Project Fireball, 1990 Eagle Talon TSI AWD Options

[BudmannG]

As you all know now I have a new project. I am going to call this "Project Fireball" for now. This is a 1990 Eagle Tallon TSI AWD 5 speed. I will try to keep the post updated, As I will be trying to work on this over the winter. And I will try to post picks of what I have done.

Pic of car when I got it.


To start off with I stripped the interior completly. Then I am going to take out all the sound deadener. And then look at Rhino lining the whole floor board. Any advice on this would help. Should I or Shouldn't I?


That's it so far, as I said before this is going to take all winter. So keep posted and I will update.

[JBone]

I don't think I understand the logic in the rino lining. I imagine you're taking out the sound deadening to lose weight. Don't add weight back in.

[BudmannG]

That's what I was thinking, but wasn't sure about how much weight it would add back in it.

[black92_tsi_awd]

If you're worried about a no slip surface for driving, just rhino-line the drivers footwell.

Man, this is going to be a light weight car, should be quick!

[BudmannG]

If you're worried about a no slip surface for driving, just rhino-line the drivers footwell.

Man, this is going to be a light weight car, should be quick!

That is a great idea, and I'm hoping it's very fast.

I will probably have alot of Q. along the way. So feel free to chime in any time, anyone.

[240drift]

haha fireBALL haha

carry on :-D

[BudmannG]

I was on GatewayDSM and seen where it said, I have to have my speedometer for this thing to run right. Does someone know if this is true?

[BudmannG]

I bought a starrion front mount for this beast. I was thinking that I could put bigger inlet, outlets on it.
And I still need to know about the speedometer Q. in the last post.

[BudmannG]

Just to update everyone. I bought a header and 3"GM Mafs for this beast.
I am needing help on weight reduction under the hood.

[turbohcar]

As far as I know, there shouldn't be any need for a speedo, as long as you don't care to monitor your gauges. I.E. RPM, MPH, water temp, oil psi, and fuel level, along with check engine lights. If you're going to stick with the stock ECU and not go to a $1500 engine management system, then you better put the wiring harness and cluster back in. I believe Xian had everything in his brown car much the way yours is. His used the stock speedo, but I believe it was zip tied to the support brace across the front of the cabin and he just plugged the interior harness into the back of it. I'd try that unless you want to spend more money on Autometer gauges as well.

[BudmannG]

I ordered my timing belt kit for it, should be here within the week. I just got the gm mafs in the mail. I may need some help with the timing belt but we will see.
I'm hoping this thing will walk sideways when I want it to!

[BudmannG]

I have also ordered my BOV, and some poly mounts for it.

Does anyone have any advice on injectors? All the internals are stock.

I am trying to get a NT throttle body for it. I am also going to put a walbro 255 lph in it. And I am planning on running the upgraded fuel line from the tank.

[turbohcar]

And I am planning on running the upgraded fuel line from the tank.

No need for this until you go 600+ hp. Spend money elsewhere. What turbo is going to be on this beast and what mods will you have? Need to know that before we can reccomend injectors.

[BudmannG]

I am not for sure about the turbo. I have a 14b on it right now. And will probly start the year with it.

[The Iron Goat]

And I am planning on running the upgraded fuel line from the tank.

No need for this until you go 600+ hp. Spend money elsewhere. What turbo is going to be on this beast and what mods will you have? Need to know that before we can reccomend injectors.

Nate ran a new fuel line on his car, and has had nothing but good to say about it. It eliminates the common starvation of cylinder #1. I don't think you need to wait until you reach 600hp to do a fuel line upgrade, however there may be more important issues to address before committing to it.

[turbohcar]

Nate ran a new fuel line on his car, and has had nothing but good to say about it.  It eliminates the common starvation of cylinder #1.  I don't think you need to wait until you reach 600hp to do a fuel line upgrade, however there may be more important issues to address before committing to it.

Interesting Goatboy.

Nate, can we have confirmation? I realize the line from the filter to the rail and the filter itself can be quite suffocating, but I hadn't realized that you would need to replace the whole line unless you were going for a dyno/drag queen in the 600+ range.

[The Iron Goat]

My understanding is that the upgrade was done not out of necessity, but rather convienience. Something to do with knock being caused by that last injector clicking a lot (ie not immersed in fuel).

[BudmannG]

This is what I found on VFAQ! And this is also the reason I am doing this upgrade.

Background

    As we look to get more power from our engines, we naturally want to get a greater air/fuel charge through the system.  Lets consider how to increase fuel.

