Guess the BHP - Non 306 Content *Results Are In*

[PartyJas]

So after an almost 4 year build my Opel Ascona 400 is hitting the rolling road today. The engine is pretty much an unknown quantity as I am not aware of another car running the same set up, so i thought it would be interesting to see what you guys think it will make power wise.

Engine spec-

C20XE (early coscast head) with an Eaton M90 supercharger (running approx 10-14 psi boost)
Standard XE head and cams (adjustable pulleys)
Steel H beam roads and forged turbo pistons (8.5:1 compression)
Jaguar XJ-R chargecooler
Jenvey single 75mm throttle body and custom made inlet.
DTA ECU
Custom made 4-2-1 exhaust manifold and single box system (2 1/2" Bore)
Engine will rev to 7250 Rpm.

Go....!

[tigerstyle]

333bhp

[PartyJas]

Id be happy with that.

[Dum-Dum]

250bhp ish

A 2.0 engine is usually good for about 150bhp NA and if your adding 70-100% more air then you can make that much power but then there is heat and charger losses.

[Pebbles167]

Between 200bhp - 250bhp at the engine I reckon.

[PartyJas]

250bhp ish

A 2.0 engine is usually good for about 150bhp NA and if your adding 70-100% more air then you can make that much power but then there is heat and charger losses.

Yeah, its a big charger and takes 40-50bhp to drive it at full revs. The outright power may not be overly impressive but i'm sure the torque curve will make up for that.

[tigerstyle]

Id be happy with that.

Yeah, tad optimisitc, I appreciate it's older tech with the blower. 
But a VAG 1.8T would achieve that number easily for similar £££, do you want to keep it vaux under the bonnet? 

[bashbarnard]

235 I reckon.

[zx_volcane]

Around 220 ish

[r3k1355]

Are we talking a bar of boost and standard XE compression ratio ???
Cos that will make some decent power, but if you've dropped it right down you're in the 250-280 region.

The main question will be is the chargecooler upto the job, cos they're properly tricky to get right.

[PartyJas]

As listed above, the pistons are LET turbo pistons with an 8.5:1 compression. The boost has been set conservatively to begin with. Scope to increase but not too much as that will just be creating more heat. The charge cooler is working well at idle and part throttle but not been tested at full engine load yet. The pre and post cooler temps will be monitored at the rolling road session. The chargecooler and supercharger are from the same production vehicle so should work well together.

[7057sam]

Going for 237 bhp

[toseland]

220 i thinks

[WiNgNuTz]

220-230 is my bet, but Y U NO PICS?!

So when do we find out?

[PartyJas]

Hmmm. Some fairly reserved figures here. The engine builders have seen 350bhp from similar spec engine running a turbo at 1 bar boost. Obviously you don't have the parasitic loss from the turbo as you do with the supercharger, but that loss i a known figure at around 45bhp at maximum rpm. Although only running around 1 bar of boost its a big charger and capable of shifting a LOT of air (90 cubic inches per revolution and had a sustainable max rpm of 12,000).

I'm still waiting to hear how it went... hoping no news is good news.!

[Poodle]

Boost and na cams..? Suppose it's not so bad where it's a supercharger rather than turbo. Still, I'll hazard a guess at 230, should make that since she's pretty high boost. Who knows, petrols aren't my bag, baby. I assume it's being mapped on the dyno? Can haz video plz?

[WiNgNuTz]

Who knows, petrols aren't my bag, baby. I assume it's being mapped on the dyno? Can haz video plz?

Sums up the basis of my estimate perfectly!

[PartyJas]

Boost and na cams..? Suppose it's not so bad where it's a supercharger rather than turbo. Still, I'll hazard a guess at 230, should make that since she's pretty high boost. Who knows, petrols aren't my bag, baby. I assume it's being mapped on the dyno? Can haz video plz?

Yeah its being mapped in the dyno. The N/A cams in that engine are a popular upgrade to blown motors and do work well, adding approx 25bhp to a tuned turbo motor.
I'm hoping there will be a video here later or tomorrow.

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[attachment=23839]

have a pic mean time.

[Stef205]

who cares what power its makes or doesnt! power figures are mean-less doesnt make it any better or worse. The only use for figures are to brag down the local pub. The amount of people lately that determine a engines heath or quality by its power figures is unreal. They are so easily manipulated via rollers or the operator. All this power is completely useless unless you can put it to the road.

