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I have to say that what you said below just kind of supports my theory on the shop not having a ton of experience with this platform. They might not be bad guys or had bad intentions, but their lack of knowledge cost you an engine. That's the bottom line.
Even at 4.2 lbs. of boost, you should have still gained power. If tuned properly, a little over 20 rwhp per psi is pretty normal. So gains in the ~90 rwhp range would have been reasonable to expect. You won't see huge gains at that boost level, but it definitely won't make you lose power.
I'm not sure what was causing the valve float, but boost alone usually won't cause that if the spring is otherwise correct for the cam you're running. It's possible your low boost was the result of the valve float. Either way, the 4.2 psi wasn't what was costing you power. If the shop thought that, then it's a little scary.
An engine that flows more air will result in lower boost pressure --- that's normal. 4.2 psi seems a little low to me, though I don't know your original pulley size or what head unit you have. The usual course of action in a case like this (with an otherwise healthy engine) would be to pulley it down to gain back whatever boost you lost from the increased engine airflow/efficiency. Something like a 3.6" or 3.4" pulley on the blower would have been plenty. What they suggested was overkill. Big time.
As for the meth kit.... like others have mentioned, go with the Alky Control kit. ECS sells a lot of them. Personally, I wouldn't consider any other meth kit for a C6. The Alky kit is tried and true. I buy my meth (VP M1) in 5 gallon drums from my local motorcycle shop. Find a shop that sells VP products, and they can usually order you methanol.
Good luck
Originally Posted by travis1693
Guess I should explain the balancer pulley theory we tried to everyone, it might be helpful.
The reason we switched to the overdrive pulley and 3.47 sc pulley was because when I first did the sc set up, I actually lost hp and could only build about 4.2 lbs of boost. On the dyno, my valves were floating at 5500 rpms and hp came in at just a little under 500 (prior to sc it ran about 525). General consensus was because of the wc stage 4 kit the car was originally set up to flow which inhibited it's ability to build boost.
The plan was different cam, and stiffer valve springs. The recommendation for the 8 rib set up came along later before reassembly.
In my shop's defense, please keep in mind that they did not sell me any of the parts nor charge me extra for the 8 rib install. They just recommended what to buy and where to get it. They had no motive for upselling parts. However, I do think they did push the limits too far which costed me my motor. I honestly believe that they had no intention of blowing it up, but they did want the publicity of the build. That being said, I don't think it would be very good for business if word got out that they blew my car up, and I have no intention of doing so, guess I'm a nice guy. I think in this game of hp, there is a fine line between achieving maximum results and melt down, mistakes are possible as we are all human.
Back to business: Please take me to school on Meth kits 101. Recommendations on which set up to use, and proper tuning recommendations to use meth as a safeguard but not to rely on it. Oh ya, where the hell do you by meth by the gallon at???
First off, sorry bro! What a bummer when you were looking forward to your new FI'd car.
Second, you have said nothing about the shop's attitude about paying for all of this. As a lawyer, my first instinct is to bare fangs.
Regardless, if a doctor cuts off the wrong ********, I don't go back to give him a second chance!
Third, you haven't mentioned your budget, but I can't conceive of having an engine apart that you are going to FI and not forging it. Consider this an opportunity to forge a motor and make it bulletproof.
Fourth, if you do forge, octane becomes much less relevant.
Fifth, your other octane option is Torco. Torco can be had for $20 a can/tank, and you're at ~97. Or you can buy it by the drum for ~40% cheaper/oz. I have meth and I still use Torco in each tank for peace of mind, something Josh has laughed at me about.
Or you could do a flex fuel conversion for the equivalent of 100 octane with E85, if you have a qualified tuner near you (which is obviously yet to be determined!).
Injector test came back today and the results are not good. On the 3 failed cylinders, the injectors only ran 53lbs at 100% duty cycle and they spray pattern was at a flat 45 degree angle. Should have come in at 60lbs at 95% like the other 5. The testing facility stated that they were bosch injectors that had been drilled out and the numbers had been ground off. I can't believe that such a high quality sc kit would come with cheap as injectors. Now where does the liability lie? I installed the injectors trusting the fact that they were at the same quality as everything else in the kit that I installed.
As to the rebuild, motor and heads are up at one of the top engine builders here in town. Going with all forged internals. Boring out to build a 408 stroker with a 9:5:1 compression ratio.
Spending my spare time today researching injectors. Will be going to 80lbs, even though I won't need them this high, and I will spare no expense on getting the best money can buy. I hope to get a little help on this one, or at least a refund on the piece of junk ones I got with the kit.
