Nothing is simple in this petroleum fuelled passion of ours....
 

Right, get your coffees; pillows; cocoa; jim jams; slippers & get ready to settle down for a long read! Where to begin.......I was born in Hackney in 1976.....only joking, its not gona be that long a read.

Had the Litchfield Spec C one year this April & had fun choosing & fitting some cosmetic mods; brake pads; gauges; ARBs etc but nothing to the engine apart from a Blitz backbox & a K&N panel filter. Done a few trackdays & had great fun doing them along with the guys & gals from the MSOC who have to have a little mention here. Its these group of friends that have made it worthwhile & fun & I probably wouldnt have done half the things with my car if not for their like minded encouragement & car madness!! Also sitting here reading Scoobynet has also had its affect upon my modding fixation & bank balance. Especially reading ex webby Shaun's holy bible on the subject, the Scoobynet SpecC project car.

Yesterday went down to Litchfields, in their newly opened, scenicly positioned establishment in the rolling hills of beautiful Gloucestershire. Wont go into too much details as Im sure Ian would rather unveil his new premises & rather not have me ruin it. But I will just say it was the most shiny; spotless; workshop I have ever seen with a few Sti's; Type 20s & other top offerings from Nissan dotted around. The level of customer service & attention to detail is like no other garage/showroom & the prices are quite reasonable to boot. Put simply, you get an honest opinion & honest work, stress free from experts in this specialised sector.

Got there at 9am they started Asap & I popped into town in their Impreza Classic courtesty car for a spot of breakfast & had a look at some Koeinesggs & a Pagazonda at the Aston Martin garage!
Before lunch they had done the oil service; general inspection; some work on the alarm; fitted a Prodrive 3 port boost solenoid & Forge Uprated Actuator, all according to plan so far.

Just to add: the previous weekend, Star MSOC member, Alan (& Janine), came round & fitted my Hayward & Scott 3" full decat exhaust system with jap exit angled backbox. (Heat wrapped downpipe with bellmouth design). I was able to add my expertise & help Alan whenever he got stuck an needed any expert advice or got confused :D:D ps I still owe you one mate :thumb:

After reading Shauns Spec C project car thread & basing my mods on his, I was hoping for plus 360 bhp, like his. (apart from the resonated centre section in my exhaust which he did not have. Also he was at the time on a Scoobysport exhaust but it is very similar to H&S) But here's where things dont always go according to plan :(

Got to Powerstation after lunch & got on the rollers at 2pm with Rich mapping. Got the car set up but couldnt find their existing map on ECU. So we had to start a new map from scratch with the idea of running it as close to 1.6 bar peak after my discussions with Shaun. After 1.5 hours on the dyno we could not get very good figures at all & as the session progressed we found the engine to be pinking & ECU retarding ignition at one point by 10 degrees. Rich even heard some knock so things wer'nt going too well. Rich put the problem down, most probably to contaminated fuel. Earlier in the morning I had filled up with Vpower in Pinner, Middx but it is a small Shell garage. After a quick discussion about my rising costs of the remap & the predicament I was in (I couldnt really drive home with the car like this) we came to an agreement on price with Rich being quite reasonable & he did not charge for the whole 3hours I was there!! (In fact he charged a whole lot less!)

So we drained the half tank of fuel remaining; I went down to another Shell garge; filled up again & back on the dyno at 4pm with me pacing up & down the dyno cell like an expectant father. This time, hey presto, no pinking, no ingnition retardation, in fact it advanced ignition by 7 degrees. So thats one problem solved. Now back to mapping. Finally at 4.45 pm, after testing everyting, including actuator pressure we managed a bhp figure of 340bhp at the flywheel. To be honest I was dissapointed, I was hoping for approx 360 bhp plus. Rich on the other hand wasnt & did not expect much more than 345 bhp as he said most make around that figure. Some have made more, but this is not an exact science, especially when not comparing like for like. After speaking to Ian today I feel even better, his opinion is that due to the dodgy fuel problem, I unnfortunately had the car running in the dyno cell for pretty much 3 hours, with a run to the petrol station in between & then getting a final run max bhp figure. This will generate a lot of heat in the process & is not ideal for me to get a max bhp figure, unfortunate but it could not be helped & thats life I suppose :( :(

But a few good things did come out of it.....It made 500 n/m of torque! This in Ian's opinion shows that the engine is running very well & the map/tune must have been stonking to produce such figures. (@ 1.6 bar boost) He even commented that this is what his Type 20 produces with a bigger turbo, albeit with similar hp figures though. He would rather trade 20 bhp for those torque figures & I am hoping that the bhp figures may have been adversley affected by the length of time & subsequent heat in engine etc. Its not scientific as not the same rollers/fuel/ambient temp but I am now going to the DSA rolling road day on the 18th April just to satisfy my curiosity more than anything else!

A sidenote: Ian & Rich also commented on the exhaust being an unkown quantity to them as they do not know the design & flow etc of the Hayward & scott exhaust & whether there are any restrictions in the bellmouth downpipe or where for e.g the flange join tapers down to less than 3" etc. Had it been a Miltek we could have ruled this issue out.

