SC 5 Port EFI testing...the results are in....interesting!
Turbo Mini Forums

There are many ways to get EFI wrong on the 5-port engine and few to get it right. And if you get it wrong, you will be worse off than with a carb and potentially much worse. The only way to know if you're at least as good is to measure the AFR on inner and outer cylinders.

From Jonh's last post it seems that his setup does at least do the theoretical minimum to do the job correctly as an electronic carb (4 pulses per cycle). But the AFR distribution has not been presented even in a qualitative way (no worse than the carb?) so if it has been measured it should be stated.

So even though the way things have been said may be argued about, the idea is to get the technical information necessary to know how good the system is and look past the shiny bits.

And if it is no worse than a carb for fuel distribution then I agree that a complete kit of matching components is a nice thing to have. However it will still have the limitation of a mediocre fuel distribution of a carb which can have an impact on a highly boosted and stressed engine (which is one of the points Paul was trying to get across).

Jean

http://www.jbperf.com/

Interesting exhaust manifold there John,

Lovely picture Sam....

http://s256.photobucket.com/albums/hh167/boz-reb-2303/
http://s609.photobucket.com/albums/tt176/boz-reb/

1971 turbo mini van
1978 clubman estate
1971 clubman

Id be interested to see what AFR a normal SPI achieves as a comparision to this kit.
Im guessing this kit will provide better atomisation even in a wet manifold situation than an SPI, but may not be as good as a port injected setup for ovbious reasons.
In any case not a bad effort IMO. :)

If the injection kit would be avaiable with the ignition kit aswell to provide a full engine management system (all in one ECU), that would be crackin!

Matt.

i believe the typhoon ecu covers the ignition side of things aswell mat

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

This thread is a perfect example of how poor TM has become as of late.


Well done John for your achievement, I hope you prove all of the 'experts' wrong

http://www.jbperf.com/

I have to say I do not understand why if SC have the AFR data, they do not make the results known. Surely this will answer the debate one way or another?

My opinion of this, and perhaps I'm missing something (so everyone correct me if I'm wrong) is that John never said his system gives perfect fuel mixture - it does clearly suggest that the mixture is equal to that of a carb (a weber).

It makes the same power as a weber - suggesting that it is not worse for fuel distribution. It does improve drivability (probably partly due to ignition control) - mostly from being able to get better fuelling at all load sites.

I know for a FACT that the guy on here with the highest HP A-series, and the guy on here with the quickest 5-port over the 1/4 have never, ever, even once loked at their fuel distribution, to see how pooly balanced their mixture is.

But their engines work. And they work well, achieving their personal goals.

To poo-poo what John is offering as a 'bolt-on' kit, that will perform slightly better than an SU ever will (within the limitations of available injector flow for the desire HP) is to tell Nic and Matt that their engines are a pile of shit as well. So why not start a new post, telling them this. Or maybe tell them to their face.

I know there is a lot of work, and hence a lot of pride in getting to the magical 100% of optimum, but how about this for a scenario:

If you one 'team' can get to 90% of optimum, for a lot less hassle or a lot shorter lead time; and be competing, or even winning races whilst the '100% target or nothing team' is still working at achieving their goal; which 'team' are most folks going to think has the 'better result'?
Or to put it another way, who has any right to say that their approach is better than anyone else's?

I hope I haven't upset anyone here, but that's how I feel - and the fact that someone develops something that should be worthy of a 'thumbs up' instead gets flamed, is very disapointing.

Unless some attitudes start changing, this post will be locked and disapear into the depths of the forums. I suggest everyone take a step back, and look at what you've posted, and see it from the other persons perspective before posting anything else.

Edited by TurboDave16V on 1st Dec, 2010.

I think whats you've said dave is right on the money.

Rick

Dave,

A carb and a TBI can't be compared for a many reasons. And I do think you know and understand that. So saying that this will perform better than a carb in a blow through turbo setup is an extrapolation of what is presented here that is based on unknowns that John doesn't want to present for whatever reason.

You may well lock this thread up, it won't change the fact that no one here, myself included, knows exactly how this would perform in place of a carb in the typical Mini turbo setup. But if what I've been told is true and that system is running in Alpha-N then this will give dismal results. And if you don't know what an Alpha-N fuel injection setup is, you need to look it up. If you don't understand why it would mean dismal results then you need to educate yourself on how fuel injection works. And I don't mean that in a condescending way but only in a factual way.

So there are still technical issues here and I still think there are valid points being brought that are not addressed and should concern everyone considering this for anything other than the presented setup. And that last point is not even related to anything specific to a 5-port engine but to fuel injection in general.

Jean

http://www.jbperf.com/

I can "take a step back", I have avoided posting since it got rather inflamed, but.......

It started with EGTs being the holy grail of 5 port optimisation.

I was the first to say EGTs have no correlation whatsoever with AFRs on a 5 port from my personal experienece and someone elses.

Then it all went downhill........

I made a few technical comments, NONE of which were answered by JonhK

That really surprises me as I've had a walk around Specialist Components workshops with John himself earlier this year so I am well aware of what SC are doing with both diesel engines (much more complicated) and the A Series.

So I have no doubt John/SC can produce something better than the current "electronic carb/wet manifold/etc." but I really cannot understand why some key technical points remain un-answered and why AFRs are not being disclosed (if indeed they have actaully been measured)....

It is so ******* easy to fit dual widebands on a normally aspirated exhaust manifold instead of the EGT thermocouples shown in the photos.

So Dave, I look forward to being the one responsible for this thread being locked and disappear into oblivion.

Some of us post real data, it seems you don't want that in this case.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Even with all this talk about the perfect setup John would still get my money. If I had any left.

