Knackered old Porsche with loads of natural light - Boxster!

[poppopbangbang]

braddo said:

What's the redline going to be?

(I think it was mentioned earlier that the race engines were 8k?)

It depends on the power requirement really. I've built the motor to do the same 8600RPM that the race cars did but at this it's a circa 3000 mile engine albeit making 500bhp.

It will do 350bhp at 6000RPM and 400bhp at 7000RPM. 7500RPM is probably a sensible limiter which gives 425bhp and then give an extra 1000RPM on the push to pass in case there is an RS 4.0 to chase

I'll have multiple modes available on the ECU so the current thinking is:

- Mode 1 (boggo road use) = Chilled out throttle map, 6500RPM rev limit, 1.25 bar boost or sufficent to do 375bhp.
- Mode 2 (sporty) = Sharp throttle map, 7500 rev limit, 1.6 bar boost or sufficent to do 425bhp.
- Mode 3 (racey) = Sharp throttle map, 7500 rev limit with PTP active, 1.85 bar boost or sufficent to do 500bhp on the PTP, Anti Lag enabled, Water Meth enabled above 1.5 bar boost.

I'll run it in on the wastegate spring and then we'll do Mode 1 and Mode 2 on the dyno. Mode 3 I'll come back to once it's all working and snagging list complete

[poppopbangbang]

Xenoous said:

What a brilliant thread. Thanks for the detailed updates! Looking forward to reading more over the coming months.

Thanks I'm trying to add a few more photos than my previous threads as it's been mentioned a few times that the journey is just as interesting as the end result so trying to avoid my usual approach of just posting the finished job.

[poppopbangbang]

Manifold number 2 test fitted:



This gets the turbo 6mm lower than the other but a little further forwards, wastegate packaging is not quite as nice but oil drain and some other lines are in a better position. You can see a few mock up lines fitted here which are definitely not final positions but rather to understand what angle everything can sit at. The downside of this manifold though is that sitting a little further forwards removes some options for an airbox.



Plus (like a lot of tuner market stuff at this end of the market) it's a pretty rough casting

Oh and the engine stand has also been drilled to move this into the installed orientation ready for the machined bits to go on.

Manifold number 3 is currently inbound so hopefully that will be a sweet spot before I end up with one of each in the parts department

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richhead said:

Hope you are going to have the "boost" button on the steeringwheel like the race cars.
Not sure i could resist

Top left in red and "Map" underneath it if I remember correctly? Would need a "Turbo Hot" message for the full effect though

I want this to be very Q car so I was thinking about finding a cruise control stalk from a later 986 and using that as map/option select on up/down, pull for PTP and push for confirm:

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Mikeeb said:

I have a 996 stalk unit with cruise. I bought it to fit OBC and cruise to my car.

I’ve fitted the OBC stalk to the original unit in the car but have decided against wiring in the cruise. If the stalk will fit in your housing you’re welcome to it.

That's incredibly generous of you and I would love to take you up on the offer - in exchange for at the very least a beer!

I'll PM you.

Thanks again

[poppopbangbang]

FEAD belt and tensioner on:



So that's about there now.

Badger 5 have been incredibly helpful in advising what bits are needed with regards injectors, TB sizes, breathers and coolant lines etc. etc. so the next step is to start kitting this engine up with all the bits required to actually run it (coils, injectors, sensors, engine harness etc. etc.). Hopefully this will get done whilst bits are being machined so it'll all come together at the same time ready for fitting into the car

[poppopbangbang]

loudlashadjuster said:

Really emphasises the size of that damn snail

Not quite a turbo with an engine attached but not far off either!

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A small update as it's mostly all about waiting for parts at the moment but as things are arriving they're making their way onto the engine.

First up the AEB inlet manifold arrived and was promptly put through the hot wash and tidied up. All bolted on with stainless hardware and looking pretty good! Also meant I could fit the inlet air temp sensor.





