944 dyno day?

[Ex Skyline]

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

Is that all you've got Andy??!!

Confucious he say:

"168 horses in the hand are better than 300 horses in Jon Mitchel's garage". [][]

Ha, Ha, Ha!!! Fcuking Quality!! Paul, you are a very funny man [][]. I'm loving it [][]!!

Paul Smith, I was there mate but, in a souped up T4 [8D]! Shame we didn't get to say hello [].

 

[Ex Skyline]

Oy! It's just sunk in []! It's 330 horses in Jon' Mitchel's Garage if you don't mind [8D]!! [][]!!

 

[CarreraRSR]

ORIGINAL: Ex Skyline

Oy! It's just sunk in []! It's 330 horses in Jon' Mitchel's Garage if you don't mind [8D]!! [][]!!

It may be 330horses in JMG, but will only be sub 300 on Wests rollers.

I think there were a lot of stray horses grazing on the Thruxton grass rather than running for their lives on the rollers.

 

[Indi9xx]

Ay ay ay... What are you guys trying to say? []

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Oy! It's just sunk in ! It's 330 horses in Jon' Mitchel's Garage if you don't mind !! !!

Love it when a joke takes three pages of a forum to sink in.... [][]

I owe you a beer, Pete, some people would have got annoyed over that!

 

[tref]

Gentlefolk,

Good to same the humour of the day continues[]

I'm afraid I scribbled down figures I saw, but missed many, and it wasn't necessarily the "best" run of any particular vehicle. When you then have things like the Cayman going into some "safe" mode because the front wheels aren't spinning at the same rate as the back - indeed, I was surprised that even the (I would say relatively early) 993 couldn't be run without some major fiddling about... As such, and combined with the fact I missed some cars altogether, I think it somewhat unfair to publish any figures. If anyone missed their own, I am happy to say if I have a figure for any particular vehicle, or if anyone else has a photo including the plot with eth figure on, put it up here. I think it better to hear it from the owners though, as Ray imparted a fair bit of comment - my S2 for example, 202HP on Petrol (someone told me it should be 208 - but I don't know if that is with a cat or without - mine is without, and has been all the time I have owned it. The figures on LPG were 164.9HP, but the run was terminated at just over 4k rpm because it was starting to run lean... more importantly, at that point it was only 10HP down on the Petrol figures, and had been following the curve very closely - Once it is right I reckon it will only be something like 10-15HP down on LPG - but I dare say most of you aren't interested in my experiments in LPG!

As for next year? Well... I'd love to see it happen again - it is an event which fits well in the calendar - it is difficult to find stuff to do in the winter, and whilst we were blessed with a beautiful day, it would have been ok if it were raining, being all under cover. But... it was subsidised to a degree by the Dorset region, and I don't think that if it were just the 944 register, or just Dorset region there would have been sufficient uptake to justify it (the whole reason for a joint venture in the first place). Had it been in the summer, I know Ray's rollers would be a struggle, as he is busy with racing work - he doesn't need dyno days, and generally doesn't do them - because he doesn't want to - apparently, we are a good bunch, and he would consider it again[]
We could throw it open to a wider bunch of people? True, but then there is an expectation by people that it is an "organised, profit-making event" and the expectations are higher - you lose the very camaraderie and "fun" that a couple of small groups that we in Dorset and the 944 register are - and the willingness to forgive my lack of organisational skills! I dare say at the next Dorset meeting it will be discussed, and we will see what people think, otherwise I suspect it will be necessary to find another group to do a "joint" effort with - the numbers of 944s aren't exactly going upwards - but I'd have loved to see maybe a 968 (968 Turbo?) and 924 or two... Oh, and the 928[]

That said... good events snowball... and if the talk is right at the same time next year, I might be talked into it again... Did I really just say that?[:'(]

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Well, having seen the regular Silverstone dyno events run year after year it should be repeatable?

If it wasn't a fair price per car, un-subsidised, then perhaps we'd need to see the cost for the day, and work it out on how many would turn up, to get a better idea of next year's costs? I think people would happily pay more for the dyno run, bearing in mind the cost of travel, burgers etc. is way more than the actual fee.

