Frankiman's street/track GTR project

[frankiman]

Chapter 28 - Tuning sessions, dyno revisited

so on day 61, saturday, i had my appointment with Robin Almasi @ Almasi Tuning for a bunch of stuff

so i got up early on that morning, and changed out the cheap Castol GTX oil in favor of awesome Redline 10w40 full synthetic motor oil



put a total of 6 liters in it - the oil cooling system and filter relocator needs lot of oil to fill

then i took off the T-belt cover to have access to the adjustable cam gears



ready to go !!



normally, its a 18 minutes drive to Robin's shop,
so i left my place, drove slowly at first, then eventually had to get on some larger boulevards and drive ~70kph
the car felt sooooo unstable, the alignment couldn't be more crappy,
i had never been so scared while driving a car,

eventually got on the highway, drove up the 80~85kph,
then i started to ear something grinding somewhere, couldn't really point out what it could be,
i didn't really have time to think more about it when;

boom

a very loud boom, followed by 3 black pieces of whatever flying out the back of the car, 1 of them hitting the windshield of a minivan following me,

immediatly put on the hazards and parked on the shoulder (on top a darn overpass)
checked the oil pressure, ok
climbed out of the car and looked back, saw the pieces left accross the highway
ran in front the car and check everything, i really though my oil cooler had blown up, but it was ok

so i ran super fast all the way back where the pieces where, running across the highway to grab all the big pieces of plastic
walked back to the car and threw those in the trunk and kept driving to the shop

the fender liner on the passenger side wasn't tied up and was flapping in the wind, scratching against the road, when it cought a crack in the pavement and just exploded!
(the driver side liner was kept in place by my custom tow hook)

while i was waiting for Robin at the shop i grabbed this pic



also grabbed this pic of my really good looking front wheels/brakes assembly



a couple minutes after, Robin pulled up in his freshly paint -white- Suzuki Capuccino go kart

he opened the shop, and pulled out some cars;
a SR20DET B15 SER sentra
and a Race prep'ed Toyota Corolla Touring Car with an insane sounding straight pipe side exhaust

then i pulled my car in



then we started working on the electronics stuff
was needed to be installed;

brand new HKS EVC-S boost controller
brand new HKS type-1 turbo timer
brand new Skylab TSC
(eventually) AEM UEGO wideband gauge

so he took a look under the dashboard and was like; WTF?
"robin, i don't know wtf is going under there, i can't do wiring and i haven't touched that"

there was a huge mess under the dash
so Robin picked up a flashlight and scrutenized all the connections, harnesses, plugs, grounds, etc
then basically cut every useless thing out

after a little while, there was a huge pile of old computers and wiring on the ground, ready to be trashed



after that, we organized all the harnesses for the new controllers by passing them all threw the right places, most of it i had already prepared it

so he completely redid the whole wiring from scratch, hiding the boost controller and turbo timer computer modules behind the plastic panel next to the driver's right foot
everything looked UBER clean, no more wiring loosely hanging under the dash


yes my car was full of stuff, open boxes and manuals


up to that point, i hadn't brought the AEM UEGO gauge because i was going to install myself, but then Robin told me that having the O2 sensor already plugged into the exhaust system but without power to it, it could get it clogged,

so while we were setting up the dyno equipment, i called my girlfriend to go pickup the UEGO gauge at my home and bring it by,

by the time she arrived, the wheels were off and both the Dynapack pods were bolted,
so i handed the gauge to Robin and within seconds it was installed (i had already passed the sensor's harness into the car from the hole in the firewall)

then Mitch came around, he had been stuck in traffic for hours, poor him

so Robin finished setting up all the sensor onto the car, and the fan setup etc etc







it was already getting really late, considering it was a saturday night
so Robin started working his magic





power related performance parts at time of tune;

