[s-cars] Weak in the brain, must get help........ Holy S#@#$$%&^%%$#@#%&* Batman!!!

[CaptMagu at aol.com]

s-heads

I just picked my car up from the dyno shop where the secondary tuning was 
being performed on my AEM managed stroker motor. I'm sitting in an Elite Glass 
shop getting my windshield replaced so I thought I'd put a few preliminary 
observations to my computer. Holy S#%&@*!()@)_@)(*&@@?*&%@#!!! This thing pulls 
like nothing I've ever driven or ridden in. I've been in more powerful cars but 
they were unable to deliver their power to the road. That's just one aspect of 
these cars that's so fabulous. My custom Southbend race/street clutch is 
performing beautifully. I have to take my hat off to the guys at 3R 
Automotive/Racing. The build and fabrication quality on this car are outstanding. Thanks for 
everything Dave.

My previous driving experiences with the stroker were somewhat limited. 
First, of course, was the tuner imposed 7 lbs of boost for the initial break-in 
period. Who says that Dave Jones doesn't trust me??? In addition, the TurboXS 
e-Boost 2 was all hooked up but was in some sort of valet mode. That gave me my 
boost pressure plumbed to the bottom of the wastegate. The car was bleeding 
exhaust all the way to 7 lbs which didn't give me a very good feel for the low 
end. Even with all that the butt dyno was registering some impressive feelings.

The first thing I noticed as I pulled rather conservatively away from the 
shop was the intake noise as the GT 35R started sucking through the HKS Mushroom 
filter mounted right in front of the compressor. It was really snarling. Then, 
I just stopped my foot from pushing on the gas pedal and the HKS Type II 
Racing BOV started firing. And, that was with positive manifold pressure of a 
couple of pounds. That thing has a hair trigger and I'm going to have to tighten 
on its spring. There is no perceptible turbo lag, or more properly phrased, 
boost threshold that I can perceive. I'm sure there will be some evidence as I 
explore those mountain climbing highways but that will have to wait until I get 
more miles on the car. So how much does gas cost these days? I know I'm going 
to become a lot more intimate with my Conoco retailer with all the boosted 
miles I'm going to be logging. I don't want to be sitting here in this glass 
shop, I want to be out on the road with that stroker monstah. Dave is still 
limiting me to 18 lbs of boost which should still be good for a little over 400 hp. 
The really impressive part is the incline of the torque curve, as measured by 
my butt dyno. Its gonna be very interesting to see the angle of that power 
curve.

I've got to get more miles on this thing because it will go in next week for 
its final tuning with an AEM tech. There's going to be some sort of tuner tech 
session here in Denver and they're going to be using my car as a mule. Dave 
Jones doesn't want anything, like lack of break-in miles, to stand in the way 
of some upper end boosted runs. I have to drop the car off on Wednesday night 
on my way to the airport. My wife and I will be out in SoCal babysitting the 3 
grandsons for the weekend so I will miss the dyno session. After that's done 
I'll get it over to the Mac dyno on the other side of town so we can compare 
the readings. That'll give us the opportunity to overlay the new curves with my 
old ones and see what this fuss was ALL about.

The question I get asked a lot is, was it worth the time, money and effort? 
There isn't an easy answer to that one. I am very happy with the result even 
short of final tuning. Building a sroker is NOT for 
anyone but the strong of will and or pocket book or preferably both. I love 
the GT 35R but its too big for a nonstroker AAN. The 3071R or in some cases, 
the GT 30R are much better matches. I went with the 35R because I knew I would 
have a stroker eventually and I didn't want to have to buy another turbo. Guys 
like Dave Dawson and Ben Howell, who's already running a stroker urQuattro 
Coupe, with their engineering skill and fabrication abilities can take something 
like this on without outside help but those kind of guys are few and far 
between. Oh yeah, it helps if you live in Evahboost like Dave and Ben or like I 
used to ;-)

I think the 2.5 stroker is definitely the way to go. The 2.6 just puts a 
little too much stress on the rods, rings, pistons and crank. You've also got the 
issue of piston and ring speed that the extra travel from the longer stroke 
provides. Given the low end torque and power I've got with the 2.5, I really 
don't see the need for more. Now wait a minute, what about that Nitrous??? No, I 
won't be injecting Nitrous but I would consider the Ntercooler from NX.

Next up for the Green Monstah will be a new front coil-over set-up from Dave 
Stone. Dave has been developing a complete coil-over system for our cars which 
includes dual adjustable Konis. The fronts are standard Koni 8611 struts that 
are revalved for the urS4/6 and the rears are Koni racing that are revalved 
and machined from their standard upper eye fitting to the Audi fitment. He's 
also developed a camber/caster plate that is several steps beyond the 2nd Gen 
2Bennett plates that I currently run. Please don't ask because a local lister 
has already put a deposit down on my old suspension. That's all I have for now, 
I just thought I'd share some observations.

Hap, wit dakine drivin impressions not from Evahboost, Maguire