JETPILOT

iTrader: (51)

Bottom line is that the kit works as delivered. So in that respect the kit delivered as advertised.

Would it have been nice if TN had located the wastegate in a more appropriate place at a more appropriate angle to the gas flow that would allow it to regulate boost no matter what exhaust was installed? YES!! that would have been nice too. So we got what we asked for as advertised. We EXPECTED MORE. Next time don't expect more. Proceed cautiously into uncharted territory when there are no promises.

The wastegate mounting is a **** poor engineering job. See turbocharging 101. The wastegate should have been mounted in a way to accomodate a zero backpressure situation such as an open dump. Then it would have worked with any exhaust you could bolt on and an open dump for people who will inevitably end up doing that as well at the drag strip.

Moral ofthe story... better safe then sorry. Dyno all mods after install.

I am going to have my compression tested Monday. If I blew my motor as well.... my attitude won't change. They don't owe me anything. I should have dyno'd the car after the exhaust install, and I rolled the dice knowing the petential consequences. But I know what detonation sounds like, and I was specifically listening for it. When I heard it I got off it quick.

The TN kit is great as long as you leave it at that. Don't change a thing.

kcobean

iTrader: (2)

Yep....I'm one of the guys experiencing the high boost issue. I won't go into what Turbonetics is doing with me to help identify/solve this issue, but I will say that their customer service and follow up on this issue is second to none.

Also, if you think about this car, not the 300...2 pounds of boost is a LOT, particularly on a system that everyone knows has no boost awareness. Once the MAF maxes out, you're on a speed density map and changes to the exhaust flow are magnified.

Anyway, I'm hoping that the OP will answer my questions from my earlier post..I'm really curious as to if he has any performance data when the engine went.

Peking

iTrader: (2)

Agreed, and yes I live in this section along with bothering MIA many a time

Fairlady_z33

iTrader: (56)

Im no body here but i saw his car in the street running fine . But the fact that he changed his exhaust should not mess up his kit thats not the exhaust manufactures fault thats TURBONETICS fault for not giving a warning that the kit was tune to the stock exhaust. And also dont we all change the exhaust he did it becouse he wanted a better sound and look we all do it. Same as you probobly have done kcobean.

kcobean

iTrader: (2)

So should they also warn him that cams will affect the tune of the kit? How about a plenum. What about larger injectors? Should they have to disclaim that that kit may not run right if you put different spark plugs on the car? I know that sounds ridiculous and very sarcastic, but the point is that you're missing the point. On an F/I car IN GENERAL if you change one parameter of the engine systems as a whole, you are going to affect other parameters within those same systems. Think about what changes when you change the exhaust system....backpressure, turbo spool-up rate, turbo speed at a given engine RPM, and because of these things, you'll POTENTIALLY affect boost pressure and AFR. Everyone running this kit knows that it's not pressure aware.

Turbonetics shouldn't HAVE to give a crap if you want to change your exhaust because you want a deeper exhaust note or because you want to be able to launch bananas across the parking lot. The exhaust system is not part of the kit. It is an inter-related system that you as the owner must be conscious of when making changes. Additionally, they ASK you for what mods are on your car when you send the ECU in for reflash, so it's NOT that the car is tuned around the stock exhaust, it's that HIS CAR was tuned for the stock exhaust because that's what was on it at the time. Turbonetics' responsibility is to try and give you the best "out of the box" kit they can, and by tweaking your flash based on what's on the car is the best way for them to do that with this solution. They did their job, but he changed the operating conditions.

On top of all this, we have ZERO proof that the exhaust actually caused this failure since we have no data other than the appearance of the spark plugs.

Again, I feel the OP's pain. That sucks for this to happen right especially right around the holidays. I'm not in any way trying to diminish the serious bummer factor here. I just think it's unfair to blame the manufacturer because the operating parameters of the car were changed on a kit that was not designed to have an ability to detect those parameter changes.

