Shane T on Mastering Boost, 2000+ HP 4 Cylinders, Ekanoo 2JZ, and Tuning Secrets

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Welcome back to another episode of the Street Alpha Podcast. I'm your host, Tuques,

and today we are at Bradenton Motor Sports Park, a week before FB2K,

and we have the pleasure of sitting with Shane T.

Now, this has been highly requested for about probably the past year or so.

I think I spoke to you maybe a year ago on Instagram, reached out to you to do a podcast,

and it's just been super tough to get schedules aligned, but we're finally here.

Now, before we start, I do want to give a huge shout out to Victor for making this happen.

He allowed us to make this podcast happen here, literally as of last night at 11 p.m.

Yeah, like 11 p.m. We're looking for a venue where...

because I'm here for the offshore race in Greerwater, which is the west side,

and you're from basically the east side, so we're trying to find a way to meet somewhere in the middle.

Somewhere in the middle, yeah.

And I think, you know what, maybe let me message Victor real quick and see if we could do it at the track somewhere.

So, literally at 10.45 last night, you know the story, obviously, and I'm just telling it for everyone else's benefit.

And I message him, and he responds, and he's like,

because I said, can we do it at your shop, possibly, or maybe at the track?

And he's like, well, don't come to my shop because I don't want you at my shop right now with what's going on over there.

So, you go to the racetrack, you can either use my race shop, or you can use the tower.

And I'm like, well, which one's got air conditioning?

He's like, the tower.

So, we'll use the tower then.

Yeah.

So, he offered it up, and you know what, that goes to your point earlier about contacts, right?

Mm-hmm.

What's really amazing about the racing industry is it's actually relatively small.

But, dude, when people go out of their way like that to help you in your situation,

and Victor, and it's like, that's why you've got to kind of like pay it forward, right?

100%.

So, but it's just, it's really cool.

Super huge shout out to Victor, and as you said, induction performance,

and obviously Braden in Motorsports Park for hosting us.

Yeah, Victor always looks out.

In the last year, you know, I had a booth here last year.

I'm not sure if I'm going to have a booth here this year because my car is not ready yet,

and that's every car guy story, right?

Thank God it's not my fault this time.

It's all right to be on this side of it.

Either way, we have Shane T.

Now, Shane T. has been tuning for probably over, what, two decades now?

20 years, probably?

Yeah, I start, well, yeah, I started professionally in 2001,

but I was tinkering with my own stuff, I mean, from pretty much the point

when I could pick up a screwdriver.

Right, so 20 years of tuning though.

20 years of professionally, I started in 2001.

Right.

So we're 24 years, almost 25.

Yeah, 24 years.

A long, a long time.

So he's been tuning before, like, what we have now.

We have luxury, we have all these ECUs that are doing cool stuff,

and you probably weren't, didn't have all those things back then.

So the very first, well, yeah.

I don't know how far back on the story or when you want to start this,

but I actually built my own ECU when I was 16, 14, 15, 16.

I didn't even know that, I'm not going to lie.

Oh, yeah, so I didn't do it myself.

So let's just cut that to the chase of that.

One of the guys that worked for my dad was like an EE,

an electronics engineer.

And I built this go-kart, and I used to bring a Straton engine.

I went to the SWAT mean I bought like a little scooter, basically.

Okay.

And I took it all apart and turned it into a go-kart.

I welded the chassis up as long as 14.

So I welded the chassis up, put the scooter together.

I used like literal push scooter front wheels and handbrakes off a bike,

like for front brakes.

And then put this little brakes and Straton engine on the back of it.

And I drove it around.

So that was the summer when I was 14.

I did that.

Maybe it took me a month or I don't remember what,

but I went and drove it around for like five minutes.

Okay.

And then I'm like, this is a slow hunk of shit.

I need to make it faster.

Well, we had all these parts also in the shop.

And I saw this smog pump laying on the shelf.

So it's a little air pump that pumps air into the exhaust,

like on a 70s, 60s, 70s and 80s streetcar to help with emissions.

So I'm looking at it and I'm like,

it looks like a little supercharger to me.

So then I thought, I wonder if I could adapt it.

So that's what I did.

I set out to adapt it onto my go-kart, my Briggs and Straton engine.

Well, I don't know if you've ever played around with a Briggs and Straton engine,

but the carburetor is like, yeah.

So the carburetor is, look, it's meant for two things,

like rabbit and turtle.

Right?

It's not meant for supercharging and, you know, transients.

So I put the supercharger on it and of course it won't run worth a shit.

And there's a guy down the street that does quarter-majored engines.

And he's like, oh man, you're never going to get it to work that way.

You need the carburetor on the front of the supercharger.

So here's a little carburetor that we use on our quarter-majored engines,

mounted on the front of the supercharger and do it that way.

It's like, okay.

So I changed it around to that.

And that was, that was way better.

It would run, but it would have a huge hesitation.

Like when you went after the throttle,

it would like stumble like crazy and then blow black smoke

and then it would finally take off and go.

So I was trying to get the carburetor to work right

and one of the guys that works for my dad, Jeff Ellis,

he comes over one day and he's like, hey, you know,

why don't you put electronic fuel injection on that?

It would make it run a lot better.

And I'm like, okay, what's electronic fuel injection?

So he's like, oh, here, let me show you.

It gets an injector and he's like, look,

if this is an injector and fuel goes in here

and then it comes out of there.

So why don't you get this mounted in the intake manifold?

And here's a little Bosch fuel pump and a regulator

and the fuel comes into this and out there to the regulator

and then back to the tank.

So you need a little tank and the injector goes in the middle.

Get all that rigged up on your go-kart

and I'll come over later this afternoon and after work

and we can build a little circuit that can trigger off

of the points and fire that injector.

So I'm like, oh, great, sounds awesome.

So like two years later,

we're still trying to get this to run.

By now, I've gotten rid of the go-kart.

I mount the engine on a stand.

We've got the supercharger.

Him, me, and my dad are spending hours on this engine

because it evolved into full ignition control.

We're using a DIS coil pack, had twin spark plugs.

I welded the cylinder head up

and put a second spark plug in the top of the head.

I mean, dude, it just goes on and on.

I welded the camshaft up.

I bought another engine and I took the camshaft out of that

when welded the lobes up with a stick arc welder

and then ground them on the bench grinder by hand.

I put so much lift in that the valve hit the head

and then I just ground the cam down

until the valve didn't hit the head anymore

and then just put it in.

And it was nasty.

Things sounded like a Harley, right?

And so anyway, so the fuel injection part of it,

we ended up with a photo-OPTIQ crank trigger

because we could not figure out

how to get the noise from the ignition

to not interrupt the signal going into this.

So this computer we built,

it really wasn't a computer,

it was a 5.5.5 timer circuit

and it had two adjustments on it,

two screwdriver adjustments,

one for idle and one for off idle

and then it had a switch that told it

when the throttle was closed

so it would switch to the idle circuit

and then go to the not idle circuit

when you open the throttle.

So yeah, we ran this thing on 100% nitromethane,

built our own circuit boards for it,

hand assembled all this stuff

and yeah, so that was my start

when tuning and EFI was when I was 14, 15, 16.

Well, I'm sure that start

is a lot more than most people would have.

Well, so I get this all the time.

People are like, man, how do I,

where can I go to school to learn what you learn?

I'm like, you can go,

there's lots of schools you can go to,

I can recommend them.

Like, right, HP Academy

and obviously Ben Strader, EFI University.

But you're not going to be able to know what I know

because I've been doing this

since I was 15 years old, right?

This is how I know.

When I started at MoTeC,

I realized like I'm doing what I'm meant to do

because every skill I had developed

leading into that,

I was using to great effect, right?

So I know I'm doing what I'm meant to be doing

on this planet other than being a dad,

which is the new thing.

It's own set of challenges,

but also super rewarding.

Just so people know, right?

Because that was a fantastic intro

into how you got started, right?

Interesting, really interesting story.

It's all bullshit.

I made it up just now.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

It's all AI.

So you,

just so people know who you are.

Like, you have been involved

with several different pro mods over the years, right?

Sure.

High horsepower, four cylinders, right?

SR20.

Still record holding?

SR20 or at the time it was?

No, it's not.

No, because they've outdone it.

They've been 580s now with the Hondas.

Oh, look, it might be a record.

Maybe an SR it might be.

I mean, look,

I'm pretty sure the same car

that I just did a couple weeks in Australia

so I'm fairly sure that's the most

anyone's ever made with one.

So 2000 plus horsepower

and SR20.

2175 at the wheels.

Right.

So SR20,

six cylinder,

you had Econu,

you were involved with him as well.

Yes.

Which,

obviously even watching his videos.

We could spend a whole podcast on that, yeah.

So,

and there was a white Supra

that you were involved with?

Yeah, yeah,

that was the Econu car.

That viral video that you guys saw

probably,

I don't know how many years ago now

of that 2J ripping it down the track

was that car, right?

Yeah.

Well,

it didn't start out white.

The involvement with Econu

started

in 2000,

I think,

for

at bullish.

So George,

George and Ara,

Ara was the owner

and George was the tuner.

George and Ara split

and so George went and opened

his own shop or something like that

and Ara kept bullish open.

And

they needed a tuner for this car

that they had just finished

building,

which was this yellow street Supra

for

what turned out later to be Econu,

Ibrahim Canu.

So,

from Bahrain.

So anyway,

they told me,

look,

they hired me from Motec.

I flew out to bullish

and they said,

look, this is for this guy in Bahrain.

Means nothing.

I don't know where that is.

Ibrahim

and it's a street Supra

and blah, blah, blah,

whatever,

fine.

So we get it on the dyno

and it makes like,

I think,

if either 1,045

or 1,075 at the wheel,

which was

insane for that time.

And so I got it all done

and off it went to

Bahrain

and I never thought about it again.

Then I met two guys

that used to have to the twins,

twins Turbo.

So they used to have a TV show

called Super Tuner

and I met them because

they, in fact,

they worked for Vinny 10

and they moved to California.

Yeah,

to do some work in California.

So they moved out there,

opened their own shop

and then they got this TV show

and then they were building

a car for the show,

a Supra

and they want to put a Motec on it.

So they get a hold of Motec.

I worked at Motec

obviously in California,

which was maybe only

25 minutes away

from where their shop was.

Right.

And so they wanted to use a Motec

but they wanted to promote it

so they were like,

look, give us a discount on it

but we'll promote it heavily

when you guys come here

beyond our television show.

So my boss is like,

yeah, it's a good opportunity.

Let's get involved.

So they got the Motec parts,

wiring shop did the wiring harness

and then I came over the day

we're going to put it all together

and make it run.

So when I get there,

it is woefully

nowhere near being done.

Right.

I get there at like whatever noon

and this thing's like

knock out the engine in

and I mean, they're still assembling.

Right.

But they're doing it.

I can't remember what they must have been.

They must have had film days or something.

Like I don't know,

remember why there was a reason

why it had to be done super quick

or we could not just come back.

But anyway, it was like,

oh, shit, these guys don't need.

I can't use the laptop for hours.

Right.

But what I can do is use my hands

because I know how to work on cars too.

So then I just jump in the foray

with them and start thrashing

and we stay up all night

and get it done

and I don't leave, right?

Because the car's not done

and then we get it done in the morning,

do all the electronics, test, check,

fire it up, put it on the dyno

and run on the dyno.

So that was like,

then from that point on,

they're like, you're our guy.

We are only ever going to use you

to tune our cars

because no one's ever

put that level of dedication in.

Right.

And then I can't even remember

if the thing made it

to the television program or not.

But anyway, that was,

in fact,

But that was the start

of your involvement with them.

With them, yeah.

Because with the twins,

they're like, dude,

check out this Supra.

Look at the video of this Supra.

And there's this yellow Supra

in the Middle East,

you know, racing out in the desert

and like smoking,

well, it's probably GSXRs then

or maybe it was Hayabusa's.

But anyway, like,

it's just out running

and like crazy.

And we're like, dude,

that Supra's sick.

That thing's killer.

And you would see in the videos

on YouTube, like,

all these people wearing phobes

and, you know,

the Middle East garb

and they're like standing out

in the middle of the desert

on a freeway.

And they're like,

this thing's run through the crowd.

And it's like,

these guys are crazy, right?

Those videos are legendary, though.

Right?

Yeah.

All right.

So 2006 rolls around.

I get a call from someone in

Dubai.

Hey, we want you to come

to our shop.

We have a Supra

and we have all these hill climb cars

because that's kind of their motor sport

where there's climbing up sand dunes.

And we want you

and they all have Motec on them.

We want you to come and tune them.

And so we're going to do,

we're going to have race cars

and we're going to do racing.

And so you just move here

and we'll just,

you can get a house here

and you can live here.

Is this, are you for real?

Like this motherfucker

must be out of his mind.

I'm like, no, no,

I don't want to do that.

But they're like,

they call me several times

and every time they're

cutting the time frame down.

And so in 2006,

I quit working at Motec.

I'm now under contract

with Christian Rado, right?

For his,

for his front wheel drive drag car.

And I can't leave

because of my contract with him.

And I don't want to,

I'm not going to fuck

my contract up in the U.S.

to go play with some piece of shit

and I don't even know

where it is, right?

So, but every time they call me

and I say no,

they call back

and they keep raising the price,

right?

They keep running the number up.

So I think the last offer

was something like,

okay, we'll fly you first class.

We'll put you in a first class hotel.

We will limo you back

and forth from the hotel

to the dyno.

And we will pay you,

you'll leave on a Saturday

or you leave on Monday

and you'll come back on Sunday

and we'll pay you $10,000 cash.

And I'm like, listen,

it could be $100,000.

I don't have the fucking time,

right?

It's not going to work.

Fine.

They go away.

2007,

I'm at Test Days at Daytona,

actually with the IMSA team

I worked with that year.

Okay.

And I get a phone call

and it's George from Bullish

and he's like, hey,

remember the car you tuned

for the guy in Bahrain?

Yeah.

He bought our race car

and he's now got it in Bahrain.

He needs somebody to come over

and tune it.

They put an automatic in it.

Do you want to go do that?

Well, I'm thinking, okay.

So I have a better contract

in 2007 where I have more freedom.

Right.

So I'm like, yeah,

I could do it.

I haven't called me.

So he calls me and I'm like,

I just lay the same line of shit on him.

I'm like, I want first class.

I want fucking this much money

and you know,

I want to leave on this day

and come back on this day.

And I know that's crazy

and you're not going to do it.

So see you later.

And he's like, no, no, no,

that sounds fine.

When can you come?

Yeah.

So I'm getting married

at the end of January.

He wants me to come

like immediately after that.

So I do,

I get married

and like the next week

I go for 10 days to Bahrain

to tune this car.

They were trying to get the car to run

in the nine,

sorry, in the 10s.

Wow.

It went 9-12.

Damn.

So they were trying to go for 10s

in 1-9-12.

Yeah.

They went 9-12.

So they were like,

it almost went in the 8s.

Right.

Now they were trying to go in the 9s.

Sorry.

So they were trying to go

under 10 flat.

But that's how the hook got set.

So that's when I started

with Econu.

Interesting.

And I was happily working for them

and did way more than that.

We set multiple world records

with that team

and almost every category

we entered.

And that was an 11-year run

and that was fantastic.

And I can't thank those guys enough

for putting me basically

on the world global scene

and having the focus be on me

for the whole entire world.

That is awesome.

So what did that car run?

What was the fastest it went?

The drag car

or the street car?

The white drag car.

The white drag car

proper Supra with IRS

I think went 7-12.

7-12.

With IRS.

Maybe it might have been 17.

Somebody else might have went 12.

But then we switched

we took that car

and then switched it.

So by the way

there was multiple white Supras.

Yeah.

Right.

So the one got

so right around

when that thing became

I think it went 7-98

and right

and right around then

which I think was probably

2010 or 2009

he commissioned Titan

to build him

another Supra

that was basically

like would have been

like a promod Supra almost.

I mean it was

a three quarter chassis.

Yeah.

It was a proper Supra

like shell

right and then

they put a full tube

chassis inside of it.

It would have been called

a three quarter chassis.

But you know

Liberty clutch

I mean they basically

took the Titan format

that they were running

ADRL with

and kicking the shit

out of everybody with

and we turned it into

a Supra.

Yeah.

Right.

And the concept

with that was to have it

over there

and be able to run in the

sixes.

Well that car

was the first

five second import.

That ran 597

was that car.

It went

all the way from

we want to run the sixes

to now we're trying to run

in the fives.

So that's the

that's the first import

five second pass was that car.

Yeah.

And that was the white Supra

that's that's the car

I'm talking about.

Well so that

so the original car

was gray on its gray

or whatever that color is

and that's the one

I went over for in

2007

it was the second car

that Titan built

that was the first

in the fives

and they looked identical

but one and to be completely

honest like that

the original one

at one point

our goal

became to run in the sevens

and then our goal was

well I wonder if we could run

quick enough to beat

Titans number

which was 759.

Yeah.

So we had gotten to the

point where we were

right at the cusp of that

and we went 759

but the other car

had shown up

and one car

is an old car

and it's half stock

suspension shit

I mean it's not

a real race car

and then there's this

bitching thing

that we've just been

using

every piece of electronics

I wanted to use

and do all the

like most outlandish

crazy things

we had paddle shift in it

and program all of it

and do all this stuff

and have all these sensors

and all this data

and obviously it makes

a bunch of power

and it's methanol

and I mean it's

everything I want to do

and then there's this

other one that I'm like

I'm kind of bored with

and is not nearly as fun

Yeah.

