blower head experts within.
could the heads actually be hurting blower performance?
it's not making sence to me.
and the blower is almost at it's maximum impeler speed, so that rules out a smaller pulley.
As long as the compression of the heads is the same the HP that the motor made before the swap should be the same.
we were expecting a gain ( worst case scenario of no gains) but we ended up loosing horsepower and torque all along the rpm band and especially up top.
You need to think of it in CFM not boost. You are pushing the same CFM at less boost which is very good.
If you are running a boost referenced AFPR or FMU you will see a drop in FP with less boost even though you are flowing the same or more air. This will result in a lean condition. May need to look at timing and fueling. (on a dyno with wideband and LS1edit)
I bet it is tuning related.
Cheers,
Chris
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i just can't explain why this is happening.
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Also check for boost leaks and/or slipping belt
there is no belt slippage, no leaks, A/F is between 11.5:1 and 12:1 and timing has been pushed up till i got knock then i pulled back ( almost same timing as it had before)and the compression ratio hasn't changed.
could the the owner's blower be too small now? (it's a D1-sc)
Get the boost back up to where it was and you will see your performance increase for the heads/headers.
Let's say heads going on an N/A motor gave you 30 more rwhp (just an arbitrary number). Let's say the difference in 7 PSI and 10 PSI was 80 RWHP (3 more PSI and headers did this for me). Guess what? You've lost power in the better heads/less boost scenario.
Get the boost back up, and you will exceed what you had before. OR.. get it close to what you had before, and you will match the power with a little less boost.
Of course, I'm assuming enough fuel and optimal tune for each situation.
My2Cents.
The only way I could see this hurting is if the blower became more effecient with a higher pressure ratio - but that isn't very likely for the pressure ranges we are looking at here (or with respect to thermodynamics
- assuming no surge, etc.). I would get the problem figured out before you change the pulleys - as you will only be masking a problem by upping the boost. Can you post the dyno graphs? What were the specs on the heads? Are you sure the compression ratio is the same (did you have them CC'd)? What kind of valvesprings are on them now? How was the car running - at the same tune was the a/f ratio the same, richer, leaner, etc? How is the MAF reading compared to before? The camshaft is the same?
Get the boost back up to where it was and you will see your performance increase for the heads/headers.
Let's say heads going on an N/A motor gave you 30 more rwhp (just an arbitrary number). Let's say the difference in 7 PSI and 10 PSI was 80 RWHP (3 more PSI and headers did this for me). Guess what? You've lost power in the better heads/less boost scenario.
Get the boost back up, and you will exceed what you had before. OR.. get it close to what you had before, and you will match the power with a little less boost.
Of course, I'm assuming enough fuel and optimal tune for each situation.
My2Cents.
If boost went down when the heads were changed, then power should have went up due to the increased CFM that the engine IS USING. (and their is less parasitic loss from the compressor).
Was the compression ratio reduced with the head change?
What size cam?
we were talking about this last night and someone said that the reason the power loss occured is that there is less air to push through the motor ( well it's the same amount of air but flowing through a bigger hole), so the ratio of air volume to size of "tunnel" the air is going through is smaller. dunno if that makes sence to any of you or even if it's physically true.
"boost" is just a #, you should know that. here's a small example to help you understand why we say the heads didn't "lose" you hp.
Lets say with your old heads and the blower pullied for 800cfm (just pulling out a number) it made 12psi on your gauge and made 450rwhp ok?
Now you install a better flowing intake, heads, and/or cam. Your blower is STILL putting out 800cfm but since there is less of a restriction in the intake tract the "boost #" will go down.
This doesn't get you anymore hp really it just lets the motor run more efficiently since it doesn't have the excess pressure in the intact track. Which is good for many reasons:
octane
detonation
gasket sealing
etc
Now if you were to pully that blower up to say 900cfm (again just another # for this example) the boost # would increase back to 12psi but the hp would increase from the extra 100cfm the blower is putting through the motor.
Hope that helps





