Sorry to hear about the blown motors guys but be real. You can't expect a Turbo kit manufacturer to be responsible for the motor when you changed the exhaust. Admit it, you didn't want to pony up the money for a system such as the APS that uses speed density tuning and now you are paying the price. Simple as that. The TN is a great system if you keep the car stock. If I had it to do all over again I would have gotten the TN kit and kept the car pretty close to stock and just enjoyed the extra 120-140whp on the out of the box tune. I feel your pain because now I am on my 3rd motor(2nd built, now I'm sleeving the block and making it 3.8L to make it more robust) so I know about throwing dollar after dollar at this platform. Go ahead and flame me and tell me I don't understand and how you just wanted a different exhaust sound but the fact is that it changes one of the main variables on a turbo system and that is the backpressure and flow of the exhaust. A wideband is a must on these cars and if it isn't working right then you shouldn't push the car at all. That's like a surgeon working on someone and the vital sign gauges not working and going through with the surgery anyways. Not a very smart course of action.

 

If everyone is looking for a real engine mgmt. system then why **** around with the rest when you can have the best HKS V-PRO fcon

 

:rolls eyes: $3500 is why.

 

because I don't want to have to deal with the "HKS Authorized Tuner" bullsh!t. DOWN WITH PROPRIETARY OPERATING SYSTEMS.

 

Exactly!

 

Damn HKS kinda like buying apple huh?

 

Kinda like buying anything other than Linux.

 

southern info, i dont know ill probs get an m3 used, my friend has a supercharged one with no probs, and he has warranty, but that car with just n/a mods would be fast enough for me, and the car handles good and stuff so i think it would be the best bet for me.

 

I don't blame you for your decision Bro. VQ35 is a tough motor to tame when going F/I period from what I've been gathering off of this forum for over 1 year now. So what exactly are you going to do with the Z now?

 

Outside looking in from an objective point of view, doesn't the community think that Turbonetics should NOT be releasing a flash to a customer that is so aggressive that in the event the customer adds an exhaust the engine goes kaboom?

Honestly, how many turbo cars do you know that get any turbo kit mounted up are NOT planning on getting an aftermarket exhaust? Everyone probably is, but they are usually recovering from the inital outlay of cash for the kit. I honestly think to some degree the manufacturers should consider this more ...rather than releasing such aggressive tunes on flashes only. Save the aggressive tunes for tuneable systems and release more conservative settings for those who elect to only go the flash route.

The point a lot of the guys are making is that the car isn't designed to read boost for ECU parameters. This is a deficiency that should also (in my view) be fixed at the burdeon of the kit manufacturer. As a person who makes turbo kits, they should feel obligated to not just slap a solution together and say ...well it worked in our lab..under conditions of X, Y, and Z...so thus it should work on all and is sufficient to be given as such. I think that turbonetics, greddy, and APS should try to find the most aggressive exhausts and use those as the baseline for how the system would need to be compensated to work. The question was asked "do you think turbonetics should be obligated to buy all aftermarket exhausts and test these..." My answer is HELL YES. Before a customer could feel comfortable spending 5, 10, 15...however many thousands of dollars on a turbo kit install/tune...the company should have invested sufficient R&D to tell me that more than 4 exhausts work (one of which didn't cost them anythign being that it is the stock piece, and the others appeared to be donated/loaned). I'm sure if turbonetics called up greddy...fuji, etc and said...hey...we'd like to borrow a test exhaust to coordinate a tuning effort those companies would probably bend over to send them a part.

I may be totally wrong here...but that is just how I feel. I've worked with guys setting up custom kits on QR sentras and DSM motors...the DSMs were setup for boost but the QR was the same boat that the Z motor; it was not designed for boost.

My question is...there (economically) needs to be a reason for me NOT to go to the local shop and to go with the big box guys like turbonetics, Greddy, and APS...that usually is simply strength in numbers and quality of work and materials. In this case yes I see tons of good installs but usually at the cost of a LOT of "after the fact" tuning. The local shops would probably include those costs in engineering a solution for the car. I need better value from these companies before I would be willing to say those kits are ideal for the car and the flashed systems are just not good enough.

 

I think if it clearly states 'Use this kit with stock components' as a caveat - then that's fair enough IMHO.

Then you know where you stand, if you change, you need a tune and you proceed with increased risk - a judgement you make.

BTW I would always get a tune anyways

(and yeah, that does mean I changed my mind slightly from 3 pages back LOL)

 

Turbonetics tested this kit on a car with NO EXHAUST ON IT WHATSOEVER. Common sense tells you that if no issues arise with ZERO exhaust which means ZERO backpressure its kinda hard to understand why a free flowing exhaust is different then that. As for the flash agressive is the last thing I would call it. Its in the low 11s/high 10s AFR with the stock exhaust. My car runs 11-1.5:1 with an aftermarket exhaust.

 

On that basis then, they should be prepared to support ANY exhaust because the stock is considered restrictive in comparison to all others.

Perhaps they do support in this way?

 

So.....what then do you propose was the cause of his blown motor if the tune is non-aggressive and can even tolerate open exhaust?

 

Well thats what I'm saying. They ran the car with the stock exhaust on the Dynapack. Left it on there and unbolted the exhaust after the end of the downpipe (zero backpressure) and ran it again....they gained .453 psi of boost by doing that...so theoretically there should be NO exhaust that gains more then that since no exhaust is the least backpressure possible.

 

Makes sense to me

 

I dont propose anything because I have no data. He has not posted his AFR or boost pressure post exhaust install. All we know is that with the stock exhaust he made 8-8.5 PSI and was in the 10s AFR. After the exhaust I have ZERO data to work with. Assuming he did pick up more boost (which is likely) its hard to imagine why the exhaust caused a boost increase. For further data regarding no exhaust ask Sharif from Forged Internals about peking's car. During custom tuning he dropped the exhaust all together and got no 2 psi boost increase. I have an Apexi WS2 exhaust and there are countless other kts with exhausts on there that did not experience a boost increase over .5-1 PSI. The flash is actually done with a margin of safety. Turbonetics allowed for enough fuel to handle up to 9.5 PSI of boost. My car has run there numerous times without detonation and without going leaner then 11.8:1.

 

Well...this for me would only complicate things on my decision either way. You say that the exhaust is not a cause of the kaboom. Which I also believe. There must be something else faulty here given that if the most he could have increased was .5 psi of boost and the flash is designed to handle 9ish. If that is the case the liability is either on the installer or the manufacturer of the kit for the faillure unless there are some sort of caveat as stated before that would limit the manufacturer or installers' liability. That is what I would take issue with if the exhaust is not in dispute as a cause as seems to be agreed up on here.

 

Well thats the thing...we DONT HAVE DATA. I know what his data was pre-exhaust. And Turbonetics and others have seen no major boost increase by completely dropping the exhaust. So if this exhaust did somehow cause a boost increase I think we need to find out why. Of course without any data about the time of failure I have no idea what the cause was.

 

Personally me i think there needs to be a tad of timing pulled from the flashes i really havnt hooked up a consult to see what timeing is being ran thoughout the band but it sure seems agressive. My car doesnt detonate all the time. i am running a full tank of 91 to see if it comes back. ive been mixing 109 so i hope it burned off any leftover from my last fill. But after Driving in RED HOTZ car his was very noticeable. I felt bad because he had no idea what detonation was supposed to sound like until I pin pointed it out. also hearing the Mossy Z having the same issues. this is over 3 Zs soo far with TN that i have experianced so far. Ill get on the horn and show Reggie maybe shagspeed will assist in getting these cars to TN so they can see it first hand