So when the

new Supra shows up

and debuts

I'm like

fuck this thing

I'll just blow

this motherfucker up

so I don't have to work

with nitrous

and we would spool with one

and then switch to the other

and then turn it off

after the thing

made boost to make runs

so I'm like

well I'm just gonna leave it on

for like I don't know

three seconds

and see what happens

so I do

and it goes

744

and it's like

holy shit

okay

it's staying on the entire

way down the racetrack

and you know what else

it's getting the other one

all the way down the

racetrack

733

we made a jump

in fucking

two runs

from 759

744

and then it was like

okay now

I'm interested in that one again

what's interesting about that

and this will lead into your question

is

that I learned something there

which was really weird

they were the ones that wanted

to run two stages of nitrous

back when we started in like

2008

they wanted a 250 shot

and a 150 shot

I'm like

you are fucking

smoking crack

this thing is gonna blow up

all the time

there is no way

you're gonna run

a 150 shot

and a 250 shot

and not break it

no no no

you'll see everybody does it

it broke itself

all the fucking time

we would run like

I think we started out

with like

40 pounds of boost

you know and then

over time

we're running 50 pounds of boost

and then 60 pounds of boost

and then 7

because you keep putting

more turbo on it

turn it up

this is C16

right

this is the gasoline engine

and so you'd

spray it for little ways

down the racetrack

but eventually

the nitrous always

was a problem

and it would blow itself up

when the nitrous was on

and then when we got

the other car

with the clutch

and it's like

it breaks

running on methanol

right and then

you've got all this nitrous

and all these problems

and all this shit

and it always blows itself up

and so I learned

when I went to blow it up

intentionally

and it wouldn't blow up

because by then

we're running a 94

whatever it was

and a like

fucking 85 pounds of boost

what I learned was

counter-intuitively

it's actually safer

to run more nitrous

when you're using

more boost

because

if you look at it on

a percentage basis

let's just say it

very simply

let's imagine

we have an engine

that produces

1500 horsepower

with no nitrous

so you know

a 150 horsepower

shot on that

is a tiny percentage

of the total power

that the engine's making

based on nitrous oxide

now if we start

putting a

1500 horsepower

shot on it

half of the power

we're trying to make

is coming from nitrous

there's no way

that's gonna live

but the more you

dilute the nitrous

with air

the more nitrous

you run

before you get to that limit

you know

it's the same in pro-nitrous

this is why

pro-nitrous drag car engines

are almost a thousand

or some of them are

over a thousand cubic inches

because if it's a 632

you get to a limitation

where you start

trying to put enough nitrous in

where it just blows up

all the time

and the way to solve it

is make the engine bigger

because then

that same amount of nitrous

on a larger air volume

or air mass

is less

is less oxygen percentage

right

there's more

there's more oxygen

obviously because

there's more air as well

but if you dilute the nitrous

with air

it's the same as using

imagine using

like a 12 horsepower

shot on something

so how do you find the limits

of how much nitrous

you can run then

well you learn from

experience right

and every engine is different

but that's what's so amazing

about these little 6 cylinders

I mean

you have to spray them

when you use a converter

and not a clutch

to get them to drive

through the converters

so you can get them to

launch right

and the most dangerous time

is not when it's

making boost

and you're spraying

it's when you're spraying it

at 2,500 RPM

against the converter

and you only have

the displacement

of that little bitty engine

which at that RPM

let's just imagine a 2J

right

a 2J with no boost

at 2,500 RPM

probably makes

65 horsepower

and then you're going to

spray it with a

150 horsepower

shot of nitrous

that is way

way backwards

on the nitrous percentage

of horsepower

versus engine percentage

of horsepower

right

that's what you're saying

basically what your theory is

right

so you'll see

you'll see them always

like it's

half the time

they're backfire

shut off

like burn a fucking piston

do whatever damage

they're going to do

they're going to do it

right then

because you're making them

operate

in this way

unbalanced way

with the amount of nitrous

you're using

so back to what I was saying

counter-intuitively

the more boost

you can run

the more nitrous you can run

so to your point

that car you saw

that I was working on

that I think it made

2560

with no wheels

with no nitrous

when we sprayed it

with both units

that's where the ring gear

explodes

and it kills the converter

catch on fire

and everything that's

AI generated or whatever

so it made 2770

when it broke the flywheel

it would probably make

more than that

if we got a chance

to tune on it

but that was like

a 67 and a 72

it was probably

like about

100 and

no it was probably

more like

300 horsepower

with the nitrous

and that one

the other one

you saw

with the horsepower

with the nitrous

but I believe it

because

I think they run

107 pounds of boost

on that

so that engine

on its own

probably makes

I don't know

2800

so now you're

gonna only add

500 to 2800

that percentage

is tiny compared to

trying to add

1200 to 1200

see what I mean

you're far

further away

from the danger zone

when you add more air

since we're on the topic

of that

one of the things

that you had mentioned

in a previous

was

air density

right

and the importance of it

and how it can

lead to more power

right so

there's air density

and there's also

fuel density as well

which is important

which people don't really

speak about too often

but can you talk

about the importance

of air density

and how it plays

a role in making power

yeah I mean

air density

is key

you know in the end

so

what determines

the power output

of any engine

is its mass

flow rate

and mass

is the combination

of volume

which is what the

displacement of the engine

is volume

okay

and the density

of the air charge

that it's consuming

right so

density is

a combination

of air pressure

and air temperature

right

and water vapor

okay

so the best

density

is no water vapor

as cold as it

can possibly be

temperature wise

okay

and the highest possible

pressure

is the standard atmosphere

at sea level

where they consider

at mean sea level

not high tide

low tide whatever

there's a standard

which says

that the air density

at sea level

is 101.325 kPa

at a standard temperature

of 15 degrees C

or

59 degrees Fahrenheit

right

and so that's considered

1.0

if you want

or your reference

okay

so wherever you exist

on the earth

compared to that reference

gives you

a direct percentage

of the amount of power

the engine

any engine

will be capable

of making

under those conditions

okay

understood

so let's take

let's take the first example

you're going to go to

Pike's Peak

the top of Pike's Peak

is 14,115 feet

above sea level

right

okay

the air density there

is roughly 61%

of what it is

at sea level

when you compare

to that standard

sea level day

now listen obviously

at sea level

some days it's

atmospheric

changes

due to weather

that change

the barometric pressure

right a little bit

up and down

but that standard

101,325

and 15C

or 59F

is the standard

with dry air

okay

so then what happens

if you get

moisture in the air

like you have in Florida

the water vapor

raises

the pressure

of the air

the temperature

like lets the air

expand

so there's less

molecules

in any given volume

right

so

wet air

is less dense

another counterintuitive thing

wet air is less dense

than dry air

but it's because

water vapor

occupies something like

I don't know

a thousand times more

volume

than liquid vapor does

so when it's raining

it's like

oh it must be really humid

it's raining

no it's actually not that humid

because the rain

is concentrated in a big droplet

instead of being

vaporized

into little molecules

that push the oxygen

out of the way

right

okay that's it

so anyway

back to pike speak

so

you're at 61%

of the density

that you would have at sea level

so what that means

if you take a thousand horsepower

engine at sea level

right and go to the top of pike

speak

if it's tuned

exactly the same

right so you don't let the

mixture change

because the air density is lower

you do a good job there

because you got a good ECU

right with the right compensation

in it

and you run the correct amount

of ignition timing

that it requires

at that pressure

right

that engine

makes 610 horsepower

up there

right

tuned in perfectly

it makes even less than that

right

but that's

so that's the struggle

and so that's exactly how it works

in every engine

it doesn't matter what engine it is

because they all

they all run under the same

laws of physics

right

you don't have to believe me

you can go argue with Newton

right

so

so then it comes down to

the engine's capability

or power capability

is going to be dependent on how much

of that air

it can effectively move through itself

over a given amount of time

mass flow

right

so we take

a given volume

which is the fixed displacement

swept volume of the cylinder

okay

and how much air

can we actually process through it

so an engine

is actually a volume flow device

it doesn't guarantee

that it flows the same mass

every cycle

when you pull air in

and if

because you have restrictions

like ports

and things like it takes longer

when you have the engine

revved up

there's less time to get air in

right

so you have all these things

that affect its efficiency

right

so

we did the math

without running the engine

it would be very simple to say

we have

we know what one cubic foot

of air

weighs at sea level

right

and we know the displacement

that this engine

can sweep through itself

and if we assume

that the engine's a perfect pump

there's no inefficiencies

then it's literally just

the weight

of the air

that the engine

displaces

there's its air mass

right

okay

so we know that

now we're trying to mix fuel

in proportion

to the air mass

by the fuel mass

right

so it's very simple

like we'll use an easy term

everyone knows

it's going to be gasoline

right

so stoic on gasoline

is 14.7

that means

we require

to completely combust

one pound of

fuel

we need 14.7 pounds

of air

right

so

and we want it in that proportion

14.7 to 1

so if we

have a known mass

of air

the volume displacement

of the engine

being perfect

and we know

what the air density is

we know exactly

the amount of air

we're using

we can then easily

do the same thing

for the fuel

what's the temperature

of the fuel

what's the density

of the fuel

and once we know

the density

we want to mix

it a 14.7

to 1 mass

we know

what the fuel

density is

so therefore

we can easily

calculate the fuel

volume we require

to get that

mass

I don't think anyone's

ever broken it down that way

but I feel like I'm in school

right now

I like this

it's been a while

so I feel like I should

be taking notes

again AI I just made it up

so now

fuel

these fuel pumps

draw a lot of amperage

right

and they can

especially with a lot

of power

making now

it's 85

and so on

so with these

fuel pumps

drawing a lot of amperage

wouldn't that lead

to more heat

technically

so look

this is like

one of my pet

for lack of a better term

standing get fucked policy

on anybody

who's trying to make

more than about a thousand

horsepower

with an engine

and trying to use

an electric pump to do that

because the amount

of mass

fuel flow that you need

and at the

because typically

things making more than a

thousand horsepower

or something boosted

it could be something big

that makes almost

a thousand horsepower

could be normally aspirated

which maybe wouldn't be a

problem but

anything making

more than a thousand

horsepower would be

highly boosted

right

and so then you're going

to be requiring a lot

of pressure

right fuel pressure

in order to keep up

with that boost

and so

the more pressure

you make a fuel pump

make

the more current

it draws to be able

to make that pressure

and so the first

problem is

you're like

fucking drawing

50 amps out of

your electronic

system which

you're trying

or the battery

which your

electronic system

is requiring to

fire the ignition

pumps that are

capable of making

actually capable now

not advertised

because all of them

are advertised to do it

but not many will

actually do it

it just doesn't make

any sense not to use

a mechanical pump

I mean so you

put a small

primer pump on it

run a mechanical off

the engine

and now with a

mechanical pump

because it's

a positive displacement

it requires

I don't know

whatever three

horsepower

six horsepower

to make

whatever pressure

you said

so instead

you let your alternator

draw 50

50

or 60 horsepower

out

smoke all the wires

trying to charge the

battery with

so you can see

like this is starting

to get me a little bit

heated right

like I cannot

literally

okay and so

the only

actual pumps

that will do

that job

correctly

are

and it's actually

really not about the

pump

I mean it is

the pumps

got to be

controller that they spent

literally like

Paul look dude

we needed this 10 years ago

and you talked about it

10 years ago

and it's like

just barely

out in the market

even with that though

don't you still have to run

a high fuel pressure

100%

but you have

a controller

and a pump

that's actually capable

of delivering the volume

because it monitors

basically pump speed

and keeps the

pump speed up

anything that's not

monitored and controlled

the more you load it

in other words

the more pressure

you try to make

the slower

it's trying to keep up

but it can't

well this thing revs

the pump up to a

specific RPM

and holds it there

so the volume never

changes

it's a closed loop system

and that's why it works

and that's why it's

so expensive

now back on this

on this density situation

right now

that was just on

the electrical side

there's

draw right

so now

what about on the

mechanical side

when you have

pressure

goes back to the same

thing again

like you have

a mechanical

fuel pump

it's hooked to the engine

so it revs up

with engine speed

and it revs down

with engine speed

so when you're

at an idle

it's turning the slowest

it can possibly turn

and it's volume

that it's delivering

is the least amount

it'll ever be

so you're cycling

from the tank

to the engine

into the pump

and returning back

maybe two gallons

a minute

because your engine

only requires

a tenth of a gallon

a minute to idle

I'm just making up numbers

okay now

when you rev

the engine up

and you make

volume

but the fuel pump

speeds up

in proportion to the engine

so the volume goes up

now the demand

and the requirement

match

or the supply

and the demand match

so now it's moving

eight gallons a minute

but you're only doing it

while you're making

that power

now when you run

a standard electric pump

that just runs as fast

as it can run

as soon as you

put power to it

whatever its maximum

capacity is

it's always

moving that volume

through the system

it's going up to the engine

and turning around

and coming back to the tank

now listen

on a drag race car

or a Bonneville car

that doesn't matter

but in a sports car

or any endurance thing

that's running or a street car

if you just

go out there

and turn your fuel pump on

and let it run

the tank will get hot

I mean it's just how it works

did you ever put your hand

on the outlet of the compressor

I'm sure everyone has

and burned your hand on it

because when you compress

things they get hot

which is the whole problem

with the air density

side of it

on the boost side

the supply supercharger

is so shitty

compared to a turbo

because a turbo is far

more effective

at making high pressure

than a compressor is

a roots compressor

right

so is it safe to say

that you technically should

on an endurance vehicle

right

should maybe run a dead head

set up

as opposed to

no the problem with dead head

is you end up with

with air in the line

I mean undoubtedly

you end up with air in the line

because if it doesn't hold

pressure on that dead head system

when you turn the car off

the heat so

vaporizes the fuel

because it gets too hot

and it boils

so it literally

just turns into foam

and then it won't start

any kind of high performance

thing I would never run

a dead head system on

the great part of a return

system is it'll pump

all that fucking air out

and put it back in the tank

also it's the air thing

yeah it's more of an air thing

there's also problems

when you start trying to use

big volumes on a dead head

system

of pulsations in the rail

that aren't damped out

because they're on the end

of this fucking stove pipe

that just lets

the pressure spike

all over the place

I mean luckily

no one puts a pressure

sensor in there

that's fast enough to read it

and logs it fast enough

to know or else

it's gonna be in our lives

ever

because it's super scary

so okay

so when do you

recommend a dead head setup

because a lot of 5G applications

don't they come

dead head somewhere?