[PartyJas]

who cares what power its makes or doesnt! power figures are mean-less doesnt make it any better or worse. The only use for figures are to brag down the local pub. The amount of people lately that determine a engines heath or quality by its power figures is unreal. They are so easily manipulated via rollers or the operator. All this power is completely useless unless you can put it to the road.

I agree.

This is the whole reason i went the supercharger route rather than turbo. I wanted the drivability.

[bashbarnard]

I have a friend who runs these engines in his build and he swears by the n\a cams.

[Ruan]

who cares what power its makes or doesnt! power figures are mean-less doesnt make it any better or worse. The only use for figures are to brag down the local pub. The amount of people lately that determine a engines heath or quality by its power figures is unreal. They are so easily manipulated via rollers or the operator. All this power is completely useless unless you can put it to the road.

I agree.

This is the whole reason i went the supercharger route rather than turbo. I wanted the drivability.

Whilst I agree with your sentiments, I'd prefer the free'r revving nature of a turbocharged petrol and use a DECENT turbocharger, rather than having 50hp being driven from the crank all the time contributing to engine braking all the time. Superchargers do not necessarily mean better driveability, merely eliminating any spool up time - drive a turbocharged petrol with a well specified, modern turbocharger, it saddens me when people only have ever had experience of heavily turbocharged petrol motors with old school turbocharging technology, a'la C20LET, Cosworth YB, EJ20s - these are all 20-30 year old designs. Turbocharger technology has come along SO much in the last few years, it's barely even comparable!

Totally agreed on the final power figures, it doesn't matter, what matters is how well it's mapped and where that power is and how it feels to drive... 

[Niall]

who cares what power its makes or doesnt! power figures are mean-less doesnt make it any better or worse. The only use for figures are to brag down the local pub. The amount of people lately that determine a engines heath or quality by its power figures is unreal. They are so easily manipulated via rollers or the operator. All this power is completely useless unless you can put it to the road.

I agree.

This is the whole reason i went the supercharger route rather than turbo. I wanted the drivability.

Whilst I agree with your sentiments, I'd prefer the free'r revving nature of a turbocharged petrol and use a DECENT turbocharger, rather than having 50hp being driven from the crank all the time contributing to engine braking all the time. Superchargers do not necessarily mean better driveability, merely eliminating any spool up time - drive a turbocharged petrol with a well specified, modern turbocharger, it saddens me when people only have ever had experience of heavily turbocharged petrol motors with old school turbocharging technology, a'la C20LET, Cosworth YB, EJ20s - these are all 20-30 year old designs. Turbocharger technology has come along SO much in the last few years, it's barely even comparable!

Totally agreed on the final power figures, it doesn't matter, what matters is how well it's mapped and where that power is and how it feels to drive... 

Id agree with that tbh. Supercharging is good but a good turbo set up is also equal if not better. Issue is for aftermarket tuning, turbo is substantially more expensive!!

[Poodle]

That looks fantastic, love the orange! Bit weird about the cams, have always been taught na cams on a blown engine will lose power, not much overlap i guess..? Maybe i'm just thinking of turbo engines, who knows lol.

[bashbarnard]

Mates is turbo. Apparently they are higher lift than the turbo ones. So he says. Seems to work well considering his is almost 450bhp.

[allanallen]

Wow, some opinions in here all right!

On a bar of boost that should make around 300bhp at the wheels.

Car looks fantastic, is there a build thread somewhere?

[PartyJas]

Not able to get a full power run yesterday. Charger is developing too much boost (18psi) and hence too much heat which was starting to cause detonation. Not too difficult to sort as we added a wastegate to the charger system. Just needs a bit of fettling. Worst case i to fit a bigger charger pulley.

On a plus side it did pull 200 lb/ft of torque at 2000 Rpm. BOOM.!

Full build thread HERE for anyone interested.

[r3k1355]

Ha ha thats awesome.
Heat is a common problem with superchargers, they run fine at the set speed they were designed for - but push them a couple of PSI over that and they'll piss out nothing but super-heated air

[PartyJas]

Ha ha thats awesome.
Heat is a common problem with superchargers, they run fine at the set speed they were designed for - but push them a couple of PSI over that and they'll piss out nothing but super-heated air

Yeah, 18 psi was only at 5000 rpm too so would have been waaaaay too much boost at 7000.

Getting a smaller crank pulley machined to drive the charger slower and boosting at just under 1 bar. Back on the rollers 30th June. Fingers crossed for that. I just wanna drive the bloody thing now.

[r3k1355]

Doesn't the smaller pulley drive the charger faster??

(oh wait, just saw it was the crank pulley not the supercharger pulley)