Time to take the next step

Makes me wonder about mine then...I get a little white smoke when its cold out, but I think its just fuel. Oh well

silverbox said:

Peter, do the IE Tuscan rods and ASV pistons weigh less than the OE pistons and rods?

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The Tuscans are ~600g each w/ARPs, a bit heavier than Rosten's and IE's own H-beam

If it really makes a difference in reciprocating mass who knows but they are supposed to be stronger.

With that being said, I'm not sure of anyone that has bent Rostens from excess power and not catastrophic failure....maybe some of the EU guys have who knows

eddie_1 said:

What's amazing is how with just pp502s, 10mm and I think 5th gear swap? the rods melted. Peter and this car were always for me the standard in conservative tuning.

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That's quite the overstatement. This car spent much of its life at +40% power levels and the rods slowly failed through creep. Peter, what's keeping you from rod upgrades?


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I am upgrading the rods. Integrated H beams for BEW to go with the ASV pistons. Chill may tell me he'd prefer the Tuscans, in which case I'll swap them.

nicklockard said:

That's quite the overstatement. This car spent much of its life at +40% power levels and the rods slowly failed through creep. Peter, what's keeping you from rod upgrades?
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I see, I was thinking the 'safe' power level was about 170WHP before the engine started to have problems. You would then argue that this number should be around 135HP and with time you would get rod creep. So peak power is not the issue, it is how much the car is driven hard at even lower power. RC6 was mentioned but the car was mainly dynoing well below 200hp.

Eddie, sorry I was wrong. I hadn't seen his post above when he referred to his power levels--170+, so more like "creep failure likely set in after xxx,xxx miles @ 180% over OEM power. But you're probably right about your statement regarding how hard you drive.

My best dyno was 185/315. Car was like that for about 40K. During that time I did a bunch of track days. So they may have been bent for a while.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

My best dyno was 185/315. Car was like that for about 40K. During that time I did a bunch of track days. So they may have been bent for a while.

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That same tune ran in the rally car for 5 years, and ate a few turbo's (15s/17s), transmissions and axles. It did get rostens at one point during a random teardown/inspection. It survived well. and never left us stranded (well one time at pikes peak = streettoys disaster). But we won that event beating out the factory toureag's time up the hill using the 1752 out of Olivers car that he drove there for a parts car. Jon set a world record for production car / alternative fuel that year - still holds afaik. The car dyno'd at Kaz's motorsport 5500' at 150hp, and 200hp at sea level with same setup. It was estimated to be 90hp at 10,000'. Still got that video of Jon passing the big block factory five race car that was gasping and lumbering up the hill near the top where all the gassers nearly fainted.

Jeff

RPM and timing is what makes the rods bend like Peters did. There are many types of failure. His were like my Green cars rods were so long ago.....the car Rc6 was designed for. In those days though, the Rostens were a little taller....so there were some adjustments necessary. If one continues to run strong timing and high RPM with strong rods then the head gasket will vent instead. Its all in the use.

Went to Mr Chill's tonight to deliver some parts and see how things were going. The engine is back together, and Chris was putting on ancillary stuff. I learned some interesting things.

First, the oil pump and chain probably didn't need replacing. Here's a picture of the tensioner and chain.

Chill said the tensioner wasn't significantly worn. And the chain and pump looked fine.

Second, we looked at my OE head and how straight and smooth the ports were from the factory. Hard to see in this photo, but perhaps you'll get an idea.



He ended up with a 3-hole head gasket. With the integrated rods and ASV pistons we were well into 3 hole territory. He estimates compression will end up being about 19.2, since the ASV bowls are a bit bigger than the ALH ones. This will actually be an improvement as Chris estimated my compression was into the 17s with the bent rods. Oh, and he showed me the head gasket. Leaking. Probably not badly, but I had noticed soot in the coolant bottle so I was ignoring the obvious.

Chris put the PP520s on the new injectors. They popped at 190 with the stock nozzles and very slightly higher (maybe 200) with the Bosios. These are transporter injectors with the pilot injection set to start at 190, main at 300. I had another set of injectors set up like this and they drive nice: advances timing a bit and the engine tends to run quieter.

Here's the engine in the last steps of assembly.



Part of what I realize is all the things you could refresh with the new head, like glow plugs, injector holders, the fuel filter to pump lines (which I am going to renew), valve cover, CCV puck (got a new one), etc. It does go on.

I think he'll have it running tomorrow. He'll probably do some testing and then release it to me for some more driving around, then check it out before proceeding to a 2000 mile or so break in. I'm excited.

