Honest Comparisons Between Different Turbo Setups

[Lithium]

Hi all,

There are heaps of threads around on different turbo and engine combinations with these cars. There are clearly different preferences people have, and some people in their enthusiastic like or dislike for a particular combination will often smudge fact a bit.

What occurs to me is that a large percentage of people on here will be running Links/ViPECs, and have similar gear ratios and cars. Who else thinks there could be merit in doing some Link data log sharing to help get an honest comparison of what happens with these cars?

We could agree on a few key tests, such as full throttle from 3000rpm, 3500rpm, 4000rpm and 4500rpm in 2nd and 3rd get etc - and export the log files and find a way of sharing them around.

If there is enough interest, a little project I've been doing in my spare time (in between playing cars, drinking, working, forum whoring etc thats not necessarily heaps ) has been putting together software similar to VirtualDyno for EvoScan for Links which was intended for helping me out when a dyno isn't available for doing a bit of tuning, I could try and tweak that to put together suitable comparisons... I'm sure other people are capable of "things" too.

Just a thought, hair brained or has some merit?

[R31Nismoid]

Had good merit until you said large percentage using a Link, kinda doubt that.

Gonna be hard to find many with the same ECU/Turbo combo imo... except maybe a 3076

Once you get a way to load it into a DB, would be easy. Just depends if output format is always the same

[Lithium]

Had good merit until you said large percentage using a Link, kinda doubt that.

Once you get a way to load it into a DB, would be easy. Just depends if output format is always the same

A large percentage doesn't have to be over half, there are lots of people running Links (including the Links rebranded as Vipecs)... enough of a percentage to do something if there are enough people keen.

If nothing else, if we came up with a common CSV format to abide to then we could look into making converters to extract the necessary info and output in that format.

[sriver killer]

Had good merit until you said large percentage using a Link, kinda doubt that.

Gonna be hard to find many with the same ECU/Turbo combo imo... except maybe a 3076

Once you get a way to load it into a DB, would be easy. Just depends if output format is always the same

except maybe a 3076:P

make it a sticky!

[rob82]

Why dont you just organise a dyno day and log MAF volts(of a common MAF let say a VH45), rpm and boost to the dyno computer. That will tell you a whole lot more in terms of mass flow rates rather than just boost vs RPM. You can also see how different setups convert the mass flow into power.

[Lithium]

Because can't see myself convincing a range of people to come to Wellington, NZ with different modified Skylines, hack the intake up to accomodate a VH45 AFM and run them on a dyno as easily as it would be to get someone to go for a quick jaunt with datalogging going

I wouldn't want everyone to have the same turbo combo, that defeats the purpose. The kind of thing I'd be looking for is stuff like 2500-3500rpm in 2nd gear, 3500-4500rpm and stuff like that - and also boost curves for the same thing. Keeps it simple and more accurate than someone saying "My T3/T04S makes full boost at 3100rpm" and everyone else going and buying T3/T04Ss based on that comment.

[hypergear]

When comparing dynosheets, assume the car's got the same modes you need to make sure the dynos are running the same amount of ramp timing and configuration data. Dyno shoot outs with long ramp timing would appear really responsive with power, torque and boost shifted to the left, while runs based on lower timing would have every thing spread out to the right.

Ie:

Blue is 12 sec ramp, and Green is 9 sec ramp.

9 Sec is very close to a single driver on flate road, while 12 sec or above is more like going up hills.

So If I run a 3540 with 17 sec ramp vs a 3076 with 9 sec ramp then the result in response would comes up really close making you think the 3540 is more responsive and makes more power.

The readings out of the dyno sheet sections are mixed bunch of 9 sec, 12 sec and god knows what. So identical setups have different readings between dynos and tuners.

When we our evaluation and tests, all Ramp timings are based at 9 secs unless stated other wise.

[Lithium]

The trick with that is that you still can't see the response, when a car is lagging the earlier part happens slower - then when on boost it happens faster. Acceleration has a cumulative effect on "eating distance" so a little difference in torque earlier may have a bigger (or less) long term affect than the dyno plot may have it look like... if you have a way of working out how much affect the lag (and after the lag) has in the real world then potentially it'd build a better picture of whats actually faster.

The dyno will never show how the car reacts to snapping from 10pc to 100pc throttle at 4500rpm, for sake of arguement.

[scotty nm35]

I agree, my stage 1 sierra highflow did very well for what it was but the response wasn't quick, at say 4000 revs it would take twice the time to spool as the GTX, possibly because the larger housing allows more energy to spin up the turbine, and less restriction? I wasn't expecting a faster response anyway...

It would be good to have some direct comparisons, especially if as many factors as possible are controlled. Same car, same dyno would be good but realistically it isn't going to happen. The more information the better.