N1 twin turbos
Nismo 555cc injectors
Nismo fuel pump
Nismo fuel pressure regulator
Nismo thermostat
Nismo N1 water pump
Nismo radiator cap
Nismo downpipe, with Tomei heat wrap
Resonated cat-delete
HKS Legal cat-back exhaust system
HKS twin SSQV blow off valves
HKS EVC-S electronic boost controller
HKS 264° duration 9,5mm lift cams
Greddy / HKS I/C hardpiping kit
Greddy FMIC
Greddy / Power Enterprise silicon couplers
Koyo aluminum radiator
Apex'i power intake kit
Splitfire coilpacks
Divided twin turbo pipe
Adjustable cam gears
Custom grounding kit
NGK-R copper racing spark plugs


first thing to do was to try to figure out how to setup the darn EVC-S boost controller
Robin grabbed the user manual and probly worked an hour on it, doing some pulls every now and then, that thing isn't very straight forward



unlike other BCs where you simply input 16psi if you want 16psi of boost, with the EVC-S you select a duty cylcle between 0%-100%
the "response" setting between 0%-100%
another setting is the "overboost" which is a value in psi
another is the "warning" which is a value in psi
and the "boost drop" in 0%-100%

from the dyno screen, we were seeing very erratic boost curves,
so Mitch, Robin and I recheck all the boost controller plumbing and overall setup and it was all perfect,

Robin ended up finding a mix of settings that "seemed" to work, and went with that

so he tuned the ignition map on different boost levels, and eventually got 367whp at ~13,5psi of peak boost

he looked satisfied till i told him i got 382whp wit a peak of 13,7psi last year, something's wrong, how am i getting less power with the same boost??
we saw the boost curve dropping much more than before at higher rpms

after doing pulls for more than 1,5hours on the dyno, the engine plumbing was getting "hot", so Robin spewed a liter or two of water on the intake manifold to lower the IATs back down,

at one point, the CO alarm on the wall of the shop started to beep, WTF
we check it out and the CO level was indeed pretty high

one of the huge flex tube sucking the exhaust from the muffler was unplugged from the box, huh?

at higher boost levels, when the car hit the rev limiter, huge (loud) backfires came out the back of the car, that tube was aligned directly with the muffler and was getting knocked off the box, LOL
i eventually put one of my wheels behind the tube to stick it there

results

final pull boost setting (setting B on EVC-S) got 408whp at 6600rpm with AFRs pretty stable at 12, a peak boost of 17,7psi (yeah pretty high) with a total boost loss of 3.5 psi,





----------
now, two weeks later, looking back on it, i know we weren't using the right settings at all, or not using the settings correctly

so i'll be going back and using the correct settings this time, i've figured it out

since that day, i've sent the car to Autoworx, to get the whole intake pumbing checked for leaks
i will also relocate the EVC-S boost selenoid closer to the ABS module to shorten the vaccum tubing length, to get a quick response from the thing

i've compared the dyno sheets from this year to last year's
at least the huge 17,7psi boost peak resulted in an enormous power increase of 60whp at 4500rpm




i will be back
AND I WILL GET MY 425whp (500bhp)


eventually, i left the shop at 9;30pm, on a saturday night...
it had been raining for the last 4 hours or so,
as soon as i got onto the on-ramp for the highway, i felt the car just sliding all over the place,
so i stuck to the right lane, with the hazards on, driving 50kph
till i saw an exit for Taschereau blvd, (which goes right by house), so i took the exit, but was 15kms away, with lots of stops and redlights,
everytime i hit the brake to come to a stop, the car went sideways, and the brakes squealed like mad,
lets say that i was attracting lots of attention of the other lonely drivers beside me,


it took 40 minutes to get back home, 9,5 hours after i left it, I WAS SPENT

[cobrAA]

It's funny when robin clean under the dash. his face is always the same haha.

[DJ]

was that my ex-fender liner??

[frankiman]

nope, THATS the reason i needed your fender liner...

[cobrAA]

but hey frank. how comes your aligment was sh*t when you paid freakin 400$ to get it done?

[mikey]

Frank,

what wheel spacers are you using?? did you have to change the original studs??

[frankiman]

but hey frank. how comes your aligment was sh*t when you paid freakin 400$ to get it done?

all the chapters in this thread are in chronological order, the alignment was done 6 days later, which will be talked about in chapter 29

Frank,

what wheel spacers are you using?? did you have to change the original studs??

i got Ichiba bolt-on hubcentric spacers, 25mm in front, 15mm in the back, but the oem studs are 24mm long, they are sunken in the spacer in the front, but stick out 9mm in the back, which was touching the inside of my wheels

[RWD_GTR]

so since your gtr grill broke im guessing youll be getting a new one? ill buy the broken one off you if ya wanna sell it.

