RE: Ur-boost Emperical evidence

[Dave Lawson <dlawson@ball.com>]

Rod,

> Or do you
>think boost was really this low on new US cars?

 As I have mentioned previously, with a stock 83 TQC computer, I can run 
around 13.5 psi of boost at 5000 ft elevation. At 600ft elevation, I had to 
back off the boost to around 10 psi to stop the computer cut-out. Don't 
forget that a large input into this area is the intake air temp.

>Does anyone know what
>level of boost was run on the European Ur's?   All the articles on the
>Ur's back in the beginning gave US boost specs at 12 psi. I Think perhaps
>they were simply quoting the euro figure for the 200hp engines.

The info I have shows the euro cars having a max boost pressure of 12.3 psi. 
The US cars show this same level. The TQC maintainance and adjustments 
manual show the boost curve with a max boost of 0.9 bar so, the 12.3 psi 
sounds reasonable.

>Did the
>US and Euro cars use the same computers? I would assume not as they should
>have been programmed to take advantage of the higher octane fuels
>available in europe.

I don't think they used the same computers. Ned Ritchey told me that a US 
computer will not work in a euro car and the euro cmputer will not work in a 
US car. I have also been told that the very early euro TQCs ran open loop 
with no O2 sensor on the car, so the fuel system was setup to dump max fuel, 
all the time. I have seen some Abt tuned cars setup like this. They had 
removed the O2 sensor, the fuel distributor frequency valve, and the cat 
converter. You could smell the unburned fuel in the exhaust at idle.

Some other differences between the euro TQCs and the US cars, is the 
camshaft has a different profile. The valve timing looks like

Engine Code                       WR(euro)      WX(US)
Inlet opens ATDC                 3                        6
Inlet closes ABDC               47                      44
Exhaust opens BBDC        43                      40
Exhaust closes BTDC         7                      -10

Anyone know the part number of the euro WR engine camshaft?

And from a TQC owner who has had both the US and euro engines apart is the 
head is different. He said the euro head had more material in the combustion 
chamber which increases the compression ratio and that the euro head had 
smoother and larger ports, that some time is taken with the euro head and it 
appears to be tuned.

 -
Dave Lawson dlawson@ball.com
86 coupe GT
83 TQC