Rolling road shoot out

Hi all,
I got invited to attend a rolling road shoot out this morning to make up numbers for the the day.It was for a Subaru Impreza s drivers club in Ireland.Fourteen cars attended in all , 2 two wheel drive cars and 14 Subaru s consisting of STi ,Foresters , Legacy B4 , Wrx , RA , Sierra Cosworth and the 850 T5.

All the Subarus went first being 4 wheel drives one of the Imprezas developed 352 bhp and 355 ibs torque before christmas but was a little sick today due to bad fuel they decided not to run it ,the B4 (nice Car twin turbos )limited to 120mph made 267bhp in 3 rd gear before the limiter kicked in it was running 0.8 of a bar low for a car that can run 1.4 + bar.
The modded cossie went first 271 BHP and 276 Ibs of Torque, i followed 277, BHP little dissappointing we coudnt get the front tires to grip the rollers even with four people standing on the door sills,they just smoked and kept breaking traction,the air temp was 15 c which did nt help i guess, but the Torque came up to 332 Ibs which i was very happy with ,the other drivers could not believe the torque for a two wheel drive which was the highest of the day, a few of the drivers were asking questions about price limitations to power etc, i think some Subaru drivers may be converted.
A proud day to be a Volvo Driver.

Paddy -Jason

Weren't the cars strapped down? I can't believe they let people stand on the sills with the rolling road moving - it's incredibly dangerous. Still, glad you enjoyed it.

Adam.

Hi Adam,
Yes the car where strapped down at the back sides and front,still kept spinning the wheels though.
I would like to send you an e-mail of the print out graph showing the bhp and torque ,since the car was remapped i have had this stumble in power only when driving slowly up the revs at 3100 aprox the power falls away for a second and then picks back up it has always been there,would like to find out why it does this and is it possible to change the map slightly to allow for this brief fall off?
The guy who done the dyno is excellent he builds racing engines and has 3 rolling roads for 2 and 4 wheel ,he seems to think that the turbo is dropping off a little at 3100 then spooling back up ,he thinks the program may be a little brutal (which is what i requested) what do you think have you noticed this before? under hard acceleration it is not noticeable ,only under gradual acceration is the power drop felt.

Regards

Jason.
Regards

Jason.

Yes, send me the chart. Could really do with AFR and boost on the chart too. Did you try the other ECU?

Adam.

[don kalmar union]

Good morning Jason,

I do not think that you should be at all upset by the results that you got from your car last week.

If my memory serves me you have an 850 T5, with a reworked head, Ferrita downpipe without cat, sports system after that, plus a specially written RICA software upgrade. I don't know what turbo you have.

To get 277bhp and 332 ft.lbs of torque out of one of these earlier engines on a properly callibrated third party rolling road is a very good result indeed.

My old '96 S70 T5, which I have modified to run in the Toyo Modified Saloon Car Championship has produced 284bhp/330ft.lbs with very similar additions to yours. A fully ported and polished head and inlet tract, special downpipe with cat plus exhaust with only one unbaffled box, 18T turbo and a Dastek/Unichip. All the work has been done by outside suppliers and the last setting of the Dastek by about the very best specialist in that field.

Your results about match every one seen for the earlier engines.... underlining yet again that mid 270's bhp is the very best that can be got from these engines without at the very least adding the revisions that Volvo made on the 850R and subsequant S/V/C70 T5 engines where early 280's are the achieveable norm.

Any amount of puffery by some suppliers just cannot overcome the physical limitations of any of these engines with just a software rewrite.

Whilst into this subject, I have just fitted a reworked 18T plus some detailed inlet pipe changes to my old S70 and will be getting the Dastek reset in the next week or two to see what that work has done. I will let you know what we have gained.

Regards, Don.Norchi.

www.kalmar-union.com

[Dan F]

Hi.

I had 282BHP and 284lb/ft with only a RICA remap and a cat back exhaust on Power Engineerings '3rd party' and 'properly calibrated' rolling road.

Those figures, incidentally, were achieved with a faulty MAF sensor, and before Volvo upgraded the ECU software to their latest version as well. I now have RICA and the latest Volvo software in place and it is running very well indeed!!
It is now noticably faster and pulls harder than it did whilst on the rollers (or on the road) that day too. Optimax (98) or Ultimate (97) are my fuels of choice, (NEVER use 95) and on the above occasion it was Ultimate that was being used.

Once I have my downpipe and race cat (when the current one gives up) I will be keen to see the gains. :)

Cheers,
Dan.

[burchi]

Hi Dan.. Quick few questions if I may...

What year is your car? How did you manage to get the ECU upgraded by Volvo to the latest version? Do you know what version this is? What difference does it make? Will I lose my RICA upgrade if I get this done?

Would appreciate your comments on this if you can help.

Thanks

[don kalmar union]

Dan,

Precisely.... 280+ with a later engine on a third party rolling road. And, you are showing quite a low torque figure, presumeably sacrificed for higher horse power, when it is the torque figure that gets you going and not high end power figures bouncing off the rev limiter where you never need to go with these engines anyway.

I take no issue with the figures that you now have with your car... that is what any competant software rewriter gets. Figures of 300bhp plus with just rewritten software are just plain ####.

Regards, Don.

www.kalmar-union.com

[Dan F]

Hi.

I don't know what the version of software is that they put on my car, but I was told by the service manager that it is the latest version.

I had a problem with my cold starting and I had my ECU and throttle unit software reflashed with the latest versions. This does overwrite your RICA software though!!

If your engine is running fine then don't mess with the software, just to get the latest x0.x0.1 version, if you see what I mean.

In other words if it 'aint broke, then don't fix it. ;-)

Later,
Dan.

[Dan F]

Hi Don.

Re the 'low' torque figure; as I said, my car was poorly at the time and it was pulling hard then, never mind now!! I will be getting it RRd again as soon as an opportunity presents itself that is convenient to me.

282BHP (whilst poorly) is still only 18 BHP below 300 and with the way my car is going now I reckon it would show in the mid 290s now if not more on a rolling road.

Admittedly any BHP claims can be on the high side, but then I went into this with my eyes wide open and the car performs like I want it to.
The very fact that my car got those figures with a faulty MAF, 97 fuel and not 98, and with the relatively poor airflow from the, frankly, meagre fan that was used, means I am pretty sure that the car will top 300 easy on the road. No RR fan can move as much air through a cars grill as being driven on the road. My engine is much cooler after coming off the M'way, than it was after 5 mins on the RR!

I understand what you are saying, and the newer engines are a refinement of the original design, they are stronger, lighter and have CVVT but even so, at least we can all get serious HP out of these babies for a *relatively* small outlay.

I do think though, (and I am sure you will agree here) that it would be nice if some national regulatory body was set up to verify and regulate aftermarket BHP claims so the playing field could be officially levelled out.

Regardless of the actual figures though, all I know is that the RICA software really performs and the service you receive whilst at VT is top notch. :)

Later guys,
Dan.