[frankiman]

i already got another one, and its getting painted at autoworx as we speak
i gave the broken one to someone else, but if you want to buy it i'll grab it back and sell it to you

[RWD_GTR]

i already got another one, and its getting painted at autoworx as we speak
i gave the broken one to someone else, but if you want to buy it i'll grab it back and sell it to you

ya ill buy it if ya feel like shipping it to alberta

[frankiman]

pm Nelsonxmarc if you want it, hes already fixed it though

[frankiman]

Chapter 29 - Tuning sessions, #3, Suspension Calibration

most people think that just slapping on coilovers/spring and dropping their car will instantly make it corner like a race car

truth is, without the proper adjusment, your actually not doing much

OEM suspension is prefectly setup from the factory to have the correct alignment and corner balancing

the second you lower the car, you are messing up the whole suspension geometry, but not just the alignment, the roll center too

ex;



the roll ratio of a car depends mostly on the stiffness of the springs and sway-bars
but it also greatly depends on the vertical distance between the center of gravity of the car and the roll center of the suspension

when you lower the car, you lower the center of gravity by almost the same (the wheel assemblies stay the same height), but the roll center is lowered much much more

the center of gravity rotates around the roll center
just like torque, the bigger the distance of the force (radius) the more torque is creates

the easiest way to correct that, is to lower the outer ball joints using spacers (or roll center adjusters) to put the lower control arms near the stock angle

thats exactly what i've done months ago




then another problem, is the alignment obviously

by lowering the car, you change the whole geometry, increase camber, and add toe in
camber isn't all that bad for tire wear, as long as you have less than 1deg, but any amount of toe change will chew tires pretty quickly


this simplest (very simple) way to correct this issue is to get an fresh alignment done,
but with more intensive lowering, you will eventualy run out of adjustibility from the stock suspension components

that was also taken care with the following adj parts;
Cusco front tension rods (F caster)
KTS front upper control arms (F camber)
AMS rear upper control arms (R camber)
DriftWorks Hicas cancel kit (R toe)



some good tuners will fix those issue in quest for good handling and tire wear

but less than 1% will go the distance for perfect suspension setup

corner balancing



corner balancing a car is meant to make the car's handling more predictible

think about a 4 legged chair, if only 1 leg is 1mm shorter, the chair will always want to tilt from one side to the other depensing on weight transfer

it is the exact same effect for a car, but you can't actually see it, because the whole car is sprung

the way to corner balance a car is by adjusting each individual coilover height (by spring perch adjusment or body length adjustment) by increments of 1mm,
by doing so, you are distributing weight across the other corners

its almost impossible to get a perfect front/rear and left/right ratios of 50%, because of how the car was engineered, with the engine placement and drivetrain layout, wheelbase etc etc

so the goal is to get as close to 50% cross weight ratio by comparing the sums of the front left + rear right /// front right + rear left

doing so, you will have the exact same feeling when cornering left or right,
and make weight transfers much smoother, mostly with quick left right corners





to get all this done, i sent my car to VAG Motorsport in Laval, QC

http://www.vagmotorsport.ca/

the shop is known mostly for tuning euro cars (bmw, porsche, audi, vw) and building complet race cars, with full in house ecu and suspension tuning

guys from the shop are always present at local track events and even organize their own track days




so.. funny story

i called CAA quebec, days prior to get a membership (5 free towing services)
so i had to wait 2 days for my account to work,
on that day, just before leaving work, i called CAA to send a tow truck at my house,

so i got home about 3 minutes after him, luckily my dad had just gotten home and stalled him,

so i drove the car onto the flatbed tow truck, using wood planks because my tow hook was scrapping the ground (would have been worst had i got the front bumper on)
then made sure he went to the right shop
gave him a map, the adress and phone number of the shop if he couldn't find it

and he left with my baby (forgot to take a pic then)
i told him the guys at the shop were waiting for the car