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
VEMS + 12 PSI + Liquid Intercooler = Small Bore FUN!

http://www.jbperf.com/

Here here

1/4 Mile 14.3secs 96Mph Terminal 10psi of boost.


Fibreglass Parts? - http://www.tdkracing.co.uk/
Split Rims? - http://www.force-racing.co.uk/

The only thing I will add to this debate is that, with my 1400 Spi using the factory injection manifold (apparently shit), factory ECU, and 10.5:1 compression, giving at that time 90hp, ALL exhaust valves were the same colour.



So what you might exclaim. What you have to consider is what this is telling you. Its the same as reading spark plugs, and that, is the oldest way to really understand what is going on inside the combustion chamber, outside of all this funky electronic data logging.

The easiest way to compare the cylinders, is to do a plug run. Run the engine up to the load point you wish to look at, hold it there, then imediately shut the engine off, pull the plugs and read them.

what is to say John has not done this?

I also have not heard anything about fuel film on the 'wet' manifolds. surely even with a pulsing fuel injection, this fuel film compensates some what by the time the charge reaches the cylinder. Im am far from saying this cures the charge robbing. Port injection does not have enough wet area to compenaste anywhere near enough.

I may be way off the mark, but in all these conversations I see little consideration for the huge surface areas of a wet manifold, and, like Dave has said, if its 90% there, is not damaging the engine, and giving the goods, where is the problem? maybe run all cylinders richer to bring the avarage AFR down. Lets not forget that most production injection systems are tuned to an AFR of around 13.2:1 rich, so if the rich cylinders are 12.5:1 with the lean cylinders 13.2:1, all cylinders are within the AFR range for best torque. (As an example). I'm sure Paul will have hard data that would confirm this some what, however, the numbers in my example might be way off the mark.

On 2nd Dec, 2010 Sprocket said:
The only thing I will add to this debate is that, with my 1400 Spi using the factory injection manifold (apparently shit), factory ECU, and 10.5:1 compression, giving at that time 90hp, ALL exhaust valves were the same colour.



So what you might exclaim. What you have to consider is what this is telling you. Its the same as reading spark plugs, and that, is the oldest way to really understand what is going on inside the combustion chamber, outside of all this funky electronic data logging.

The easiest way to compare the cylinders, is to do a plug run. Run the engine up to the load point you wish to look at, hold it there, then imediately shut the engine off, pull the plugs and read them.

what is to say John has not done this?

I also have not heard anything about fuel film on the 'wet' manifolds. surely even with a pulsing fuel injection, this fuel film compensates some what by the time the charge reaches the cylinder. Im am far from saying this cures the charge robbing. Port injection does not have enough wet area to compenaste anywhere near enough.

I may be way off the mark, but in all these conversations I see little consideration for the huge surface areas of a wet manifold, and, like Dave has said, if its 90% there, is not damaging the engine, and giving the goods, where is the problem? maybe run all cylinders richer to bring the avarage AFR down. Lets not forget that most production injection systems are tuned to an AFR of around 13.2:1 rich, so if the rich cylinders are 12.5:1 with the lean cylinders 13.2:1, all cylinders are within the AFR range for best torque. (As an example). I'm sure Paul will have hard data that would confirm this some what, however, the numbers in my example might be way off the mark.

http://www.jbperf.com/

I'm not sure anyone has said that an SPi setup will automatically be worse than a carb. It can be as "good" as a carb but you have to do it correctly. And you have to measure it correctly (as you intend to).

Actually, if I were to do a TBI setup I would do pretty much the same thing as SC has done: a 2-injector setup on a good single carb manifold. And if you inject 4 times per cycle and alternate between the 2 injectors then you can get the best dynamic range since at low load/RPM, you get a single injector for each intake event and at high low/RPM, you have the pulses from each injector over lapping which basically acts like injector staging without having to actively manage it.

I don't know if that's what SC is doing but that's the way to get the most symmetrical injection pattern on all cylinders while keeping the injector size reasonable. You can also get a better effective duty cycle because each injector only opens and closes once per rev.

I think that's going to be more difficult with a single injector. For the same power, you're going to need a bigger injector which will need to be actually more than twice as big since it will have to open and close twice as often. So it will be more difficult to manage low load/RPM due to the very small pulse width.

So I would prefer SC's setup over an SPi setup if I were going with a wet manifold setup at least for anything with a decent amount of power.

Jean

http://www.jbperf.com/

I think that it is time to wrap this thread up.

I had a long chat with JohnK on Tuesday morning. The best summary of which is that John feels that he does not need to provide any more data and I am even more sceptical about the use of this system on a blow through forced induction setup.

In John's opinion, TM's opinion counts for very little. He estimates that we are 1% of his market. Therefore you have to respect his decision.

We are never going to agree on this and we should just stand back and let the buyers demonstrate the real capabilities. If we think we can do better then we have to prove it on the track/dyno.

Apologies to anyone who I may have offended by my arrogant and aggressive stance. Yet again :(

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

before this wraps up i thought I'd post this, I'll also post it in Pauls runner thread,

Its an extract from A Bell's book, relating to runner lengths, intersting that he recomends around 400mm as per Paul, and also that going too long kills the top end off as per Johns findings,

you lot need to jam your hype.
go build a snow man.....

Yes have to agree with a few fellas, can't believe all this, what happend to TM being a friendly place!

Best 1/4 mile 13.2 seconds @116 mph
First 5 port miniturbo to make over 200 bhp on a carb?
First 5 port miniturbo to make over 200 bhp on Injection?

http://www.mattwoodsphotography.com

I've asked for the thread to be locked and removed. I'll also be leaving TM as this wasn't the forum I joined 5 or more years ago. Good luck to you all and I look forward to seeing the familiar faces at the shows next year

JK

If Carling made Mini engines
it would probably be like this one!