Interesting to see the discussion about lost horses. The whole point of the annual Silverstone dyno was that it made for accurate year-to-year comparisons between the same cars, and was brutally honest for first-timers on that dyno. I think, given the very good results from cars like Andy's and Tref's, you couldn't say that Ray's machine was reading under by a large amount? If the cars that were 10% under what they expected, then you'd have to add 10% to all the cars, and that would plainly be wrong.

I wonder how many of the cars that seemed down on the day had previously been quoted figures from people involved with the car's build? Perhaps there might have been "optimistic" readings when there was a large invoice imminent! Not to criticise anyone, of course, just suggesting that there's no reason a tuner's dyno should read as accurately as one on an open day. []

 

[944Turbo]

David's plot

and from Silverstone

The car was sold shortly after Silverstone and relatively recently bought back, the boost was higher at Thruxton as the boost controller wasn't quite optimised - Ray thought there was some slight pinking In addition it was running a set of my old plug leads as we discovered the leads on it were in a poor state. Those leads came off my car as they were leaking, but they were a big improvement over the ones we removed (aftermarket with BBT Germany SIlicon on them). The car has some boost leaks so to achieve the boost levels the turbo was working harder so less efficient and probably generating more heat. So we were some horses down but I am confident some could be recovered correcting these issues, ideally we will run it at the correct 1.25 bar as well!

Tony

 

[tref]

Interesting stuff Tony... I also wonder what difference the tyre pressures (and what we're they actually set at assuming not what the Dyno was told) and the gear which it is run up in makes? I understand the theory of letting it coast backwards to calculate the losses, and would assume that should eliminate any differences... But does it?

 

[Diver944]

ORIGINAL: Ex Skyline

Paul Smith, I was there mate but, in a souped up T4 [8D]! Shame we didn't get to say hello [].

But we did Pete, we had a chat about my business partners T4 with the VR6 engine in it. Pleased to meet you mate []

 

[MarkK]

Forum name badges would really work at these meets!

 

[Suffolk944]

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

Interesting to see the discussion about lost horses. The whole point of the annual Silverstone dyno was that it made for accurate year-to-year comparisons between the same cars, and was brutally honest for first-timers on that dyno. I think, given the very good results from cars like Andy's and Tref's, you couldn't say that Ray's machine was reading under by a large amount? If the cars that were 10% under what they expected, then you'd have to add 10% to all the cars, and that would plainly be wrong.

I wonder how many of the cars that seemed down on the day had previously been quoted figures from people involved with the car's build? Perhaps there might have been "optimistic" readings when there was a large invoice imminent! Not to criticise anyone, of course, just suggesting that there's no reason a tuner's dyno should read as accurately as one on an open day. []

That may well be the case - My car made a smidgen over 330 last weekend whereas as my sig below suggests it "achieved"a higher figure last year at the tuners. Will have to dig out that print out and see what type of RR it was done on (if it says). Ray seemed pretty impressed with the car, though pointed out a small boost blip mid range which may have affected the figure a tad. Will have to see if the previous print out suggests that too.

Car had also been sat outside in the rain without turning a wheel since last November so it didn't feel at its best on the way down. Felt much better on the way back though ! [8D]

 

[Diver944]

ORIGINAL: tref

but I dare say most of you aren't interested in my experiments in LPG!

On the contrary I find it very interesting and impressive with what you have achieved. Your engine is obviously in fine fettle anyway to achieve close to factory figures after all these years, and to see a potential drop of only 10bhp when you switch to LPG is very encouraging. That would still give you 20bhp more than my old smoker and your fuel would be half the price - swine [].

Over the past 10 years my S2 has been on the rollers four times and has slowly measured less and less as the time goes by and the miles rack up. This is to be expected as things do wear and eventually will not be anywhere near as efficient. I am hopeful that a re-ringing of the engine in a few years time will bring things back up to scratch again.

 

[944Turbo]

ORIGINAL: tref

Interesting stuff Tony... I also wonder what difference the tyre pressures (and what we're they actually set at assuming not what the Dyno was told) and the gear which it is run up in makes? I understand the theory of letting it coast backwards to calculate the losses, and would assume that should eliminate any differences... But does it?

