I was able to meet a forum member witha TIV powered TIII, I took him for a ride and then tossed him the keys to the Bug for him to drive it back to the event- He was astonished!
The past two years I have taken top HP and Torque at this event, last year I had first and second spots filled, but this year I let the boys play while I did some R&D work on a new engine kit combination utilizing the "New Generation" heads. I set aside the huge numbers to gather some data from a "regular" engine built with 100% off the shelf parts, with the newest 2270 combo we are now offering in kit form.
I have all the datalogging equipment installed in the Blue Bug and witnessed some INCREDIBLE temperatures from this engine on the 2 hour drive to and from the event. I had planned on drag racing the car/engine tomorrow in the Street Car challenge but my dad has his health issues so we decided to stay close to home. The gearing is definately set up to benefit the 1/4 mile and not a Type 4 thats going to be adily driven, with it's 1.04 4th gear. Due to this I was turning roughly 4K RPM at 65 MPH which in 80 degree heat would put a Type 1 to it's knees quick in the oil temp department, the highest oil temp we noted to and from the event was 190F! I only have a very small external cooler, 24 plate Mesa thats 12 years old and probably half filled with crud by now!
The head temps were unreal! The biggest CHT difference that was noted on the 4 hour trip was 23 degrees! The highest CHT I spotted was 332 degrees with most of the time the heads running between 290-310, I only hit the 332 number when pulling a huge hill while accelerating up it.
The most amazing thing is I was still attaining 22 MPG while turning 4K RPM for the entire trip! This is absolutely made possible by the effectiveness of this combo and the effects of the "New Generation" cylinder heads.
Now on to the POWER part of the story...
The dyno operator was a "New Guy" so he had no prior experience with ACVW engines and this morning he really sucked! I was #4 on the dyno and he didn't rev the engine high enough on the first run and acted like he was afraid of breaking something. I told him to stand on it for the second run and he did and got a better reading of 138 HP at 5500RPM and a whopping 147 lb/ft of torque at 3,400 RPM with a wonderful graph that I'll post later. This engine is all about usable power and the plots prove this as the torque curve is damn near flat from 2,500-4,800 RPM!
The engine was a tad bit lean but I didn't figure it was lean enough (13.2:1) to warrant a jet change. Later in the afternoon several of the guys that went earlier in the morning with me and had shabby runs had then re-done, as the dyno operator was doing much better after a few cars hit the roller and he got more used to them.
So we tossed the bug back up and did 3 more runs, 1 with the fan belt, just as it was earlier in the day and then two without the belt. Max HP without the belt ended up being 147 HP at 5,800 RPM and max torque was a whopping 155 lb/ft at 3,500 RPM! Remember that these are RWHP numbers from an engine that was built exactly as it would be from one of my kits, not a single "Trick" was added! Also remember that in the past the 2270 was only good for about 150HP AT THE FLYWHEEL in "kit" form so this new kit and the "New Generation" heads have given us a solid 20% power increase without impacting reliability, or maintainability at all! This kit is running COOLER head and oil temps than any 2270 of this stage of tune ever has before! As a matter of fact this engine made MORE power on the same dyno than the 2316cc Hybrid that was in my 914 at this event last year, and it did this without having to rev 7,500 RPM like the 2316 needed to, this engine was all done by 5,800 RPM which makes it last forever and be easy to drive at the same time!
On the last dyno pull a bunch of the guy wanted to hear the engine rev as high as it could and were giving me a hard time so the owner of the dyno got me out front with him and told ME to tell the operator when to stop rev wise. The engine was all over by 6K making power and all the revs were pretty worthless, but I decided to entartain the crowd a bit because I had already taken this engine well past 7K on my dyno and had plenty of valve control left.... So he keeps revvin, revvin and revvin and I finally hear it run completely out of air and get on the verge of valve float, so I had him kill it at a whopping 7,400 RPM- Remember this is all off the shelf parts, nothing lightened or radical! The crowd was happy..
I'll be doing a lot more test work with this engine in the Blue Bug over the next month or so before I have to change the drag gear box out for my tall geared tranny for the trip cross country to California. I plan on taking it to the local track for the next several test and tune days to get some 1/4 mile logs for HP and torque as well as some temperature data logs. I will also be doing the final testing of the 914 version of the DTM on this engine in the bug so it'll get plenty of time on it very soon both at the track and the street as I'll be driving it 80 miles a day for the next month + from work to home and back everyday.
You'll be seeing A LOT more of this engine very, very soon!
So there ya have it a new engine kit has been born, and dyno proven with great results.. It'll be available in about 2 more weeks for purchase through the store as I have to break it all down and come up with the prices of components, don't expect it to be any more expensive than the current 2270 kit, just more powerful.
