Car feels slow Why ??
 

Ok I can’t fiquire this car out my car is making 12 # of boost and timing is locked at 21 degrees on a motor that makes 550hp NA so with these boost #,s it does not feel that fast . What could be happing ? Any chance the timing is not correct ? Like maybe the balancer is not marked right or something ?

You should be more around 27 degrees total (with 15 psi of boost). Lazy is due to low compression ratios (for the boost and fuel used) or lack of timing.

Luhn Performance made 863 hp with a basic 462 engine (2 bolt main) at 13.5 psi of boost and a 300 cfm head. So what do you think you are making for HP?

Tom V.

Well it made 550 on motor so with 12 # of boost I would think 750 ish HP Any way to tell if the timing is what the balancer is saying ? I am running e85 and it running on the rich side..

Have you run it at a track?

What balancer do you have on the engine?

Tom V.

I'm running 22deg of timing on my 462 with Iron heads. It might be faster than you think. When I first put the turbo on my car I didn't think it was that fast until I got into a few races with it and I was beating about anything I raced at the local hangout.:) The only way to know for sure is to try it out!

To verify your balancer (without tearing the engine apart)have a buddy turn the crank with a rachet to 0 timing mark. remove #1 plug and insert a small pick on top of the piston. slowly turn the engine and see if the pick moves up or down. Not very accurate but it would indicate if the balancer is way-off.

Professional products just the basic one around 100.00 ... will check the top of piston when at zero Tomorrow ...

No track times yet still working out bugs just my butt dyno thinking about a dyno session but I have to find a shop that can tune this fitech system ...

Whats the entire combo?
Engine, trans, rear gear, weight or car, turbo I assume?
Fuel injected or carb?
Any data logs?

I have helped several people who had that Chinese Balancer and they all were not indexed correctly for the timing.

If you use a piston stop on the #1 cylinder and lightly turn the engine over in a counter clockwise direction, touch the stop, make a mark on the balancer (tape a piece of paper on the balancer), then rotate the engine clockwise until you are touching the piston stop again, make a mark, 1/2 way between the two marks should be true Top Dead Center for your engine. Then you can determine your timing if you have a normal pontiac timing cover.

Tom V.

468 SDperformance max ported 6x-4 heads ,old faithful Hyd roller cam, fitech fuel injection , e-85 , turbo 400, 9.5 3400 stall convertor , 3.08 rear gear with 28” tire , single turbo s475 , car weight is 3550 car is making 12# of boost and timing is locked out at 21 degrees no data logs

OK so the timing light says 21 degrees vs the damper mark but if you don't know that the TDC mark is truly at TDC (vs the piston positionvs on the damper mark) it could be for sure off on actual timing, even with a locked timing value.

Tom V.

Correct Tom I ordered a new balancer from Bullet and start there ...

Some of the basic Pioneer Pontiac Balancers have pretty high quality control.

I will not recommend the Chinese Balancer to anyone at this time.
I spoke with the Sales Guy for the company and it was all about quality this, quality that, etc.

I think they did a better job with the Tomahawk intakes that were sold in Cali, years ago, but even the Hurricane stuff (Made by the same people) does not match the old Tomahawk type quality. Think the guy selling the Tomahawks was inspecting all of his intakes before selling them (for quality control) and sending back the ones that did not pass.

Tom V.

Low compression engines tend to like quite a bit of ignition timing advance at low rpm, especially before any boost comes in. Your best bet, IMO, is to fit a boost timing retard box like the MSD Boost Timing Master or the MSD 6530, this way you can run a lot more initial timing to give you vastly improved throttle response and quicker boost rise time, and then use the timing box to pull timing down to a safe level as the boost rises. I ended up at 42* locked initial timing with my low compression combo, pulled down to 27* at 18 psi boost. Yours may like 32-36 initial, pulled back to 21* at full boost. Increase timing in SMALL 2* steps. If you use the MSD BTM it can only pull a maximum of 15*, so a base timing of 36* can be pulled back to 21* at full boost. However, you can play with the settings to start pulling timing at differing amounts of boost, and the amount of timing pulled can be in 1-3* steps . Start safe, pull 3* per pound of boost starting at 1 psi boost, then try 2* per pound of boost starting at 1psi etc. You'll probably end up starting to pull timing at 5psi of boost for best throttle response and boost rise time, so with your target 12psi of boost that leaves 7 psi of boost to pull all your timing out to 21* . You will now need to pull a minimum of 2* per pound of boost from 5psi to get 14* out. Hope this makes sense!

First thing I would do is run a log with the FiTech and make sure it's fueling properly. That's going to be valuable tuning information.

If you aren't already I'd also set it up for timing control. For the build you've got I'm assuming you have a 1200PA on there. Setup the timing control with that so you can run good timing out of boost and set it to pull timing as boost rises.

I think most everyone is probably on the right track that your timing numbers probably aren't where you think they are.

How did you setup your base calibration in the FiTech for e85? Did you increase your engine displacement by 20-30% or are you commanding 20-30% richer mixture?

Jason I did add 30 percent to my cubic inch and I set my a/ f targets for E85 ... I do have a wide band gauge that I watch also , and it’s doing a good job keeping the a/f mixtures close but it does favor the rich side which is a good thing for safety while tuning . Just ordered a new harmonic balance and will check to see if maybe the timing marks are off ... thanks

THANKS BUD
It does .... I at one time was pulling timing from the MSD 6 Plus box with a Hobbs switch hooked to the nitrous retard that the msd box has But the Hobbs switch I have is for 3 # and I was pulling 9 degrees all at once down low and it did not like that so I disconnect that for now ... plus I was scared that if for so reason that switch failed and it did not pull timing I could blow it up ...

That may be part of the issue there. If you added 30% to your displacement, and added 30% to your commanded mixture you're overfueling by a good amount. The FiTech uses lambda = 1 for it's fueling calculations, so you only do one or the other.

The system assumes you are running gasoline, so what you're effectively doing is fooling the ECU based off the wideband o2's lambda reading. If you add 30% to your displacement, the system adjusts the VE tables upward accordingly and you still then target stoich as 14.7 as read by the display. That's an interpretation for your eyes, the ECU sees lambda where 1 = stoich.

I don't run e85, but most of the people doing it with the FiTech are having the best results by adding displacement to the base calibration, especially for people that are getting e85 from the pump and live in areas where it may fluctuate with the seasons. Commanding richer mixtures based on true engine displacement works a bit better if you are using a premium racing e85 that you know is always 85% ethanol.

So, once you've added size to your base map, dial in the afr targets based on what you'd want to see from them if you were using gasoline instead.

Yea that what’s I am doing just added 30% to cubic inch and I am using my wideband on a gas scale the engine does not know what fuel I am using , it’s just measuring a/f ratio right ?