Max power achieved from a UK classic on standard internals?
 

Hi

anyone know what the max reliable power / torque that has been achieved on a classic UK car running on standard internals?

How do you quantify "Reliable"?

Lasted 10k miles?

Lasted untill they turned the boost up further and blew it up? In which case how long would it have lasted if the boost hadn't been turned up? :)

Andy Tang acheived 354BHP on a MY99 UK on std internals :) That was a few years ago though, I'm sure there are much higher figures now :)

Started with 344 brake and 308 lbft, in December '01 on mine, and then made several improvements following that, it ran fine at these levels for about 30k miles (starting on a 60k mile MY98 UK engine) and some serious abuse...engine only came out because I wanted more power...oh and it had really bad piston slap all that time and long before the serious mods began...car's history well known to me, I've owned it from new ;)

Mine lasted until we pulled it out, still working at 31000 miles, owned from new. It was modified to PPP at 9000 miles, 290 BHP at about 12000 miles, 340 BHP at 18000 miles, towards 406 BHP at 29000 miles, but I only did the latter as another engine was on its way.

John

quite impressive. What MY was your car?

I've got a MY '99 with ~280BHP and 305lbft:

link ECU
full decat
equal manifold

I've been told that this probably the limit on standard internals on a UK '99?

Who told you that?

Bob

How long is this piece of string?

There are SO many variables there is no equation anyone can use to give a definative answer.

Looks like there are 'break points' but so few to realy give an answer.

If you want to push the boundry then start with a strong base engine, ie 2000cc Sti v3 or better.
How far can that go on internals? Mine's done 407 x 340 (once). That has raised the eyebrows on one very well respected engine builder!

Graham.

sonu, MY00 Turbo.

Last 70k km's running 330 hp plus, last 30k km's at somewhere between 360 and 380 hp. my00 engine is 140k km's old, running 260 hp from 2k5 km's onwards. Car extensively tracked and abused every summer (maps are designed around surviving 20 minutes on track without [significant ;)] det).

The engine's are very reliable if looked after, they just don't like being hammered when anything is wrong with them (from being too cold, to having airflow restriction, to having a failing MAF, to using sh*t oil). Wish the same was true of the gearboxes - anything over 300 hp will see the 5MT's self destruct regularly.

Note: all figures using EcuTek roaddyno or AP22 (I don't like rolling roads).

Richard

Fuzz has pushed to 400 bhp on std. UK internals.
me myself I hope to be at about 360/80 by the end of April this year

Thanks for the feedback all!

Think I'm being greedy with my wish... Maybe I should be happy with my lot :)

I would only agree with that on the earlier non-sti boxes. The v4, 5 & 6 sti boxes are much stronger. Just ask Harvey who's 5 speed has survived load's of miles running 585bhp. I am running 320bhp/320lbsft on my sti6 box for the last 1000 miles without much probs.

Stuart :)

Sonu, IIRC you had a Z3M coupe last time we met. Are you coming back to the fold? Rear wheel drive a bit to tricky for you ;)

F

Agreed Stuart - discussion was on a UK spec engine, I assumed you'd start with a UK gearbox too :)

No probs Richard ;)

I'll keep my nose out where non-sti's lurk....lol

Stuart

This is TSL Motorsport's opinion. They told me this a few weeks ago when I was having some wheels fitted and discussing modifications.

I respect them, but er, I am going to ignore them! :norty:

Seems so long ago now but i here's what i got on std internals running Optimax only.

415bhp/352Ib ft @ 1.4 bar

Impressive figure Alan.

Did it hold together?

Yes it did and for quite some time.

While it was good, I sold the engine to part fund the 2.5 and it was ran in another car for quite a few thousand miles, but the owner fitted a TD05 on to it (along with other bits) and never bothered (sorry, managed to arrange..) to get it re-mapped to suit his mods.
It eventually spewed it's guts out..

How many miles did it last at that spec with you and with what useage?

Did you ever get to run that spec on the strip?

Car has never been on the 1/4 mile.

At that spec, the car had became a toy than an everyday driver, so car was used for an "adrenaline kick" at weekends and stuff than being used for daily trudges to work, so mileage would have been lower than normal, yet the car would have been used harder than normal.

Probably did about 5000miles at that spec i imagine with around 10000 or so above 350bhp approx.
At 415bhp the car had 40000 miles already under its belt.

