Ebay intercooler testing from the Pros at Buschur Racing....the facts, the truth
just saw this thread, WOW.
Not a whole lot to say, but way to go David. Your IC obviously PWNED the knock-off design. You did a great job logging everything.... I would have loved to see you re-tune the car to bring the knock levels down and see how much more of a gap there would be between them (peak HP wise), since that's what everyone seems so focused on. But then, I'm sure people would ***** about how you fuddled the tune or something stupid.
BTW, I don't own a single Buschur part.
Not a whole lot to say, but way to go David. Your IC obviously PWNED the knock-off design. You did a great job logging everything.... I would have loved to see you re-tune the car to bring the knock levels down and see how much more of a gap there would be between them (peak HP wise), since that's what everyone seems so focused on. But then, I'm sure people would ***** about how you fuddled the tune or something stupid.
BTW, I don't own a single Buschur part.
Because the only way to get the ebay IC to come within 10hp of the Buschur is without knock control. No knock control combined with a 50* increase in AIT is gonna mean a new motor at some point when all that detonation catches up with you. The only way to sotp it is to add fuel and pull timing, at which point that 10hp difference will become 30hp or more.
We finished Trent's car today. After compiling parts for it since last fall and getting everything together and tested we wanted it all got finished today.
The car is bad ***. He just wants to run for awhile on pump gas. So we went out for some road tuning rather than loading it on the dyno. I put the map in his car that came out of my car. Very close but my map is for race gas and he was running straight 94 octane, a full tank.
Since this is an intercooler thread, I am going to stick to only that point. While we were putting the car back together we noticed the FMIC and plumbing was very full of oil. Rather than just slap the car together we pulled the stuff off, cleaned it out as I recommended in the other thread about cleaning FMIC's. TONS of oil came out, his old turbo had taken a crap.
Out on the road the car is the fastest pump gas car I can remember ever being in. Top end is disgusting. 25 psi of boost, 94 octane, our Race FMIC and upper/lower 2.5" I/C pipes.
I/C temps at the start of the run 51 degrees, at 130 mph in 4th (that is running the car through 4 gears) air temps only went up to 58 degrees.
Good stuff.
The car is bad ***. He just wants to run for awhile on pump gas. So we went out for some road tuning rather than loading it on the dyno. I put the map in his car that came out of my car. Very close but my map is for race gas and he was running straight 94 octane, a full tank.
Since this is an intercooler thread, I am going to stick to only that point. While we were putting the car back together we noticed the FMIC and plumbing was very full of oil. Rather than just slap the car together we pulled the stuff off, cleaned it out as I recommended in the other thread about cleaning FMIC's. TONS of oil came out, his old turbo had taken a crap.
Out on the road the car is the fastest pump gas car I can remember ever being in. Top end is disgusting. 25 psi of boost, 94 octane, our Race FMIC and upper/lower 2.5" I/C pipes.
I/C temps at the start of the run 51 degrees, at 130 mph in 4th (that is running the car through 4 gears) air temps only went up to 58 degrees.
Good stuff.
We were not racing, isn't the rule on here about RACING? No it was no freaking closed course. It was on some bumpy country back road. I was hoping we'd find something to race while we were out cruising around other than the tractors we kept passing.
LOL!
Nice living in the middle of no place! Good job with the test!
Can you buy a new motor for $600?
Because the only way to get the ebay IC to come within 10hp of the Buschur is without knock control. No knock control combined with a 50* increase in AIT is gonna mean a new motor at some point when all that detonation catches up with you. The only way to sotp it is to add fuel and pull timing, at which point that 10hp difference will become 30hp or more.
Because the only way to get the ebay IC to come within 10hp of the Buschur is without knock control. No knock control combined with a 50* increase in AIT is gonna mean a new motor at some point when all that detonation catches up with you. The only way to sotp it is to add fuel and pull timing, at which point that 10hp difference will become 30hp or more.
I think we have found that the ebay FMIC (AMS knock off) is better than the stocker.
so what, If I stay with the stocker Im just knocking my motor to death?BTW this is not an attack, just a question.
Last edited by APEX1; May 27, 2007 at 06:58 PM.
