The Lysholm Install has begun (Power run Added 21/5/12)

tomsdubs said

Looks good mate, shame about that hose collapsing. Can't you get some custom tube made up?

I am trying to get someone now to come out and make some.
Failing that I will go off the shelf and use short couplings…

Looking and sounding good Ade… hope I'm not in front of you en route to Wolfsburg (holding you up) - come to think of it - behind you either (flying dust at me…).

Well done…

Cheers Hugh.

Every knock, rattle and smell will have me on edge !!

Took last Friday off work to take a run down to Norfolk (Watton to be precise) to get the boys at Emerald to do a full mapping on my engine.

The run down was uneventful - thank goodness, I gave her the odd blip and she ran well cruising at 70mph but slowing down had many exhaust pops and pulling away was very laggy and not good at all.

Still I had to get 500 miles on her below 4000rpm and the run to Watton pulled up just under 700 miles. She kept stalling as well, which was really beginning to annoy !! I have a wind band AFR gauge in the dash so that I could keep an eye on proceedings - more paranoia than anything, but it really mustn't run lean under load - don't want melted pistons !!

It was a culmination of many hours of work, in fact this setup has been 5 years in the making - I was starting to get quite nervous to see if this setup really could perform and perform well, driving my Mk1 had started to become hard work and you start to wonder why you didn't just leave it alone :-)

The Emerald chaps saw/heard me before I saw them - in fact they has a grin on their faces, which was an encouraging sign as to their enthusiasm for engine tuning and superchargers.

The first thing I saw on a ramp in their workshop was a Mazda RX7 - the wankle was long gone, in its place a 7.5litre V8 with twin turbos running Emerald (naturally) - it produces just over 800bhp - yikes that must be one scary drive !!

My Mk1 was strapped on the rollers and the mapping began - after the initial checks the idle was sorted - so pleased to hear her idling properly - Sharon has refused to drive her until that was the case !!
The next five or so hours we spent listening to my engine being put through its paces and gradually over the day you could really hear the difference as the ignition and fuelling was corrected across the load sites.

Here is the power run that was done - 226.9bhp @6911rpm and 192.9lbft@4669rpm




So next came the road test - one small problem first, both rear brakes had locked on solid :-( Turns out that because I very rarely use the handbrake and with it applied all the time during the runs the adjusters had gone in to areas that they had not been for a while. Took a good hour of messing to get them to free them - they are rear disks if you are wondering.

Out of the road she is a different car, smooth idle, rapid acceleration in any gear, in fact she will do 1000rpm in top and pull from that - so nice to drive, back to being a car that you can potter around in or drive like a man possessed when it is appropriate :-)

Those of you keen eyed folk will notice that the boost is peaking at 10psi and seeing as I have a 53mm pulley on the Lysholm it should be nearer 17psi. I knew this before I went down to Emerald but it was at the point that a map needed to be created before I try and found out where the boost is being lost. I have checked all the intercooler and pipe connections sealed and resealed them. Replaced all the vacuum pipes with the VW braided cloth stuff and put clamps on even connection - slight improvement but nothing to write home about.
I suspect that the belt is slipping that drives the charger and that 10psi is the point that it starts to slip.
I am going to fit another slightly shorter belt and introduce another belt roller (a TDI belt idler pulley I believe, Bert would be proud !!). Hopefully should know at the weekend if that makes a difference.

So 226.9bhp from a 16V engine with 10psi boost is very pleasing, will be interesting to see what happens if I get the other 7psi to materialise !! Estimates are around another 50bhp :-)

At a steady 70mph over 180 miles she did 26mpg, so for the German road trip that gives me about 220 miles between fill ups with 40 miles in the bag spare. So will need to plan petrol station stops along those lines - she is running 97 RON Super (Esso actually), decided against the Shell/Tesco stuff in the end due to availability.

Hopefully catch up with some of you at the drive out on Sunday …

Nice work!