Steven Bannoura

Hey, so my car been in the shop for like 2 weeks now, getting a procharger P1 installed, 10 PSI. The last time i talked to them, the guy made me a worry a bit, he said sometimes those motors break at 450rwhp, sometimes they run for a long time on 510rwhp. He said my car is getting a safe tune and is dynoed at 430rwhp, the reason its still in the shop is because it was running the fuel lines dry and needed an upgraded fuel pump. I was a bit confused, since the kit i bought came with an additional fuel pump to keep up , but that's not the issue.

What are the chances that i will blow my motor? I only drive my car about once a week, but when i do drive it, i do open that thing up. I know not to hit the rev limiter or do stupid burnouts. I understand that somethings might break and will need a new clutch in a couple of weeks.

Is my car a ticking bomb? how much power is safe and how long you guys ran your car hard with FI ?

EDIT: I should be getting the car back earlier this week

Thank you

obxdude018

The general rule of thumb is, if you are under 450rwhp then you should be ok, the tuning has to be done right if not then the probability of something going wrong only amplifies. I am running a DOB setup, I am still working out some fuel problems however I pegged over 14psi a few times I am going to put a bigger pulley on more for controlling IAT's at WOT then for the psi. The tuning is a life saver when running close to the edge. Many people have run past the 450 point with no problems. Also, another big factor is setting your rpm limit to 6k, the stress on the rods multiplies dramatically with rpm increase. Also avoid clutch dumps or dropping gears 4-2, 5-3 as that adds to the stress. Here is a piece I received from Jason at Department of Boost, these guys do all their own fabrication work and are incredibly accurate with the information they provide.






I don’t think “boost” has been advertised or explained correctly by the industry. And then the common “base knowledge” that we have is lacking in scope or detail.

A blower is only an air pump. When you pick a pulley size you are picking how much air it will pump through out the RPM range. At the end of the day it takes “X” amount of air (plus a little fuel of course) to make “X” amount of HP. Of course engine size, compression ratio, engine efficiency, etc have a factor in this but on a basic level if you jam 1000cfm of air into a 4.6L V-8 motor it will make almost the same HP as if you were to jam 1000cfm into a 2.5L 4cyl. Granted the 4cyl with have more boost (see next paragraph).

Boost is only a representation of the restriction that the motor represents. For example, if you put heads/cams on a blown car and don’t change the pulley it will “loose boost” because it has less of a restriction. This doesn’t mean the blower is not operating efficiently or there is something wrong. It just means it’s easier for the air to get through the motor. In the above example it will make more HP and have less boost.

Boost is not the only factor when the term “safe” comes up (in regards to the combustion chamber). Boost is coupled directly to timing, air/fuel (A/F) and intake air temps (IAT’s) when it comes to keeping things safe. They all work together. For example, you can run a high boost numbers and not lean on the timing real hard (were going to assume good IAT’s and A/F) and have a perfectly safe combustion chamber. On the other end of the spectrum you can run low boost with a lot of timing and put holes in pistons. A/F has a lot to do with what is safe in the combustion chamber also. If you run leanish numbers (12.0-12.5:1) it doesn’t matter what your boost or timing is, you will start hurting parts. And lastly if you have high IAT’s they will hurt the combustion chamber almost in the exact same way running lean does. The good thing about our ECU’s is that they automatically start pulling timing as the IAT’s go up as a “safety net” in case the car is heat soaked or the IC pump stops working. So by itself boost does not hurt parts, only boost in combination with aggressive timing, high IAT’s or lean A/F ratios hurts stuff.

Boost, when thought of as cylinder pressure, or cylinder pressure increase is a non issue. 15psi of boost only adds about 8% to the cylinder pressure or “rod loading”. Which is very, very little. For comparisons sake if you change a motors redline from 5,000rpm to 6,000rpm you are increasing the rod loading 36%! You are safer with 15lbs of boost than revving your motor over 5,000rpm to 6,000rpm. About 4 times safer.

An example of “Shaky Science” and a contributor to some of the disinformation out there is Kenne Bell (I used to have one on my car…..junk). They will tell you that their kit will make “X” hp at lets say 8.5psi. If you read carefully though you will see that they always run all of their “tests” at 11.5:1 A/F ratio with……..wait for it……25deg of timing! That’s a LOT of timing and they are only getting away with that by using 100+ octane fuel. They say for consistence sake. So if you back the timing down to even “aggressive” (16-18deg) you are looking at a considerable HP loss. When I was at 450hp-ish the base KB kit was supposed to make 450+ at 8.5psi. I put the supplied pulley on my car and had it tuned it made 438rwhp at 10.2psi. Yeah, their “8.5psi” pulley made a touch over 10psi on a stock motor and it didn’t make as much power as it should have with less boost. We ended up running 16deg of timing to keep things nice and safe. And to poke another hole in KB’s “Science”/claims you could only get 1-2 runs before their crappy IC system heat soaked and it pulled enough timing to chop 50-60hp out of it. All of their published numbers are with a constant IAT that is not pulling timing. That is not at all representative of real life unless you are making a pass, cooling the car down for an hour, making another pass, etc. Just driving around town has the IAT’s up near the point where it will start chopping out timing.