I don't care

if they've done it that way

they've done it because

they can save money

doing it that way

packaging

yeah

the OEMs

unless it's a performance

look I don't even know

maybe a factory GTR

has that

and that's fine

somebody's engineered

that to work correctly

but most of the stuff

that comes from an OEM

is done

on either because

they have to do it

because some dick

penny pincher

that sits in the back room

that never comes out

and they feed pizzas

under the door to

says wow

if we just go to a dead head

system

we can save $12

on every car we build

and since we build millions

of cars

this is a way better

way to go

forget all the problems

it's gonna cause

because all he's concerned

with is how do we save

money

right

so then it's gonna be

like here

engineer the right system

to do the job

and then

okay now do it cheaper

now do it cheaper

now take some shit off

even if there's gonna be

cars that we have to fix

it'll still

we'll still make more money

fixing the ones that fuck up

than putting the right shit

on to do it

correctly

so now

this is just a little theory

cause you said air right

now if you have a dead head

set up

it's the regulator

is pretty much just feeding

the fuel to the rails

and then it's not returning

it's just feeding

whatever needs to go

to the rails

into the engine

so wouldn't that

make it cooler

because you're only using

the amount of fuel

that's in the rail

hang on

you're making a mistake

you're assuming

to the engine

that you're not using

the same amount of fuel

but think about what I said

about the pump

now I'll give you this

for sure running fuel

up into your engine

compartment

around the intake manifold

and back to the engine

sorry back to the fuel tank

we'll put more heat

in the system

than only letting it

go to the engine

the fuel that actually

goes in the engine

it's gonna be every bit

as half

on a thermal side

but here's the key

unless the pump

speed

is varied

in proportion to the

demand

you still have

the same problem

pressing it sorry

now Paul's gonna

be fucking laughing

because I said

you could compress the liquid

but what I mean is

you're gonna build

heat into the fuel

by pressurizing it

and puke it right back

into the tank

through the regulator

so that you can have

your stove pipe

go into the engine

and let it heat up

on the way to the engine

but that way

the pressure is constant

from where the pump is

and it's just going

around in a circle

in the tank

so that is

gonna generate less heat

than sending it up

to the engine

and letting it heat

up there

so if it runs at max output

which any pump

you hook power and ground to

that just takes off

and isn't speed regulated

that's what it does

so if it doesn't run the pump

in proportion

to what the demand is

you're putting excess heat

in all the time

the pump's running

interesting

and they don't put pump

controllers on most cars

from the factory

guess why because

it costs too much

just hook 12 volts

to the pump

let it run all the time

and it's just

sort of part of it

but they're also

not trying to make

2500 horsepower

and drive on the street

so if you're trying

to make

if you're running those numbers

right

a lot of injectors

are based off of

43.5 psi

that's the base fuel pressure

we could say

wouldn't you run

at that base fuel pressure

and then just

increase the size of injectors

no because

there's not enough

injectors on the market

to be able to get

one for every

single application

so what you do

is you get one

that covers

the maximum

flow rate that your engine

is gonna require

so if you're gonna

have a 2000 horsepower engine

you clearly

no matter what fuel you pick

you gotta have 2000 horsepower

with the fuel capacity

correct

and that starts at the tank

right how the pickup works

the pump you use

the lines you use

how many 90 degree bends

you put in

how many fucking hardware

store fittings you put in

that have

you know have a quarter inch

hole in the middle of them

even though they're a number 8 fitting

right how much shit

you buy off of ebay

that has junk

fucking fittings

and restrictions

and all that junk in it

right so you have an

efficiency of a fuel

supply circuit

and return circuit

all of that has to

match your power demand

right and then you have to

have injectors

with an EFI system

you typically need

because you're always

returning right

yeah so you need to have

enough capacity

that you have about 25%

of the fuel volume

always returning

to the tank

so if I have

1000 horsepower engine

I need to have a

1250 horsepower capable

fuel supply system

right so that I never

get to the point

where I'm fuel starved

right and all of those

things I talked about

in the way

cause a problem

which you don't even

really usually know about

it's totally obvious

but you don't even

really know about it

until you get

to the car

and you can see

what amount of power

it's trying to use

to deliver fuel

to the engine

and when it's trying

to deliver

a massive amount of power

to run the pump

and there's no demand

from the engine

it's telling you

that your fuel system

is a piece of shit

with a bunch of 90s

and Chinese knockoff

Amazon fittings

and all of that shit

in it

so anyway

getting back to the other

part of the equation

the fuel demand

that the engine

requires has to be matched

by every other piece

of the system

and then you need

injectors

that have a little reserve

capacity over what

you're asking for

cause you don't want

to run those wide open

but there's not enough

injectors on the market

to fit every single

one of those applications

so you oversize

the injector

you have two choices

you either

undersize the injector

and then over

pressure the injector

to get the

because if you

increase the pressure

on the injector

you get an increase

in flow rate

by the square root

of the pressure

differential

so you can take

an injector

and run

and be a little bit

over and just raise

the fuel pressure

and that fixes

the problem

for the injector

but it creates

a whole new problem

for the fuel system

because the fuel system

now has to be able

to deliver

increased pressure

and with increased

pressure with anything

other than a mechanical pump

or an ID controlled pump

increased fuel pressure

puts more load

on the pump

which drives

the pump speed down

which means

the volume goes down

so a pump

that is not

speed controlled

its output

this is obvious right

you put your finger

over the end of it

and block it entirely

there is a ton of pressure

and zero volume

flow

because you've got it

blocked

so it's just building

pressure against your thumb

like at the end

of the garden hose right

and if you turn

the hose down enough

you can seal it off

completely with your thumb

there is no water flowing

pull your thumb out of the way

it flows like crazy

give it no resistance right

that's how it works

it's really

literally that simple

but everybody

falls in the trap

and look

this is part of my

whole

tech

I mean there's a number

of reasons I like to use it

but one of the main reasons

is because no one ever buys

motec

because it's the cheapest

solution

they usually buy it

because they think

it's the best solution

now whether they're right

about that

or they're wrong about that

a person with that mentality

maintains that same mentality

from the front bumper

to the rear bumper

of their car

they go find the best

parts they can find

they go

find the best guy

there is to

put the engine together

the best guy to do

the transmission

they go to a project

with someone that's trying to do it

the best way they know how

if you see something like

hey that fuel pump

is a fucking piece of shit

we need to use this other one

instead they go

oh okay and they just get it

right so those people

are the kind of people

that you can be successful with

not because you're using

motec

but because the entire

system

just like the fuel system

the entire car is a system

right so that entire

system

when it works

in harmony

you can be successful

now

it's also

in my opinion

the same the opposite direction

people who buy

the least expensive

ecu

they have that same mentality

from the front bumper

to the rear bumper

and they go by

the cheapest

amazon knock off

chinese fucking parts

to put the car together

go find the cheapest

motherfucker that'll bolt

the engine together

and you have in the end

a pile of shit

that I don't know

it doesn't make any difference

what fucking engine

management system

you try to run

you'll never get it to work

it's a

never ending fucking

supply of problems

and listen

any race car

that's what a race car

is a race car

is literally

a series of problems

to solve

but when

you do this

long enough

at least somewhat

proficiently

you learn all the traps

to fall in

and that's why people

go to people

with experience

that have big names

that have been doing it

for a long time

because you don't get

to have a big name

and be doing

anything for a long time

if you suck at it

right

and not sucking

means

you've fallen

in every fucking trap

you could possibly

fall in enough times

not falling them again

and that's literally

my philosophy on life

because it doesn't matter

what

like

what genre

or what

what area

you're talking about

it's the same

experience matters

okay

so

you primarily work

with Motec

that's all you work with

and clearly you just stated

why

the reason I work with

Motec

is because

in my business

people are mostly

looking for me

I've unfortunately

made myself

the product

and so

that's why

we can't even get a schedule together

right

because I'm constantly spinning

places and running everywhere

because I'm selling myself

I'm selling my life

so

they want me

involved with their project

because of what I'm

able to

deliver

and

of course

I started at Motec

right

and I have deep background

with Motec

and I understand it

very well

and also

the people that buy

Motec

and they want the best

typically have

the money to spend

and then

tuning Motec

when I tell May

I need $1500 a day

to make this work

on the dyno

and they're like

yeah of course no problem

versus

man are you serious

my ECU costs half that

why would I pay you 15

because guess what

I still have to fucking know

everything I know now

to make your shit box

ECU

it'll never work

because all the junk

you have around it

and then

they don't want to pay it

so anyway

but Motec is just the tool

right so

someone comes to me

and says

hey I want to set

a world record

doing this

and if you want me

involved with it

I'm gonna use this tool

that I know

I can achieve the result

you're looking for

if I use this tool

you know

you don't go to Gordon Ramsey

right

and say

Gordon I want your best steak

and then show up

with a bunch of ingredients

and say

yeah you gotta cook it

on this fucking grill

over here

and I want you to use

this piece of meat

it's like

get fuck

no I'm not doing that

I can't

you're not

it's a waste of my time

in your money

you're not gonna get

the best result out of me

Jerry Bickel

and say Bickel

I want the best pro-mod

you can build

but I want you to use

this fucking

Harbor Freight welder

and all this shit

from Harbor Freight

the billy's gonna say

go no get fucked

hey Harbor Freight's

not bad though man

listen

I buy shit from

Harbor Freight

look it's one thing

for me to say this

right to the industry

and I'm really good

at telling everybody

else what they

should be doing

but I fall in

the same trap

as everybody else

does

I'm a human being

I buy the

the Mitsubishi one

is 3500 bucks

and the who the fuck

knows whatever

Chinese brand name one

is 350 bucks

like

at what point in your life

have you ever

gotten something

that costs

a tenth

of what it should cost

that actually does

what the thing

it's being compared to

does

which almost leads itself

right back into the

whole Motec

and compared to every other

ECU thing right

like well we do everything

Motec does for less

like no you don't

we can both agree that

it is one of the best

it's at the top

of the food chain

right

of components

and it's there because

it's a bunch of

highly motivated people

who are focused

97% on quality

I just went to the factory

again after like 20 years

and I guess

at some point I had

just assumed that the stuff

was being produced

and manufactured somewhere

no

every single piece

that you get

that has a Motec label

on it

and assembled

at the factory

in Australia

by like 5 or 6 guys

that's what they do

they build electronics

and every single piece

they'll get the motherboard

there is a manufacturer

for that right

but it comes in

it gets tested

then it gets

fitted into its case

it gets tested

every single step

of the process

that they do

it gets tested

and that's part of why

it costs so much

because you have to keep

going through all this

effort while you're

assembling it

checking it

if it's wrong with it

so they can be

and then it gets tested again

before it gets shipped out

and then it goes to

a dealer

but you never ever ever

I mean I've been doing this

24 years

and I worked at Motec

for 5 or those years

4 anyway

and like I'm telling you

the number of times

we had a dead on arrival

Motec anything

I'm not even sure

I can remember one

I'm not just

blowing smoke

I'm telling you

you never get one that's

dead on arrival

because it's been checked

100 fucking times

you're paying for

that level of quality

that QC

there are other ECUs

of course

you can have someone

bone in a fucking sweat shop

in China

or fucking Brazil

or wherever

you know kids that

fucking don't even know

what they're assembling

and next week

they're going to be

digging ditches

and they don't give

two shits about your

ECU or running a car

they're just

trying to get paid

to feed their family

like you can have

that person

assembling the stuff

you're going to put

in your fucking

$100,000 race car

is to produce

high quality

right

and 100%

functional

pieces of equipment

just like the Mitsubishi

versus the

knockoff XYZ

Chinese knockoff TVs

that I

fall in the exact same

trapping in my own life

really good at telling

everybody else what to do

not so good at

following my own logic

right

so okay

so now

if you

want to

work with Shane

right

what would that look

like if you

wanted to

or if I wanted you

to work on my car

do you ask me questions

do you have to

qualify to work with you

like

no it's super

it's a super simple

and it's just for general people

if they want to

yeah of course

I get this a lot

and I'm not sure why

but people

I feel like they're

afraid to contact me

or afraid like

oh I can't get Shane

man he's

like too high level

or what

I'll work on anything

I don't care what it is

if we've got a

Motec on it

if you want to put it

on a lawnmower

no problem

you want to build

a sprinkler system

for your backyard

like

I have a drag racing background

right

but when I got to Motec

I couldn't be like

no I'm only going to

work on drag race cars

I had to work on

anything that anybody

wanted to have

an engine management

system on

whether it was a bike

a car

a plane

a boat

off-road

off-shore

drag race

land speed

sports cars

pick a subject

right

anything

professional level team

guy doing in his

backyard

sand rail for

glamorous street car

I learned how to do

lots of different things

and see things

that would happen

in one genre of motorsport

that I could use

to solve a problem

in another genre of motorsport

that no one had ever thought of

because they never

had been exposed

to this

thing

whatever it was

so back to

what does it take to work with me

it takes

getting in contact

with me

telling me

what your project is

and what your goal is

and then I'll tell you

the best way

we can go about

solving that

problem

of getting to your goal

and then

I'll tell you how much

it's going to cost

so you know up front

and then you can make a decision

and you'll be like

either I want to do that

or wow that's way more than

I thought it would be

but I'm pretty quick

I'm a really bad salesman

I mean I don't want to

waste my time

or yours

so

normally speaking

when someone calls me

cold calls me and says

hey I want to do this project

you know what

am I looking at

I'll run the numbers

in my head for what they

want to do

when I kind of get

what they're supposed to do

say it's going to

probably be

I don't know

if we're going to put a PDM

it's probably going to be

at about 40-45 grand

so do you still want to

talk about it

or should we just

stop now

because I don't waste my time

talking you into

all the benefits

of Motec

only to have you

tell me at the end

when I tell you how much it is

go what are you crazy

I would never pay that

and hang the fucking phone up

I went through way too

many of those calls

when I worked at Motec

so I just cut

right to the chase

here's what it's going to cost

do we keep talking about it

or no

because if I tell you 45

right

and you don't

shit your pants

and fall back in it

there's no conversation

about it

because you're going to be

that doesn't

like blow you out of the water

right

so that's it

like I said

I'm a terrible salesman

so now on average

what does it cost

for you to

to work on a car

or to work with somebody

tuning wise

so my daily tuning

rate is just

1500 bucks a day

plus expenses

airfare

hotel rental car

plus the travel expense

days right

so I charge for

out of office days

okay

and that's

I have a couple

of different programs

I mean

when I worked with

speed demon

that's george paid

that rate

and then I worked

only on that car

and so that was

just the known deal

right

but like now

I'm not working

with speed demon

after george passed away

and so I'm working

on multiple

like how I was

before I worked

on speed demon

I got multiple customers

well you're

not going to be able

to charge those guys

1500 a day

times three

or four of them

like that's not

going to happen

so what you have

is where everyone pays

the expenses to get me there

okay

because the other thing

about bonneville is

this is not

it's not professional

in that

it's not a professionally

promoted series

where people are dedicated

to only doing that

and they don't do any

other job

it's more of a

grassroots

sort of racing

right

it is professionally

done

as far as the quality

right and the way

they race

but there's

almost no one

whose job it is

to strictly work

on a bonneville car

all year long

right

so

that's not

the level

of clientele

that you can

you know charge that

amount of money for

and they just can't

afford to do it

they'll just basically

say well we're going to

go run it ourselves

and then they won't

be successful

so you spread the level

around a little bit

at bonneville

special case

but I mean look

it's

it could a little bit

be case by

case basis

if someone calls me

and I'm busy

they're either

going to get told

you got to wait

waiting me

right

like hey

if I'm buying parts

from somebody

when am I going to get

these parts

I'll have them

two and three weeks

okay cool

are you sure

like if someone's

shipping the parts

that's parts on a shelf

right

but if someone's

building something

like a wiring harness

a wiring harness

for a car

with almost

any contractor

is at least

probably going to be

a six week

waiting period

for anybody

that's quality

they're already building

two or three

and they got a couple

right now

as soon as I can fit you in

is

I'll get you your harness

in six weeks

because I got to finish

the ones I'm doing

get you on the schedule

do the design

build it

and then ship it

build it

test it

