Proven Power Dyno Database Thread

[Jordo!]

Thanks, SS! And thanks again for the detailed info on your set-up

[Jordo!]

Updates, some good, some fair, some great!

1. The Good: I haven't had a chance to record my own soundclips (although SS Firehawk's clips are highly representative of what mine sounds like too), but here is a very brief vid of it on the dyno at Z Fever, where my good friend Martin did the install (also, shoot me a PM if you need to have some work or tuning done and are near Tampa...).

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...type=2&theater

2. The Fair: I do have the drf's now, buuuutttt... any graphs I post should be taken with a pinch of salt for the time being. The ignition pick-up was screwy, as was the O2 sensor, so torque values and AFR's are uninterpretable -- I'll have cleaner and clearer dyno output to share after next Saturday from the proven Power dyno.

Either my old November baseline or the last one from the summer will be close enough to give you an idea of magnitude of gains, and also, I'll have post-install pre-tune baselines along with tuned baselines for comparison.

I'll possibly post a preliminary graph later tonight -- but again, the readings are flawed, so they should be treated as better than no data, but will not provide the clearest picture of the gains to be had from the PPE headers. That will be clearer after next Sat, and I'll post tons of stuff.

3. The Great: As already alluded to in passing, I am definitely on the schedule for dyno time at Proven Power next week, so I will absolutely have tons more info to share with anyone who cares next weekend.

That's all for now -- maybe a quick and dirty graph of the "better than nothing" output later

[Jordo!]

Okay, it's dyno time.

I amend some of my previously noted caveats about the most recent dynoruns a bit; it seems using a different version of Winpep (curiously, an older version...) yielded more interpretable output. Go figure.

First step is to determine the accuracy of the baseline reading. In this context, measurement accuracy refers to repeatablity, meaning we should get the same (or nearly the same) scores across measurement sessions, all else being equal.

However, here we have a problem because even though the mods haven't changed, it's a different dynojet model at a different shop (Z-Fever's in-ground as compared to Proven Power's above ground -- and allegedly, Z-Fever's dyno reads a tad low relative to other dynojets), and the weather was very different (hot August vs. mild November).

So lets compare the last pre-PPE Headers dyno to the most recent.

Below is a comparison of my last dyno at Proven Power vs. my most recent one at Z-fever. Without correction, we see the ugly effects of high heat; with correction (both SAE and STD) we see very similar values and an equivalent overall pattern.

Notwithstanding some pretty sizable variance when torque and horsepower are equal at 5252 RPM (I suspect much of that being due to weather -- see further a few pages back where I showed that even with correction, ambient condition effects are minimized, but still have a profound impact on the obtained results -- meaning no correction factor is perfect), as you can see, even though it is a different dynojet model at a different shop, highly comparable results are obtained after correction.

Without Correction




With SAE or STD Correction






You will notice, as usual, the STD corrected values tend to be higher than the SAE values.

Okay, so the new baseline readings are close to the last readings obtained, so on to the comparison of baseline vs. headers...


First, with SAE correction, here's the new baseline dyno (K&N panel filters, smooth tubes, Nismo catback) vs. PPE dyno (i.e., PPE plus everything else); STD corrected results are reported after that. The last one is STD without smoothing to (shamelessly) milk the data for evidence of gains.








Obviously the advertised "315" that I was told the car had put down was based on the STD values without any smoothing...

Of course, either correction is perfectly legitimate -- although I personally prefer referring to the under- rather than the overestimate. It might be most meaningful to think of SAE values as a lower bound and STD as an upper bound.

Either way, whichever correction factor you use, the gains are clearly over 20 whp (as high as 23 whp!), which is in line with expectations. It's a bit more difficult to interpret what's happening with torque (although gains up top are pretty apparent) because of some signal pick-up issues, but overall, it's clear that the PPE's did a nice job bumping up peak power on the Z!

That said, I wouldn't be too concerned with the apparent losses at low RPM's for now -- tuning is yet to happen, and again, there was some glitchiness during measurement, so again, all of these results, while informative are only tentative. The picture will be much clearer after I go to Proven Power and tune the thing next week.