Now for the other “safe”. The safe threshold for the stock motor is 450-500rwhp. Assuming everything that is going on in the combustion chamber is okey dokey the safe HP is based solely on the mechanical strength of the motor (Rods, pistons, crank, block, bolts, etc). In actuality it’s the rods that give up first. It doesn’t matter how you are making HP, be it with supercharger boost, turbo boost, nitrous, or naturally aspirated (as long as it is not being spun to the moon) the lower end will only take so much force before it breaks. It doesn’t care how that force is being made. Be it 5psi, 25psi, a bucket of nitrous, etc. the bottom end does not know where the power is “coming from”.

So at the end of the day to keep the motor safe you want to exert only 450-500rwhp on the mechanicals of the motor. And you want what is going on in the combustion chamber to be safe. For the first tune on our test car we went REAL SAFE with the tune. We could have easily thrown more timing at it and leaned it out slightly and made close to 500rwhp without changing the boost. So there is your sliding scale. Do you want 450rwhp with 12psi and super safe timing or 450wrhp with 10psi and timing with a little attitude? We went with the safe route. We could probably run 89 octane with this tune and not hurt a thing. We won’t be doing that, but we could.

One last point:

I’m taking this on the end because I didn’t see where to fit it in exactly above.

I think a lot of the reason that higher boost numbers are considered “scary” by the masses is because of what high boost numbers generally represent. And that is high IAT’s. The more you compress the air (boost) the hotter it gets. But that is not a constant. For example, a 3.0L blower making 18lb of boost is going to have MUCH lower IAT’s than a 2.0L blower making 18psi. The smaller blower has to spin the rotors faster to make the same boost on the same motor. Spinning the rotors faster creates more heat because it is less efficient. In the stock GT500 blower/4.6 3v combo we are actually spinning the blower SLOWER than the GT500 does stock. The GT500 blower is actually a more efficient blower on the 4.6L than it is on the 5.4L. So where the GT500 5.4L is making about 450rwhp stock at 10psi the 4.6L with the same blower is making 450rwhp at 12psi (more restriction, smaller motor) and the blower is being spun slightly slower on the 4.6L. The GT500 blower is actually a better “match” for the 4.6L than the 5.4L in regards to it is not “working as hard”. And less the less work the blower puts in the lower the IAT’s will be.

outceltj

A few guide lines. No kick downs. Such as being on the highway and someone wants to get on it with you. Really bad for your motor and tranny as well. Keep your traction control off. Do not shift into overdrive if uh ace the pedal mashed. I'm st 470 and haven't had a problem. I do burnouts and run my car at the track. Just some common sense and u can run your motor on 500. With the right tune

Steven Bannoura

Awesome, i really appreciate the info, that put my mind at ease. I was worried, i won't even get to enjoy it I honestly can't wait, but gonna post some pics and hopefully a video of it running.

jpplaw

Some safety tips I learned when I was running 475 rwhp on the stock block -
1. Always use the highest octane name brand gas you can get in your area. Not a guarantee you won't get some bad gas at times, but its better than running cheap no name brands.
2. If you go to the track, always put a few gallons of race gas in. My motor loves VP MS109E.
3. And no matter what, always consider a 1/4 tank as if it were empty.

Diabolical!

Buddy, if I haven't blown mine, you won't blow yours. Good tune. Good gas. Good driving. Good luck!

Steven Bannoura

hey thx, i see you running radials or slicks in the picture? Does anything in the rear end break when you hook? you slip or drop the clutch at the 1/4 mile?

How bad is it to shift hard from 1st to 2nd and so on? I shift pretty damn quick and before the blower, the car would spin 90% of 2nd, if i get radials and it hooked, what could break?

07 GT E UPP

I ran with 538 rwhp at 11psi on stock internals for about 5 years without any issues at all. It's all in the tune my friend and also common sense i.e. good octane (93/94), staying off rev limiter, etc . etc. I have seen them let go with 425-450 rwhp and a ****ty tune.
Have fun!!

outceltj

Nothing breaks as I run slicks as well. These cars are durable

Andy13186

why would down shifting be bad for your motor or transmission? rev matching is relatively easy...