I heard a DCMM member got turned away, because they already had the LDG tune, and John said it wouldn't be fair.

 

I'm really sorry John, but I was not impressed with your setup. I know you have the knowledge, and I think you know better. I think you need to move away from being influenced by Don and his antics and political posturing. The unrealistic ramp rates, on-the-fly correction factor changes between cars, and absurd [and variable time] "pre-loading" gives inconsistent and incomparible data, and then failing to crop the invalid data points at the endpoints of each run which gave erroneously high peak power readings.

The equipment and resources you have at your disposal are excellent, however the manner in which you use your tools doesn't give you useful results.

I disuaded several people from participating based on the inconsistency in your dyno operation. It also didn't help that Don was there giving absolutely absurd "advice". Supercharger belt slippage doesn't cause overboost, and neither can a bypass valve. If an s/c belt slips, the blower spins slower during that slippage period and you'll see a corresponding P/R change. When the belt grabs again, it accelerated the blower back up to it's intended drive ratio. S/c's operate on a gear ratio = boost principle, not ramp rate. I think you already know that. Belt slippage is not similar to the overdrive function of the Rotrex supercharger setup. If a bypass valve is leaking, you'll see a boost drop, not a spike. I didn't look to see where you were measuring boost [and you already know you weren't measuring ignition timing], but one car you "datalogged" had a 23.x psig spike, yet there was no overboost CEL. The only way to explain that is one sensor is wrong [the car or yours].

I'm sorry to hear your laptop hard-drive crashed. I hope you have a back-up back at your shop to get your system back up and running.

Regards,
Ryan

 

Yep, I was second, I pulled 174, which corrected to 191. My drivers side window wasn't working either and that must have cost me at least 50 HP!

Actually, I think there was one with 235whp, but they preferred to remain anonymous

 

It wasn't a problem of leaking bypass valves. It was a problem with bypass valves never opening. Mostly because of tweaked (read aftermarket) springs.

 

--->CmdrVimes: I understand LDG's need to defend their rationale. There's one thing they simply cannot explain; why did the car in question, with over 23psig of supposed boost, NOT throw an overboost code? The R53's main MAP sensor is a 2.5 bar sensor. When the ECU senses that sensor being clipped [which is 22.05 psig FYI] it will immediately post an overboost code. I know this fact very closely, as it was a daily hinderance for me tuning my boost controller on my single-turbo R53 for many months.

As for bypass valves not opening; that would only be due to a change to the original Detroit Tuned design I developed [and am no longer part of or responsible for]. My design yielded no such issue during actual driving operation. Perhaps if LDG used their dyno in a more realistic fashion they wouldn't be creating issues that don't exist in real life.

 

Did anyone there see any before and after dynos of the LDG ECU tune?

 

I saw the before and after (with and without his piggyback ecu) of Chad's MINI and he pulled 5 more whp and 6 more lbft of torque without it. That was an eye-opener.

 

How about a before and after dyno without any piggybacks to fog things up?

I guess what I would like to see is 1. A base dyno of the stock ecu. 2. A dyno of the LDG base Flash. 3. A dyno of the final "dyno" tune.
Then we may get to see what improvements are available from this.

 

Actually for that dyno they were running in a realistic manner. The data could easily be displayed in 1 RPM increments that contained distinct values. You have to remember with the dyno not having to deal with multi-thousand pounds worth of rollers it's a whole lot easier to get the precise reading in a shorter time period. Not only that but the ramp time was actually slower than the manufacturer said was necessary. I believe John actually explained this to you at some point. Whether or not you believe him is up to you, although if you still have doubts you could always contact DynaPack yourself and see what they have to say.

 

4.25 second 4th gear pulls on a basically stock MCS is hardly realistic. Add to that the unnatural pre and post loading and you get data that makes no sense in the real world. LDG chooses to not crop this invalid data to mislead people.

John made a rationalization at me, he was not interested in hearing other points of view. I understand his intention to keep IAT's low with short pulls, the problem is he's setting himself up for failure in that he'll end up advancing too much ignition timing. The simple fact he's also not interested in entertaining more than the two excuses "belt slip" and "bypass valve" tells me he was there to make a point and make money, not help people.

I understand you're a fan of LDG. I used to be when he was more open minded and at least claimed he was interested in helping people. He chose to bash and alienate other vendors and anyone that patronized other vendors this past weekend, and that was entirely his decision.

 

I really dont understand why LDG was so worried about IAT's seeing as how it wasnt above 80 degress that weekend. I have seen other shops tune a car in 100 degree and 70% humidity weather and still use longer ramp rates than what he was using. This is just from my experience as a car fanatic.
~Ben

 

FWIW, my dyno sheet said it was 86 F and 38% humidity.

 

I'm guessing you didn't run it on Saturday then?

 

Nope... it was Friday afternoon. The rainy Saturday sucked

 

I wonder how one accurately snags the a/f post cat....

 

Sorry, I just now got to post here today. I was the winner of the dyno challange. I pulled 195.413 HP and 167.89 Ft Lbs. This was as I drove it in, no special tune. This is a 2003 every day driver with stock head. It was tested Saturday between rains.
Some of the mods include:
Alta CAI
Borla street cat back
Comptech header with high flow cat
GRS intercooler
JCW injectors
Helix 17 percent pulley
DT bypass valve
Intake manifold cleaned and pollished
Intercooler runners cleaned and polished.

There were no tricks with the numbers on the dyno. It pulled 3 runs with the same numbers every time. It seems to me that it doesn't make any difference if the dyno numbers are not exactly accurate, as long as all the cars tested were tested on the same machine with the same settings under similar conditions. The highest numbers would still be the highest numbers.

Mike Baker
Indianapolis