Bearing all of that in mind, here's a nice detailed comparison that shows changes at 500 PRM intervals above 5252.




Tentative conclusion: The PPE headers sound great and make great power, and are therefore a highly worthwhile N/A (or S/C, I should think) mod to consider. They're a bitch to install, but once they're on, you won't be sorry!

Well, that's all for now -- lots more at the end of next week.

[Jordo!]

One more set of dynos.

Given that we have some confidence of approximate equivalence in measures obtained from Z-fever's dynojet with those taken from Proven Power's, just for fun, here is a comparison of the Z's power with a totally stock exhaust system to its replacement, consisting of PPE LTH's and a Nismo cat back (both runs include K&N panel filters + smooth tubes).

Also note that the weather was very close for each run, which gives us further confidence that it is meaningful to compare one to the other with correction.





Yes, that is a massive gain of (up to) nearly 30 whp. Also, keep in mind the K&N filters and smooth tubes gave gains of another 5-10 over a bone stock Z, so these are pretty nice results from bolt-on's.

Looking forward to tuning

P.S. : After tuning I can also generate nice comparison graphs that should approximate a shootout between TP's and LTH's...

[Jordo!]

As with before, lets see if we have an accurate baseline as compared to the last PPE Headers dyno.

Again, the 1st PPE measure was taken at Z-fever's in-ground dynojet, whereas the 2nd measure was taken using Proven Power's above ground dynojet. Results are displayed with SAE and STD correction.







Right off the bat, notwithstanding a little noise due to any number of issues that are tough to perfectly correct for (e.g., weather), we see considerable similarity in the two measures even though they are a week apart and on two different dynojets (the moral here is: a dynojet reading anywhere will always be easier to compare to any dynojet reading anywhere else, which is why I am so vocally pro-dynojet over other dynamometers )

This also means that, taking the known limitations of correction factors into consideration, we can still make meaningful and informative comparisons between all sorts of set-ups with dynojets.

They should be interpreted with caution, of course, because of the many transient factors that will create variance (even on the same exact dyno on the same day!), but this general consistency will be helpful in making at least tentatively reliable concusions about what a mod does or doesn't do with more confidence than we might comparing, say two different Mustang dynamometer readings or one kind of dynamometer to another different kind

Ok, so that's all well and good -- on to the PPE pre- and post tune results on Proven Power's dyno!

First is a comparison graph with SAE correction, followed by one with STD correction, and then a graph with changes in output noted at 1000 RPM intervals, beginning at 4.5K, SAE corrected. The last one will be my "bragging rights" dyno, STD corrected (remember, STD is kind of an "upper bound"), with no smoothing to unabashedly milk the data for all we can.













Overall, we see some gains from the last dyno from around 3.25K up and very nice gains higher in the RPM range


Finally, a bit of sad news I see I'm losing some torque between 4 and 4.5K relative to my set-up before the PPE's were installed. Not sure why. This may be a characteristic of the headers on stock VVEL settings (we didn't adjust that yet) or we just need to play with the fueling and spark a bit more there...




A mystery to be solved another day...


Last, but not least, here are two graphs that compare my 2011 Z bone stock (under similar weather conditions) to now, with all mods + tune.







Oh... one more, just for fun: Here is a comparison between my 2010 370Z with resonated TP's and Nismo weldina (Y-pipe version) vs. my 2011 370Z with PPE LTH + Nismo take off (H-pipe version). Both runs are under nearly identical ambient conditions and both have K&N panel filters plus the smooth tubes and a tune.

Because these are technically two different vehicles (although, of course, same engine model and on the same exact dyno...), these results should be interpreted with caution -- but I think are informative, nonetheless.



I think we can tentatively conclude that the PPE LTH + Nismo H-pipe set up is superior up top (a whopping 13 or more whp), but possibly inferior down low (about 5 whp lost in a fairly narrow area) -- further tuning may resolve any apparent losses down low, so we'll just have to wait and see.

That's all for now

[SS_Firehawk]

I definitely like the comparisons. You're still running post maf tubes and K&N's too? The PPE's breath so well up top, if you're not running a CAI, it could be restricting it a bit. I'm thinking a lighter flywheel and pulleys will get you into the 320 range if you already do have a CAI, and maybe 330 if not :P.

