**This is one post that stood out as something I wanted to take the time to answer.

First, why are so many of you guys looking for the "secret"? I am truly lost. Over a year ago I posted Nick Andy's results here on EVOm, that car also made 525 whp on our dyno on 93 octane. Memo's just a few weeks ago made right at 500-510 on 93 octane. As a matter of fact because memo had some problems with his alky kit in the past I talked him out of using it and we took it off and I showed him why we didn't need it. There is no freaking secret, it is all about COMBINATION AND TUNING.

The compression ratio is 8.8:1, same as every single other 2 liter we build, same as stock and same as our 8 second drag car and my 9 second RS and my brothers 9 second EVO8. Turbine housing is a standard T3 housing bolted on our standard header. The exhaust is our full 3" with TWO BR MUFFLERS IN IT! To help keep it quiet.

How safe is the tune? Well, Trent drives this car 61 miles each way to work and does not turn the boost down, it is set at 28-30 psi at all times. The tune is NOT changed to drive it and the car has gotten over 31 mpg making this 122 mile round trip to work drive everyday.

I am going to say something I shouldn't. There was a time, not too long ago, when I thought I knew about tuning. I have been tuning stand alones now only since 2003. In that time though I have had to do THOUSANDS of tunes, I am constantly tuning. It is on my mind more hours of the day than I care to admit. It is a passion for me. I can tell you as soon as I start whether or not a car is going to make power or not. I can LOOK at the combination and get close to what it is going to make. Anyway, back to what I was saying, not too long ago when I thought I knew something about tuning I had some arguements and called BS on some things too. Now, looking back, I was wrong just as 94awdcoupe is wrong now (and some others but the rest of you aren't being so pushy about thinking you are smart).

We were just talking at the shop Friday night about the Car and Driver Super Four Challenge. I WISH we could do that race again. Knowing what I know now about tuning we would absolutely KILL the field of cars, it would be laughable. Imagine Trent's car on the rush to get to 140 mph, which was done from a decent roll exiting a chicane, wow would I love to be invited back to an event like that again. What I have learned is rediculous, it comes from never stopping and NEVER again thinking I have achieved the maximum output from ANY combination of parts.

I am very interested in putting my RS on pump gas now and taking it to the track, if Trent's up for driving it on some 93-94 octane fuel we might have to take it out and see what it will run. Maybe we'll take Daniel's car too, get a whole bunch of them in the mid 10's on 93, just to prove a point.

Maybe this years shootout should have a pump gas only class at it.

I don't want to waste too much time on pump as my goal is still to break 150 mph in my daily driver......

 

Congrats, one hell of a DD. Dave amazing job as always, keep up the Great work.

 

Would you care to mention what things (back then, like at the Car and Driver Super Four) did you not realize as you do now, particularily with tuning stratagy?

 

The point is unless there is something of particular relevance that is conspicuously left undisclosed (which IS sometimes the case here), the picture rarely distills down to a single 'secret'. The end result of anything is due to a combination of contributing factors, many of which tend to be overlooked.

 

Heres the secret combination


All buschur parts

 

thats what you learn in racing, or atleast in professional racing, in an environment of very very stiff competition....

its the combination of 1000 little details that makes you a tenth of a second faster... not one big detail.... we used to cover things like shocks on the open wheel race cars with little covers.... to make people go "oh hey... i wonder what they are doing with their shocks?" .... and while they were doing that, they were too busy to notice the small simple things on the car....

there are obviously a few people out there that have found the sweet spot on these cars..... the difference is... even once you find it... you never stop looking for more!

