New DP, low boost

[Shimy87]

Question.....I have a hell of a time finding these dang exhaust leaks with smoke. I was going to check to see if I got them all with a different method. I was going to set up a shop vac with hose in the ehxaust port of vacume and put the hose in one tail pipe. Duct tape up the other and with it blowing in spray soapy water in all the possible leak areas looking for bubbles. What I'm concerned about is blowing carbon soot or partials from exhaust into the turbo.....is this a valid concern or a non issue?  This way I can be sure I got all leaks fixed if it won't bother the turbo. What do you guys think?

[Steve Wood]

the Alky Control kit will feed some serious sized turbos and it may pump too much for smaller turbos.  In that case, one probably has to reduce the Initial setting in the main box under the dash so that the AF will not be so rich that the O2s are well into the 800's and the boost will be held down by lack of heat from the alky rich fueling.

It's probably important to understand that the initial control sets how much alky hits the airstream when you romp on it and the blue knob on the dash controller is a gain control that  sets how fast the alky ramps up from the initial setting.  Personally, I would not like to see higher .780 anywhere under full throttle...

[Shimy87]

Thanks Steve...makes sence I will give it a try. Last year at the track my car didnt like O2s that low, anything under 790 and I would start to get knock in top of 3rd gear. I read some guys run as low as 750 but as I was leaning down 790 ish was my cars happy place. Maybe to much alky causing this??

[Steve Wood]

If you have too much alky, you probably will not be able to get the O2s below 800.  Cars vary.  Whether this is due to the combination, the particular O2 sensor,  ambient conditions, or what, I don't know.  That's the reason I rant "there are no magic numbers" all the time.  We have to find what a particular car likes best.

I have seen some cars run 720 or so without a hint of knock.  The problem with alky is that if we have too much flow at low boost, the combustion chamber does not produce enough heat to make the turbo spool as well as it should.  So this limits the total boost.  At the same time the alky controller adds more alky because it thinks the turbo is making more boost...so the engine bogs down because the engine is not getting the air it should be getting and we have a super rich, cool burning charge that makes no power.  I did not say that well but you get the idea.  Maybe....

In the end, we want a little alky at the beginning which ramps up as the combustion chamber temperatures increases but just enough to prevent detonation.  If we have too little, the engine may come apart.  If we have too much we have no power because we have killed combustion heat.  It's a juggling act.

I think Zen is involved somehow

[motorhead]

Any chance we can get you to step up to a WB02 that reads out in Lambda?

http://www.partssa.com/downloads/2040198/Conversion+Table+lambda+air+fuel+ratio.pdf

[Scoobum]

A couple of thots...and If I'm wrong...then disregard what I've posted.

These cars rolled off the showroom floor running about 14 psi of boost on pump gas. If I'm not mistaken, alky is a fuel. If you introduce it much before 14 psi, then you're drowning the engine in fuel. Depending on how accurate the SMC progressive kit I had was, the alky turn on point I set was 12 to 13 psi.

On the first run of the day/evening I'd turn the WOT alky dial on my SMC kit to max. On each consecutive run I'd dial it back one notch...until I saw a hint of KR at the traps.

The more heat you throw at a turbo...the faster it'll spool. I dial back the low gear 02's to 780...and add anywhere from 4 to 6 degrees of low gear timing...depen ding on how well the track is hooking.

[Scoobum]

Not a hint of exhaust. You'd almost think Scoob's got the low gear fueling dialed in.

[Shimy87]

I think Steve & Scoob are onto something here for me. Ever since I got the alky and this turbo, I have had trouble with not enough boost. Checked and rechecked for exhaust leaks ( the ones I find are tiny carbon lines maybe 1/64th wide when I take things apart) so no large leaks. I have never touched the settings for the alky other than the gain knob. My turn on going by the red to green light is about 9 lbs boost. I have removed fuel by the TT chip but almost to the point of no adjustment left to get it to run. I think I'm spraying to much alky and to early and that has been my problem all along. Going to try turning the initial knob down a little and raising my turn on point to 10-11 LBS and see what happens? obviously small adjustments first but it all seems to add up to the problems I have been fighting for 3 years. I only want to get to 24-25 lbs and this turbo should be able to do that all day long.

[Scoobum]

Shimy...set the low gear timing to 129. It'll hit sooner.

[gusszgs]

When I first bought my Razor's kit the initial "turn on" point was approx 5-6 psi..........I could still easily make 22-23 psi

[good2win22]

Something to consider when playing with the alky settings is that the alky pump needs to be able to overcome the pressurized air charge in the up pipe, assuming your nozzle is mounted in the up pipe. That being said, if you adjust anything, be sure to leave the knob on the controller set at 6 to start with.  Do you know what size orifice you have in the alky system? 

[Shimy87]

timing in first set to 129

alky system has whatever Julio sends out for Buicks??

[Steve Wood]

I will try once more.  First, The alky control pump puts out a lot more alky volume than did the old SMC kit.  Out of the box on the settings provided by Julio, it will easily handle a turbo 50% bigger than something more like a TE-44 or the modern 44 equivalents.  This means the kit may spray too much alky and cool the charge too much to obtain higher boosts.  An indication of this will be O2s that are somewhat above 800.  I am not saying that your problem is too much alky...the said problem being lower than expected boost that will not come up, but, your O2s appear to be pretty rich so   

I start off by running the car wot in third gear starting around 55-60 mph and accelerating as far in third as I dare to try to get a grasp on the O2s at the top part of third gear.  Until I can nail this, I don't waste my time in low and second gears.  Julio's instructions say put the blue gain knob around 5-6.  If the O2s are too high, you can try lowering this setting a bit at a time to see if you can get the O2s where they should be.

Chances are, you may go all the way to 1 on the gain setting and still be too high on the O2s and be blowing black smoke out the tail pipes.  You should not have any timing retard being shown but the car will not make the boost it should be making and the car will be slower than it should be.

In this case, put the blue gain knob back to 5-6 and go to the box under the dash and reduce the initial flow setting knob a little at a time until the O2s at the top end of third are where you want them.

The above is detailed on the last sheet of Julio's instructions for tuning.

The kit comes with a 10 gpm nozzle which is good for well into the tens.

After you get third gear dialed in, then you can start working on first gear with regard to timing and perhaps remove some fuel from the chip.

As you have an alky chip, I believe, you probably will not need to remove fuel from third gear but it might help when tuning at the track.

I have seen cars with the alky control kit make passes with a fuel pump that was barely working and not show much, if any, timing retard due to the high volume of alky being sprayed.  That would not be my choice but I have seen cars run in the tens with a bad fuel pump...go figure.

[Shimy87]

Thanks Steve, I did a ton of reading on this last night. I plan on doing exactly what you describe above, so far all testing has been the 60 mph and up in 3rd to see what boost and O2's are doing.

[Just a Six?]

Great input guys, I'll bet this is something I need to look at as well.