and ship it hopefully

so those kind of guys

it's like

look

am I going to have it

in six weeks

or is it going to be

12

I don't give a fuck

if it's 12

just tell me it's

12

and tell me how much

and bullshit

I can't stand that

and I never do that

I will always

I would rather

just not do the project

I would rather tell you

listen dude

you're this going to

take 65 grand

you want to do it or not

yeah I want to do it

and then we'll lay out

the actual number

that it's really going to

take

right and I will try

to adhere to

either that number

or I'll inflate it

a little bit

so that we come in

under

I never ever

I cannot fucking

stand

going back at the

now listen

in the middle

well then

that's a change order

right so that

you know this

but the same deal

like what we can do that

but man

you're going to

we just built all this stuff

you're going to

okay but

the way I work

super simple

I'm just going to tell you

up front

what I'm going to do

for you

and in return

I expect you

to do what you say

you're going to do

for me

it's a very simple

back and forth

process

and that's why

look dude

I don't

have very few in 20

so let's see

2006 I guess I'm at

19 years

yeah

19 years

sorry I was told

there would be no math

19 years in business

and I've had only a

handful of people that

have stiffed me

you know

it happens

because you basically

qualify the customer

right off the bell

like you just

and you know

I've had a couple of

situations where

I get in

I don't read it

right

and I get in the

middle of it

I realize

this isn't going to

but I realize that

I'm not going to be able

to achieve the goal

they want to achieve

because they're

doing something

they're not allowing me

the freedom

to do whatever

I want

and I'll just back out

and say listen

I think I'm not your guy

and I don't

I don't want to cause

any problems

so I'm just going to

give your money back

and we'll agree to

go two different

directions whatever

and I've done that

a couple of times

and the couple of

times I've done it

that person

has recommended

someone to me

that I ended up

actually being successful with

because I

took that approach

and they appreciated it

and they said

you know what

this didn't work out

with this guy

but he's a really good guy

and he's capable

I recommend

and honestly look

I don't advertise

like that's

that's what

like this

this is the only advertising

I do other than

word of mouth

and no matter what

you do

you cannot fucking

spend enough money

to build credibility

the way you can

by a

personal recommendation

from someone you trust

that's true

hey where do I go

to get this done

you need to call this guy

yep

he's badass at it

and that's it

this is the guy to go to

so now

that person

is pre-qualified to you

by the person

you trust who gave you the advice

that's the best way

to do business

100%

I think it's better than

just advertising

depends what you're doing

right

what you're selling

what I'm doing is

just a service basically

there's almost nothing

I'm telling you

there is nothing better

than a word of mouth

100%

like over any other

like other

type of marketing

or anything like that

that's the best way to do it

now

you mentioned your prices right

cool

the reason I asked that

is not to be nosy

and see how much you're making

it was more so because

there's a lot of

I don't want to say misconceptions

but

a lot of people have this thing

there's things that go around the internet

about how much it costs

to tune a mo-tech

and how much

tuners charge for this

sure

now

I've heard some crazy prices

which kind of

steers people away from

even wanting to get a mo-tech

because of the tuning prices

right

what do you feel

like these prices

equate to the amount of work

that you're doing

with a mo-tech

to be fair

I'm probably on the

on the cheap side of it

okay

in reality

but mostly that's because

I'm not just

I don't just

tune

right

almost everything I'm involved

with is a big project

so I'm selling

hardware

I don't get in the middle

of the wiring harness

just let that happen

because I don't want to be

in the middle of it

like here's the guy

get the wiring harness

done by him

I'll feed him what I want

I don't want to be in the middle

I'm not going to make any money on it

right

and I don't try

and that's the other thing

like when I work with a wiring

contractor I go tell him

like look

I'm not trying to make money off

you

I'm going to put the customer

directly with you

you tell them and I don't care

make whatever you want

whatever you think is fair

just make sure

you come in at that number

yeah

right

don't come back

with another number

and do a good job

and we're good

right

and then

we don't have any issue

because

why do I want to be a manager

in between the customer

so anyway

um

yeah

look

I think you should charge

according to

the product you deliver

and if you are delivering a good

product

with value

someone isn't going to have any

problem paying that

that number

right

as long as it's got value

it doesn't matter what the

number is

but yeah

I don't

normally

I do some tuning

right

the thing

here's the other thing

if someone's just calling me

with a bunch of shit

they got from somebody else

and they want me to

save my wand

because I'm shanty

and it's got a mo-tech

and I can

I can't fix all your fucking

problems

that you've already created

that you want me to solve

so because I can't control

that

it depends what it is

if it's a fucking high end

product

like project

I'll just be like

no

I'm not doing that

because

in the first case

I'm selling mo-tech

hardware

right

and when I make the sale

and I do the tuning job

I'm making

all of the money

on the hardware

right

and support you

right

because I've already made that money

mm-hmm

so if you go buy a mo-tech from this guy

because he's your buddy

and he fucking sells it to you cheap

and you come to me

and you say

I want you to tune it

depending on what it is

I might tell you

well here's the deal

if you want me to tune it

it's this much a day

and then you're going to pay me

what I would have made to sell you

that piece of hardware

mm-hmm

because I'm now going to be tied to it

as soon as I tune it

I'm responsible

right

so in order for me to support that

in the same way

it's not fair

it's not fair for my customer

that buys the shit from me

right

that gets my level of knowledge

and support

it's not fair to you to shortcut it

and fucking

I mean

did you ever go to a restaurant

and go buy a steak

from the cheap place down the street

and go

here can you make this steak

like do you think that's going

to fly up Morton's

hey I brought a steak in

from fucking Walmart

will you make my steak

and I just want to pay

for what you're part of it

yeah yeah yeah

they're going to go

yeah get fucked

mm-hmm

okay

so we got that done right

mm-hmm

now one of the things

on the technical side

mm-hmm

which I don't even know

if you really want to

we're not going to say any other

ECU brands right

I don't care

you say whatever you want

they're all good

they're all just tools

in the end

they're just tools to do a job

right

and you take somebody that's

a super

you know

super tuner in a different brand

like

like I've got a buddy

Marco Pesante

we were talking about him earlier

Magnus Motorsports

right

and he works on a lot of GTRs

and honestly

Marco will tune

anything

right

and

and I could tune anything

I could tune anything I want

but I can be successful

with this one brand

that I like to use

and almost with

with certainty

guarantee the result

okay

and so I

I feel like

it's better for

it's better to be

an expert at one

right

than mediocre at many

mm-hmm

and so that's why

and and

knock on wood

I've been able to

stay busy doing it

right

and gamefully

unemployed for 21 years

oh no

sorry sorry

yeah

19 years

once again

I told Paul

I'm going to take in shorts

from Paul on this

he's going to be like

stupid mother doesn't know

how to add and subtract

okay

so with that being said

right

there's

other ECUs

sure that

kind of try to implement

everything to make it

easier

all in one

kind of situation

right so

let's say

Haltech right

yep

now

a lot of people are

in Haltech

sure right

that's probably

one of the more

common ones nowadays

FuelTech has everything built

into the display

yeah

which is a pretty cool feature

yep

and Haltech has a lot of

like a PDM built in

yeah

also has a map sensor built

in as well right

so now

one of the things

on the Haltech side

which I find interesting

is that

that you said

was

MoTech kind of separates

everything because

I guess it's just

the good practice

to kind of have everything

separate right

it's a

it's a racing based

right they're not

MoTech's target audience

is in streetcars

that doesn't mean that

they're in streetcars

but their target audience

is the highest level

of motorsport motorsport

and so they're looking

for a level

of reliability

right and

and their philosophy

has always been

you do not combine

your ignition module

which is likely to

fail if the coil

fucks up

with your ECU

because then that

junks your ECU

you now have to

send your ECU in

to get the ignition

module repaired

so their ignition

modules have always

been external

right and they

continue to be

right

and then when the

dams came out

okay that's

your power distribution

module

you do not want

that

possibly prone

to fail

your component

as a combination

with your ECU

because when it

fucks the ECU

fucks at the same time

and now you

got to replace

the whole thing

and the same thing

with a dash

you don't build

fucking an ECU

inside of a display

because then

when the display

fucks up

your ECU's junk

or with the ECU

fucks up

your entire car

in a motorsport

application

and that's their focus

they are not focused

on how do we do it

they never are focused

on how do we do it

cheaper ever

okay so then

they are not trying

and they are not

interested in the

stereo wars

right

you know to a level

to a level

like listen

I'm basically like

I like using

the shit in drag racing

look I use it in everything

but I basically

force it up

the customers

ask that we're

going to use it

because if you want

this result

it's the tool I'm using

whether you like it

or not

or whether it's

it's well suited

to that type of racing

right like

they are not interested

in getting involved

in that fucking race

to the bottom

that these other guys

are in

trying to make a cheaper

product

and fucking sell it

to everybody on the

street corner

because they also

recognize

that to do this

properly

at a high level

it takes an extremely

intelligent person

integrating

the electronics

into the vehicle

that I had in myself

on the back

so let me just say

it takes a capable person

to integrate

this is not meant

this stuff is not meant

to be sold

to an end user

that does this

on an occasional

or one time basis

it's too complex

there's too many pitfalls

to fall in

they know

that there needs to be

an integrator

in between

what they produce

and the end user

and that's perfectly

suited to me

because guess what

if it was so easy

you could just

hand it out to everybody

and it would work

I wouldn't have a job

yeah

so thankfully they've

taken that approach

and that's why

like I'm

I'm loyal

I'm stupid

but I'm loyal

right so

I could obviously work on

any of this other stuff

I want to

but

everything I've ever

achieved

professionally

since 2001

has been a direct result

of my involvement

with Motec

and the people at Motec

and the philosophy

Motec

and I am

extremely loyal

not to the brand

necessarily

but

the people

and the mentality

everything I have in my life

without only a couple of

exceptions

my family right

and my wife

and my daughter

is a direct result

of that company

and their mentality

and so that's why

I'm so loyal to Motec

and I don't listen

we don't have to have

an argument about that

there's other systems

go ahead and use them

I'm not going to use them

I was just curious

because

you mentioned that

on the Mac Daddy

vlog

when they were doing the wiring

you were mentioning

that

oh the PDM

yeah we had this

yeah yeah

which is interesting

because it's

I've heard this before

about like

having too many things

all in one like that

and if one thing

fails it could

cause issues somewhere else

not talking bad

probably could be debated

and both people

have valid

points and arguments

and it's kind of cool

that it's all integrated into one

but I'm just saying

the Motec

way

is not that way

and I'm not saying

that way

but for motorsport

high level motorsport

that's why they

they're focused on that

we don't want

we don't want something

that shouldn't cause a problem

with the ECU

to cause a problem with the ECU

because it failed

and the ECU didn't

okay

or I mean the ECU

has never failed

you have to do something

none of the hardware

the hardware doesn't fail

you have to fucking

do something wrong to

to get it to screw up

when it comes to

this is very specific

right

kind of

we're not in the general

Motec area

but when it comes to

in a previous interview

you had to mention something

about using drive shaft speed

for a lot of the drag racing

applications right

yep

now

you did mention that

the reason why you use that

is because a lot of the

times the front wheels

are off the ground

and you can't use that

as you know

as a reference

so

is this something that

you should implement

into maybe street cars too

specifically only useful

in drag racing

for the reason I mentioned

it's got the front wheels

off the ground

and typically traction control

is done

by measuring the difference

between the rear wheel speed

and the front wheel speed

and controlling that difference

to some goal

and like in land speed racing

where it doesn't have

we don't have wheelies

we don't need to use

a drive shaft sensor

we can

it doesn't matter

in that case

because they're locked together

there's no diff

but in the case

where you're doing

traction control

and say something

like a road race car

if you've got a diff

you've got a difference

of wheel speed

inverses out

you don't see that

on the drive shaft

in an application

where you're trying to do

wheel based traction control

which isn't in drag racing again

because you can wheelie

now if you're not wheeling

in drag racing

no problem

game on right

happy days

you can use the front wheels

and use the back wheels

and that works no problem

so in drag racing

firstly

if you could get a

wheel speed sensor

mounted on the axle housing

or read the actual wheel

that would be beneficial

but it's a lot easier

to just clamp a collar

around the drive shaft

where it comes into the

pinion on the diff

right

like I've got cars

where we read the ring gear

top fuel cars read the ring gear

so they don't have to

have a drive shaft collar

it's the same

because it's all hooked together

there's nothing can slip right

and the ring gear's got

a shitload of teeth on it

and in a top fuel car

they never change the rear end gear

because it's always 320

locked in mandated by the NHRA

and like whatever

1990 fucking seven or five

or two

whenever it was

and so it's just

sort of common practice

in a drag car

and in a drag car

what you do is you drive

you draw over time

you start a timer

at the beginning of the run

with a trans brake release

the clutch comes out

whatever it is

you start a timer

and you draw

what the drive shaft curve

should be

right

and then you measure

what it actually is

by looking at the drive

shaft sensor

and then you control the power

to try and keep it at that

running that curve over time

right

but the idiotic part

of that is

you don't actually

have a reference

for where you are

on the racetrack

right

so the time sequence

can get out

I mean

I'll give you

a really interesting example

on something I got

exposed to

from a friend of mine

Scott Palmer

and he's just an awesome person

all around

but one day

I was working for

a customer at Gainesville

for the Gator Nationals

and it rained really bad

and it was the first time

we had run the car

and we were actually here

testing it

like leading right up to the race

and we were going to get

one qualifying run

to run the car

and we didn't think

the track was going to be good

because it had rained

and he didn't

we weren't sure

we had the car

sorted out yet

because when we were here

it was going all over

the racetrack

and we were trying to figure out

why

and it had a suspension

and so we thought

you know what

why don't we just not

even try this

because we don't want to

bomb it down there

at 180 mile an hour

and figure out

we didn't solve the problem yet

and you crash it

it's brand new

we're just starting

so let's just sit it out

the track's not going to be

good anyway

and the track eventually

ended up being good

and they all hauled ass

and we probably could have

but we didn't want to

take the risk

anyway this leaves me

in Gainesville

with nothing to do

the next day

and Scott was there

and so he's like

well you could come over

here and help us

come and look at data

from a top fuel car

I'm in

I happen to go on the day

when the weather

it was super cold

that next day

it was like

40 fucking degrees

that morning or something

and it wasn't going to warm up

for the whole rest of the day

and literally

everyone is pulling

their hair out

in the pit area

because what they do

is they look at the weather

and they decide

what the engine build

is going to be

based on the weather

that's how you tune

a top fuel car

it's so backwards

we take the laptop

and we tune

the air fuel ratio

and the timing

we match or adjust it

based on the weather

and the engine stays the same

and in a top fuel car

they have all that opportunity too

but normally what they do

they leave the fuel system

alone

and barely change it

and they change

the supercharger overdrive

and they change

the engine's compression ratio

to change

according to the weather

they leave the fuel the same

and they might do something

with the timing

to power manage

but for the most part

that stays the same

and they build the engine

and change the boost level

to suit

that change in

barometric pressure

water vapor

it's like so foreign

and backwards

right from what I'm used to

yeah

so anyway

so they all have this spreadsheet

that they use

where they take in all the

weather components

and it says put this head gasket

in and by the way

you have to measure

just think about that

now you're tuning with parts

right

so now the combustion chamber

volume

because one got

one of them

got the valve

seat ground a little bit

so the valve

sunk in the head

and the chamber volume

changed on that cylinder

so now you have

to basically make

the cylinder heads

have exactly the same

combustion chamber volume

on one side

and the other

if the block's been

decked on one side

you have to know that

so you can put more head gasket

thickness in it

otherwise you're changing

the compression ratio

on that side

right

so now the parts

and their dimensions

become extremely critical

because that's your tuning

device

right

so they have like

fucking 10 sets of heads

every one of them

is marked

combustion chamber volume

so you need to enter

the chamber volume

and enter the

weather data

and it tells you

the engine's not the same

it's insane

right

and like the rod stretch

so the rod stretched

or compression

in the rod

as you run a rod

in a top fuel car

it gets shorter

just from compressive force

so they don't get

many runs out of them

because eventually they'll

fail