The AEB inlet is the only big port one that's configured for longitudinal install that I've been able to find but as it seems to have only been used on the very early A4 and Passat 20Vs it's not very common. Still an e-bay search turned one up in the end

Having done a bit of digging on throttles I've been reliabily informed than the stock 60mm one will be fine for the power I'm after, which makes sense as the race car one was only a touch larger and that was for packaging reasons as much as anything else. I'm a bit fan of running a correctly sized throttle as reaching effective WOT at two thirds the throttle plate movement only reduces the resolution you have for fine air mass control. Having said all that the DBW TB I have has suffered some water ingress:



So I've ordered up a new one to avoid this being a future problem. The nice thing about most of this being Golf GTI stuff is that it is all shockingly reasonably priced vs Porsche bits I've temp fitted the old one so I have something to mock the charge cooler mounts up against in the mean time.

There's a few tasty go faster bits on the way too which will complete the motor sensors and actuators wise, like a set of Bosch 1000CC injectors and some R8 coils which means I can test fit the loom once they're on and see how close it all is and if there are any sensors I still need to swap to suit the ME7.5 loom.

Still nicely on target time wise though with the engine mounts and flywheel going into machining later this week. I might actually have this up and running for January as planned

[poppopbangbang]

New rocker cover has arrived! Got to love a bit of New Old Stock



This saves about 50mm of install height over the standard 06A rocker cover and was standard on the early A4's. It's a straight swap for the original:



You can really see the difference it makes from the front of the engine:



Which also means it'll sneak in the bay nicely now (if I've got my CAD'ing correct ). However it's not vented, the early engines ran with the block breather only and whilst this is a larger version on mine the engine will have a fair bit more blow by than a standard one so I'll need to figure out how to package a breather into the cover somewhere else.

In the meantime I'll crack on painting it as that will work out a treat when it turns out I need to weld some bits to it

[poppopbangbang]

So as the engine will never be seen in the car this is all totally pointless but.... it's rude not to add a bit of bling right?





New rocker cover in crackle black.... just to make it a massive dick to clean in the future



Straight swap for the original and the billet coil pack adaptors fitted a treat. I'm still unsure what to do about venting this, there are a few big power A4s running without a rocker cover vent and using a very unrestrictive block breather instead - to be fair the block breather is pretty big and it shouldn't matter too much where the crank case blow by is vented from as long as it doesn't build enough pressure to hang the oil up in the head and cause a load of windage losses. I've very tempted to send it and see!



Which allows for the fitting of R8 coils, these should give sufficent spark ooomph for the level of boost I'm planning.



And finally the Bosch 1000CC injectors are in using the very nicely machined Badger 5 adaptors which puts the injector in the right position in the port and makes them a bolt in.

So with all the sensors and actuators fitted I can now crack on fitting the engine harness and making any changes that might be required there. It's also about time for this to come off the engine stand so I can fit a few coolant hoses and generally get it ready to make it's way into the car. I've also got all the bits like flywheel, front engine mount etc. out for machining on time so these should be back by the end of November...... so we're still on target for an Xmas engine swap

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Dr.Hellno said:

You gotta love the mix’n’match potential of this engine.

Keep it coming

It is crazy how many possible combinations of standard bits there are.... especially when you consider a load of stuff from totally different VAG motors also bolts straight on!

[poppopbangbang]

Managed another hour on it today, one of the things I wanted to test was my idea of running the coil packs the wrong way around so the loom ran down the fuel rail rather than over the rocker cover by the turbo:



It's a bit close to the filler but that won't be used that often and I think probably preferable to melting the loom (which is a problem even on the standard cars!).

I also did a bit of heating and tweaking on the fuel rail to get the ins and outs in the best possible position and made some shims to get the rail nicely in position against the inlet manifold. There's all sort of mix and match inlet manifolds and rail options and some don't fit the others as well as one would like:



All drops on a treat now!



Finally I fitted up a set of silicone hoses from a Golf to see how much was usable / useful. Surprisingly a pretty decent amount of them are! I need to modify the coolant hardline that runs across the engine block as there's an outlet on that I don't need but aside from that most stuff ends up in a good position. The Golf obviously has a heater matrix fed off the engine but the Boxster takes it off the rads in the nose so there are a few unused ports on the standard engine coolant rail that need welding up. I'll create a bypass with one of them that links it back to the thermostat rather than doing this through the heater matrix as per a Golf.

