave is as it is?

Dave

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quote:

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Originally posted by Hector.Brocklebank
Is this "a guy in a shed" with a dyno ?

As he might want to look at developing his "housekeeping" skills in-line with his obvious mechanical/electronic skills...

The chair to set the lap top on made me blow my coffee over the screen.

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quote:

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Originally posted by PhillipM
That seems very peaky for only 7psi, have you used a decompression plate or something? Log manifold maybe?

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Manifold isn't log, but two runners run into near enough one, also had to squeeze a bend in there for the wastegate so exhaust flow into the turbo isn't really optimal. Manifold is mild steel and turbo is very close to oil level so it does smoke when going down a steep hill. Planning on making a stainless manifold for next year, using butt weld bends to sit the turbo higher.

Power is about right for 7psi, maybe on the lower side but I'm happy with where it is. I know that a turbo is pretty pointless with wheel spin but it was bad before, as a Motorsport engineering student I did it for the engineering challenge more than anything.

Got a set of forged pistons that might go into it next year and see where we can go.

Dave

quote:

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Originally posted by BaileyPerformance

quote:

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Originally posted by Hector.Brocklebank
Is this "a guy in a shed" with a dyno ?

As he might want to look at developing his "housekeeping" skills in-line with his obvious mechanical/electronic skills...

The chair to set the lap top on made me blow my coffee over the screen.

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Your probably right, could do with a tidy!

we are too busy to clean up, flat out 6 days a week, the dyno room shown in your picture is probably quite! ;-)

that's not a chair, that's a custom laptop carrying device with anti-vibration padding!!!

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One thing to note is that the boost seems to climb, stick around 5-6psi and then jump up to 7, so that might be why it is a bit peaky.

I'm also glad that it isn't making gobs of torque which is keeping my clutch happy and power seems to come on fairly smooth. Although it still spins a huge amount

I didn't have my laptop out while I was riding round, I need to get a cheap bash around laptop for that stuff and not a macbook pro. But the radiator stayed cool enough for me to hold my hand on it so all seems good.

Dave

if you dont want to answer i understand. but what kind of price has the turbo conversion cost? not including the original motor!

Ask away, I am an engineering student so it is pretty much the cheapest of the cheap but it works so far. The original engine was around £400 and managed to sell carbs and fuel pump off it for around £120

All of the hot side e.g. manifold,turbo,exhaust bends, wastegate etc. came to about £150-200

I got a set of ZX10 throttle bodies with 440cc injectors - £60

All the cold side e.g. boost pipes, silicone bends, intercooler, plenum etc. was about £80-100

Plenum was from a 3.9 rover v8, just the top portion, bolted down to a plate that bolted to my throttle bodies, saved me fabricating a plenum and getting that all welded up.

Fuel side e.g. fuel pump, FPR, fuel lines etc. about £100

Megasquirt £300 second hand.

All in about £700 when I add the other small things

All done in about 5 months

Pretty much all the parts are there now if I want to go bigger power, I scored a set of forged pistons off someone for £50, a better manifold might cost me £100

Taking it out tomorrow for a bit of hooning, got a go-pro mounted on the cage and if I am doing a datalog at the same time I can do gauge overlays on the video and you guys can see what the engine is doing whilst driving.

Any more questions feel free to ask.

Dave

Yes, it's the late spool I was more commenting on than anything, not so much the power, although I guess there's probably another 10-15bhp in there with some inlet and exhaust optimisations if that's what you've had to do with the manifold.
It just seems to be very poor low down, it jumps from about 40lbft to 90lbft in ~2krpm or so?


Yes, certainly seems to struggle a lot with traction, what are the tyres?
Maybe too much weight up front?


[Edited on 7/9/13 by PhillipM]

quote:

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Originally posted by PhillipM
Yes, it's the late spool I was more commenting on than anything, not so much the power, although I guess there's probably another 10-15bhp in there with some inlet and exhaust optimisations if that's what you've had to do with the manifold.
It just seems to be very poor low down, it jumps from about 40lbft to 90lbft in ~2krpm or so?


Yes, certainly seems to struggle a lot with traction, what are the tyres?
Maybe too much weight up front?


[Edited on 7/9/13 by PhillipM]

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Yeah, wheels might not make much difference, in fact our steel wheels were lighter than anything we could get as an alloy in the right pattern for the buggy

I'd probably try some taller rear tyres unless you're size limited for some reason?

[Edited on 8/9/13 by PhillipM]

That's the plan, I want to change to 15" wheels on the back and get some more rally tyres.

Took it out today and went well, my clutch switch is jamming my clutch pedal on the floor which is less than ideal and have to adjust the gear shift linkage to stop me missing shifts. Fuel is sloshing to one side and my fuel pressure drops, so we can't run it lower than half a tank. Got a more elongated upright tank from dale that will go on at some point.