Kind of developed as i went along. Since day one (i've owned it since new) the car was always modified with different bits and bobs.

The engine did around 5000 i reckon by the guy that bought it off me, but it never had an easy life when he was at the wheel of his car.

348.8 bhp / 338 lbs/ft torque
MY00 , standard internals and standard gearbox
having the PPG fitted soon and am looking to rebuilding the engine.

but its ran that for 6 months now,always get it mapped after every mod (4 times now with BRD) , ,and 3rd is starting to whine,overfilled it to 4.4 litres but still whining.probably too late . . . . also using exedy organic clutch , , had a track day 12 weeks ago and done 9 launches @ 4500 rpm . . slipped on the last 3 and stunk like f..k but its fine for normal-hard driving

2 yrs and about 7-10k miles, all abused, the odd track and sprint day..
Too be honest it probably gets (got) a harder time on the road than it did on track. :eek: ;)

It's been hovering arouund the 380 /390 mark on a lot of dyno days but after a little personal tweaking I've got it a tadge over 400 on everyday optimax.
Race fuel is another story, engine sounds extremely stressed after further tweaks and it rusulted in 448... didn't expect it to last long on that and at £205 to fill it up certainly isn't going to get it very often..
Details of the graphs @ www.ashlyn.plus.com as I can't remember exact link. :D

Andy

odd track day andy ?

i witnessed 1 of them lol
beat everyone else by at least 5 seconds per lap , and we were doing 1 min 10s innit

Trophy is looking good next to my karting one Daz :thumb: :D

Did ya miss the one at coombe where I was chasing some nutter in an evo. :D

Can't wait for the coombe day in April with what I'm doing to it now. :eek: ;)

Andy

Sorry to jump the thread but it seems a reasonable question to ask since there are a couple of owners on here, what are the limits of the 2.5 and is that because its a closed deck block or pistons and rods not being up to the job? Just asking cause im looking to put on a bigger turbo (currently running a hybrid vf23 which stops producing at 5500rpm on 2.5) and dont want to end up with an over spec'd turbo compared to the bottom end and run it below its its potential for fear of breaking the engine. (was considering TD06-49 or GT30R, looking for 450/400+ for hillclimbing).

Dont think ive put accross what im trying to say too well.....do you get my jist?:)

Doug.

450/400 is around the safe theoretical limit for an EJ257 with stock internals.

The block is semi-closed deck, has very thin bore liners and relatively thin supporting walls for the bore compared to the bore diameter. The problem with this block in higher power/torque/boost applications is bore walk, just like a 2 litre open deck, the bores can move and this results in head gasket failure. Similarly using 2 litre heads on a 2.5 block adds to the problem because the small combustion chamber increases the squish area creating hot spots and excessive cylinder pressures. Ideally the combustion chambers need to be enlarged to suit the increased bore.

On the piston side of things the Hypereutectic pistons aren't a great design to start off with, the material is meant to exhibit the benfits of cast pistons with low expension coefficients and yet retain the strength of forged. In reality the ringlands are too brittle and tend to crack on engines running high levels of boost (over 1.5 bar). Another thing to look out for is the piston clearance, most EJ257's as they come from the factory appear to be running almost interferance fit pistons, in my case this clearance varried from 2 to 4 tenths of a thou, and in the US having to heat the block up to extract the pistons has been heard of! I had my block honed to give 1 thou clearance on each piston as a precaution.

The rods however are actually quite good, of a better design than in previous Subarus and so far seem to be ok up to around 450lbft...beyond that is entering the realms of the unknown.

So, if you plan to run 450/400 then the stock EJ257 should be ok (get those clearances checked though), however if you want to run more than that you are asking for trouble at some point. There are modified 257's out there running greater power and torque levels, but for how long is anyones guess. If you want to run greater power levels then the closed deck EJ22T and relinered EJ20T based engines in 2.2 to 2.35 guises seem to be better...but a bit more expensive, as you would expect at these levels.

Digging up an old thread here but what's the difference between a my00 sti box and a my00 Uk gearbox? They're the same no? I know the sti's engines are stronger.

The STI box is stronger than a UK turbo box. I broke a V6 sti box at an estimated 400/400. I have been led to belive that 400lb/ft is the limit for the STI box.
It is torque that kills box's not BHP.

Speaking uk engine mine was fine at 330/320 after 20k miles.