March 4, 2008 - The moment of truth for the header.
Did all that work actually get me anything? In short, yes! I saw a gain of 15 lb-ft at 3500 rpm and around 10 hp at 5200 rpm. Cue the happy dance.
The car sure sounded different, as you could hear some strong resonances and beats coming from underhood. That's good, the header is all about resonant frequencies.
On the dyno run, you can see the Racing Beat header in blue and the new one in red. Other than a minor loss between 4000-4500 rpm, the new one is a winner right across the board. It didn't unplug the engine above 6000 rpm as I'd hoped, but a big slug of torque across the range is a lot more useful on the Targa.
Dyno chart
Now, the engine still isn't anywhere near its potential. Keep that in mind when looking at the dyno chart. I don't know if my 200 hp at the wheels goal is attainable, but 170 should be possible. The cams are under suspicion, as sister engines to this one have held power a bit longer without giving up the bottom end. I have another couple of options to try and there hasn't been any experimentation with the cam gears yet. Since they typically trade off low end for high end and vice versa, I don't think they're going to solve things overall. Still, it's worth trying.
Jeremy Ferber from Flyin' Miata was the tuning meister, working in temporary conditions as FM is in the middle of a move.
It wasn't all good news, though. It turns out the car has a problem with the wideband O2 sensor, so we couldn't do a whole lot with tuning. Normally, Jeremy has enough experience to tune via injector pulse width against horsepower, but the 2001 injectors I'm using aren't in his mental program. So I'll be doing a little diagnosis to sort that out - we suspect the heater circuit isn't working. The car was also running hotter than it should, so I'll take a look to make sure the thermostat is working properly.
tags: header, engine, dyno |
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