but they have to measure

the dimension

the pin dimension

pin to the big end

dimension

in a fixture

to get

the dimension

of what that is

to enter into

the compression ratio

calculator

so they can work out

whether or not

they've got the compression

right down

the left side

or the right side

and to this level

I mean like

the guy

I'm friends with a guy

that is one of the higher

end crew chiefs

and he worked for

Calida

and he's like

yeah

we figured out

that

we have to

wear

like cotton gloves

and we put

all the

fucking connecting rods

in a metrology center

a place with

measuring devices

inside the shop

that's air conditioned

to a specific temperature

all the time

the temperature

and not touch them

with your hands

because they're

checking things

to the ten thousand

of an inch

and just the temperature

in the

building

if it varies

the aluminum

grows

if it's warm

and shrinks

and it's cold

so if you're trying

to go to the ten thousand

to make sure

you've got

the compression ratio

accurate

that matters

it matters

imagine this

it's like

mind blowing

it's fucking

way harder

right

other than the fuel pump

which is hooked to the engine

and delivers fuel

based on the engine speed

there is nothing

that senses

what's going on

with the load of the engine

doesn't have any idea

how much boost it is

all it knows is RPM

okay

so nothing is controlling

based on the

operating condition

that the engine's under

what they do

is they use

a timer

that starts

when the throttle

goes wide open

when they leave

the starting line

and the timer

controls both

the clutch application

and it controls

a timing curve

that's over time

and it controls

the fuel volume

that goes into the engine

okay

it's got the

the fuel pump

connected to the crank

so it's going to deliver volume

the higher you rev it

the more volume you're going to get

so you have to cut that off

and match

you understand

how EFI is

with a volumetric

efficiency curve

the VE curve

is meant to match

the amount of

mass airflow

that the engine

consumes

sorry it's actually

the air density

on a typical basis

match it with an amount of fuel

that's why you have that shape

right

top fuel car doesn't have a shape

their it's shape

goes straight up

with engine speed

so you have to get that shape

by trimming the fuel

back and returning some

back to the tank

right

but to get that shape

to match

you would have to run the engine

through the same

you know

our shapes are based on

engine RPM and load

their shape is based

on RPM

and time

time from

when we hit the throttle

so

so here's the problem

if the sequence is out

now keep in mind

think about what the engine

RPM is going to do

as it goes down the race track

it's going to go up

then the clutch is going to

come in and the RPM

is going to come down

and then it's going to go

one to one

and then it'll climb up the

drive shaft

the engine in the drive

shaft will be one to one

as it goes to the finish

line

but imagine

if the grip is different

on the race track

so the tires slip

so

the point in time

where the engine

is at the operating point

that it's at

may not be the same

run versus

one run versus

the next

it's going to be

by time

to accurately

fuel the engine

based on its volumetric flow

rate

try and use a timer

you get out of sequence

so something very

very simple

that's crazy

the brake pressure

that they use to hold

the car on the starting line

because the car

on the starting line

the clutch is out

you're off the throttle

you stage the car

with a handbrake

if you

pull too much brake pressure

this is an 11,000

horsepower engine

can you imagine

you pull too much

because there's too much

brake pressure

and the clutch is centrifugal

in a top fuel car

you hit the throttle

and the engine jumps up

to like 8,000 RPM

the time that it takes

to climb to 8,000 RPM

is based on the resistance

from the car

and the clutch

and the tire

right

and the brake pressure

so if the brake pressure

is too high

the sequence gets out

right from the get go

right

it doesn't

it doesn't move

to the right place

in the same amount of time

and so now your

fuel curve is off

compared to what the engine is doing

and

something as simple as brake pressure

I wouldn't have believed it

but I saw it

that makes sense though

everything matters

right

so the drag race thing

they use a timer

because it's simple

and the front wheels are in there

a far better solution

is something like

an inertial navigation system

or an IMU

or IMU with a GNSS

so it looks at the satellites

and it knows

where its position is

on earth based on that

and then uses

inertial measurement

roll pitch and yaw

and accelerometers

to figure out

where it's gone

from any given starting point

but the problem with that is

to be

absolutely accurate

and not include

a bunch of other errors

it takes

a very high level of precision

otherwise you're basically

just using bad data

right

so you can get close

but not dead nuts

right

so there's only one

currently on the market

which is a weapons grade

GNS

INS unit

with an IMU

from a company

called Obsidian

and it's about

$5,500

that will then give you

the speed

the accurate speed

and position

to do

wheel based traction control

like on a sports car

whether the front ends

in the air or not

because it'll generate

the correct speed signal

any other way of trying to do it

is basically guessing

so a lot of gray areas

still

well it comes down to

what's your level

of acceptability is

right

what error are you

willing to accept

and listen

that's not to say

that it's impossible

to do it any other way

and honestly the problem is

with that amount of money

will the car actually

have a elapsed time improvement

by using that device

versus the timer

because you can get pretty damn

close and really consistent

with a timer

so that's why it's hard to

say we have to use this device

but I do have one customer

who is getting ready

to implement it in their car

because I'm like

look if you want to go to the moon

we have to have a rocket

so what about street cars

that are making big power

like a lot of these GTRs

are making 2,000 horsepower

a lot of them

are running Motec

so they're able to use

the traction control

from Motec

kind of get them down

anything that doesn't

accelerate fast

a GPS works perfect for

like all my Bonneville cars

they have 10 hertz GPS

doesn't accelerate fast

so if you're accelerating

less than about 1G

a 10 hertz GPS

is fast enough

to give you

accurate ground speed

and position

okay

once you get over

about one and a quarter

one and a half

you start having

a positional problem

where you're moving

so quickly

that the GPS

can't accurately

tell you where you are

by the time it figures it out

you're already in a new place

so there's an error

but as long as you're going slow

they can be very accurate

very useful

all of my Bonneville cars

use GPS for ground speed reference

they still have front wheel speed

and rear wheel speed

and I might even choose

to control off front wheel speed

and rear wheel speed

but like

yeah

all the cars I work with now

because I've got enough experience

to know the GPS is accurate enough

I just don't even run

on front wheel speed

unless we have to

I just use GPS

for ground speed reference

reference that to the rear tires

and you could do the same thing

in a road race car

or a street car

anything that's not

quickly moving from a standing start

or accelerating quickly

so it moves to a new position

before the GPS

can recognize it

it's fine to use GPS

so like in an all-wheel drive car

sports car or anything

just use GPS

as the ground speed reference

and you can then

at that point

if the front and rears are locked together

you can measure any front or rear

or

if you need to drive

one different than the other

you have to measure the front

and the rear

just slip right to the front

versus the rear

so you can do split control

or whatever you're doing

if you've got diff control

or whatever it is

that's with the Motec though right

well that would be with any device

so you can use GPS on other platforms too

with other ECUs

to be honest

I don't know

I don't research other

I can only imagine

but yes

specifically with the Motec

100% you can use

GPS to ground speed reference

in fact it's native

in the

like the newer M1

series ECU

and it's general purpose firmwares

it goes through a sequence check

and it looks at

the movement of the vehicle

which you define

based on engine RPM

and throttle position

in other words it's like

hey

how do I know

when you're starting to make the car move

now listen

if it's in neutral it doesn't know

right

but it makes the assumption

that if it's moving

above this throttle and RPM

and it sees a rear wheel speed input

it's looking for a front wheel speed

input to compare to

right

and if it can't find that

then it'll fall back

and look for GPS

and if it can't find GPS

then it'll fall back

and use the rear wheel speed

as the front wheel speed

okay

which is no good for doing traction control

because you're comparing to the thing

that's generating the signal

but what's really good about it

is you at least still get

a vehicle speed reference point

instead of having nothing

because the sensor didn't work

right

what you're trying to compare

is the vehicle speed

right over ground

to whatever the driven wheels are

so when you have all four wheels driving

you have no

when you don't have

the front wheels driving

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on the ground

you've got a reference

but as soon as you

pick them off the ground

or they're driving now

now which one

how you can't use

front versus rear now

because they're all driving

right so you have to

have a reference for

how because the

the concept is

what is the rate

of difference

between

where the

tire is on the ground

and where the

actual ground is

right and we

want the rear

tires to slip

X amount

or the accelerating

tires need

they need to have

slip angle to create

and without a proper

reference to what

the actual speed of the

vehicle is

you can't work out

what the slip angle is

but once you

have that reference

it's very simple

to then say

okay what's the

slip angle

that provides

the highest

g

and you just

aim for that

slip angle

and try and

maintain it

you know in a

drag race car

or a land speed car

at some

point down the

racetrack

almost without

fail

maximum acceleration

angle or slip angle

the tire requires

at some point

you run out of horsepower

to keep it at that angle

and your acceleration

drops off

right so a

turbo car

pro mod

especially if you're

running to the eighth

is close

but by

two and a quarter

or two

probably two and a quarter

depending on the track

conditions

you're all in

and whatever it does

at that point

is whatever it does

you can't

generate enough power

to keep the tire

at its maximum

acceleration

is beating up

but when you're looking

at it from an acceleration

standpoint

the acceleration is

falling

not going up

let's talk about

some four cylinder

action

you got this SR20

that you were working on

it was for years

pretty big deal

this SR20

that was making

over 2,000 horsepower

and I'm pretty

sure at some point

it held the record

too right

well for sure

it had the record there

but it actually was

the quickest

and fastest

four cylinder

drag car

at that point

it worked

Team Techno Toys

the S15

it was a

SR20

Mazzworks SR20

billet block

and I always

lose track of the

alphabet soup

that is the cylinder heads

but I don't remember

which cylinder head it is

but

it's a factory casting

and it's

2.2 liter

we ran

a single

88 millimeter

turbo

and obviously

watered air

intercooler

and methanol

and it made

when we started

with the original

turbo

and we went from

670s

to about

640s

with that setup

and then went back

to the dyno to try

the

compound version

right

we tied it together

with a test session

for a different

brand of turbo

like a precision

so we were

going to go to the dyno

with the precision

and compare

like we're trying to

pick which turbo

we wanted

so we had the one we had

we got a new

version from them

and then we got

a precision to try

and like we're going to

try this

with the precision on the dyno

put all this

compound turbo shit on top of it

and see if that's viable

right

so we did it down here

in Florida on the dyno

and

the engine

made

1800 horsepower

with the old turbo

it made on the dyno

I think like 62 pounds of boost

now it has a snorkel

going out of the front

of the turbo

to the body of the car

it makes more boost

down the racetrack

because it gets

ram air right

and because we're

all in on the turbo

we're not controlling

to a specific boost level

the boost goes up

when the air pressure goes up

the faster we go

the more boost we make

on the dyno

you don't have that

you're all in with the turbo

and it makes what it makes

based on what it can draw in

it can't

it doesn't have any ram air

to work with

right

so it made like

I want to say

62 or something like that

pounds of boost on the dyno

and it made

1800 horsepower

we went back

tried

the other

turbo that was

from that same company

and it was like

I was slightly better

64 pounds

it made a little bit more

power

okay

then we put the precision

boost

and it made

2010 horsepower

and it was like

yeah

that's the turbo

we're going to use

right

yeah so then

at that point

we were able to run the car

up to the point where we

crashed it

I think we went

622 at 220

I think it was 226

on that pass

but we later

ran one at 229

so those were

our aggregate best

numbers

ET and speed

and at that

moment

in time

it was the

quickest and fastest

four cylinder

have you ever worked with

any other four cylinders

other than the SR20?

yeah sure

actually

I'm involved with a project

right now

a racer named Jason Ostrom

he's got an all wheel drive

Honda Civic

with a B series engine in it

and

so

I think that one

is 2 liter

maybe it's 2-2 also

but it's a similar

package

but the difference

is that the class

that he runs in

you're limited to

an 83 millimeter turbo

okay

so that engine

is only making about

1800 horsepower

at the wheels

okay so

now

what did you notice between

the SR20

and the B series

in terms of how those cars

are

how they make power

between the two

there's a lot of brand

specific like banter

that goes back and forth

but I mean in reality

there's nowhere in the ECU

where I enter

this is a Nissan

this is a Toyota

this is a Chevy

this is a Honda

it doesn't know

it literally goes back

to the discussion

we started with

about air density

and mass flow

you know

given any engine

if it's

physically capable

of containing

whatever the power

adding device is

normally a turbo

if it's able to

the power is generated

by the turbo

right

not the fucking engine

because you take the

turbo off

the engine makes no horsepower

right

because it can only breathe

what it can get

from the atmosphere

so the turbo is what determines

the power level

okay

almost period

and if the engine

is capable of containing

what the

turbo can deliver

a Honda

or a Nissan

of equal displacement

and RPM capacity

are going to make

the exact same horsepower

it doesn't know

the air doesn't know

it doesn't know it's in a Nissan

doesn't know it's in a Honda

doesn't know it's in a 2J

doesn't know it's in an RB

it doesn't know the difference

now the only difference

could be

the amount of boost

you're running right

because that could be based on

no if the displacement

and the camshaft

dynamics

and the ports are the same

okay

I mean imagine

we just build two engines

I mean but

one just has a different brand

if everything else is the same

they're going to make

the exact same horsepower

head flow doesn't

no no head flow matters

what I'm saying is

if you match all that

shit between the two engines

then you can't come up

with a different result

be like building

two of the same engines

right

so between the two engines

what's different

is the Nissan

port

and this is almost

across the board

with Nissan

they seem to do more

effort in airflow

and porting

and port angle

than say Toyota

does for the 2J

right and the B-Series

Honda is kind of the same

like it's not as good

as the port

as the Nissan is

but it's damn close

the 2J is a terrible port

it's like a fucking tractor

it comes in

and makes a 90 degree turn

the ones on the end

come in on an angle

it does all this weird shit

but the platform is good

and robust

and bulletproof

and the RB

I've not done a lot

of RB in the past

I've done a few

right

and then I've done

the recent ones

the RB has a

by looks of it

anyways and probably

a flow bench number

cylinder head

but in the end

the power adder

is really the turbo

so what happens

if the engine's more efficient

at moving air in and out of itself

is it will move the same

mass airflow

right

but it'll do it

more efficiently

so the boost pressure

that it requires

to move that mass airflow

through less

it's almost like the fuel pump thing

if you have less restriction

right more goes

more goes in

at less pressure

then you can make

the same horsepower

but in the end

it's just how hard

does your compressing device

have to work

so if it has to work

on a 2J

in other words

it makes more boost

because it can't get the air

into the cylinder

then by building pressure

you're going to build heat

right

and by building heat

you're going to

have

obviously less efficiency

because the higher

the pressure is

the less the efficiency is

the hotter the air is

the more you have to work

at getting the heat back out of it

and the less dense it is also

right

the less dense it is

but

like in a drag race application

where you have a liquid

to air heat exchanger

as long as you get the air

cooled back off

to the same temperature

doesn't fucking matter

you're losing on the efficiency

of the turbo

which means if it takes more pressure

to get to the same

mass airflow rate

on the intake side

it has to be driven

by the exhaust side

so that means

the RPM on the turbo

has to go up

and to get the RPM up

you have to put more exhaust through

and it won't go through

so the back pressure is higher

right

so then you have a mismatch

on the back pressure

and the boost

so yes

it's an efficiency thing

and I'm talking about

all-in engines

because engines

where you run 30 pounds

of boost

if you look at almost

any compressor map

that's going to be

as long as a turbo

is sized properly

you're going to be sitting

almost dead

in the center of its

efficiency island

where it takes the least

amount of horsepower

to make that pressure

at that mass airflow

and generates

the least amount of heat

it can possibly generate

so it's super efficient

now you don't need

a watered air intercooler

right

you can get away with

an air air intercooler

because you can get the

temperature down

because it's not so

fucking hot to begin with

right

or you can get away

with running it on gasoline

the charge cooling effect

that methanol offers

to get it to live

because you don't have enough

intercooler

because a compressor

I mean it's the balance

of everything

everything's related to

everything

and the whole entire car

but all-in engines

are easier

because you're not

trying to sit in that

you're running off

the end of the map

somewhere that

if you tell the manufacturer

what you're doing

like they don't

like you'd never

want to tell your

manufacturer

what turbo speed you're

running

right

and if they tell you

oh don't run over

Robert

Robert Young

he was on a podcast

oh was he?