[Jordo!]

Originally Posted by SS_Firehawk

I definitely like the comparisons. You're still running post maf tubes and K&N's too? The PPE's breath so well up top, if you're not running a CAI, it could be restricting it a bit. I'm thinking a lighter flywheel and pulleys will get you into the 320 range if you already do have a CAI, and maybe 330 if not :P.

Thanks!

Yep, just smooth tubes and panel filters.

I might pick up a bit more with a CAI (maybe 5-10 more?) --- I'm at 318 with STD correction, so 320 is only a curly **** hair away

I'm not really a fan of having intake filters anywhere where it could suck in water, but I do have a nice set of short rams with CNC'd velocity stacks -- those should pick up some extra power. I just need to build air boxes for them with fiberglass... Maybe a project over the holidays

I'm also not a big fan of unbalanced crank pulleys...

Actually, I'm very happy with the peak power gains and sound!

I'm more irritated by the low end dip in torque, which was not expected.

I'm thinking its probably due to less than ideal valve timing (which we didn't tune yet) between 4 and 4.5K, but I'll probably play a bit more with fueling and spark soon to confirm that its simply not just a matter of that. Do you know what your target AFR's and advance values are around there? Slightly leaner (13.0) or richer (mid 12's) didn't seem to make a reliable difference, but maybe I'm missing something obvious...

Speaking of low end grunt, didn't you have the M370 IM? I believe they have longer (but wider) runners, which should bump up peak torque and move it a bit lower in the rev range -- that might be a killer combo with the PPE's.

[SS_Firehawk]

I did have an M370. Mid range was better, only lost a couple up top. With a CAI and pulleys, I picked up 16whp untuned and with busted O2 sensors. A CAI will really show results up top. If your CSC ever dies, I would think about a new flywheel too. You will lo e the response. Not only that, but you gain power everywhere. Only reason the M370 wasn't installed is it wouldn't have made a big difference boosted and with the screws offset a bit, I felt the stock box was stronger. NA though, I think it's a great upgrade. I miss the growl it gives.

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[Jordo!]

Originally Posted by SS_Firehawk

I did have an M370. Mid range was better, only lost a couple up top. With a CAI and pulleys, I picked up 16whp untuned and with busted O2 sensors. A CAI will really show results up top. If your CSC ever dies, I would think about a new flywheel too. You will lo e the response. Not only that, but you gain power everywhere. Only reason the M370 wasn't installed is it wouldn't have made a big difference boosted and with the screws offset a bit, I felt the stock box was stronger. NA though, I think it's a great upgrade. I miss the growl it gives.

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I've got the 7AT -- no flywheel

I should be playing more with the tune -- including VVEL! -- in 3-4 weeks, so sometime after Thanksgiving I should have new dynos to share.

I'll see about building some airboxes for my velocity stacked SRI's too.

EDIT: Hey, same characteristic dip around 4.5 too -- less visually noticeable because of how the values are scaled on the x axis (and numbers are overcorrected high...) -- http://i.imgur.com/DAXDp.png.

Looks like you had it right around where I did too, but last run (what did you have on for the green run?) flattened it out quite a bit. http://www.the370z.com/attachments/i...iew-dynoii.jpg

Ok -- must just be a characteristic of the headers then... hmm. Looking forward to playing with VVEL.

[SS_Firehawk]

Hard to compare yours to mine with my O2 sensors flip flopped and miswired. The second was PPEs, y pipe & hfc, and CBE. The last run was with pulleys and CAI I felt power should have been higher and tq was a bit soft. But from one run to the next, it is at least indicitive of the gains possible for your car. CAI was ARMs, which seem to get a bit of a poor rep because of filter and MAF placement, but they pick up power all over the place. Those numbers are in DIN as well. It was closer to 310 SAE. Car only made like 265 stock at best.

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[Jordo!]