Just a little something to add here. We took a friend's STI to the track last night. The car has a Treadstone intercooler that is like 28x12x4 and is essentially the same as the fleebay cores. 18 PSI on a rather large turbo. The car trapped 126mph. Sure it's not at the same power level as this test, but it's a pretty reasonable power level to heat soak an intercooler.
Intake temps rose 10 degree C over the 1320' pass with it being ~85 degrees F outside.
Would a Garrett core work better? Probably. Does the fleebay core work though? Certainly seems to.
Intake temps rose 10 degree C over the 1320' pass with it being ~85 degrees F outside.
Would a Garrett core work better? Probably. Does the fleebay core work though? Certainly seems to.
A little more update on that Threadstone intercooler. I've got to agree with David now, but I can offer some results without having anything to gain by selling a competing product. I hoped to see the $300 intercooler perform well, and it did up to a point.
On the dyno, the car made 793 WHP on 29 PSI. The intake air temperature went from 93 degrees to 115 degrees in a 4th gear pull. This is a 22 degree raise in intake temps, which seemed to be pretty reasonable considering the power level but did have me a little concerned considering it was a single gear pull. We iced down the manifold and sprayed water on the IC and the car picked up 14 WHP and HUGE midrange power with the turbo coming on almost 500 RPM sooner. The intake temps on this pull went from 79 degrees to 100 degrees, gaining 21 degrees still.
On the track, the weakness of the cheap intercooler showed strong. Yes, I will now call it cheap instead of "inexpensive". At 18 PSI, the car went 126mph and intake temps raised 18 degrees on the 1320 pass on a 90 degree day. A very reasonable gain and this is likely faster then many will see that are going to purchase such an intercooler. It started off promising and had me hopeful, but it pretty much tanked after this.
At 23 PSI the car went 130mph and intake temps raised 27 degrees. While the gains were getting larger, it was still performing decently well and the car was picking up power with boost, although not quite as much power as we had hoped for.
At 28 PSI the car went 134 mph and the intake temps jumped a huge 54 degrees. With the power made, we had anticipated over 140 mph traps at this level of boost but no amount of tuning would let it pick up power. To test it out even further, we upped the boost even higher, taking it to roughly 32 PSI. Still, 134mph was the best it would do. Although we did not get any logs to see the temperatures on these passes the car seems to have hit a brick wall at this point.
When you account for the density difference due to the intake temps, the car is likely down roughly 60-80 WHP at the 28 PSI level from where the car could be with a cooler capable of holding the gains to under 15 degrees. As such, we have decided to try out a Garrett core setup and hopefully it works as well as David is seeing.
On the dyno, the car made 793 WHP on 29 PSI. The intake air temperature went from 93 degrees to 115 degrees in a 4th gear pull. This is a 22 degree raise in intake temps, which seemed to be pretty reasonable considering the power level but did have me a little concerned considering it was a single gear pull. We iced down the manifold and sprayed water on the IC and the car picked up 14 WHP and HUGE midrange power with the turbo coming on almost 500 RPM sooner. The intake temps on this pull went from 79 degrees to 100 degrees, gaining 21 degrees still.
On the track, the weakness of the cheap intercooler showed strong. Yes, I will now call it cheap instead of "inexpensive". At 18 PSI, the car went 126mph and intake temps raised 18 degrees on the 1320 pass on a 90 degree day. A very reasonable gain and this is likely faster then many will see that are going to purchase such an intercooler. It started off promising and had me hopeful, but it pretty much tanked after this.
At 23 PSI the car went 130mph and intake temps raised 27 degrees. While the gains were getting larger, it was still performing decently well and the car was picking up power with boost, although not quite as much power as we had hoped for.
At 28 PSI the car went 134 mph and the intake temps jumped a huge 54 degrees. With the power made, we had anticipated over 140 mph traps at this level of boost but no amount of tuning would let it pick up power. To test it out even further, we upped the boost even higher, taking it to roughly 32 PSI. Still, 134mph was the best it would do. Although we did not get any logs to see the temperatures on these passes the car seems to have hit a brick wall at this point.
When you account for the density difference due to the intake temps, the car is likely down roughly 60-80 WHP at the 28 PSI level from where the car could be with a cooler capable of holding the gains to under 15 degrees. As such, we have decided to try out a Garrett core setup and hopefully it works as well as David is seeing.
Last edited by 03whitegsr; Jul 28, 2007 at 11:35 AM.