As far as budgets go, life has taught me that horsepower and budgets don't play nice with each other. Obviously, I don't want to spend any more than I have too, but I'm in pretty deep right now. Pretty much all in at this point, don't really have a choice.
When I started this project, I just made the final payment on my vette, and the choice was sell it or supercharge it? Well, I couldn't sell my baby. My car has always been inside and has never even seen rain since the day it rolled off the show room floor. Not 1 nick it in it from top to bottom, and when it's done it will be the same. Nothing like a Corvette.
Injector test came back today and the results are not good. On the 3 failed cylinders, the injectors only ran 53lbs at 100% duty cycle and they spray pattern was at a flat 45 degree angle. Should have come in at 60lbs at 95% like the other 5. The testing facility stated that they were bosch injectors that had been drilled out and the numbers had been ground off. I can't believe that such a high quality sc kit would come with cheap as injectors. Now where does the liability lie? I installed the injectors trusting the fact that they were at the same quality as everything else in the kit that I installed.
As to the rebuild, motor and heads are up at one of the top engine builders here in town. Going with all forged internals. Boring out to build a 408 stroker with a 9:5:1 compression ratio.
Spending my spare time today researching injectors. Will be going to 80lbs, even though I won't need them this high, and I will spare no expense on getting the best money can buy. I hope to get a little help on this one, or at least a refund on the piece of junk ones I got with the kit.
As far as budgets go, life has taught me that horsepower and budgets don't play nice with each other. Obviously, I don't want to spend any more than I have too, but I'm in pretty deep right now. Pretty much all in at this point, don't really have a choice.
When I started this project, I just made the final payment on my vette, and the choice was sell it or supercharge it? Well, I couldn't sell my baby. My car has always been inside and has never even seen rain since the day it rolled off the show room floor. Not 1 nick it in it from top to bottom, and when it's done it will be the same. Nothing like a Corvette.
I feel your pain buddy, after 4 years of not really spending a dime on this other than wheels last year, I finally put an ECS Alky kit on it because I too was always worried about octane. Well after a buying the kit, installing it, then putting it on the Dyno (around $1K) only to find the stock clutch is toast. Enter the Mantic 9000 + install + tune= $3 Grand.
Not to mention the Carbon Fiber Hood my buddy had at his shop that some Z06 owner had on his car for a week and didn't like it that I got for $900 bucks
I too just paid mine off, and you have to think of it this way, when you are done it will be better than it was before you started I think your biggest mistake was messing around with the NA build in the first place, but you now have a great set of heads to make power with. I would also suggest if it hasn't been mentioned is to get a good blower cam, which will typically have a different profile than one used to make big NA power.
You might want to start a separate thread on your proposed build. There's some pretty sharp guys around here to help. Personally, I wouldn't fool with the 4" stroke crank. Reuse yours and put that money to greater use. Also, I'd shoot for something around 10.5:1 on the c/r. That's assuming you spend some money on a meth kit. It's time for a blower specific cam too. Get Pat G to spec you one when you know all of the specifics on your build.
The whole idea that a shop would pick up this tab is interesting. Unless they did something grossly imcompetent, there is never any guarantee. Tuning is always at the risk of the car owner. Crap can happen. A piston can come apart at stock power levels. It sucks, but that is the game we play. Unless they do something like install a part wrong, but pushing a motor too far isn't something I would expect to be covered. If you really want a warranty of coverage like that, goto one of the shops that offers one and charges 2-3x as much.
This is one of the reasons I won't go into the tuning business. I can do a great tune, and someone can have any sort of mechanical failure, a bad tank of gas, etc and the tuner is always blamed.
I run the 3.47/8.0 combo but my motor is 10.3:1, I have octane and I have a fuel system. Not something I would have tried on the stock bottom end. I stuck with the 3.4/7.5 6 rib combo on that.
The whole idea that a shop would pick up this tab is interesting. Unless they did something grossly imcompetent, there is never any guarantee. Tuning is always at the risk of the car owner. Crap can happen. A piston can come apart at stock power levels. It sucks, but that is the game we play. Unless they do something like install a part wrong, but pushing a motor too far isn't something I would expect to be covered. If you really want a warranty of coverage like that, goto one of the shops that offers one and charges 2-3x as much.
This is one of the reasons I won't go into the tuning business. I can do a great tune, and someone can have any sort of mechanical failure, a bad tank of gas, etc and the tuner is always blamed.
Did it blow on their dyno before he took delivery (I think, he doesn't make that clear)? That would make a big difference, not just legally, but ethically.
