Heat management is crucial..
Keiron has been messaging me for months to get his car to me and 'work my magic'.
He purchased all his bits from elsewhere - not a direct customer, and it wasnt performing as it should do.
The install wasn't perfect. Some signs of blowing from the tubular manifold, possibly the gasket or its started to crack, without removing bits, we won't know, but he has been advised to address this.
This car has had an AEM water/meth system fitted, and dyno testing elsewhere on the current setup gave him a 30bhp gain - alarm bells started ringing!
So after travelling from Cardiff, yes, Cardiff, all the way to Norwich, I did some basic checks, pulled his plugs, found inconsistent gaps and fitted our new NGK plugs with reduced gap and one step colder- better starting, bit sharper on the throttle, and no spark blow out.
No codes present so a trip to the proven Dastek dyno cell, the fan set up here is amazing and I chose this over the Maha due to the higher ambients, I don't want the cars getting too hot..
Couple of inertia warm up runs, all looked ok, doing 290whp and 338bhp.. 7 second pull, short and sweet, and it 'appeared' to make the numbers.
Now time for the man runs.
294bhp 247whp 265lb ft.
No guesswork needed to find out why it didn't make the power, thanks to our dealer level logging software - 73c charge temps!!!
What should we see on this dyno for this set up? My own personal car made 330bhp here @ 21c, so allowing for the ambient temperature and correction factor, its some way off what its capable of.
A new record. And bloody dangerous too.
Everything else checked out well, good FRP, timing pulling from mid range and boost tailing off due to the heat and safety features put into place within the software.
The fact it still did 294bhp with those temps is incredible, and still beats many competitors cars tested in similar conditions.
But its not hard to see why the X47R gets stick from those companies claiming it runs hot and power drops off, in this case its a very simple hardware issue, and no car can be expected to make power in these circumstances.
The intercooler fitted here was a 450whp capable Garrett core. And quite frankly it was shocking. I'm not saying who's it is, but I would advise they have a serious re-think and withdraw it from sale (and the other big cooler i tested recently)
The simple reason our cars make the figures is down to continued testing of every bit of hardware I can get my hands on. Is this a 330+bhp set up? Yes, but one piece of hardware can LOSE 30bhp or more!
It pains me to see products being sold that do not deliver, customers being sold something with the promise its the best for their needs, even being made to switch from the proven Airtec Stage 3 Intercooler to another brand which I know will lose them power. Thats not something that happens here.
We continue in the pursuit of making our customers cars the fastest and most reliable out there, proven on the road, proven on the dyno. Only by testing to extreme can you expose the weak points, short dyno pulls for sales figures do not cut it here and i've always been open and transparent, it's why I've switched companies so many times to find the holy grail, this has gained me criticism but also a loyal following from the customers who continue to return year on year for more upgrades.
Massively thanks to Kei for making the trip, he now has an Airtec Stage 3 Intercooler, AS hot and cold side pipes being delivered today, a ported exhaust manifold and Forge recirc next week, then time to get it on the latest X47R file and really enjoy what the car is capable of doing.