This is really looking about ready to go in now. I still have a loom to do but that's not too big a job and then we get to see how wrong I've got the CAD!

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Marquezs Stabilisers said:

That is lovely and genuinely looks OEM. No need for a two seater but this is making me think about the sub £3k Boxster on Gumtree locally...

Thank you and you're not the only one! I'm seriously considering doing a "fit kit" for this once I've finished this one (and actually validated it all to some extent) comprising of all the bits required to fit one that you can't buy off the shelf along with an info book as so many people have asked about it by this point

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JJJ. said:

What sort of budget would you allow for general repairs, upgrades and then the engine transplant?
A very off the cuff guess but all in 20k less whatever labour you could save on?

Depends hugely on the car you start with but let's say 3 - 5K for the donor. The 20V can be a bog standard BAM at 300bhp with some bolt ones which is less than £2K up to skies the limit for a big power motor. Probably £5k of other bits and bobs (suspension bits, brakes, fit kit etc.) to do it all really nicely so that's £10-12K all in for a 300bhp/300ftlbs one with everything done nicely.

When you look at it that way it's not a lot more expensive than buying a really nice mintry standard 2.5!

Full beans version at circa 500bhp is going to be much nearer 20K but then you're into a grand of ECU and a load of expensive go faster bits before you even start!

Edited to add: of course this assumes you're twirling the spanners yourself

[poppopbangbang]

JJJ. said:

Very interesting.
Would one actually get away with just 2k for a 300bhp BAM, wiring harness and ECU? I ask, as it would seem to make sense to strip and inspect the donar engine first, if all was good there's still a gasket set, seals, bolts etc to pay for and of course whatever else while you in there..., if you know what I mean.
It maybe prudent to have the bores honed, fit new rings and a set of bearings too, just in case, unsure.
Then get the ECU unlocked and whatever else maybe involved from that aspect. Two grand doesn't go far.

If you're going to open it then you may as well fit some pistons and rods whilst you're there but a decent usable BAM that probably doesn't need taking apart is £750-£1000, Chinesium high flow cast manifold is £125, set of injectors £300, 4 bar FPR £40, ME7.5 loom and ECU £150 that's circa £1400. Add £500 for a software licence to tinker with the standard calibration and you're about there, if you're sensible with what RPM you are bring full boost in at and sticking strictly to 300ftlbs peak then it'll be fine on stock rods.

Or there's an AUQ on e-bay at the moment with a hybrid K04S, Big Maf, 550CC injectors, an already modified ECU and loom and Revo Stage 2 on the ecu for £900....

If you really want to take one apart first fairly history unknown 20Vs are on ebay from £250 and the difference makes up a lot of the cost of a gasket set, head bolts, timing belt kit etc.

[poppopbangbang]

Dr.Hellno said:

You won’t see 300bhp out a BAM/K04 engine, more like 260-270 due to the restrictive exhaust manifold.
The K03 manifold is a much better design and can be ported and will flow over 300 when fitted with bolt-on hybrid K03.

There's a reasonable quality Chinese cast high flow manifold for the K04 and K03 doing the rounds these days for both transverse and longitudinal engines. It's actually not bad in terms of geometry although the finishing is a bit rubbish. This seems to be a go to now to solve that problem (accordingly to the internet, you may now more?). I ordered one to have a look at vs the standard one when I was considering if the GT30 in the parts department really needed to go on this engine but obviously ended up going that direction.

Dr.Hellno said:

Thing is, no matter which 20V you buy, anything getting towards 300ft/lbs you’re risking bending a rod.
Another thing to consider is the exhaust valves are sodium filled and become brittle with age.

A set of forged rods(with stock pistons) and Supertech exhaust valves should see a reliable 400hp/400ftlbs capable engine.

