Well.., I was sick of some really annoying surging issues I've been living with for years so decided to take the car to see Shawn Church in Wilmington. He runs Dynapak dynos and from what I understand is as close as you can get to measuring rear wheel HP. This is the type of dyno where they take the rear wheels off. Not the roller type.
He didn't like how I had my vacuum and MAP sensor hooked up so rather then reconfigure everything we agreed that our goal for the day would be to set that base timing, AF, and do so runs to see where the power is at. Drivability would be addressed after we change the vacuum setup.
The first run came in at 192hp.., then he took some timing out and fattened the AF ratio a bit and got 221.., then some tweaking to bring us to 240.
The only thing I've done to this engine is a head rebuild, de-carboned the piston tops, added a b36 intake cam and run coil on plug with custom engine management.
I really thought I was only going to get 200hp at best even with my small mods. This would have brought me to 240hp at the crank aprox.., right ? So what's 240 at the wheels translate to ??... 270hp.. that seems high.
One things for sure.., being around all those 600hp Honda's makes me feel old !
LOL.., 320k miles and 240HP at the wheels
So you are COP, MAP sensor, B36 intake cam, and standalone? Nothing else?
Gary's build for me really drove home the untapped potential in these motors, but it seems like nicely warmed-over S38s are starting to come out of the wood work. I haven't dyno'd mine in almost 9 years and the best i ever saw at the wheels was like.. 209 hp.
Gary's build for me really drove home the untapped potential in these motors, but it seems like nicely warmed-over S38s are starting to come out of the wood work. I haven't dyno'd mine in almost 9 years and the best i ever saw at the wheels was like.. 209 hp.
Oh.., forgot.., the trans shifter input shaft is leaking all over the cat, which causes high RPM dynamic cooling and robs probably 10% hp.So you are COP, MAP sensor, B36 intake cam, and standalone? Nothing else?
Seriously though.., the only other change is the exhaust cam gear.., I have it advanced 3 degrees.
Phil,
Sounds pretty darn good for that kind of mileage.
Your dyno guy should be able to tell you what precentage of drive train loss you have. Never seen a dyno like that.
Do you have any photos on the dyno?
Even though you don't have tires you still have half shafts,
a diff and drive shaft and also a trans and clutch. Lots of places to loose power.
Are you running coil packs on the B35 head?
That's because of the management system right?
I think my stock engine before I did anything was 220 WHP or so.
What cams are you going to run on the new build?
How is that going?
Seems like it should be running by now.
Sounds pretty darn good for that kind of mileage.
Your dyno guy should be able to tell you what precentage of drive train loss you have. Never seen a dyno like that.
Do you have any photos on the dyno?
Even though you don't have tires you still have half shafts,
a diff and drive shaft and also a trans and clutch. Lots of places to loose power.
Are you running coil packs on the B35 head?
That's because of the management system right?
I think my stock engine before I did anything was 220 WHP or so.
What cams are you going to run on the new build?
How is that going?
Seems like it should be running by now.
Hey Gary.., ya.., I was pretty amazed at that number as well. Torque is 255.2 at 4400 RPM. Which is weird because I always thought the torque number is typically smaller then the max hp number.
I did take a photo but my camera didn't save it for some reason. But I'll be going back next week to change over the vacuum setup and MAP sensor. Shawn thinks we can pick up for top end hp my changing things around like he does with Honda ITBs.
No coil-paks on this car.., coil on plug. Basically the same thing as coil-paks but cleaner looking. It's my stock B35 engine but had to find a B38 valve cover so the COP setup would bolt on. What I'd like to ultimately do though is find a coil on plug that has a rubber top boot that I can use with the stock B35 valve cover. The original valve cover is much sexier I think. Denso makes a ton of COPs.., just need to find one that fits.
On the new engine, which is done.., I'll have a B36 intake cam and a custom MM high lift cam on the exhaust. But if I can find another B36 cam I might throw that on the exhaust side and call it a day. Compression on the new engine is 235 psi. Except for #6..., which has been the problem cylinder since day one of this build. Comp is 210psi.. and after talking with PB we feel it will come up to the others after the engine has been run-in.
The new engine will go in soon.., I'm just trying to balance work, family, wife's new job.., against time to swap the engine.