    One common method to supply more fuel to the engine is to increase the pressure at the fuel pump by increasing the voltage.  This definitely increases the pressure at the pump, but that doesn't necessarily translate to more volume at the fuel rail. This is because the whole system was designed to deliver the volume of fuel that the stock injectors need, and not much more.  The same analysis holds for installing a high flow pump.  The fact is that you can only push so much fuel through the 'coffee straw' stock system. Its a capacity problem.

    With the help of a local performance shop with a liquid flow bench, I was able to run some flow tests on the stock fuel delivery system.  It was found that from the fuel pump outlet to the fuel rail inlet fitting, @ 60psi, a flow of 1.9 liters per minute could be measured.  When the pressure was increased to 75psi, the flow only went up by 0.1 lpm.  That's only ~5% more flow for a 25% increase in pressure... not good.    Couple that with the fact that stock injectors are 450 cc/m so that four of them can approach a flow of 1.9 lpm (4 x 450) , it can be seen that we are approaching the point where the injectors can outflow the fuel system.

    What are the reasons for this low flow?  There are several restrictive points in the system.  Starting from the front and working back, they are:

        * The fitting at the fuel rail only has a diameter of 5.5mm
        * The banjo fitting at the outlet of the fuel filter.
        * Fuel filter is a low-flow design (2 lpm).
        * The steel fuel line is only 3/16" ID.  [BTW: the -6AN fitting we'll be using has an actual measured ID of 5/16"]

    After market pumps can develop a lot of pressure though, so what's the problem?  One significant issue is based on how we tune our cars air/fuel ratio.  Notice in figure 1 that in this case the fuel pressure sender is in the small diameter restrictive section of the delivery system.  Now the diameter of the fuel rail is much larger than the fuel line leading up to it.  So when the injectors are at a high enough duty cycle as to approach the maximum capacity of  the preceding delivery system, the pressure in the fuel rail will see a drop off at each successive injector as indicated by the wavy blue lines.  There will be enough pressure to deliver sufficient fuel for the first two cylinders and probably the third.  But the last cylinder (#1) will be starved and thus risks a lean condition.

    Since the EGT is usually tapped to the #1 runner, a  lean condition is indicated by a high temperature in that cylinder.  But typically, an 02 reading is also used to tune and the O2 value we see is based on all four cylinders.  Hence we have been accustom to thinking that our lean threshold is much higher ( > .85V) than it needs to be. And our fuel pressure gauge has not given us a proper indication of the problem as it is far upstream and is not subject to the pressure drop off in the rail.  It would be better to mount the fuel pressure sender at the end of the rail but that would be a difficult installation.

    It is asserted that this leads to a loss of power because we effectively have two very rich cylinders, one about right and one lean.  Because we have to protect the lean cylinder, we sacrifice power in the first two.  The fuel pressure regulator also does not help alleviate this problem. Since it is at the end of the rail, it can only regulate the maximum pressure provided there is enough flow.  It does nothing to correct the low pressure, low flow situation.

    The solution is to upgrade the flow capacity of whole fuel delivery system to minimize the pressure differential seen by all four injectors. Or, put another way, a high flow pump and big injectors are great. But you've got to have big enough line to actually get the extra gas to the intake.

    After the new fuel delivery system was designed and built, we took it back to the flow bench and found that it flowed  ~10 lpm @ 60psi. Very nice :-)

    A word of caution: The following procedure is pretty involved and is not recommended for those without a reasonable amount of mechanical knowledge and automotive repair experience.
We have been very pleased with the results obtained with this modification to our cars.  In general, we have found that our EGTs are measurably lower and O2s a little higher which allows a greater tuning range.  For those interested, our entire fuel and control system consists of:

    * Stock DSM fuel pump
    * SteveTek High Flow Delivery System
    * 660 ND injectors
    * APEXi SAFC

We find this combination to be very well integrated. Enjoy!

[natedogg]

Here is the website with the info that Bud posted. http://www.stevetek.com/R-FuelSys.html

I used it as a guide to upgrading my fuel lines. I didn't have to do any JBwelding though because fullthrottlespeed.com sells bolt on -6an and -8an fuel rail adapters. It definitely allowed me to run more boost without knock and I suggest it to anyone who is getting serious about modifying their car. Its pretty simple, relatively cheap, and will pay dividends especially when running stupid large turbos.

Hcar is right about the lines from the tank to the filter not being the biggest restriction. The main restrictions are the stock fuel filter itself and the stock line running from the fuel filter to the rail. If you're on a budget upgrading these two items will do essentially the same thing, but again if you're planning to go stupid big, cough up the extra dough to run the line all the way from the fuel tank.

[BudmannG]

I still want that turbo Natedogg. I just have to wait for my income taxes.