I think the sensible way to look at these is you're either doing everything and building a bomb proof one that will do lots of revs and power or you're putting a standard one in and being sensible with it / keeping your fingers crossed

It's almost at the point now where it doesn't make economical sense to not build a 400bhp one if you have to take the head off

Edited by poppopbangbang on Sunday 29th October 20:41

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JJJ. said:

Cheers for your input, I partly asked as I've the option of buying a car (not a Porsche) that a BAM or similar would probably be an ideal transplant but with a S/C rather than a turbo, trying weigh up all aspects/pitfalls/costs as info, opinions and probably costs vary depending on who you speak to.

Looking forward to your future posts, keep up the great work.

Remember with a supercharger you're using some of the "useful work" that the engine is doing to power the supercharger... and it's not an insignificant amount of work either. It's not unusual for a moderately sized efficient supercharger making decent boost pressure to consume 20KW at max engine output which essentially means you're going to have to create more effort on the piston crown to end up with the same power at the flywheel you would have on a turbo charged engine.

In short 300bhp at the crank on a supercharged engine and 300bhp at the crank on a turbo charged engine are not the same when it comes to load on the piston crown so whilst 300ftlbs on a turbo 20V motor is fine, 300ftlbs on a supercharged 20V motor probably isn't as the load on the piston crowns will be something like 8-12% higher on the supercharged engine (which will show as needing more boost for the same crank power output) to make the power target.

It's one of the key downsides to a supercharged engine that you can't negate the losses of the supercharger i.e. you have to create the power to drive it somewhere.

[poppopbangbang]

Few more bits have arrived, firstly the flywheel:



Great work by TTV as always, this is designed to take the RS4 240mm clutch which is rated for more torque than I'm planning and obviously being a standard road car clutch will have good driveability! The flywheel isn't silly light but certainly a lot skinnier than standard. It should blip nice on the downchange



Bosch 4 bar FPR also arrived and fitted. Not far off running some vacuum lines around the place now!



Creation throttle body spacer arrived and fitted, also usefully contains a correctly threaded hold for an AEM water/meth injector when the time comes for that

Oh and:





I better crack on sorting the loom out! As I think I said earlier in this thread I'm extremely impressed by this Ignitron ECU - specifically the strategies it employs for engine control as it's as close to an OEM ECU in a few key (important!) areas as I've ever seen in the aftermarket.

Last big thing on the list now is the downpipe, but I need to sort a wastegate out first.... my sensible head says just use an F38 2 bolt that will bolt up to the manifold with little fuss, but 44mm does provide some useful advantages and v-bands are cool! I'll crack on with this in due course!

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Escy said:

Looks like it's coming together nicely.

Can you expand on the strategies on the ECU you are impressed with? I couldn't see much detail when I looked them up.

Things like proper load calculation considering weight of air, volumetric efficiency etc. Per cylinder dual sensor knock control with a decent adaptions implementation, boost control with multiple PIDs supported as well as PIDs for part throttle vs full throttle, really decent DBW throttle implementation with ground speed dependant maps, transient correction, anti-stall etc.

Then all the nice stuff like OBD2 implementation, torque based launch control etc. etc.

It's properly impressive and all well implemented with a PC side calibration tool that's responsive and stable.

[poppopbangbang]

Megaflow said:

If it has got all that capability, why does it say off road use only on it?

Two reasons, one plugging it into a standard road car allows you to immediately take the vehicle outside of homologation which in some EU countries is a problem, second is that any controller like this needs to be ASIL D for OEM road use as part of the vehicle functional safety strategy but on a low volume controller like this you are very unlikely to be using redundant cores or code generation tools that are compliant with 26262 etc. so can't achieve that.

In reality it's there as a legal statement to exempt the manufacturer from someone doing something stupid with it, this is the same reason that if you enable DBW on a Pectel you'll get a "For Dyno Use Only" message

In the UK you're fine to use none homologated parts on a road car in most areas with the vehicle compliance judged on performance at IVA if new build (it gets a bit more complicated if you're doing European low volume approval) but this isn't the case everywhere in the world.