JisNis

iTrader: (18)

This makes more sense now. So they do ask you what your mods are. I didnt know that. I thought they had 1 reflash that they do on every ECU sent in.

westpak

iTrader: (19)

I am sorry my example of the 300 was to illustrate that I increased the exhaust size plus removed 2 cats per side and boost just went up 2 psi so I am thinking that just changing the exhaust on a TN 350Z should not have increased the boost that much but might be a combination of things. Like maybe some exhaust change the flow enough to affect the wastegate flow and help to get the boost higher, just thoughts.

350zbiturbo

iTrader: (1)

kcobean you are being a smart ***, you know that is the stupidest thing youve ever heard, putting on a CATBACK and your motor blowing up, the kid was on my car for 2000 miles 2000, my motor had 5000 and thats when i put the kit on, i put a jic titanium catback on their, and then boom now if turbonetics would specify, I first of all should HAVE to go on the forums to search if its ok to put CATBACK on my car with this kit, if their such a good company, i trusted them to make something and it screwed up b/c they wanted to save money with a dumb ecu, w/e the fact is no one should have to research a turbo kit, if theyre were no forums, then how would people know think bout it that way, basically the company should say something b4 you buy the kit thats all im saying, ill still call but i know theyre going to do absolutely nothing, they probs just want to record the problem.

MIAPLAYA

iTrader: (3)

Ok so I guess then we need EVERY turbo company to purchase EVERY exhaust and test it before they release their kit right? Come on people. Turbonetics tested their kit on three different aftermarket exhaust plus the stock one. They even dropped the exhaust COMPLTETELY during R&D on my car and as recent as last week. Boost pressure remained 8-8.5 PSI. So how exactly is Turbonetics fault if an exhaust from another manufacturer entirely causes high boost. They tested on a total of 5 different setups including NO exhaust and couldn't make the thing ping or go over boost. I would also like to know how much boost was being seen during failure and what the AFR was. The EMS system has been in the works for a while by the way but was not intended to replace the reflash but rather as an addon to get more power via custom tuning. I still don't understand how you can say "Turbonetics don't work with a catback" lets see I have an Apexi WS2, there are countless modified Borla TD, Tanabes, RSR, Injen modified, Apexi N1, Nismo, SFR, Fuji, full custom setups, the list goes on. I don't know what this JIC did but again I'd like to know what kind of boost was being seen and what the AFR was. If it was un-safe post exhaust install the car should never have been driven. The kit was desgined around the stock exhaust yes, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER KIT ON THE MARKET. Why do you think APS ST kits loose boost top end? Because they have the 3.5" to 2.5" coupler to guess what MATE WITH THE STOCK EXHAUST. A company doesn't R&D their kit around an AFTERMARKET exhaust. It CAN'T. Then people would be all over the boards saying "oh so I have to run XX exhaust with this kit...thats BS". Bottom line, with the stock exhaust the car was obviously running safe and making good power. You switched the exhaust and the engine failed. If you would tell us the data it would be easy to see why. But if the shop who installed the exhaust had done a post install dyno, checked boost, or checked AFR this might not have happened.

kcobean

iTrader: (2)

I know you THINK I'm being a smart-***, but I'm really not, I'm completely serious. This is NOT the stupidest thing I've ever heard, it's quite simple to me. You can ask JETPILOT about his experience. He was able to raise his boost 2 FULL PSI just by changing his exhaust. That is enough boost on a car that HAD a well mapped ECU to go lean (especially a car with no pressure awareness).

If I'm being such a smart-***, how about you step up with some facts about the car at the time of failure. Were you watching the gauges or doing any data-logging? Regardless of anything else, if you were watching the indicators, even a 10 PSI increase in boost wouldn't have mattered because you'd have caught it and done something about it before you pushed the car any further. (I know, my car has seen over 20 PSI ONCE) I'm guessing that you didn't and it cost you. That really sucks and I'm not by any means saying that you had it coming, but F/I on this car IS a learning game. Find me ONE person who says it's plug-n-play 100% of the time and you'll have found someone who hasn't done F/I on this car.

