Ok I just got info from a few very helpful people and the owner himself at Full-Race in their manufacturing shop in Pheonix.

They believe that my turbo bearings are fine. They think I need to upgrade three major things to open up my setup and let it run better.

They told me I need:
.82 a/r exhaust housing on my current T3/T4 57 trim .63 a/r
Equal Length Ramhorn A/C compatible
3" Downpipe + 3" exhaust Of course

Now I hate to question people that know so much but I'm concerned that if I get a bigger exhaust housing on the turbo and ramhorn manifold my spool times are just going to be unbearable?

Then comes the cost... Full race makes quality items but their prices aren't cheap.

Now this wasn't the route that I wanted to go from the start with getting a full ramhorn manifold and stuff like that but I'm figuring I should just get it done right at this point.

What do you guys think?

 

gotta pay to play....otherwise stay on the porch

 

It's all about what you want out of your car and how much money your willing to spend to get it there. How much power are you trying to make with your motor?
I agree with a 3" dp and exhaust 110%
As for the other 2 I'm in the same boat as you are but from what I've seen and been told the 57 trim should be able to handle 350 all day. I'm not familiar with the drag manifold but I know the inline pro manifold can keep up at those power levels. Even heard of the blox flowing really well.

 

Well at this point I'm just looking to get a RELIABLE solid running turbo'd b16. If I got all these updates it would be on the fact that I've been told these parts will let my car breathe better and last longer then my current setup.

I'd imagine I'd be sitting pretty easy at whp300+.. I would love to see my car near 320 - 330. Full-Race guys told me its a good chance I'll be higher then that.

But again I'm not doing this for the power but the reliability and I'm asking if you guys think these upgrades would help that aspect?

 

you don't need to upgrade to a bigger hotside housing. maybe some gsr cams would help? equal length is not necessary either. its nice, but you can make well over 300 on a cast manifold.

 

Stock compression though, 10:6.1 biggg difference.... obviously your going to make more power than his 9:1

 

why dont you try a different fuel and crank up the boost if you want mo power.

 

Can you ask the tuner to see the timing maps? Sounds like he went VERY conservative, or like it was said your turbo is pooping out on you. A b16 w/ that turbo should pull and make power to redline easily. What kind of dyno was it done on? dynojet? mustang? dynopack? Those all tend to read differently. I had a LSV on 9 psi w/ 2.25" WS2 catback on make 300whp on a 54 trim...and it pulled up to 8250 (redline). On 1bar (14.5psi spring) it made 340whp

I just hate seeing people bash tuners when they have failing parts or other issues with the car when it gets thrown on a dyno and tuned. Happens entirely too much on HT...hell I had a thread asking a simple question and the first 3 replies were "your tuner sucks, go to a new one" or "hes an idiot" when hes IMO THE BEST tuner in WA. His shop car wouldnt be making 1100+whp and running 8 sec passes if he was a bad tuner...nor would his 9 sec single. Just a pet peeve of mine, if you dont trust him then dont go there.

 

Upgrade to a 3" downpipe and exhaust and get re tuned somewhere else. Then be done with it and enjoy your car. I'm shooting for 400whp on pump gas and don't have a ramhorn or a big hot side. It should be close but I'll make it.

 

your also getting close to running out of fuel.... 550cc is like 400whp max. Also lets see the timing maps, we really cant move forward in this thread without them. And to be honest thats not really that low on power, to give you some insight, I made 285 @ 12psi on a dyno jet, and my setup is wayyy more aggressive than yours (b18c, bigger turbo, bigger everything) so we need to see those maps to give you more help.

 

It's quite funny how everyone wants to see timing maps, but will not reveal whether the tune is conservative or not.

Ever tuned a turbo Honda with a partially clogged cat? Hell, I don't think I will be putting 18-22 deg BTDC of timing with a choked up motor with high EGT's on pump fuel? If the motor is showing signs of knock at 13-14 deg of timing @ 10 PSI for example, why would more timing be a wise move?

So seeing the timing map DOES NOT show what has happened in reality. So people, quit trying to be an E-tuner on the web. Let the guy get his upgrades, and go back for a retune with the same tuner. If he goes to another tuner, this new tuner would have no idea on the history of the setup and the OP will be back to square one again.

 

tim is a awesome tuner i have taking four boosted cars to him and not one problem, all of them meet my goal if not more and were still very conserative.

 

By looking at the timing maps we can make educated assumptions/remarks especially with the dyno graph that is provided. To say we can't is false and calling us all "e-tuners" is ignorant.

 

You can't... I can show you tons of maps which ignition advance is totally different than another car just due to different exhaust setups and manifolds but making very similar numbers and boost levsls...

I can bet you that if you ran a log manifold with a tube-fin intercooler (higher pressure drop, thus higher exhaust pressures) and a turbo that is sucking hot air right beside the exhaust, is not going to run anywhere near the same ignition advance as another car that has a Full-race top-mount manifold, a bar-plate FMIC and getting cool air from the fender. I can already estimate about 5-6 deg of timing difference across the powerband.

To judge between 14 deg of timing vs 20 deg of timing on cars which can make similar power at similar boost levels, how would you go forth in determining what is conservative or aggressive?

Your next real question for the OP is to ask for his logs, showing the vitals like IAT, ECT.. But for a typical common setup, you won't be able to determine exhaust pressures, EGT and so forth which are the important stuff. It's a dead end question, so it brings back to my post above.

 

The part where I'm stuck the most still at this point is do I have a failing turbo or not? The previous tuner said it was and the owner of Full-race and some workers there said it didn't sound like it was and said my setup was just "choking" my turbo from letting it work at it's full potential.

And I'm still curious if it's worth to upgrade to their .82 a/r housing.

 

From the looks of the dyno and how it falls off pretty fast/hard I would be willing to bet that the turbo is ingesting burnt gases from the wastegate/dumptube! post up a pic of the wastegate/dumptube in reference to the turbo intake. Also running no intake pipe on the turbo and ingesting hot air from right behind the radiator will yield similiar results...combine mutiple issues like this and you will see very poor results!

 

dumptube is routed into downpipe.