Finally & most importantly....................................... .................................................t he car has turned into an absoloute beast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:luxhello::lol::lol::notwor thy

Any gear; any revs; any speed.....the dam thing pulls like a train.....the acceleration is relentless. I have a new favourite gear,.......6th gear.....it pulls in 6th like never before, all the way up to silly figures, where before the twin scroll turbo would run out of puff a lot lot earlier. And the sound now of the turbo is frigtening....its like Iv got Wolverine in the engine bay howling & snarling & gnawing its teeth while the exhaust note has changed to a Mescesshmit in full attack mode!!!!! This is what drives our petrol fuelled passion & makes it all worthwhile........

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...a/scan0001.jpg

Mate..... impressive write up.... shorter than I anticipated too :D
Like both Ian and yourself have said.... I'd kill for your torque figures. I guess trying to extract power from such a highly tuned base motor is never going to be easy but stick with it mate. You've got a beast of an engine there which is also a daily driver.... a combination many of us would strive for. :thumb:

crikey ricky, it's gonna take me a month to read this!!:lol1::lol1:

Stop crying and start driving, you'll just have to start saving for a FMIC and a bigger turbo, and what about a rotated manifold:D

BTW, it is all simple and easy, just lower your expectations:thumb:

or stop worrying about the power and learn to drive :lol1::lol1::lol1:

Quality right up fella..! Bet your happy you stayed with the spec c....

:norty:You reading my mind Jon?

We could take lessons together:lol:

^^^ Guv you bought the twinscroll from litchfield then? along with their miltek manifold and up pipe......cheeky bugger!!!

Nice write up mate. You seem to be at the point I see a lot of people reach- that is that now, in order to get relatively small increments of power out of your engine it will take fairly major cost/work. All I would say is that you have to weigh up whether the increases in performance will make that big a difference to the overall performance, against whether it's prudent to spend more money "chasing figures".
Glad you're pleased with the beast too, it's great to have a car under you that you love to drive. :thumb::thumb:

You know it makes sense don't you:thumb:

Exactly. You'v read my mind.

The only thing worth doing still is changing the backbox for a quieter Miltek one. Also at the same time I can weld a flange joint onto the H&S mid section where there is currently a sleeve joint & it must reduce down from 3" bore where it joins the sleeve jointed h&s backbox

Nice torque figure, have a look at level 4 > AndyForrestPerformance :)

Good link Omar :)

Need to get those plugs too. Mine misfired a few times in the session & was advised to regap to 0.7mm or I suppose change :)

Im in a similar power band to those quoted by Andy Forest & mine was on a Maha dyno

ps forgot to thank John for his help too, last weekend with the exhaust, cheers mate :)

If you call standing around taking the p!ss help, then your more than welcome:D

:thumb: that is a pretty good torque figure ricky .

That torque is not the same as mine is it? I have 390tqu but yours is n/m? So what is your real torque output?

when it comes to talk(torque)
i dont think anyone can outdo ricky:D

^^^ :luxhello::luxhello::luxhello:

NICE TORQUE thats what its all about that torque when you put your foot down thats what makes you smile.

As we talked Ricky .. torque is the key .... ponies u need for top end .... Glad that u like it now m8....

Update:

Went to the Bucks Rolling road day at DSA Aylesbury. (Dyno Dynamics). Organised by Wimpy, great morning out with them & our MSOC lot as usual :)
ps SleeperSy blasted us all way with 569bhp IIRC!!!!!!! Jackie did well with 260bhp & first time on rollers :thumb: And James & Alan also went on too with excellent figures. ps Iv got your car's video James & my ,mate Louis will post up pics soon.

This time I put in some fresh V power/ changed plugs which were misfiring last time/ put in 37psi in tyres ;) & car wasnt hot when it went on rollers.
Mangaged 343bhp :) & 405 ft-lb of torque (550nm) :luxhello::D:D Not bad out of a 2.0 litre engine!

Though power at top end wasnt very smooth & fluctuated around a bit. Problem put down to, most probably a 'Neutral position sensor' on gearbox which was causing slight loss of boost every so often. Seems a simple fix with a washer bunged in to stop it intervening & with that fix power curve should smooth out to 350 bhp, the guys at DSA reckon. This IMO would be the approx max for the VF36 turbo & anymore than 350bhp on my car would require a bigger turbo & more £££'s. Overall happy with results & the fact that after Powerstation remap I am getting an extra 50 miles out of my fuel tank!

YouTube - Spec C Litchfield Impreza - 343bhp/405ft-lb torque. Rolling Road Shootout Scoobynet SIDC/MSOC

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...Arolling11.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...Arolling12.jpg

Nice one Ricky, great stuff! :thumb:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/10...DSC_0008-3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/10...DSC_0011-1.jpg

I think the pictures say it all ;)

James I think you, me & Guv need a group buy from Licho!!

Did you put yours on the rollers Monkey??:Suspiciou

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/10...DSC_0002-1.jpg

334 bhp 375 ft/lb with a cat

:notworthy:notworthy:notworthy

:luxhello::luxhello::luxhello:

I bet you're happier with that than Ricky was with his:thumb: