547bhp ... That was the power figure produced by the ESL/Racedynamix demo car after I mapped it at RCMS, which is a decent result for a standard location GT30 turbo on a forged 2.0 litre and ESLs latest generation management system. The car still starts on the first turn, idles and drives like OEM whatever the season until the taps are turned on and then it makes off like a stabbed rat.

This is running Mafless and a 20% methanol mix - I love mapping with methanol



A bit of history; Originally Stan Stancombes, this 97 UK Impreza was bought a few years back with a decent spec at a good price but Andy said that it felt quite slow for a 20G on a 2 litre and was using alot of oil.

The car was equipped with a PPG gearbox, 2.0 Cosworth bottom end, STI 3 heads, 780cc injectors, bosch pump, 20G turbo, AP brakes, Quaife ATB diffs front and rear and some basic coilovers.

In addition, the combination of a GEMS ECU and paddle clutch did not make for a relaxed drive as it was a poor starter and required some deft heel and toeing to stop it stalling at junctions.

The head gasket quickly let go and a teardown revealed cracks to the skirts of all four Cossie pistons.

ESL had a few bits and pieces lying around and decided to change the spec a bit. An RCMS bottom end, version ¾ heads, ATP stock location GT3076 Turbo, 4 bar MAP sensor, EU six speed box and some BC ER coilovers seemed a promising mix.

With this spec we put the new ESL 97/8 ECU in which improved both performance and driveability dramatically.

Andy was sent to North Weald running relatively low boost to compete against a large field of Ferraris, Porsches, TVRs and some well known sprint Subaru’s and Evos, and it beat absolutely everything with the exception of Duncan Cowpers TA Pro winning Dax Rush. We though this was pretty good for a £5000 car (worth less than the carbon wheels on one of the GT3s) with a £295 ECU. The link to the results is here (No. 28):

http://www.enduringsolutions.com/13Mar11.pdf

This was despite the new BCs not having been properly installed (the top mounts were left loose at the rear) which explains the wayward handling and knocking sound in this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfoBe2xOoLs

The car was then used to test the new motorsport features. Here is a quick shot of the Launch Control in action from the speedos perspective (excuse the tardy shift):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnL0vxJBfnw

The next job was to up the power level a bit. I mapped it on the RCMS rollers and while it managed a decent 482bhp, we couldn’t get the boost much above 1.75bar.

This was tracked down to a loose wastegate actuator. When fixed, the car immediately started boosting at over two bar, so it was straight back to RCMS to see what it would do hence the dyno graph at the top.



This is an ongoing project and I will add bits to this when I can ... really as an example of what can be done on the ESL ... more to be added soon

 

brilliant, i have also spun coming through the finish at north weald
will andy be competing this year ? be good to see him out
i'l be in touch soon for an esl on my 95 ra im just sorting a few bits and bobs to get it ready

 

subscribed!

 

Well done great result that . 5 k car gearbox and engine would be over 5 k would it not?

 

I bought the entire car for 5k, replaced the GEMS with ESL, replaced the 20g with a £500 turbo off scoobynet (sold the 20g for the same), replaced 20% of the petrol with meth, and ta da!

TK-WRX, is that you Trev?

 

Yes its Trev Andy, long time no see
will be back out sprinting in an impreza this year i picked up a 95 type ra before xmas and sorting it out at the moment
should be quite a few in roadgoing this year, Mike has also picked up an early555 sti to join in

 

Yes mate its been a while, I'd best get my licence sorted then, be rude not too. Is that Mike Blackmore?

 

yes and mikey sheering in his type r,jason has just bought an ra aswell and hopefully will be there apparently there was a few in class last year so numbers look to be good
bit concerened you bringing the wagon though we will all be sub 350 bhp still all good fun
me and mike will be in touch soon regarding an esl, mikey is well chuffed with his since ditching the apexi pfc

 

Cool, every scooby there will be on ESL then. Mike S said he was well pleased since Dunc switched his car to ESL from Apexi, it's the way ahead.

Don't know about the class structure these days but might have to go up a class if I'm running all the motorsport algorithms, so we might not be going head to head. I'm after some wet weather FTDs

 

Il be sprinting this year in a sprint virgin I'm running a 380 type r with simtec

 

The sprint mob are a good bunch, you will have a warm welcome, be interesting to compare ECUs.

 

Is that AndrewC`s old car?

 

Enjoyed mapping Mikes - lovely car but never ran right on the apexi I am told.

Hopefully see you later in the year trev

 

No - Stan Stancombes.

 

You guys do the debden sprints ? I can't wait

 

Gear result guys

 

should be at debden work permitting

 

Great to see a wagon kicking ***...and really nice that Stans wagon lives on. Good work fellas

 

Very impressive

 

That's an amazing result for a budget build, I'll be following this.

 

Subscribed.....

 

I was looking at a standard location GT30 for my 2L V3 STI fully forged, but have been told it will be far too laggy. Is this not the case? They usually sell at a reasonable price so I'd be interested in one if it's suitable.

 

Great results

 

It's a good question. "Far too laggy" is a bit hard to quantify as it is subjective. The car has a wider powerband than my S2000, but you do need to keep the engine speed up to achieve boost.

It is certainly has more lag than a standard car. In top gear on the road I hit full boost (2.1bar) at just under 4000rpm. I'll do some logs of manifold pressure vs engine speed and post them up.

However, dependent on what you want the car for, this can be mitigated to a certain extent.

For drag racing, the LC can be used to generate whatever boost is required at standstill (I have seen up to 2 bar but tend to set it up to launch at 1 bar). The important thing to note however, is that the throttle plate is wide open. The TC can then be adjusted to give an optimal launch and limit wheelspin and the flat shift can be used between gear changes to keep the boost up.

This means that the throttle is never anything but wide open throughout the accelerative phase and the major restriction to air flow in the inlet path (the throttle plate) is removed from the equation. This means you have positive boost from before you move to when you cross the line, i.e. no lag.

For a daily driven road car where the requirement is instant power as opposed to outright power, the GT30 might not be the obvious choice, but the shove in the back is pretty addictive.

 

A slightly frustrating day at the pod, the Head Gaskets let go early on so the car was down on power so managed 11.5sec @ 126mph.

Still alot of weight in the car and it obviously wasn't completely on song, but with some work I think a late 10 might be possible, still pretty good for such an inexpensive car.

Here is the video, the HG failure is obvious, the Launch Control and Flat Shift worked well:






This was my playmate for the day, a 620hp GTR. Even without using his LC he was a couple of tenths up on me, the DCT transmission keeps the acceleration seamless, amazing car.

 

lol I like they way you kept your foot planted even with all that water coming out the bonnet.

 

Oil temps stayed OK so I kept it planted. I rigged a catch can and refilled it after each run and ran another couple of 11s but then the water temp went nuts and the misfire worsened. Might be time to go up a size on the studs.

 

If you only have 11mm studs in the engine that was inevitable I think, 14mm conversion will sort it Andy. Heads will probably be warped but thats a good excuse to raise the compression a bit :-)

looking good though

cheers

 

Not sure how much meat I have left in these heads Bob

I've heard of others running similar power on 11mm ARPs but it doesn't seem to have worked for me.

 

No need to go bigger, go stronger.
Cosworth 11mm 260,000 psi studs should do you fine and save you the cost of all of the machining work.