Having spent time with the Fast and the Furious crowd at the dyno shop I think I might have caught the force induction bug. I could definitely see putting a planetary super charger on my car and bumping the hp by a couple hundred
I did take a photo but my camera didn't save it for some reason. But I'll be going back next week to change over the vacuum setup and MAP sensor. Shawn thinks we can pick up for top end hp my changing things around like he does with Honda ITBs.
No coil-paks on this car.., coil on plug. Basically the same thing as coil-paks but cleaner looking. It's my stock B35 engine but had to find a B38 valve cover so the COP setup would bolt on. What I'd like to ultimately do though is find a coil on plug that has a rubber top boot that I can use with the stock B35 valve cover. The original valve cover is much sexier I think. Denso makes a ton of COPs.., just need to find one that fits.
On the new engine, which is done.., I'll have a B36 intake cam and a custom MM high lift cam on the exhaust. But if I can find another B36 cam I might throw that on the exhaust side and call it a day. Compression on the new engine is 235 psi. Except for #6..., which has been the problem cylinder since day one of this build. Comp is 210psi.. and after talking with PB we feel it will come up to the others after the engine has been run-in.
The new engine will go in soon.., I'm just trying to balance work, family, wife's new job.., against time to swap the engine.
Having spent time with the Fast and the Furious crowd at the dyno shop I think I might have caught the force induction bug. I could definitely see putting a planetary super charger on my car and bumping the hp by a couple hundred
An e28 with manual transmission has about 15% drivetrain loss. 240 rwhp translates to about 282 bhp. Your initial pull put you at 225 bhp which is pretty awful, no wonder you weren't happy with the way it drove. 
Chip tuning alone on the s38b35 gives nice gains even on a fully stock motor. With what you've done I wouldn't consider 282 to be unreasonable. How (un)healthy is the current motor that it's being replaced?
Jeremy
Chip tuning alone on the s38b35 gives nice gains even on a fully stock motor. With what you've done I wouldn't consider 282 to be unreasonable. How (un)healthy is the current motor that it's being replaced?
Jeremy
Last edited by Jeremy on Dec 11, 2010 9:06 AM, edited 1 time in total.
Not really that bad.., the rods knock pretty badly when cold but over all the engine runs good for 320k. Compression is in the 180s - 190s. Burns a quart a month.., but i drive 1800-2000 miles a month to and from work.How (un)healthy is the current motor that it's being replaced?
When I started my engine project back in 2003 aprox, I was buying into all the "an S38 wont last past 150k miles" mind set. So I set out to find a replacement engine thinking that mine was going to grenade at any second. Then I was fortunate enough to find an S38 in the salvage yard and at that time decided to build a new engine but was never really in a big hurry. Looking back I've learned a lot about these engines and have more confidence in my abilities.
I wonder if I can get 400k on my current bottom end ? There was a guy that i met at 5erFest 2004 that drove from the east coast, think his name was Phil also.., he had 400k + miles on his car back then.
That's really great. I have 205k on mine, I have been keeping my eyes out for a motor to build. When I bought my car I was more willing to save the $6-10k compared to a 80k mile car, and thought it would be more fulfilling to drive this motor out while building a fresh motor with that money.
But it seems that, like yours, I may never have to. The knocking is there when cold, but once warm, this motor is like a 35 year old star running back that is screaming for the coach to put him in so he can kick tail all over the field.
I would love to get over to your shop if they would have me and see what my numbers come in at for some type of reference.
But it seems that, like yours, I may never have to. The knocking is there when cold, but once warm, this motor is like a 35 year old star running back that is screaming for the coach to put him in so he can kick tail all over the field.
I would love to get over to your shop if they would have me and see what my numbers come in at for some type of reference.
The dyno shop is Shawn Church Automotive in Wilmington.I would love to get over to your shop if they would have me and see what my numbers come in at for some type of reference.
http://home.earthlink.net/~spchurch/
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mooseheadm5
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mooseheadm5
- Posts: 23035
- Joined: Apr 08, 2009
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I was digging through the records that came with my car and it made just over 225hp and 225lb-ft on the dyno in 2001 (about a year before it was torched.) It has a Conforti chip, but I think that is it.
On a fresher motor, you should be able to crank out a bit more than 240 at the rear wheels with those cams, or more torque depending on how you combine the cams and time them.
On a fresher motor, you should be able to crank out a bit more than 240 at the rear wheels with those cams, or more torque depending on how you combine the cams and time them.