Originally Posted by SS_Firehawk

Hard to compare yours to mine with my O2 sensors flip flopped and miswired. The second was PPEs, y pipe & hfc, and CBE. The last run was with pulleys and CAI I felt power should have been higher and tq was a bit soft. But from one run to the next, it is at least indicitive of the gains possible for your car. CAI was ARMs, which seem to get a bit of a poor rep because of filter and MAF placement, but they pick up power all over the place. Those numbers are in DIN as well. It was closer to 310 SAE. Car only made like 265 stock at best.

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I know you had some major sensor issues and also a few different mods (as well as a different trans!), but the shape of the torque and power curves, including the narrow area where it dips is very, very similar. That said, the O2's job is to create fuel trims to get sensor readings close to the target map. Primary fueling is all handled by the MAF and MAP to assess air and pressure respectively and then command injector duty cycles based on calculated load and RPM. It probably didn't start really wreaking havoc with your trims, giving unstable AFR's and other weird driveability quirks until after driving around for a bit. Anyway, if your fueling was that far off, it would have never made anywhere near those power levels on the dyno.

Also note: Blue, flatter, and even slight bump in the 4 - 4.5 range; red, slight drop to match or just barely dip below the blue line in that area; green, much flatter across the board, but still slight drop off in that RPM band.

That makes me think the low end dip is just characteristic of the header design -- it seems to be primarily a mid to high end power maker at the cost of some minimal low end grunt.

Basically, vs. a stock set up, cat delete, or probably shorty headers, it just doesn't pick up as much down low, and virtually nothing (or very minimal loss) in that narrow range, but offers massive gains everywhere else.

I suspect your inclusion of the cat actually helped you down low -- the slight restriction may change the speed of the exhaust pulses at lower RPM's to better match the OEM valve timing.

I think with some VVEL tweaking, that dip would flatten right out. That dip is also reminiscent of the drop in torque we see in the FR-S motor before cam switch and also the dip characteristic of the 2ZZ (Celica GT-S and Lotus Elise motor) before cam profile change.

I know Sh0velman had virtually the same set up I have -- I think he mentioned a similar torque curve in another thread too, but I couldn't find a dyno graph for him.

[Jordo!]

Yep -- we see it here too Nissan 370Z racing headers | PPE Engineering LLC

Scaled over MPH rather than RPM (probably due to ignition signal pick-up issues), but it looks to be a characteristic of the header.

I'll try and dial it out next month and report back

I have to say, tho, even if that can't be tuned out, it's not hurting anything -- your butt-dyno certainly won't feel it -- and there's massive gains everywhere else

[black_sedan]

Just read through the thread. Nice work documenting your dyno sheets and setup. I had already ordered the K&N drop-ins and was considering getting Test pipes next.

Nice to see proof of what mods actually put down power.

[Jordo!]

Originally Posted by black_sedan

Just read through the thread. Nice work documenting your dyno sheets and setup. I had already ordered the K&N drop-ins and was considering getting Test pipes next.

Nice to see proof of what mods actually put down power.

Thanks! If are in the Tampa vicinity, and need a tuner and/or dyno shop, I have recommendations for both. Just shot me a PM.

[Jordo!]

Finally had a chance to do some tuning of VVEL!

It's a summerish spring in FL (note the conditions), so fresh baseline (at Z-Fever). I will post additional dynos and details as I think of things worth sharing...

First, this is my already otherwise maxed out uprev tuned 2011 7AT with Cobb tubes, K&N panel filters, Nismo take off exhaust and PPE LTH, SAE corrected (stingy) before and after VVEL tuning. Other than touching up AFR's to keep them the same after adjusting cam phasing, everything else is the same.

Behold!







We couldn't completely seem to dial out the small drop down low (edit: specifically between 4 and 4.5 K RPM or so) associated with the PPE headers (seemingly a resonance issue?), but made massive gains up top with VVEL tuning.



Here's the somewhat inflated STD dyno (without smoothing) for "bragging rights", as I call it...




Take away: VVEL tuning is absolutely worth it for an NA car, provided you have some serious breather mods on there, which many of us do.



BTW: If you are looking for similar results for an uprev tune/more info, shoot Martin Struk an email at rsenthalpy@gmail.com -- he travels all the time all over the US and abroad to tune, and as you can see, he is well worth it!