Either way, I think any tuner who wouldn't stand by his unaltered work a day after he performed it should be shamed publicly, unless he expressly states on a signed work order, "THIS IS A BLEEDING EDGE TUNE, DONE AGAINST MY ADVICE, WITH NO WARRANTY WHATSOEVER." Or, not do bleeding edge tunes at all, which some shops will not do.
Just because one would fail quicker, does not mean it is OK to have detonation in any engine. Proper octane is critical to any build.
I didn't say detonation was "OK." The point is, a forged motor will handle problems better. I'm talking about margins, not tuning carelessly. Otherwise, why forge an engine? Obviously, one reason is higher margins for when things go wrong, bad tune or bad injectors or whatever. Octane won't save you from a bad injector or an otherwise insufficient fuel system and running way too lean. Doesn't sound like 110 would have saved him. Maybe Diamond pistons would have survived long enough for somebody to notice a problem.
I say this as a guy who uses both meth and 32oz. of Torco in every tank with relatively low boost (for this forum). But our poor OP doesn't want meth, so he should definitely forge now that the motor is apart.
Which he is doing, so good luck OP with your new badass build!
Did it blow on their dyno before he took delivery (I think, he doesn't make that clear)? That would make a big difference, not just legally, but ethically.
Either way, I think any tuner who wouldn't stand by his unaltered work a day after he performed it should be shamed publicly, unless he expressly states on a signed work order, "THIS IS A BLEEDING EDGE TUNE, DONE AGAINST MY ADVICE, WITH NO WARRANTY WHATSOEVER." Or, not do bleeding edge tunes at all, which some shops will not do.
I disagree. Shops have no control over the parts/etc. Unless you can prove they did just a straight out ignorant dumb tune, it is part of the game we play. If you want a warranty package you goto a shop that does warranties. You get a set combo, usually very safe, from parts they know, with combos they know, and you pay 2-3x to cover the warranty. If the injectors were bad, why should the shop cover a failed motor? If the piston was bad from previous beatings or bad gas. If anything the shop gets a bad rep, people stop going there, and they close down. Now if they did something like put the wrong push rods in, or something like that, they should pay for damage. If it pops when tuning, or even after that and wasn't something they specifically did, it sucks.
Even if you have a "safe" tune, or request it to be super safe, and it pops 100 miles later, that is part of it. Bone stock motors pop. Could have been going out either way or had pre-existing damage.
I disagree. Shops have no control over the parts/etc. Unless you can prove they did just a straight out ignorant dumb tune, it is part of the game we play. If you want a warranty package you goto a shop that does warranties. You get a set combo, usually very safe, from parts they know, with combos they know, and you pay 2-3x to cover the warranty. If the injectors were bad, why should the shop cover a failed motor? If the piston was bad from previous beatings or bad gas. If anything the shop gets a bad rep, people stop going there, and they close down. Now if they did something like put the wrong push rods in, or something like that, they should pay for damage. If it pops when tuning, or even after that and wasn't something they specifically did, it sucks.
Even if you have a "safe" tune, or request it to be super safe, and it pops 100 miles later, that is part of it. Bone stock motors pop. Could have been going out either way or had pre-existing damage.
Popped on the dyno before I took delivery. They were still in the process of tuning it and doing multiple dyno runs after each setting change. At the end of the day, the responsibility is on me and the supplier of the sc kit I bought. I installed the original kit and injectors/bap and took it too them for tuning. And FYI the shop is a dealer for the s/c kit I bought.
Injector test came back today and the results are not good. On the 3 failed cylinders, the injectors only ran 53lbs at 100% duty cycle and they spray pattern was at a flat 45 degree angle. Should have come in at 60lbs at 95% like the other 5. The testing facility stated that they were bosch injectors that had been drilled out and the numbers had been ground off. I can't believe that such a high quality sc kit would come with cheap as injectors. Now where does the liability lie? I installed the injectors trusting the fact that they were at the same quality as everything else in the kit that I installed. .
These are made by Fuel injector connection. We have used them PLENTY of times and never had a single issue. Did you send them out your self or did this "shop" send them out and give you the results back?
Just because one would fail quicker, does not mean it is OK to have detonation in any engine. Proper octane is critical to any build.
100% right. It may take a beating longer but it'll still break. No parts are dummy proof. Detonation kills parts very fast regardless what they're made of.
09-09-2014, 09:21 PM
that I got for $900 bucks
I think your biggest mistake was messing around with the NA build in the first place, but you now have a great set of heads to make power with. I would also suggest if it hasn't been mentioned is to get a good blower cam, which will typically have a different profile than one used to make big NA power.