Peter, how about a bypass oil filter to add more oil volume and cooling? Do you already have the larger oil cooler? Couldn't hurt with your power levels, right?

I've never been a fan of non-OE filtration, more of a quirk than a response to data. But a larger oil cooler is a good idea: I don't have one, although I put one on the Golf.

As Chill points out, I don't drive the car that hard these days. This is, in part, why I'm not upgrading the turbo. However, I have always enjoyed how this particular car revs. It frequently sees 4000 RPM+ in second in daily driving. I'm looking forward to how the ported head and cam may improve this.

Peter, I'd like to thank you for putting your thoughts and progress out there. Looking for direction in my own build and reading your thread has given me new insight about what I want. Standing by to see how this runs before I pull the trigger on anything, but I'm a lot more inclined to go with a 17/22 than I was when I woke up this morning.

This has been educational for me, too. One important thing I've learned is that if you're going to max out even a VNT-17 and use the power you probably should do some upgrades, at least to rods and perhaps pistons. Chill showed me the results from torquing the head bolts and even with OE bolts they're not perfectly even. Although I've never been a fan of head studs because I've not got data that they are any better than stock bolts in preventing head gasket failure, Chill does say that when you torque them they are absolutely consistent. Like the bent rods I never had any evidence of the head gasket leaking. I usually have to add a bit of coolant in the fall then the car's colder and the low coolant reservoir warning comes on prematurely, a fault my car has had for years, but I haven't added any coolant in almost a year. So the gasket leakage couldn't have been that bad.

Once any bugs are sorted and I've got a couple thousand break-in miles on it I'll be headed to the dyno. It's exciting to anticipate having a 6000 RPM tune and be able to use it without fear.

I still have my old Transporter injectors from my A3, nice to know you've found a setup that works well with them. I may have to get those redone some day. Who set yours up?

Will you be spinning the 11mm IP to 6000RPM? Were any mechanical changes to the IP necessary in order to make that happen? Did you weld the primary case pressure regulation valve tip in to prevent it wiggling out?

oilhammer said:

I still have my old Transporter injectors from my A3, nice to know you've found a setup that works well with them. I may have to get those redone some day. Who set yours up?

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They're new. Chill put the PP520s on them and pop tested them. They were consistently at 190 with the stock nozzles, around 200 with the PP520s. He said the different hole design on the Bosios made them pop at slightly higher pressure.

And he uses axle bolts instead of the hex head bolts to secure them. The different return line design makes it harder to get a wrench on the hex bolt.

I use grade 12.9 socket head cap screws for injector hold downs, they work quite nicely.

Why did you choose PP520 nozzles over something larger, dialed down, or even the stock T4 nozzles?

The stock nozzles in these injectors were 442s which are .184s or thereabouts, I think. Pretty small. I don't have easy access to T4 nozzles. If I could get factory injectors with the larger nozzles I'd be all over it, but those haven't been available for a while.

PP520s worked very well with this setup previously, so I have a good idea what I'm going to get. I've seen no comparative data on larger nozzles that are adjusted for flow versus smaller nozzles. Actually, seen no data at all. It would be interesting, for example, to compare PP520s to Race 520s with the flow reduced and see if there's any difference in dyno results or fuel economy. I wasn't willing to experiment with something unknown.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

It would be interesting, for example, to compare PP520s to Race 520s with the flow reduced and see if there's any difference in dyno results or fuel economy. I wasn't willing to experiment with something unknown.

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I totally agree, but fuel adjusted by tune.

I misunderstood the origin of those bodies(thought they were T4's).

What I don't know is what happens to larger nozzles when flow is mechanically "reduced" in the injector body. How does the injection event look different than with a smaller nozzle without reduced flow? What is the impact on timing, fuel economy, and smoke? It seems to me that if fuel flow were easily adjustable by injector setup with no down side, then manufacturers would have long ago stopped making a variety of nozzle sizes. There would be no point.

Once I have some driving and dyno time with this setup I may have Jeff adjust fueling in the tune, if necessary. All that's different from the last time I ran this setup is the head porting, cam, and, perhaps, compression, depending on when the rods bent. Actually, I guess that's quite a few differences.

The injector bodies have return line design that looks like T4 ones. They may well have come from T4s, but one that had smaller nozzles. Or Bosch may use these in another application with the 442s. I honestly have no idea.

What I do know is that a bigger nozzle requesting less fuel(same smoke level) has a shorter duration and should make better power. I think you hit the nail on the head with "reduced" flow.

I have a few ideas on how this might have been done but I really don't see any reason to buy a big nozzle then turn it down, defeats the purpose of buying a bigger nozzle. It is much easier to adjust the fuel via tune, or even IQ adjustments(if your IQ isn't already maxed out in the tune).