(this next part is what the guy at the shop told me)

the driver messed up the adress (and apparently missed the huge VAG banner), and saw a garage on the OTHER side of the street, pulled in their lot, dropped the car off, then put the keys in their mail box
the garage was clearly closed, but just to make sure he went to the front door and actually got in the shop (the owner forgot to lock the door) thus triggering the alarm,
seconds later cops pulled in and started asking questions, then the owner came by to see WTF was going on,

at that point, the guy who does the suspension tuning was still waiting for my car, so he decided to leave for a couple minutes to go grab lunch, and then saw all this crap going down across the street, so he stopped to go see why my car was there,
he was able to ask the CAA guy where the keys where between the cops' questions,
and drove the car back across the street to the shop

pheeeewwww!
what an idiot that CAA driver was, he never called the shop
if the VAG guy wouldn't have seen all this happening, who knows what would have happened to my car?!

/story

all the following pics were taken by VAG techs

the next morning the car was rolled onto the alignment platform
-and sure enough they HAD to take a peek of whats under the sheetmetal heh?!



i provided the techs with a list of things to consider, directives to follow and specs to use
the trunk was fully emptied and the spare removed (because i always remove it for the track)
and a 40lbs battery was placed instead of the passenger seat, because i didn't bolt it in yet,
and another 40lbs battery was placed on the driver side, added to the tech's own weight, to simulate my weight (yeah no one there was as fat as me)



then the car was lifted directly on the frame rails, off the platform



then all coilover collars were loosened



and then the car was dropped onto electronic scales positionned under each wheel




and the first series to preleminary measurements were taken

the balancing seemed really good off the bat
almost perfect side-to-side distribution



and the driver-less cross weight was also a pretty good to start from
anything under 51,5% is considered "good", over 53% is very bad)



the numbers didn't change much with the weight of a driver




then the tech started to individualy adjust the height of each corner by increments of 1mm

the front coilover collar were reachable from underneath, but not the rear ones, so the rear wheels had to be removed each time





the whole ordeal took the whole morning, about 3 hours
i won't show it, but i have pictures of almost every adjustments' results, lots of pics..

the final specs are simply impressive;

a perfect cross weight distribution of 50/50 was acheived with AND without driver





and these were the final linear weight distribution
which should roughly be the same for most BNR32



it should also be considered that the following differed from a standard OEM car;
no front grill, bumper/lip, side skirts and plastic undertray
20kg of fuel in the tank
radio and a/c controls weren't installed
all HICAS components and lines removed
heavier brakes, F&R UCAs, coilovers and sway bars than OEM
lots of chassis bracing added (F&R strut bars, fender braces, brake stopper, TC rod pipe)
oversized and additionnal cooling components
relocated lightweight battery


overall, the car is around 100lbs heavier than stock, mostly because of all the added components while retaining most OEM equipment
this is still and will always be foremost a street car, for the track, not vice-versa


after lunch, the alignment was taken car of;



even with all the aftermarket suspension parts, the alignment was not much easier to do,
i asked for precise specs (not ranges)
everytime one adjustment was done, another would stray

eventually, after 2,5 hours of work, these were the final specs

FRONT;
caster 7,5deg
camber -2,1deg
toe 0.0

REAR;
camber -1,6deg
toe 0.2 in


this car is ready to wage war on the track

[archaeic_bloke]

i can see your excited... lol me too!!

[mitch32]

Thats pretty awesome. Your car is going to handle completely different then last year. I forgot to ask you did you also put aftermarket tie-rods to correct bump steer?

Also for everyone else on here reading, 0 toe is good for a street car cause your tires wear less, but you put toe-in (not much, just a bit) to give forward bite/traction, which frankiman did put (0.2in). Rear camber should be exprimented with since the car rolls on itself in turns, basically you adjust it to give you full traction (you can only do this at the track by checking tire wear, its based on how you throw the car). Suspension geometry is probably the hardest thing to tune on a car.

So is the car painted and ready for Ultraride?

[frankiman]

yup, are you coming to help tomorow?

http://forums.gtrcanada.com/general-skyline-discussion/43382-going-need-help-local-gtrcs-weekend.html