368 WHP, My car sucks!

[mike kojima]

Earler this week I was trying to tune my turbo classic
with an of the shelf F-Max kit and S-3 cams and am
perhaps learning more stuff about turbo cars.
Previously just about everyone that has followed my
set up and tuning tips for these sort of car and
followd what I have done to a T have gotten anywhere
from 395-410 whp from there cars.  A few, like Frank
Orozco and Mike Mager have been stuck in the 350-360
hp range, but since I don't own the cars, I never took
the time to fully trouble shoot them.

Anyway now I was only able to get 368 hp and 327
ft/lbs of torque @ 22 psi of boost out of my own car!
My set up is identical to my usual formula for a 400
WHP SR20DE with a couple of exceptions.

I usualy recomend a custom 3" downpipe and I usualy
hand port the crap out of the turbine housing, then
extrude hone it. My car is a straight up stock F-Max
kit with a larger than stock front mount intercooler,
2.5" down pipe and stock unported turbo. I think I
have too much backpressure which is hurting my peak
power.  Mager and Franks car have 2.5" downpipes
although I ported Franks housing but didnt extrude
hone it and Mager has one of my ported and extrude
honed housings but it is one of the first ones that I
did and its only ported lighty.  So my new theory is
that if you want big power, I guess you need that 3"
downpipe and a worked over turbine housing.

It really sucks that every turbo car I helped set up
is significantly more powerful than mine! I have a 3"
downpipe, Tial wastegate and a ported manifold and
ported& extrude honed turbine housing sitting in the
garage. I am gonna install these and see if my power
will then fall in line with what its supposed to be.

On thing I noticed is that with the big FMIC, the
power is really consistant, all of my runs were within
1 hp of each other.

I am supposed to be an expert at this stuff, too bad I
suck.

Mike