JFettig said:

What I do know is that a bigger nozzle requesting less fuel(same smoke level) has a shorter duration and should make better power...

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Agreed, which is more important on a higher RPM tune. There just is not as much time to get the fuel in.

Wasn't there some discussion about a 10mm pump actually being better at higher RPM than an 11mm?

Actually I'd challenge whether or not you know that injection duration is shorter, since we don't know how the flow is reduced. If it's reduced by injection duration, yes. But if it's reduced by providing less fuel flow then not only would the duration not be shorter, atomization would be adversely affected. Like I said, we've got no data.

I've been happily running old style, high flow PP502s with a "modified" 10mm pump in my car for some time. This setup delivered good fuel economy, low smoke, and expected EGTs, indicating to me that injection duration was reasonable. With PP520s and the 11mm pump I'll expect to get slightly less power but probably less smoke and similar FE, because the injection duration should be shorter with higher pressure, and atomization should be better.

Note there are a lot of conditional words above, because I venture that we really don't know what happens inside a combustion chamber when fuel is injected. Conversations I've had with folks who set up injectors support this belief.

Most folks believe 10mm pumps like high revs better than 11mms, and 11s like high revs better then 12s. I've learned on the track that over about 5500 mostly what you get from the TDI is heat, anyway. I once came in from a 30 minute session at Mt. Tremblant with my coolant at 240, and EGTs were still at 700 after I idled into the pits and parked the car. It was that hot.

One thing that I'll note is that the short duration approach does create a big problem with soot and NOx production. Not that relevant for our purposes, but it's why the OEMs aren't using it.

One example I have, I have no dyno numbers though:

ALH with a 17/22 10mm, T4 nozzles, smic, upgraded piping, tip, etc. It performed pretty good, held boost easy, injection maxed out, it was pretty quick.

Upgraded to 11mm and Stage 2 cam with T4 nozzles, noticeably quicker.

Upgraded to WARP 7 nozzles(really big), cut back injection quantity at WOT significantly, and cut back timing(SOI, less advance) and it significantly faster. We can easily make it smoke free(owner likes a light haze). When I say we cut back timing, we cut it back a LOT. Too much timing stresses the rods with super high PCP and kills power.

All this said, the T4 nozzles were maxed out with both 10 and 11mm pumps, smoke free.

All of the above can do the same mileage, his best mileage was obtained on the big nozzles and 11mm pump, however his worst mileage was obtained with the same setup

I would agree, we don't know exactly what is going on, maybe someone does but they aren't coming forward. I am confident that injection duration is cut back with larger nozzles. Like OH mentioned, at higher RPM I would bet that it would make a big difference to have a shorter duration.

Only if someone could figure out a way to get those snazzy pressure-sensing glow plugs from the CRs into our VEs and PDs. Think of the tuning data we'd have! Kinda like years ago when the pushrod/V8/4bbl hoosiers* figured out Lambda sensors.



*hoosier in Missouri means redneck. I meant no disrespect to inhabitants of Indiana, but possibly a little disrespect for NASCAR fans with no necks.

I would agree that injection duration with larger nozzles is cut back when you either change fueling in the programming or raise the IQ. But we don't know if that's the case when the mechanics of the injector are altered to reduce flow. At least I don't know.

oilhammer said:

Only if someone could figure out a way to get those snazzy pressure-sensing glow plugs from the CRs into our VEs and PDs. Think of the tuning data we'd have!

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Perhaps, but since we can't even get most people with tuned cars to get on a dyno, maybe not. I now have a cam in my car that, until now, has no before and after performance data. No upgraded cams do. Same with nozzles.

bhtooefr said:

One thing that I'll note is that the short duration approach does create a big problem with soot and NOx production. Not that relevant for our purposes, but it's why the OEMs aren't using it.

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I think that with the proper timing and short duration, you can definitely make less soot and probably less NOx while making more power, however NOx is not usually our #1 concern here in the power enhancements section

before/after dyno comparisons get expensive and are time consuming. I'd love to spend a few weeks doing this but its all too costly!

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Most folks believe 10mm pumps like high revs better than 11mms, and 11s like high revs better then 12s. I've learned on the track that over about 5500 mostly what you get from the TDI is heat, anyway.

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12mm and DE143 with upgraded springs will do 5500rpm and give you a lot more pressure for atomization with say an R520 or equivalent nozzle..

I ran 12mm + R520 for a long time and had decent mileage, minimal smoke and great power. So have several others. Modding the pump may not be the cheapest thing to do though but it does make a difference