Oh yeah

Robert's awesome

I love Robert

he's great

so cool

but the thing is at Robert

like the level that I'm at

he or the level of

projects that I work on

that's not his normal

person that he sells

turbos to

so you know

but whenever

I have it

like

Robert's the reason

why there is a compound

turbo

Celica

because I went to

Robert and said

Robert am I

out of my mind

I need a turbo

which doesn't seem to

exist

and if it is it's something

so big I never want to

put it on a race car

because it weighs 300

pounds

so why can't I just

take two somethings

that have

half the mass flow

that I need

at two to one

and use both of them

to feed a third one

right

the compound part

of it wasn't the question

it was just

can we get away

with two

88's

because that then

sets two

compressors in the

middle of their

happy efficient spot

at two to one

or two and a half

mass flow

because one's only good

for like 150 pounds

an hour

sorry 150 pounds

a minute

but two is good

for 300 pounds per minute

which should be enough

mass flow

to generate 3,000 horsepower

which is what I'm trying

to do

right

so can I just

use two 88's

and he's like

I don't think

he goes

and then he goes

you know let me think

about it

calls me back

the next day

he's like you know what

so the first

of all the answer

is yes of course

two 150's

I'm going to go by

two more pro-mod

88's

and hang them

in front of this

pro-mod 88

and so he's like

I think

yes in general

but it would be better

if I could build you

exactly

you need

a little bit smaller compressor

and you need

a lot smaller

turbine housing

because you're

splitting the exhaust

through two turbos

and you'll struggle

to get the turbos

to run the right speed

splitting it

off between the two

so how about

I build you

a custom turbo

that's I think

I'm going to go by

the side

so they spin easy

because you have

to spool this

on the starting line

before you go

so anyway

that's how that worked

so I worked on this project

where we had this

dinky little bitty engine

it was a 670 CC

600 basically

sized Suzuki engine

in this little

sports car

it's called a

de-sports racer

and SCCA

and I had this

insane

owner that

wanted to

he had

all the money

in the world

and he took his

Inza team

and said

we're going to build

this little de-sports racer

and go do this

at the runoffs

this year

and I don't care

what it costs

I want to go less than

two minutes a lap

and I want to win the race

and so it was

literally

an F1 style

like

seriously

insane amount of money

to be able to

build all this

custom shit

to do this

and they built

two cars

so when they brought

me on

the rules said

you could use

a star engine

whatever

and or

670 cc

turbo which I think

they picked that number

because they figured

no one's crazy enough

to build

there isn't one

you can't go buy it

and who the hell

is going to build

a 670

okay

it's like

hold my beer right

so

when they bring me on

they say

look here's the

here's the deal

we're building this

turbo project

and we want to know

if you want to be

involved with it

whatever

yeah of course

you have to be able to buy it

at the

at the track that's it

so the tracks

were supplied with

Senoko I think

and they have 118 octane

gasoline

it's like C16

it's like okay

well we use that gas

and there's no turbo rule

so they're like

yeah here's the deal

the normally aspirated

engine

we went and bought one

from every manufacturer

that makes one for this

race series

brought them all here

put them on the dyno

we ran every one of them

so we know what they make

the best ones make

225

do you think we can

make 225 with this

turbo motor

because I don't want to

shoot myself in the foot

but I'm like

ah you don't know

we'll see

but in my mind

I'm thinking

200 with it

like the thing makes

100 on its own

it'll make

215

pounds of boost

but I don't want

again I don't know

and the only

turbo they had the

turbo already

and the only

turbo they could get

was the one that

going by the compressor

map on the

Garrett website

said

it was some

tiny little thing

like a GT

24

it's not big enough

to do shit

but whatever

it's what you have

so let's just try it

so we ran the thing

the first time with the wrong

turbo on it on the dyno

it made 289

we needed to make

221

289

with the wrong turbo

so then I got involved

with Robert at force

performance

Robert here's what

we're trying to do

and I'm trying to make

well we can

make however much

we can possibly

make but here's

the engine we have

right and we need

a balanced

compressor

and exhaust side

based on what

turbo's that were his

like here's what I think

try all three of these

and see how they work

and we'll see what happens

so we ran all three

okay so it made

375

with the best turbo

and then we went

yeah that's good

what's your next guess

okay try this one

this one this one

and in the end

it made 425 horsepower

and the engineers

that were working

on the two cars

and the race engineer

said

stop with the

normally aspirated project

we're going with the

turbo

and then they did simulations

up at multi-matic

because multi-matic

actually built the car

in Canada

they have an F1 simulator

so they put the driver

on the F1 simulator

and simulated the car

that we were building

and ran around

road America

and figured out

that they only would need

about 320 horsepower

to be able to

achieve our goal

of less than two minutes

allowed

so then we went back

to Robert

and said Robert

okay we made all this power

but in the end

we only need to

make 325

so we could turn

the boost down

when you go back down

on pressure

the compressor efficiency

goes up

because the compressor

efficiency goes up

the exhaust pressure drops

now the pressure ratio

across the engine

gets more favorable

with more boost

less back pressure

so the volumetric

efficiency of the engine

goes up

the temperature increase

goes down

because you're

compressing less

now you need less

area for intercooler

and then

that means there's

more room for radiator

and that means

you're dragging less

shit through the air

so now you're

refining

more power

and then with Robert

it was like

here's where we're at

I had turbo speed

and pressures in and out

and everything

so he had basically

all the data he needed

to be able to go

right here's where you're at

and here's where you want to be

you need this compressor

right and then he did

up and down on that

and then we ran that

at 325 horsepower

and then we did another one

a series of three

on the exhaust side

and then whatever

the best combo was

is what we ended up

building and using to race

and we ended up

in the end

we did go less

and we won the race

by like 45 seconds

but it was a full

it was literally

we're racing against

SCCA club level racers

where it's like

a guy and his wife

and then we're a crew of 20

all wearing headsets

all dressed the same

put the car up on

fucking air jacks

on the grid

put tire warmers on it

right and then

drop it on the ground

and go to

the grid position

and take off in the race

we were ahead by

like 20 seconds

at turn one

that car would go

178 I believe

down the front straight

at road America

probably one of the favorite

projects that I

ever got to work on

it sounds fun

a lot of stuff like that

is fun

that was everybody on that

team

was extremely high level

I mean dude it had

an order of shocks

it had F1

shocks from Red Bull on it

I mean it was

it was like

insane

insane high level

and

it was a super team

from the standpoint

that everybody believed

and had respect

for everybody else

to the point

where we were all

moving in the same

direction

there was no friction

so if we had

it was really quick

to come up with a decision

there was an expert

for everything

so if you just believed

in the expert

you asked them

what do we need for this

you need this

okay bang

you put it on

yep it works

it was magic

by far

I would say

probably my favorite team

that I've ever been

involved with

especially with Robert

shout out to Robert man

super informative

I love Robert man

he's such a good dude

super informative

couldn't agree more

stupid question

blow off valve

well it depends

what you're doing

and it depends

what your

a willingness is

to buy turbos is

right so

so

if it's a pro mod

and it's a precision

turbo

do you need to run

a blow off valve

no you don't

really need to

you can get away

with not running one

up to a point

when you

rev the turbo

up high enough

and don't have

a blow off valve

you will break

the turbo

by closing

the throttle

you know

a 20 to 1 pressure ratio

just unscrews the turbo

right

it breaks itself

because it's

it's like sticking

it's like sticking a screwdriver

and it would break it

it just

destroys itself

so I know from

experience

on a big turbo

when you're all in

like on a 2J

or an RB car

if you don't have a blow off valve

you will for sure

break the turbo

at the other end

of the racetrack

when you close the throttle

don't ask me how I know

but

so there's

various reasons

to run a blow off valve

for instance

on the pikes peak car

there's a lot of transient

throttle action going on

or any road race car

or even a street car

there's lots of times

where the throttle isn't just

pinned wide open

or completely closed

you're going in between

and so

running a blow off valve

allows the turbo

to maintain its RPM

as you start to go

close throttle

because it leaks the boost

pressure off

that's trying to stop

the compressor

you know remember

if you turn the turbo

and screwed all this air

into the intake manifold

and you don't keep

turning the turbo

then the air leaks backwards

out through the turbo

and you just lost it

but the blow off valve

allows it to leak out

to atmosphere

without going backwards

so it then doesn't try

to stop the compressor

which means the turbo RPM

will stay up

which means when you

go back after the throttle

it doesn't have to rev

so far back up

to get to boost

because if you only

drop it halfway

then you only have

to climb back up halfway

so that's one reason

the other reason is

on all of those

cases where you're running

you know something that's

something that has to run

for a long period of time

you can almost

again almost without fail now

any turbocharger you get

will generate way more

fucking horsepower

than you can cool off

yeah right

so your trouble

isn't how to generate power

it's how to

thermally manage

the heat that you're

gonna generate by doing it

so if you

use a blow off

if you use a blow off valve

and let that hot air

leak out

before it gets to

the intercooler

that you're not

gonna use because

the throttle is closed

and if you don't heat

your intercooler up so much

and if you don't heat

your intercooler up

then your air density is higher

going into the intake manifold

when you go back after the throttle

right and the charge

isn't as hot

right so it doesn't

wanna knock

right so there's a lot

of reasons to run

a blow off valve

that are

maybe not so completely

it's not just so it goes

when you let off the throttle

so you can be cool

like you know

back in the day

but it's

it's really about managing

what's going on

with the whole car

thermally and

as far as the compressor

efficiency goes

now in the case of a pro-mod

the turbos are sized

in such a way

that you can get away

with not running

a wastegate on the exhaust side

because the total

mass flow that it can generate

when it's all in

happens to match

the capacity that the

turbocharger

turbine side of the turbo

can deliver to the atmosphere

so you want all of it

you can get anyway

if you're gonna close

the wastegate

if you match the turbo

to that total mass flow

then it

doesn't matter if you

the back pressure will be

what the back pressure is

and that's it

and it won't be super high

as long as the exhaust side

is a match for the compressor side

and the engine

so on a pro-mod

it's easier to manage

the boost pressure

going to the engine

by revving the turbo

all the way up

and just leaking the pressure off

that's going to the engine

to control what the engine consumes

you're all in on the exhaust side

and it's way faster

when you're ready

for all the power

you can literally switch it

back to all power

by closing

the blow off valve

or whatever you're using

as a blow off valve

could be a drive-by-wire throttle

or something like that

but I mean a throttle

that leaks to atmosphere

not the actual throttle throttle

so it's way faster

it's also far more precise

because you don't have the lag

of the turbo revving up

to get back to full boost again

it's already revved up

and it's sitting there

you're just letting it leak

so you get the boost number you want

and then you close it

and bang it straight back up

to the power you want to make

now that's a super inefficient way

to do the job

because the compressor

is making all this fucking heat

and you're wasting it

and giving it away

and letting it blow off the blow off valve

but you're drag racing

so it gives a shit if it's inefficient

you only need to work for 3 seconds

or 4 seconds or 5 seconds

or 10 seconds

or whatever it is

so you can get away with a lot

different things

depending on the application

of what you're doing

it's safe to say then

in that case

it depends on what you're doing

for 1 and 2

compressor surge is bad then right

so listen

that's the other reason to use it

when you have a compressor

that's big enough

to make 5,000 horsepower

on a pro mod

and you try to spool it up

and the engine's only at 4,000

to make 20 pounds of boost with it

the turbo is way off to the left

or you're way off the left

of the compressor map

or you're at least

riding the left side line

so it's wanting to surge

one way you can force it

not to surge

is simply move the mass flow

at that pressure

further to the right

so it goes into the center of the map

where it's sufficient

won't surge

off the surge line

so how do you do that

you need to be able to move

more air at the same RPM

but the engine

is setting how much air

it will consume at that RPM

based on the cylinder head

camshaft

intake manifold

exhaust manifold

all this shit

so you can't make the engine swallow more

unless you raise the RPM

so that's one way

except when you raise the RPM

guess what it hits the tire harder

so that's going to unload the chassis

or the other option is

you just give it a leak to atmosphere

literally just let the air

leak to atmosphere

through a leak

I mean they used to

in the old days

they used to

well like the GM team

back in the old sport combat days

they had like four

AN caps

on the side of the plenum

on the intake

so it was on the boost tube

between the intercooler

and the intake manifold

and they would fucking literally

unscrew a number eight cap

or a number ten cap

or a number six cap

the other ones would be capped

and they just let that leak

all the time to atmosphere

because that would allow them to run

a turbo that was too big

on an engine too small

and not surge

and by running the big turbo

on the little engine

letting it leak

and moving the mass flow out

to the middle of the map

they could go higher up the map

and make more boost

efficiently

speed demon

perfect example

speed demon is a special case

race car

that speed demon too now

I'm talking about the gold car

this one they just stacked up

the speed demon uses

the same chassis

and driveline components

and turbo chargers

88 millimeter turbo chargers

for because out there

the category is

streamliner

blown fuel streamliner

so they all run methanol

they all turbo

so they're blown fuel streamliner

but the engine size

determines the class

so there's double A

that's bigger than 500 inches

and then there's A

that might be 450 to 500

and then there's B

and it's like 400 to 450

it's a different breakdown

but generally that's how it is

so the smaller

the further down the alphabet

you go on the engine size

the smaller the engine gets

so they run

four different engine

classes

and they have the record in

double A

A

B

C

D

and F

and not E

right so double A is the

555 I think it is now

and then we had a

447 that was an A

that was an LS

so the 555 is a big block Chevy

and then we had a 444 I think

LS

and then there was a

390 inch actual traditional

small block

and a 370 inch actual small block

and a 320 inch actual small block

and they turned that engine

there was a 300 inch small block

and they turned that into a 256

to go for the E record

so it's 256 cubic inch right

running the same turbos that a

555 is trying to use

so on the one hand the 555

is upside down and backwards

because it's a massive engine

compared to a small turbo

it's like a fucking streetcar

turbo on it

but still because it's big

it makes 3500 horsepower

and the A engine

is a really good match

and it also makes 3000 horsepower

but it does it at a more efficient point

in the operating range of the turbo

so it'll rev up higher

so that's actually a better package

than the big engine small turbo was

even though it made more power

and then we've got this dinky little 256

so the problem with the 256 is

and the 256 make 3000 horsepower

like no problem right

because it'll just make it

it just makes 3000

it's 70 pounds of boost

or it's 60 pounds of boost

so we're running the car

at Bonneville

and the problem we have

is when it makes the gear change

with that little dinky engine on it

it pulls the revs down enough

that the mass flow drops

to the left of the surge line

on that 88 millimeter compressor

and we get compressor surge

and then as the engine revs up

and it struggles its way through

that part of the gear

it finally has enough mass flow

to move off the surge line

and the turbos start doing their job again

because we've mismatched the engine

and the turbo right

because we want all this power

we can make it 10,000

but when it makes the gear change

and yanks the engine

out of its happy spot on the turbo

it falls to the left of the surge line

and surges

so we're at Bonneville

how are we going to solve this problem

I'm like I got an idea

take the boost reference line off

for the waste gates

that's coming off the compressor housing

on both turbos

and put a T in it

and run it to the intake plenum

so we get the pressure reference

from the intake manifold

not the compressor outlet

because obviously it's easier

to come off the compressor outlet

when you're doing multiple engines

because you don't have to hook it

to the intake manifold

but in this case

move those off of there

unscrew the fittings out of the turbos

and let's go run

what do you mean

I'm like let it leak

let it leak out of the two holes

in the compressor housing

that will stop the surge

because there will be enough

extra mass flow

and we'll go make a run

so we did

and guess what

doesn't surge anymore

we just moved the mass flow

out to the middle of the compressor map

and it leaked to atmosphere

through the two fittings

in the compressor housing

now are we going to be able

to make as much overall boost

with that leak

of course we're not going to be able to

but it doesn't matter

we're not running all we can make

we're running what we can use

and we have no other choice

see that or let them surge

until it breaks the turbo

the right way

it would have been

get the right turbo match

for that size engine

but we're at Bonneville

what are you going to do

I know that's the right way

but we're here at the race

and we're not coming

for another year

so shall we go home

or shall we

let it leak to atmosphere

I've already done this

I know it works

it's a random topic

but the Haltech has the map sensor

built into the ECU

so there's a vacuum on it

now one of the things

that I saw on the forums

was people were saying

that you want to put your map sensor

as close to the intake manifold

as possible

right now

what are the downsides

to running the map sensor

off the ECU

if you have a longer line

it's in the cabin

so there's

this is like a loaded question

because there's like 20

different things to talk

topics to talk about

regarding that

so once again

go back to this

now I want to say never

because they did originally

like in the 80s

and I think they learned their lesson

don't mount the map sensor

in the ECU

for two reasons

number one reason

if it fails

the fucking ECU

has to go back to get fixed

right

and number two

if you have that map sensor

on board

and someone wants to run

a higher scale

than what you've built in

they're fucked they can't

let's say I have to run

some external input

so MoTeX philosophy

we're never putting

the map sensor again

on the board

again with the screwdriver

boxes in the ADS

they were built into the ECU

and then after that they stopped

so there's that

the reference line

length

should be relatively close

to the intake manifold

so that you don't have a huge delay

you're trying to fuel the engine

based on what you're measuring

going on in the intake manifold

correct

and what it's RPM is

right speed

density

if you don't have a reference point

that's accurate

then when you change

throttles

or have transient conditions

you're likely to be

erroring

by under or overfueling

the engine

because the operating point

isn't being measured

at the same time

because you got a delay

right

right so it's

literally goes right back

to the top fuel car

you're at a time

the time sequence is wrong

and the trouble is that

the engine

is consuming air

and fuel

at a really high rate

and when it changes

and you're fueling it behind

it's a massive error

for a while

and it's difficult

to get any engine

to actually

on any sort of consistent basis

have combustion

cycle to cycle

that doesn't vary

all over the place

between complete misfire

and

pre-ignition

and then knock

and normal

and it's just

an engine is almost

chaos

when you start looking

at what's going on

cylinder pressure wise

and you start comparing

one to another

it's not chaos

it's understandable

but still

it's really difficult

so

the best case scenario

would be

sample the pressure

in the plenum

on the specific cylinder

that has currently got

the intake valve open

and use that reference point

as your calculation

for the air density

going into that cylinder

so in other words

crank synchronous

or engine synchronous

sample

of instantaneous

or average

from a number of

sample points

done quickly

during the intake

process

when the valves open

say this is what

the average pressure is

therefore deliver

this amount of fuel

to

that cylinder

okay

when you're doing it

by average

out in the center

of the plenum

you're always making

some kind of mistake

it's just a matter

of how big it is

and if you then

move the sensor

25 feet down a vacuum hose

to measure it

well the signal

will be really smooth

but it's not really

going to be timed

to what the engine

is doing

if it's running

full throttle

never has a throttle

transient change

and you're sweeping

the engine through

RPM curve

slow enough

it doesn't matter

based on this little

conversation that we've had

it depends on

what you're doing

right now

we're not talking about

listen

you can literally

stand on the hood

of an engine

if you could

piss the right amount

of liquid into the engine

it will run the same

it doesn't care

when it's right

it's right

and it does

not matter

how you deliver it

and that's why

in the end

there's not a

super huge difference

between

a perfectly executed

EFI engine

and an executed

mechanical injected engine

and or a carbureted engine

and in some cases

like in the carburetor case

it's really common

to take something like

a well tuned carburetor engine

like a pro stock engine

for example

and put EFI on it

and lose horsepower

because you now

move the fuel

to a place where

it doesn't have

as much opportunity

to atomize

and cool the charge

you change the charge

density

so the power goes down

right

so there is

there's

EFI engine once

right

and if you give it

what it wants

it doesn't matter how you do it

this is why

it's so fucking annoying to me

and listen

I'm guilty of it

myself right

because I promote myself

and I have

promoted myself

and I learned that

from the twins

they're the ones that actually

told me dude

you need to have a tag

like you can't just

be Shane Tecklin

promote

you need to be some name

you need to come up

with something

like just maybe Shane T

and I'm not creative enough

to have ever come up

with anything different

that I'll be tuned

by Shane T

and then Vinny 10

is the first one

that actually

cause he was right on board

with it

and he's like

yep I'm putting that on my car

I'm gonna put that

so then unfortunately

they came to Pomona

that was like 2004

and they came to Pomona

because I went there

to help them

tune the car

and he's like

I wanna put your decal

on the car

send me your decal

I don't have a decal