At Silverstone we did run a turbo in 3rd and 4th because someone said it would give better figures ( I think learnt from Rennlist) plots were exactly the same! Going back to Davids - you can see its not happy by looking at the peak power, at Silverstone it was around 5300rpm wheras at Thruxton it peaks at 4000rpm - this I think backs up my theory of boost leaks making the turbo work harder and being out of its efficiency range and maybe the ignition being pulled back or my old ignition leads were breaking down.
(Note :- graphs are not quite a direct comparison as the torque is a different scale - torque (340ish ftlbs) is hiding under the power (295BHP) at Thruxton whereas it rises above at Silverstone (385ish ftlbs 319.4BHP)


PS also interested in the LPG experiments!

 

[Ex Skyline]

ORIGINAL: Diver944

ORIGINAL: Ex Skyline

Paul Smith, I was there mate but, in a souped up T4 [8D]! Shame we didn't get to say hello [].

But we did Pete, we had a chat about my business partners T4 with the VR6 engine in it. Pleased to meet you mate []

Doh...[]!! What a dinlo I am! Sorry Paul, of course we did. I must be getting a touch of Alzheimers [][]!! V6 T4 Caravelle's
are the Mutz Nutz []! An old friend of mine used to have one pushing out around 500 Donkeys...[8D]!! Nice to meet you too
mate []. Anyway, I reckon Ray West's rollers are sha99ed []. Except in the case of Andy Watson's car of course [].
Mc Nutters, make it a Japanese Lager [8D][]!!

 

[Ewan]

Is ten smilies in one post a record?

 

[tref]

ORIGINAL: Diver944

ORIGINAL: tref

but I dare say most of you aren't interested in my experiments in LPG!

On the contrary I find it very interesting and impressive with what you have achieved. Your engine is obviously in fine fettle anyway to achieve close to factory figures after all these years, and to see a potential drop of only 10bhp when you switch to LPG is very encouraging. That would still give you 20bhp more than my old smoker and your fuel would be half the price - swine [].

Over the past 10 years my S2 has been on the rollers four times and has slowly measured less and less as the time goes by and the miles rack up. This is to be expected as things do wear and eventually will not be anywhere near as efficient. I am hopeful that a re-ringing of the engine in a few years time will bring things back up to scratch again.

Not sure when it ceases to be an experiment - I've covered over 17k miles on gas now[8|]. I'd be interested to know how many miles, and what maintenance regime you have in place is? Over tens of thousands of miles, maybe, but I wouldn't expect a dramatic drop unless something is on its way out - once a bore is scored, that will get worse relatively quickly for example. I must admit I consider my maintenance regime to be pretty poor, except for keeping the oil and filter changed regularly. Everything else I let slip a bit... ok, a lot!

That said, the plugs, dizzy cap, rotor arm, leads etc were all changed just before the LPG conversion - so that would still be about 17k ago. One thing I did discover in my investigation of LPG is that most of the vehicles that had been running on it had cover monumental mileages. The previous 944 converted (an 8v) was on 3 or 400k miles before it was scrapped due to the cills - 500k+ mileages were not uncommon - now ok - people that convert to LPG probably do so because they cover high mileages, so the savings are significant, but it would seem that either the extra use, or the type of use, or running on LPG itself, extends the life of the engine. I have a feeling it could be the use of LPG itself - the oil stays clean, the combustion chambers stay clean, which I think must help longevity.

One thing though... it isn't half price. Not only is the cost a lot more than half, it is also exceedingly variable - and you still use some petrol (not just when you really, really want the extra horses to get past that other car, which itself is great, having those extra few horse on a button), so overall I reckon I save about 7p/mile, when the overall running costs are around 26p/mile, all in (and I mean ALL in!).

I should probably start a thread or write it up as an article for those interested... which reminds me... I believe I'm supposed to be writing something up for the Dyno day and the deadline is fast approaching! Ouch!

 

[Ex Skyline]

Defo a great day out with friends Tref' [8D]. I'm all up for making it an annual event, and for putting a few quid into the Dorset Air
Ambulance's coffers []!! I will bring "The Beast" next year and break Ray's rollers! Oh, I forgot, they're broken anyway (except in
the case of Andy's mobile of course) [][]!!

 

[ChasR]

I would have loved to have come down but I was picking my 944 up from the paintshop roughly at about the same time the rolling road was taking place! Due to it going into the paintshop a short while ago (December) I also did not tax it, letting the shop paint it when they could.

It seems as if it was a great day out though mind you! Bring on the meets later on in the year .

 

[T3rra]

How about another in April give everyone some time to find them lost horses? Be another year off use