You trusted them to make a safe kit, and that's exactly what they gave you. Do you not understand that? At what point are they no longer liable for you modifying other components of the car and not validating your tune?

kurt leonce

+1

failsafe306

iTrader: (38)

+2

Now stop bitching

westpak

iTrader: (19)

Not true, the boost drop is simply a function of how the unichip was programmed for the boost duty cycle, they have it increasing quickly for the boost to build fast and then drop the duty cycle, these numbers just have to be inceased with the unichip software until you get a steady boost.

If they did it with an open exhaust then no exhaust should affect the boost like some have had so maybe there is something else that is causing this on some kits and not all of them, maybe there is a batch of bad wastegates or something else, I don't know but maybe the cause is something else becuase I agree that one exhaust should not affect boost while another one those if both are similar and specially if the kit was done with open exhaust.

I think part of it is that not all cars react the same to flashes for some reason maybe there is another part of the CAN system that is not addressed that maybe causing the issue on some cars, just food for thought.

MIAPLAYA

iTrader: (3)

Thats interesting because I have personally talked to several APS ST owners who have had their Unichip tuned to hold the boost steady and they still get a boost drop. They subsequently replace the reducer and the boost holds better but still drops a bit. (9 PSI to 7 PSI). After replacing the actuator it appears the boost holds steady all the way. If you think I'mmaking it up ask tig488, bullitproof, zman, and some others who have the APS kit. This is the info I got DIRECTLY from them. They even disconnected boost control from the unichip and installed their own boost controllers and the boost still dropped. This basically proves the Unichip is not the cause.

As for the wastegates its hard to imagine the wastegate worked PERFECTLY before the exhaust and the exhaust caused the wastegate to fail. That would be interesting if it could be proved but somehow I think its not the answer. It could be the change in pressure at the downpipe due to the straight through exhaust makes the path of least resistance for the exhaust gas to change from the dump tube to the turbo but again thats unlikely since some have tried dumping the wastegate to atmosphere and since Turbonetics ditched the exhaust all together after the downpipe and they didn't pick up any boost. I was at Turbonetics Friday and looked at the dyno plot (included boost pressure on a Dynapack) for the 05 test car and the boost went from 8.3 PSI to 8.5 PSI with the exhaust dropped.They did pick up a TON of hp by dropping the stock exhaust but most of it was low to mid range and again the pressure ratio did not change.

As far as the ECU flash goes its hard to argue that its the cause. The car run perfectly with the stock exhaust. AFRs were more then safe and boost pressure was fine. Changing the exhaust can alter the AFR curve but usually its a result of a boost pressure increase and the flash can't make the boost go up. I still haven't seen anyone post what the boost pressure was at failure or what the AFR was if known..

Ep3

iTrader: (10)

i didnt read this whole thread but all of you who are saying that you cant believe such a small mod would do this are crazy he should have had it re tuned right away exhaust is directly related to the turbo's opperation as well as A/F ratios you all already know and ive seen from your post how important it is to tune a high compression turbo car and now say his small mod should not have blown the motor? people were pointing the finger all over the place and you all already know it was the tune to blame .. and due to modifaction

westpak

iTrader: (19)

Thanks for the insight but if you read at least one post you should have read the one right above yours were it says the manufacturer tested the kit with various exhausts including wide open exhaust and they did not see any issues. Sooo.....

Ep3

iTrader: (10)

i did read MIA's post but in my personal experiance it does not work that way... and Jet & biturbo are most likely examples of it .. im sure you know how turbos work so i wont explain why making a major breathing modification might change things. i have also need ATI's blow motors after plenum installs. mia's post although i believe him 100% is just not what i have seen on many cars i have been involved in tunning.. granted the management was different mostly haltec and motec i did not tune the cars myself but have seen first hand the effects of these types on Mods on higher power motors..

westpak

iTrader: (19)

Ep3

iTrader: (10)

just sharring experiance you have a nice car btw

southern_info

iTrader: (3)

Damn Chris sorry about the car Bro! What's your plans now?