he's like

well I'm not putting

motec on them

I know you work for motec

but you just came here

and you spent two days

helping me fix

your name on the car

not motec

so come up with a tag name

and the twins are like

tuned by Shane T

fine

so I said tuned by Shane T

you've made a decal

put it on the car

they brought the car to Pomona

ran it at the world finals

he went off the end of the race track

into the sand trap

destroyed the front of the bar

the body

but he gave me

that piece of the fender

that had my

decal

I still have it

hangs on the wall at my river house

so

I'm guilty of promoting myself

because

that's what it takes

I mean the twins

were the ones that told me

don't feel bad

it's not bragging

right

most people pay someone else

to do this job

and basically

promote them

if you can do it yourself

no one is going to promote you

like you're going to be able

to promote yourself

it's important

you need to start doing it

so that's when I learned

okay I'll do it

so of course

I've been

you know

showcasing

the things that I've been

working on

and saying like look

this thing made all this power

but in the end

it really

tuners that say

oh I showed up with a laptop

and I made power

you don't make power

as a tuner

the engine

makes power

based on

the mass

flow of oxygen

it can get through its cylinders

and if you fuel it

correctly

and you spark it

at the right time

it will make the same power

no matter

who is doing the tuning

no matter which engine

management system is on it

and indeed

whether you're using

mechanical injection

EFI

direct injection

carburation

or standing on the

front of the hood

pissing down the hole

that it's ingesting air from

the end result

will be the same

no matter who does it

you know if you have

10 tuners

show up to do

if they're competent

they are all going to arrive

at the same horsepower number

so stop

for the love of God

bragging about

how much fucking

horsepower you can make

as a tuner

you do not make

the horsepower

the person that

designs the engine

and puts the hardware

together

and the power adding

device

maximums

that's what decides

what the ultimate

maximum capability

the engine is

not the jockey

with the fucking keyboard

man

okay

get over yourself

yeah

it's true

but now

the one thing that I did

that did come to mind

is the tuners

who really don't know

what they're doing

right

well so

the key word there

was I said

competent

competent tuners

right

so

and there's

technically competent

with zero experience

and if everything goes perfect

then they're going to come up

with the same result

but the bottom line is dude

race cars

and racing engines

and these are all

series of problems to solve

right

I worked on a car here

yesterday

that has a problem

with a cam trigger

okay

and we can't work out

what it is

thankfully I'd run

two of the other engines

right

and we measure

and working with

I'm working with

Abe rated R right

on this project

and so

I was in Australia

working on

the same exact engine

for a different car

Mac Daddy

right

yeah trigger problems

cam trigger problems

yeah cam trigger what

cam sensor

what was wrong with it

no I know what it is

oh

I'm saying

what was the issue

okay so

can we talk about it

yeah yeah yeah

so

because that's the common thing

with the RBs

is these

companies battling over

who has the best crank

and cam trigger

all this stuff

and so here's the

here's the reason

that's the case

you know in the case

of a 2JZ

and this was always

our philosophy at Motec

if the factory

has a cam

and a crank sensor

inbuilt

we're going to

change the firmware

to be able

to use that pattern

because

the factory

obviously spent

millions of dollars

developing

the sensor

and trigger

wheel combination

and pattern

same thing

with the cam

sensor

and they researched

it and it's worked out

better

to use that

than just

hang some random trigger

wheel off the front of the crank

you know in a bracket

that bounces all over the place

and changes gap

and fucking position

and then hang

who knows what

maybe read the cam lobe

through the valve cover

with a hall effect

or some other

you can get away with that

but if you're racing

at a high level

and you want precision

you need something

that's going to be

foolproof

and not be a problem

so we were always

again a philosophical

thing at Motec

we're going to read

the factory triggers

when available

a proper way

to generate

the profile

on the tooth

of the trigger wheel

to suit

the sensor

that you're using

right

and in very

simple terms

if it's a mag

sensor

a variable reluctance

sensor

the tooth

width

as it goes across

the end of the

sensor pickup

shouldn't be less

than equal to

the diameter

of the pole piece

in the pickup

of the sensor

and should not be

more than

two times

the pole piece

in the sensor

to provide a proper signal

I mean that is like

the number one basic rule

right then it's

height profile

compared to the gap

next to it

right needs to be

correct so it's not

doing weird shit

but that's the basic

that's the basics

of it

you have a pole piece

that's the

diameter on the sensor

you have a target

on the tooth

that's that same

that same size

or no more than

twice that size

and then obviously

you have to have a gap

that's

at least equal to that

otherwise you're

gonna be in the next

tooth over before you

get done seeing the last

tooth

right

okay so

properly designed

crank triggers

and or cam triggers

don't have problems

properly designed

unfortunately

people just throw

shit together

they don't really

understand what they're

doing and they just

throw shit together

and it works

and then they

put it on some guys

some mouth pieces

high horsepower engine

and he's bragging

about how good

he is at tuning

right

so it must be good

so that's not the case

in the thing I was working on

this is a work

setup right

that worked on two other

engines yeah

but in the end

we were able to figure

out that the magnet

was incorrectly

installed in this one

only one

of three

trigger systems

cam or crank

cam the crank was working

but it was losing the

cam and it was only

on this one engine

and it took

both of us

quite a while

but it's only because

both me and Abe

think the same

and we're used to using

Motec

whenever we start an engine

right particularly when

we're doing something

new too

we capture the

cam and the crank signal

so you have a reference

point to go back to later

so when I did it

in Australia

I captured mine

he did it here in the

US because it was this

cool development thing

we ran the engine

on the dyno

I'm talking about

Big Mac now

so Big Mac's engine

was on the dyno

here in the States

at Abe's

package that we put in it

okay

and meanwhile

I had gone to Australia

and I was working on

a sister engine

in Mac Daddy

with Alex Birong

down in Sydney

so he took the tune

from that car

because it's

literally the same

fuel system

everything's the same

same turbo

it's a sister

it's not

the header

is a little different

it's a different car

it's a VL

it's not a pro mod

but the engine

package is identical

so he takes the

tune sends it to me

I stick it in

I have some trigger issues

with the crank trigger

that's on it

and so we switch

to a PRP

crank and cam trigger

and I do the setup

and we run it on the dyno

no more trigger issues

like bitch and this is perfect

I do everything I'm doing

on the dyno

on the VL

it makes

the engine here

in Big Mac

made 2568

the engine there

in Mac Daddy

twin sister engine

right

same mo-tech ECU

same

same tune

not the same software

because each one has

the same firmware

that I wrote custom for them

but the same tune

tune-up

volumetric efficiency curve

all that shit

2564

over there

right

which is okay

not a surprise

same tune-up and same engines

they should make the same

okay so

and no more

so then

they're coming over here

to do testing

with Mac Daddy

so I fucking send

all of that shit

that I figured out

about the crank

crank trigger over there

the

filtering settings

whether it's rise or fall

I send all that shit

back to Abe

he loads it in

Big Mac over here

they put that trigger on

over here

and go run it

yep cool

everything works

so we've done it twice

I captured it there

he captured it here

get to here

with the third engine

in the car the other day

and it's got trigger issues

and it's like

what the fuck

we just ran two of these

two different continents

right back to back

and they had no problem

so it turns out

the magnet's in the wrong

way around

and

it

only happens

because

the engine

most people don't know this

but there's usually

a couple of spots

in the cycle

where the

the valve spring

opening

and position

and drag

and whatever is hooked

to the crankshaft

manages to stop it

in the similar

position

it's either going to be

on this half of the cycle

or that half of the cycle

where the other half

of the engine

lines up and stops it

so if you turn the engine

by hand

there's a point

where it gets

the resistance is high

try to open two valves

once one's got

the exhaust opening

one's open the intake

and it gets tight

and then rolls past it

and it gets loose again

and it gets tight

not with even the plugs in

just from the valve springs

and let alone the plugs

being in the compression

trying to stop shit

so there's usually

two halves in the cycle

on every engine

where on this cycle

it's these two cylinders

and on that cycle

it's that two cylinders

so it either stops

on this rev

or that rev

but it almost always

stops in a similar place

so getting back to this

the magnet's in backwards

on the cam sensor

on this one

the sensor is hanging out

in front of the cam gear

the fucking thing stops

with the magnet

straight underneath the sensor

when the engine shuts off

when you power the sensor back up

right you turn the sensor on

because the magnet's in backwards

it like forward biases

it's a hall effect sensor

it's got its own magnet

but because this magnet

is opposing that magnet

it forward biases the sensor

before it powers on

and the sensor then

starts switching

the opposite fucking direction

right so normally

on the car in

once again this comes down to

me having a scope capture

because that's how I do it

and Abe having a scope capture

because that's how he does it

so we have the two to compare

to this third one

our two match

and this motherfucker

is working backwards

so in other words

when there's no target

in front of the sensor

the voltage is high

and when the target

goes in front of it

it goes low

and then after the target

moves back out of the way

it goes high again

but the one on this car

is low

and when the target

goes in front of it

it goes high

and then when it moves

past the target

it goes back low again

it's flipped

and it's fucking

blowing our mind

because how can it be

on a sensor like that

it's a powered sensor

you can't reverse the wires

to get the pattern backwards

so how the fuck

is it doing this

so just by plugging it in

like first of all

I've seen sensors

where they care

which direction

the target moves through them

when it sees

the pattern it sees

as to whether

they produce

a rising or a falling edge

when that enters

like a GT 101 sensor

it cares about

the direction

that the target

is going past the sensor

if you go this way

you get a falling edge

if you go this way

you get a rising edge

right

and so

that's why you don't

use a GT 101 on the crank

you use it for a wheel speed

because on a wheel speed

sensor

it doesn't fucking matter

if you get a little jitter

it doesn't make any difference

you get one little tooth

out of

however many you're measuring

and you're not trying

to do anything with it

other than measure speed

but when you're trying

to accurately derive

where the crankshaft is

importantly

and you're using

a trigger

and the crankshaft

by the way

isn't nearly smooth

if you were to look

instantaneously

at the speed

instantaneous speed

of the crank

throughout the cycle

it's all over the map

because it's slowing down

speeding up

then it's got

one cylinder misfires

and the next one

makes 3,000 horsepower

so it accelerates

like crazy

and then

there's also a vibration

and flex

and I mean man

the more you look

the scarier it gets

but you're trying to

accurately derive

the pattern switch itself

true

right

because the crank

did

this real quick

past the tooth

and made it trigger

more than once

right so anyway

so yeah

turns out what's going on

after we fuck with it

for hours

we recognize that

okay

if you hold the sensor

in air

and take the connector off

and plug it in

and put it back

in front of the target

it does one thing

right

if you put it

in front of the target

unplug the connector

and plug the connector

back in

in front of the target

it's flipped itself backwards

so it's got something to do

with that fucking magnet

right

and that's how we worked it out

so we put the old

trigger tooth

on the end of the cam

problem solved

so the point of that story

you're a guy with no experience

you ain't got a fucking chair

that's a figure in that out

you'd be screwed

right that was

that was dumb luck really

and then

and then you're complaining

about the product

and how it sucks

oh yeah

it's a piece of shit

they don't know how

to build a cam trigger

and fucking I'm so much smarter

than they are

except for some of this ability

for any kind of a problem ever

that's how it is

why do you think the RB

is only operated off

just the cam though

because they only had a cam

they only came with the cam

so I'm sure this came down to

the Nissan bean counters

going well

we could just put

one trigger that does both

on the cam

and then we don't have to

have anything on the crank

and then we can save money

because we don't have to

have two separate sensors

so we'll just use this

optical sensor

on the end of the cam

which that was a problem too

because on the street car

version of that

because there was

there was 360 slots

or 180 slots

or something around the outside

they were tiny

and this little bitty laser

etched piece of

like stainless or whatever it was

and you would have

they were like

almost slightly bigger

than a hair

the little teeth

that it was trying to read

and it was an optical trigger

reading through that tooth

like sending

light through one side

and receiving it in the other

and that's how it knew

that's how it resolved

crank position

but it's not really on the crank

it's on the cam

and there's slop

between the cam and the crank

because you got a belt

that's running one

on the cam

only sometimes

because then you got valve springs

that are doing this

and forcing the cams

to speed up and slow down

and the crank speeding up

and slowing it

because you can imagine

this is not a good idea

so only a bean counter

would say

yeah let's just put it on the cam

because we can put it all

in one unit

but anyway

that's what they did

and then those little slots

would get shit in them

just from being old

and then it would lose

the trigger

and it wouldn't run

and then you go in there

with a Q-tip

and like break clean

and clean them out

and bang out runs again

and then you also have to

the belt stretch

this stuff is all moving back

and forth

this is not a smooth

running signal

right

in general

the crank is what's

the thing that is dragging

the cams around

behind it with the belt

so you could probably say

in general

that the crank

is going to be ahead of the cams

because the belt's going to stretch

and they're always going to lag

that the crank

is what's driving

but in reality

at any given point

during the engine cycle

you've got

all of these things happening

the belt stretches

and then it slacks

and then it stretches

and it slacks

and so the cams are going forward

and back

and the crank's accelerating

and slowing down

and so you've got lots of room

for error

as long as you're not trying

to be precise

no problems

but if you want to be precise

it doesn't work

man if you stand far enough

back from a mountain range

look smooth

get up close

and it's dog shit

right

so smooth is relative

is this the first RB

at this level

that you've worked on

the first one that I worked on

it was kind of at a high level

was actually with

one of my customers

from New Zealand

heat treatments

and they had a proper

actual cast

no you don't want to take it back

the very first one I did

was like

2003 or four

Carl Stevens Jr

they built a 350Z

and they were using an RB26

originally in that engine

and so I tuned it

for them on the dyno

and so this is how J did

it was a 350Z

yeah it was a 350Z

but they used an RB26

yeah

single turbo

and what year was this

like either

2000 I'm thinking

three probably

wow

or it could have been two

is there videos of this

oh I'm sure

yeah the R&T there's a video

because the first thing that

happened is

this is back to the boost

numbers right

I was working on a twin

turbo V8

pro street car

yeah

and so we ran 30 pounds of

boost

well made

2,000 or 2,400 horsepower

something like that

so to me 30 pounds of boost

was a fucking big number

you don't need to run

more than 30 pounds of

boost

yeah

so I never worked on

an actual import drag car

up to that point

and the deal was

him and his dad

had a mo-tech booth

and worked for mo-tech

so

that means that it was

either 2002 or 2003

and I'm thinking

2000 I started in one

so

two would have been

yeah it might have been two

so because I was working

on that

drag race car

with the twin turbo

actually the first one

was twin turbo small block

and it was someone that

I knew personally before

I started at mo-tech

and they had a mo-tech

and they're one of the

reasons why I went to

mo-tech because they said

man this engine management

system is awesome

you should see if you

could get a job over there

so anyway

they triggered problems with it

and they keep coming back

and it was an old M48

which was the DOS version

before the M800 came out

that became

because the M800 was

DOS at first too

but like 2002 or 2003

it went to

Windows based software

anyway

so the M48 is on this car

and it keeps

cutting off

like it shuts off

going down the race track

can't figure it out

he's bringing it in

I first started at

mo-tech in November of

2001

and my buddy's coming in

with his ECU to let them

pull the data

and like look through the data

to try and find the problem

and no one can find the problem

and so

after about

six months

I now start to

understand enough

and know enough

that I can kind of

work my way through stuff

a little bit

and he goes man

is there any way you'd

consider coming out

to the race track

at Bakersfield

and trying to figure out

what's going on with my car

because it just keeps

like it'll make three runs

and then just on the fourth

one shut off

they're like alright

I'll come and check

well I get there

I get the laptop on it

and one thing that's wrong

is the Barrow Sensor

has

it's in error

right so I'm looking

at the pressure

for the Barrow Sensor

and it's reading 104 kPa

and I'm looking at the

map sensor

and it's reading 93 kPa

and we're at like

12 or 1500 feet

so I know it's

we're not below sea level

right so something's

wrong with the Barrow

now I'm not smart enough

to know if that's

really a problem or not

but I know it's a problem

and my background

was you know

working on regular street

cars and diagnosing

problems on street cars

for a hotline center

that my dad operated

for 20 years

I know when you have

a complex problem

and you're searching

for the answer

a problem that you encounter

that seemingly

can't be related

to the main problem

you can't just

fucking leave it a problem

because it doesn't seem

like it could be related

you fix it

right and then

you come across

another seemingly

unrelated problem

and then you fix that

and then you find

one more unrelated

and then pretty soon

your whole fucking

problem's gone right

but if you fall

in the trap of

this is fucked up

but it can't be the problem

with this

so I'll just leave it

fucked up

you'll never get it

okay so anyway

so Barrow Sensor's fucked up

well it turns out

that the pin pushed back

in the connector

it wasn't seated

all the way

in the connector

so when you plug it in

it pushes the pin back

so it's got no signals

so the sensor's an error

and the default is

104.3

or whatever it was

fine push the pin in

bang that's fixed

alright what's next

well I learned

that it's important

on an engine

that has a single tooth

on the cam

it's important

the relationship

of the cam sensor

compared to

the position of the crank teeth

in so far as

the amotec at least

is using the cam sensor

to derive

which is the tooth

on the crank

since it goes around twice

and there's nothing

unique about four teeth

on a crank

could be any four

it has to

see the cam signal first

and the next tooth

that sees on the crank

is the reference tooth

to top dead center

compression

right how many degrees

it is to top dead center compression

when that tooth

arrives in front of the crank tooth

so it's the tooth

after the cam tooth

happens

and it has to be

out in the middle

of the two teeth

positionally

because

there's stretch in the belt

that drives the cam

or the gears

slop in the gears

and because all the shit

shaken back and forth

if you put it right here

or right on top

of the crank tooth

and then as the crank

is jittering around

like my fucking fingers

seem to be

because I had way too

much coffee

before I came here

it's too close

and you get a little slop

it jumps to this side

of the tooth

but the ECU

doesn't know

that it moved

right

it just says the tooth

that's next

is the one that's

the reference tooth

except if I have

four teeth on the

crankshaft

and I move the

camshaft

trigger tooth

that says the next

one on the crank

is the one

distance to top dead center

if I have

four teeth on the crank

and I move to this

side of that tooth

I'm now 90 degrees

off

right

ahead of where I'm supposed

to be

right

if I at least

just move backwards

across that tooth

I'm off by 90 degrees

in the direction

that doesn't blow the motor

up

right

so this was an 8 tooth

I put the lab scope

on it

just to check

because I don't know

what else

oh I find the TPS

I find slop in the TPS

sensor

so I

I'm watching the

throttle sweep

because I'm just looking

for any problem

I don't know what's

wrong

I'm just checking

because when I go open

it reads open

and then I close it

and it still reads open

and I close it

and then all of a sudden

it reads closed

so I'm like

well that ain't fucking right

so I take it apart

and I look

and it's got

like a screw driver

and it looks like

a slot screw driver

and a slot screw

so the TPS

is the slot screw

and the

throttle shaft

has the blade

that fits inside of it

except it's all

horred out

inside of there

from vibration

so you've got

this much slop

before it starts

and then you take strips

make a U

until it's tight in there

right and put it back on

okay now the throttle works

fine

so now that's fixed

so now I'm feeling good

I found at least two problems

I don't know if they're

the problem or not

but hey I found two things

that weren't right

and I fixed them

so let's check

the cam in the crank

sensor

so we check them

and I'm like

holy fuck

it's got the cam

sensor

literally

on top of the crank

tooth

they're at exactly

the fucking same time

so then I'm like

now I'm super excited

100%

I call my buddy

Simon Wagner

that also worked

I'm like hey

I just found this thing

it's got the teeth lined up

it's definitely not

supposed to be that way

right like the sink

needs to be out in the middle

he's like yeah

needs to be out in the middle

he goes is it offset

to one side of it

or the other

I said well it's

a little bit

to one side

but it's mostly

lined straight up

he's like okay

so the side

that it's a little bit

off in front of

move it further

that way

around that tooth

because that will

jump across the tooth

that it normally uses

but get it ahead of it

and out in the middle

of the two teeth

if you can

so that

as it moves back

and forth it doesn't

jump across the tooth

so like cool

so I do

we go run

it makes its best run

ever

it went 691

at 201.75

it had been

201 before

it had never been

691

and they are

literally he

is literally

kissing me

when he comes back

and like

that's we just

made our best

201.75

it had been

it had been 692

or something

at like 201.25

what car is this

it was a 69 Camaro

pro street car

so it's basically

a pro mod heavy pro mod

oh I thought

like wait

I thought you were talking

about the 350Z with the

RV that's why I'm like

no no no no no

that's so

there's no way

that

listen to short

cut the RV story

I tune the thing on the

dyno forum

we make like 38 pounds

of boost

I think it made