cb

 

trent, I have been to the shootout once. Its a nice event but not worth 35hrs of drive time for a few hours of fun. My car is a two door and my family of four would not enjoy such a trip. But just to address the challange my car is not setup to be a straight 93 octane king. You do have to build the setup and the powerband to deal with detonation issues of a low octane fuel. The intercooler as well needs to be maximum heat removal, which mine is not. With 90 degree dyno temps my ****ty spearco core was allowing intake temps of 119 after repeted pulls at just 21psi. with the alky on the intake temps were 65-75 degrees at 34psi. Its a dumb agruement to say you can make as much power with straight 93 as you can with 93/alky. David infers you dont need alky to make power with 93. I laugh at that statement. I agree alky is a pain in the **** and many have blown engines from it failing including myself. But making power on straight 93 here in florida leaves much to be desired. Your car may very well make 580ish whp dynojet on straight 93 but it would make substatially more on 93/alky. enough said. The main difference between your setup and mine is in IMHO your setup is not a fun daily driver and mine is. I have seen the dyno graphs dave has posted from a nice rockin 20g setup VS a rockin 2.0/35r. there is no comparison how much faster the 20g setup makes power. If you comparred my power curve to yours it would be the same type comparison. My car makes power 1000rpm sooner than your setup. And for that very reason that is why my car cant be a pump gas king. Making high cylinder pressure low in the rpm band is what causes detonation to be a problem. There are too many things in my setup that makes the turbo spool fast, but that is what makes it a ball to drive. Driving my car feels like driving a well setup 16g car with an extra 250hp. Plus I am not convinced your 93 octane is the same as ours. We get 7% meth in our windshield washer fluid, and ohio gets 40%. Your e85 is e70 during the winter and ours is e85 year round. what makes everyone think ohio gas is the same as florida gas? I would love to see your car dyno on our local gas. That would be the only way to settle this for me. There is a local here about ready to tune his buschur part 2.3/35r car. He has all buschur parts save the ams intake mani. I will be sure to report how well that car does on 93 and on race gas. It may very well be dave is the best tuner for these cars hands down. But I bet my life a soso tuner like brad brooks is not leaving 150whp on the table like dave is suggesting. brad brooks is on the same level as shawn Ivey. he is the best tuner hands down that comes to tampa. I can tune my own car but it takes me much longer than someone who does it everyday. I just prefer to have it done by a professional as I am not very patient. Plus breathing race gas fumes on the dyno for hours at a time is not my idea of smart. I saw my grandfather die of lung cancer. its not a pretty way to go.

 

What does your screen name mean? It makes no sense to me.


94AWDCoupe, now you are implying Ohio has special <better> 93 octane fuel? Seriously...

 

c6c6ch3vo,
It isn't just one thing I have come to realize since the Super Four Challenge, it is a bunch of things combined. Tuning, parts combination, boost pressures that are actually safe that before I never thought possible etc.

TedB, nothing has been overlooked or left out of the combination on Trent's car. Other than the tuning, which I won't talk about, everything is standard off the shelf stuff that we use in every other car we build.

CRAP!!!! Trent our secret is out!! It's the special Ohio fuel we are running, damn it, I knew someone would figure us out! Too bad I made killer power on Dennis's car from California on California 91 octane! haha

 

525 hp or 1 hp, who gives a ratz azz........135 mph trap speed is damn impressive on 93 octane. It would seem that even Daves Mustang dyno reads high, considering a stock z06 is rated at 505hp and runs 130-133 mph trap speeds. And as to what he does different, I still believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, they just work together well. Great job

 

Thats just strait up AWESOME!!!
Props to you and BR!

 

Those z06's are definetly underrated from the factory I bet.

ihuntv8, you should keep running pump and shoot for mid 10's!
Also how do you like launching with that exedy triple metallic, I have one as well and its tough to launch softly?

 

we have a 2006 Z06 here,

its a monster for a production car... ill dyno it for you guys

dave's dyno definetly doesnt read high... ours doesnt, and his seems to read a tiny bit lower that ours

cb

 

Dave, get in contact with Car and Driver and make a challange all the companies in that test. i have no doubts that u will murder them. in fact i would love to see it.

the HKS evo won it all correct?

 

Let us say you take all the tuners in the states who have ever mapped a GT35R evo with built motor, head, excellent intercooler, nice cams, instake mani, TB, etc. I'd suspect this list could not be that huge. Then deduct from the list all the tuners/customers who don't frequent this board.

How many of these tuners even tried to map the customer car to 30 PSI on pump?

I think there is no mystery here. Just a lack of trying to see if more power could be made with more boost / less timing. As I said before, in the UK they run A LOT of boost on pump for a long long time now.