830 horsepower

and I'm like yeah

like we need more power

we need more boost

and I'm like

no trust me

you don't

you don't want to try

and run more boost than that

it'll be a problem

like okay

so then we go to the racetrack

and he was

I think he was too young

or didn't even have a license

I can't remember

but his dad was going to

drive the car

so his dad drove the car

at E-town

and we tested it a little

bit

and it was kind of

it's got a clutch in it

and they're trying to learn

that

and the car wasn't set up

quite right yet

but short story

and I think

there is a video

it's on Long Island

I think it was Long Island Dragway

on like a random test weekend

and he goes and fucking

lets the clutch out on this thing

and he had commanded

like just make all of it

and it made 50 odd pounds of boost

and I think he went like

fuck I don't know

799 or something like that

on his first ever run

down the racetrack

and then just came out

stuck the thing on the dyno

and it made like

1500 horsepower

on a 350Z

2

but it was a RB 26

yeah

in the 350Z

in the 790

yeah but keep it in mind

once again

it was a pro street car

I mean it's like a pro mod

it's like a pro import

it was heavier

it was a 3 quarter chassis

but still

I'm thinking about it

it wasn't a street legal

I'm thinking about a street car

I'm thinking

almost nothing I do is a street car

where is this guy at

when you're talking to me

if you say car

that means race car

not fucking a street car

okay

I'm like you know a street car

that's crazy

where's he at

yeah I know

okay so

okay I got you

that's impressive though

for that year

2003 you said

yeah no it was super

it was super impressive

it was killer

it made how much boost

that's what I'm saying

like 55 pounds of boost

I said oh my god that's

I can't believe it lived

but that also planted

a seed in my head

mm-hmm

and I hadn't really

I had been tuning

based on how I was taught

but I hadn't

it hadn't like

gelled into my mind

to understand

that it's really all about

physics

and you don't really

need to be tuning

you need to be calculating

ahead of time

and generating a map first

that should work

and then just tweak the

map to match what it

actually is

and the reason that gave me

a clue was because

I had only tuned it

to 38 pounds of boost

on the dyno

so how the fuck

did he just close the

wastegate and run

55 without tuning it

and it didn't blow up

because

if the ECU

is doing the

calculations correctly

and you've done

a good enough job

with the fuel map

when you're tuning

as long as you get it

right somewhere

and you run out

of a capacity problem

with your

fuel delivery system

either from the pump

and the regulator

standpoint

or the injector

and that slope

if you've got it right

it'll be right everywhere

else

within reason

to the point where

at least won't blow up

and that job gets a lot

easier with methanol

but so then that's how

that's how not then

but that's planted

the seed that like

hey wait

there should be

a way to calculate

this

because it's doing it

right and

what's going on

in the background

with a mo-tech

at that time

you could adjust

something called

a manifold pressure

compensation

so the concept is

when I run it

and I run it at sea level

it needs X amount of fuel

to run at the correct

air-fuel ratio

if I then go to

twice the

air density

in other words

if I go to 2 bar

keep the temperature

the same

then I should just

simply need twice as

much fuel mass

to run at the same air-fuel ratio

so therefore

your density compensation

is literally

one to one

with air pressure

so that takes

the density part

of the equation

out of the picture

and now all you

have to worry about

is the volume

so if the engine

achieves more

volume flow

at twice the pressure

it's going to require

a bigger

number in the fuel table

you've already got

the density accounted for

particularly if you do

both a manifold pressure

and a manifold temperature

now you have

the air component

of the air-density

equation figured out

the only you're missing

is the water vapor

which isn't hardly

any percentage at all

even from

completely dry to

the wettest you could

ever be

it's only about

5% swing

you can fix that

with a lambda sensor

level of what you're

measuring with

but the point is

if you do the pressure

compensation in the background

which is just simply

the ideal gas law

very simply

more double pressure

double fuel

and then you do

the air-temperature

compensation based on

what the change in air

temperature is

for any given pressure

what that change

in density is

you've got

the density part

of the equation

solved

the speed part

of it comes from

the crank

and you look at

the reference of

those two intersection

that you need to put in

right

so if we

if we achieve

more volume flow

of the engine

we have a bigger number

in the table

if we achieve the same

volume flow

at twice the density

we need the same number

in the table

right

if I haven't changed

the volume

I'm at the same RPM

and the volume

hasn't changed

on the engine

and only the density

has changed

and I'm measuring

the density

and I'm

adjusting for the density

then I need

the same number

for the volume

to work

it'll work out

100%

and by the way

what you're trying to derive

is mass flow

right against engine speed

that's why there's something

called a mass air flow

sensor

yeah

if you run a mass air flow

sensor

you don't need a shanty

literally

you set the air

fuel ratio you want

at any given

mass flow

and RPM

and

unless there's

an error in what it's

measuring

it derives the correct

amount of fuel

and runs at the correct

air fuel ratio

under all operating

systems

a lot of information there

cool

alright

so what I want to know

is what do you think

from your experience

what do you think

the best engine of all time is

that's a hard one

best of all time

well

I gotta tell you

let's see

what's really

what's really intriguing

is a couple of things

about internal combustion

engines

first of all they've existed

for

at this point

100 and probably 50 years

and we are

still

finding ways

to improve them

and part of it's because

they're so completely

fucking inefficient

in the first place

I mean you basically

for the amount of energy

you're putting in

you're only getting

about a third of it

to actually

put to useful work

the rest of it

makes heat

and goes out

the exhaust

and heats the atmosphere up

so I think that's part of it

but it's

it's really cool

that

well I mean

people like me

and everybody in the

industry can have jobs

still trying to refine

and make things better

and we're

but it's also

a little bit

humbling

to think of

all of the

all of the effort

that's been put into

making these engines

as efficient

as they can possibly be

and then look back

to someone like

Harry Ricardo

you know at the beginning

of the last century

who already had

all of this shit

figured out

using

no data logging

equipment electronics

you know it was

all some

you know

hook an arm

cylinder with another cylinder

and put a pencil

and let it

draw a graph

on a piece of paper

to get a pressure volume curve

and you know

that kind of technology

that they didn't have

and like the

Offenhauser engine

the Offenhauser engine

was a fantastic engine

to run boost with

because it had no head gasket

why?

because if you don't

have a head gasket

it can never blow a head gasket

right?

Brilliant

simple or keep it simple

stupid right?

if it's not on the car

it can't be what's wrong

so the

the offy engine

the cylinder

bolted to the crank case

at the bottom

and the cylinder

and the head were one piece

so to machine the valve seats

you have to go up through the bore

right

and machine the valve seats

from the bore side

so that makes it a pain

in the ass to build

right

but once you've done that

now the piston's in there

there ain't no head gasket

it's a base gasket

and there's nothing to leak

above the piston

that's why they ran them at Indy

and that's why they could run

fucking 75 pounds of boost

on them at Indy

and not break them

interesting

okay

so I would say

of all time

I mean look

there's probably better engines

but the offies are pretty fantastic

for when it was built

four valve

bad ass

that's probably the right way

other than serviceability

that's probably the right way

I love that you said that

because it's

it's so different

from what everyone else would

probably say

they probably say some four cylinder

Honda K Series

B Series

RB 2J

you know

3S GTE

all these crazy

you know four cylinders

keep in mind the oftenhouser

was built for a specific purpose

which was racing

right

the rest of these engines

are they're all built

for a specific purpose

purpose also

which was a fucking

road going passenger car

that made fucking 200 horsepower

yeah

the fact that you can take

any of those engines

and make the kind of power

that we can make now

is fucking unbelievable

you couldn't possibly ever

in your life

go get a stock

big block Chevy

small block Chevy

Ford and I'm a Chevy guy

yeah

Chrysler

you're not going to

get in any stock

fucking engine like that

and making ten times

the horsepower that it was

supposed to make when

they designed it

would ever live

okay

now what do you think

the worst engine of all time

is

hmm

that might be a little bit

harder

yeah I mean look

the thing is

like they were all

all of them are

like a flat heads

a pretty terrible engine

okay

from the standpoint of

moving air in it

but they were trying to

make 80 horsepower

so

you know what I mean

they had a different goal

so yeah

I don't

there's not really

I don't

I can't really think of

one that I don't

that I have

and then you know

when you're

when you're adapting

an engine that was

engineered to do

something in a road

going car

and trying to use

an erasing application

that's a little bit

your fault for

trying to use something

that it wasn't intended

to be used for

if you pick one

that's inherently

got a problem

that's not really

the engine's fault

that's your fault

for being dumb

right

most people will say

this motor is junk

because you know

you can't make

certain amount of

power on it

because I'm trying to

make SR 28

make 2,000 horsepower

yeah but so

but so then here's

my argument to that

who the fuck is forcing you

to use the inferior one

you are you dumb ass

like you want to use

that one that's a piece

of shit then fucking

use it

why would I use that

I want to use the best

one I can find

yeah

why work hard

this used to

always happen

in sport compact

or even if you

make a big dyno

oh yeah but you're

spraying it

well fucking who cares

is there a rule

it's legal to use

nitrous and I'm

using it and you're

me or you

it's legal

yeah it was legal

yeah that's

that's the argument

it's always it's always

going to be

but I did it without nitrous

oh really there's extra

points for that because

I don't see where that

shows up on the scoreboard

I don't understand

or the same thing with

boost oh yeah but you

had to run 60

we did it 38 pounds

well who cares

why put a fucking

turbo on that can

make 60 pounds boost

and then I run 35

oh man I'm sure you've

been in the middle

of a lot of these

arguments back and forth

yeah yeah

you just like

I'm just the guy

you were involved

in the vq build

right also

actually two

two one of them

was Vinny 10

right performance motorsport

I think New York

and then the other

one was Carl

because Carl took the

RB out after

I don't know a year

or maybe not even a year

and started working

on the vq

so yeah I worked

on those two projects

and then Vinny's

one ended up getting

sold to these guys

in England

okay John Bradshaw

and he brought the car

over when

performance motorsport

sort of disbanded

and he bought

I think he bought

actually

and I think

there was maybe three

and I think one went

to Australia

it seems to me

but I can't

I can't quite remember

and maybe I have it

a little bit crossed up

but for sure John Bradshaw

had one

and then I helped

John Bradshaw

a little bit

when they were

like revising the setup

and like new turbos

it came back

to New York

and I ran it on the dyno

with like

I remember we switched

it to injector

ID 2000s

because that was

the big injector

at that time

before that had

or challenges

that you face with that

I mean I mean

if you face any challenges

tuning that car

no I mean the tuning part

is not that hard

but both of those

in both of those cases

both engine builders

had to solve problems

like because the blocks

once again

you're trying to make

fucking ten times

the horsepower

it's engineered for

and the problem with

like Nissan

and some of those

other manufacturers

they do a really

effective job

of analyzing

exactly how much

material they need

for the right

for to do this job

and they don't

it's just cost more

and it weighs more

so the block is meant

for 300 horsepower

we'll make sure

it can withstand

maybe 350

and then we're done

so I know the blocks

specifically

specifically were a problem

and they used to

have to weld

the blocks up

all over on the outside

and the inside

and then remachine them

and fucking

then machining them

was a problem

because they had warped

all over the place

and getting the bores

back straight

and the cranks straight

that's a

interview Carl Stevens

interview Vinny 10

because they had

a problem

I didn't

like I was just in charge

of making sure they ran right

and that was it

based on what you said

before in terms of how

engine works

and it doesn't matter

what platform it is

it's kind of like

well then you have

the same mindset

going into any other

engine platform

tuning it

yeah because

once again

there's no where

I enter

what I don't

I don't type in

the engine

this is a SR20

what the

ECU needs to know

is what's

the displacement

and then what's

the displacement

right

it needs to know

what the efficiency is

at any given RPM

and it's original

displacement

so it can calculate

what the mass flow

should be

and then put the correct

amount of fuel into

match

and that is precisely

how a mo-tech

M1 ECU works

you literally

enter

the number of

cylinders

and their displacement

it then

looks at the

map sensor

and the air temp

sensor and derives

air mass

and sorry

air density

and derives

the air mass

and then looks at the

correction table

which is the VE table

that tells it

what the efficiency is

compared to 100

and then it says

what's the air

fuel ratio goal

and the air

fuel ratio goal table

and based on the

mass of the

fuel that you've entered

because you enter

the fuel specific

gravity and the type

then it can say

we have X

air mass

and we want

this air

fuel ratio

with a fuel

that is a stoic

X

right so we want 80%

of 6.4

which happens to be

the stoic number

for methanol

and the specific gravity

is 792

right so

now we know

the precise

mass of

fuel we

require based on

the air

fuel ratio

so then we

take that answer

and work backwards

into a

linearization table

for the injector

that is

the characterised

flow of the

injector

at any given

pulse width

it says

I need this flow

volume

based on the fuel

density

to arrive at

this pulse width

so command

two milliseconds

to that injector

to get that

correct amount

of fuel in the engine

so I was talking to

another

colleague of mine

a guy that

I used to

compete against

and when I was

younger

you know would probably

wouldn't really

want to talk to him

because like

he's part of the other

team or whatever

jokes better right

been around forever

and now

that's

concerned about

building our reputation

because we've already

built them

we find we have

a lot more common ground

than we ever

thought we did

but anyway

I was talking to him

I said look

because I was trying

to

I was trying to use

the analysis

software to under

like the engine

since I'm a kid

I've been thinking

about it

I was telling him this

I have like

a little movie

in my head

when I think

about an engine

so I can think

about the

engine

so I have a little

movie I can watch

that just

instantly shows me

what's going on

with the valve

on the intake side

of the exhaust

or the inlet manifold

pressure exhaust manifold

pressure

I just

I can just roll this

movie around

and

I mean

I can't

come up with

complex answers

but for the most

part I can

just roll the engine

to any particular

point in the cycle

that we're talking

about

and visualize it

in my head

because I'm trying to

get the engine to work

and the car won't work

and if you're tuning

a drag race car

and you haven't run it

on the dyno

then you're going to

tune it by what it does

down the racetrack

and if the car won't

go down the racetrack

you can't tune it

and if the tune isn't

there the car won't

go down the racetrack

I mean it's like

this give and take

this circular loop

that you're stuck in

so I've only

had to learn

the car side of it

because

I'm trying to do

my job

doing the engine side

and the car won't work

and I happen to

do it

but that's how

so the point that I'm

trying to make is that

I have this movie

I can watch in my head

and I'm pretty good

on the engine side

but I'm not that way

on the chassis side

I can't visualize it

I don't have that

movie to work with

and everything is

a question

and I do the

typical fucking

well this should

mean that

and this

I don't know what to do

which is why

I was normally

working with another

expert that knows

that part

because it's way

easier to achieve

your goal

but he tunes on his

podcast

a year and a half ago

he's a tuner as well

and he had mentioned

that a tuner

is not tuning your car

basically

his philosophy

is you're diagnosing it

basically going through

everything making sure

all the sensors are good

everything's done

correctly

all the lines are

connected properly

and then tuning the car

obviously

but that's

basically a tuner's job

to make sure everything's

running there

you're not just

going there

open up a laptop

and just say

all right

I'm going over the basics

every single time

I say this all the time

usually I'm setting up a car

right

or for the dyno

it's something I haven't been

through and everyone's like

I mean the first thing is

I tell somebody

look if you want me to set

your car up and get it

running

book me for two days

day one we'll do it

your shop

I'll do all the setup

and get everything

we'll get it running

100% perfect

and then we'll go to the

dyno

if you want to do it

the other way around

you're going to pay me

and the dyno

and then when we find

something wrong

you've paid us both

but always tell them

just so you know

we're not going to do anything

for like

you're going to be like

what the fuck are we doing

because I'm going to go

through every single piece

that is connected to

the stuff that we're doing

and verify all of it

I'm not taking a map

from some other car

that I put in

and like I'll just

make an adjustment

and fucking go

I'm going through to make

sure that every parameter

in the ECU

and the problem with that

is that with an M1

like I could probably run

through a completely blank

and setup

maybe not super complex

M800

which is the predecessor

to the M1 series Motec

okay

I could probably do

a base map

for an M800

in

25 minutes

and it would be ready

to start and run

with the exception of

check the timing to make sure

that the crank angle matches

right

and just verify

the sensors all work

before you try and start it

and then it'll start

and run an idle

and you can drive it

to the dyno

but they don't give you

base maps

based on the setup

or the engine basically

I would do it all

like on the fly

I'm telling you

I'll take a blank one with nothing

and set it up for what it is

on the fly

and because

I'm going to be grabbing pieces

and bits

that need to be in there

in every single one of them

right

and then turn the M800

into a true VE

or close to true VE

style control

right

and do a bunch of math

in the background

I need to know your engine

size

I need to know the fuel type

right

I need to know what you're

doing with it

I have the experience to know

where to run the ignition

advance

and I have the knowledge

with the injector flow rate

how to calculate

what the pulse width

needs to be

the base number

so you just assume the engine

is perfect

which it's not

so guess what

if you assume the engine

is perfect

and you fuel it

based on the fact

that it's perfect

then when it's not perfect

which way are you going

to be on the air

fuel ratio

go back to this

we have X amount of air

mass

right

we know we want to mix

this at 12 to 1

compared to fuel mass

okay

we have an air mass

no

what it is

or we're assuming

what it is

because we're assuming

it's perfect engine

so we want this air mass

in proportion to this

fuel mass

at 12 to 1

so if I put that amount

of fuel in

and I assume the engine

is perfect

and it's not perfect

it's less than perfect

which means my air mass

is less than

a perfect air mass

right

am I going to end up

rich or lean

you have less air

so you're going to

end up rich

correct

right

it's perfect

fuel it

as though it's perfect

you can start it up

and run it at full power

and the only way you're wrong

is if the engine

is more perfect

than perfect

like in other words

it's 110 or 120%

volumetric efficiency

right

so but you could cover that

up by just saying

well then fuck it

I'll just assume everything's

120% perfect

and I'll always

end up rich under

every condition

because nothing's

ever better than 120

or 130%

volumetric efficiency

when you consider

the density

of the air in the

background

it's a two-bar boost

right

it's got more than

its swept volume

now the volume's the same

but the density's twice

but if you're accounting

for that in the background

and all we're talking about

is the volumetric flow rate

of the cylinder

then

it's not going to be

better than about 130

I've been doing this

25 years and I haven't

seen one that's

better than that

that's actually better

than that

that's not an error

created by some

other thing

that gives you

a false value

right

wow

so so much

I want to say

thank you so much

welcome to my world

yeah man

I mean

there's so much to think

about but since you've

been doing it for so long

it's just second nature

some of it is

but it's still

I'm always thinking about

why I'm so interested

in it

look if I win the lottery

I'm going to be doing

this anyway

I'm still going to charge

everybody

I might be a little

bit more picky

right

but yeah

like I love what

I'm doing

it's fan

it's way better

than a real job

on its worst day

I'd remember it

the next morning

now it doesn't work

I have to fucking

write it down

or send myself a text

or send my wife a text

or you know

otherwise it's gone

and I can't

I don't get it back

so I have been

doing that

since I was 14

that's why

I'm where I'm at

because I haven't

stopped thinking

about it

in some capacity

since I'm 14

there's levels

of this stuff guys

and there's a reason

why he's here

because he's the man

Shane T

so if anybody

wants to work

I'm not sure if

obviously you're not going to

work let's be real

you're not going to work

on every single project

you may have to choose

oh yeah

I cherry-picked

that's of course yes

but if they do want to

get in contact with you

what's the best way

best way to reach you

all the traditional ways

email

ShaneTek

at yahoo.com

that's like my first

and last name

S-H-A-N-E-T-E-C-K

at yahoo.com

you can find me

tuned by Shane T

on all of the various

social media channels

as well as

Shane Tek Limburg

on Facebook

send me a text

at area code 7143185845

or give me a call

and go to my voicemail

and then I'll probably text you

and say I'm in the middle of tuning

I'll call you later

or whatever

and go that route

okay

you can try my website

tunedbyshaneT.com

aka motorsportcontroller.com

awesome

well thanks again

for your time

I know we went a little over

I didn't even realize

it was 3.30

but you got to get

to your

off-shore race

so hope everything

goes well for you

and safe travels man

keep listening and watching

continue to keep listening

and watching

also make sure you guys

head over to streetoffer.co

to copy your merch

and we'll catch you

on the next one

more tuned by Shane T

and you can get your

tuned by Shane T merch

oh yeah you can do that too

yeah whatever the website is

hey thanks a lot

for the opportunity man

I really appreciate it

and I love working

in the racing industry

and it takes

someone like you

promoting the racing industry

to keep people

spending money

so that I can have a job

so thank you

for what you do

I appreciate it

I appreciate the kind

we're seeing

see you guys on the next one

peace

bye everybody

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