Pump gas wars. I guess that is what started this. We have been making some killer pump gas numbers and they just keep growing. This has gotten a few other shops motivated who have also gone after setting records of their own. That is called competition and it is good for everyone.

My problem started when our numbers were beat and the nutswingers (all shops have them, haha) jumped in and started talking. Looking at the parts combination of the car that set this new record I felt the numbers were impossible. I disregarded it as any real number.

I finished up VWJeff's car which made 573 whp. I made a post that it was a new record on OUR dyno and in came the nutswingers from the other shop saying it was no record. I was specific on saying it was on our dyno. I also offered $500 to anyone who thought they could beat the record of 573 on our dyno, that was then matched and raised by a few of our customers, quickly adding up to about $1600. The owner of the car that made 620 whp on this other Mustang Dyno seems to be a very very cool guy and gave us a big congrats on our power and said he was not interested. Some of the other guys were not as cool with my offer.

This shop in question then made a comment how all these high pump gas number cars we built, never see the race track and that really got me fired up.

The very next week we ran 3 of the cars on the same day and a week later ran my personal car.

Here are the numbers the cars made here and their track times. Keep in mind this is on STRAIGHT 93 octane fuel:

Eric, 554 whp, 10.82 at 134.7 mph
Tim, 553 whp, 10.64 at 135.5 mph
Jeff, 573 whp, 10.74 at 137.9 mph
David 573 whp, 10.02 at 141 mph

I then came back in my post about these numbers and times and said I felt we have now set a standard for the MPH with an EVO making 550'ish whp on pump gas and until someone else could duplicate them the topic should die.

Well it did die and there was no more arguement. I could have/should have left it at that but during all of this I had a customer who had gone to this other shop with mostly our parts on his car. He dyno'd there and got a tune. When he told me his numbers I thought to myself, "No freaking way that car can make those numbers here on our dyno." I mean the car has 99% of our parts on it, I know what it makes here. This was a huge red flag to me when the arguements started about who had made the most numbers on pump gas in the first place.

This customer, Dan, is a member here and on EVOm. He doesn't want any friction and was very uncomfortable being in the middle. I asked him if he would do me a favor and bring his car here for me to dyno. I asked him to bring his dyno sheet with him for comparison. It has been a few weeks since he was tuned and on DTM's dyno. He finally had a chance to stop in yesterday.

Below are the dyno sheets from the comparisons we did. I showed Dan all our dyno parameters, showed him the Mustang Dyno look up table, he stood on the dyno the entire time with me as I wanted him to see there were no tricks taking place. He kept telling me, "Dave, I trust you, I trust you."

First, this is the dyno sheet from his car on DTM's dyno:



As you can see the sheet looks great, the car made 330 whp and 324 ft lbs of torque. These are GREAT numbers BUT they are not numbers I see here on a car with these mods on pump gas with a stock ECU.

I did NOT hook up my laptop to this car. I did NOT touch the tune. I hooked up the wideband and our boost sensor just to see what was going on.

Dan doesn't have a boost gauge that reads high enough in his car, he has the factory 1.5 bar gauge. He was told he was tuned at 23 psi of boost.

The first pull on the car showed the car was at 25.002 psi of boost. The power came up quite a bit short of DTM's dyno sheet. Here is that sheet:



As you can see peak power was 291 whp and 287 ft lbs of torque. Huge change in power levels. That is a loss of 39 whp and 37 ft lbs of torque.

I told Dan that if the boost was higher now than it was then it could just be out of the load cells it was tuned in or it could be knocking. I asked if I could turn the boost down to 23 psi and re-dyno it. He said sure as he didn't want it that high anyway, the car is set up for road racing. I turned the boost down and dyno'd the car again. Here is the dyno sheet from the next pull:



As you can see the power dropped even more. The peak boost was actually 22.4 psi, close enough to 23 psi for me. The power at this boost level was now, 261 whp and 264 ft lbs.

This is getting rediculous at this point and the car doesn't feel smooth. It is now down 69 whp and 60 ft lbs of torque.

I start asking Dan some questions about the car and he tells me he has fresh spark plugs in it that were installed last time he was on the dyno. I notice the car has about 30,000 miles on it and ask how old his plug wires are, ends up they are original. I get a new set and put them on, car gets much smoother instantly.

Ends up with the plugs wires installed the power he leaves with at 22.4 psi is 270'ish on whp and torque.

I am not going to discuss the tuning, AFR's or anything else. That is not on the table for discussion and I am not posting AFR's. This post is not about tuning or slandering.

I am posting this to simply point out the differences in power levels from our Mustang Dyno to others. There is a huge difference.

IF need be there are other comparisons from the dyno I tested against to other Mustang Dyno's in his area that if I beg the other shop owners to post they may do that for me. My only point is I said our dyno reads as it was suppose to from the factory calibration and I feel now I have proven that it does.

Anyone else who would like to dyno here is of course welcome to.

Have a great day.

 

always good to get some back-to-back testing to put issues to rest

 

I understand the decrease in HP and TQ. But why does the other sheet look smoother and everything, even though they both have the filter set at 60?

 

damn I'm even more impressed now

 

Interesting read. But that is about it.

Two things to note.

First, did Dan tell you about his ever growing leak at the 02 housing?
Not sure as you neglected to mention it in your original post.
I'm sure you are aware of what happens to the tune if the car is having a huge leak pre O2

Second, Your dyno may be set up as you claim and that is fine. But so is ours. Never been touched by anyone other than MD.
With that said, to CONFIRM that our readings were not off or unjustified, we had to load the NEW version software into the machine the past week or so. DID an inertia test and calibration to confirm the original settings from MD. Guess what? They were almost identical. The new software actually asked for a higher load value. Instead we left it at our original value of 3489, set back in 2004. Your dyno is in the 33's
BUT what you don't seem to grasp is that you THINK the scales are linear. As you increase the margin of power calculated by the machine ie; 500+ HP the numbers are NOT calculated the same. Trust me in time you will see on your own.

Bottom line, I pushed Dan to conclude this test. Even though he was dyno'd here quite a while ago, I wanted to see what you would conclude. On que you did as expected.

When Dan, left here he was informed that the car can SAFELY run the boost level at its present state of tune. he was also informed that the longer the exhaust leak continued it would reflect in an AFR that would no longer be a constant as fuel trims would cause an issue.
Is the car strong, you bet. Is it safe, you bet. But I am sure he told you that already as you stated to him that the car with his mods should be in the 280 range. That far exceeded what you "normally see"

Good day

 

Previous dyno results compared to local Dynojets and track times in the DC area DID show that the DTM MD reads a bit lower than Dynojets, but it did not indicate reading as low as the BR MD. My analysis has shown it reading in between, so these results are about what I expected except for the boost discrepancy, but I have no knowledge of O2 leaks.

What did the DTM 637whp car hit on the drag strip?

 

interesting.

 

My question is why tune it if it had a leak in the first place?

 

+1

 

GREAT QUESTION!!

The choice was Dans. He was well aware of the leak and his limited time he could spend down here due to work related reasons. The tune that was in the car was HORRIBLE. So, because we are extremely confident in our tuning abilities we told Dan that the car will still perform as expected. I will let him chime in on how the car runs
Knowing full well that when he returned to Ohio, and if he were to replace his MISSING O2 gasket that he would be in good shape with the tune once the battery was reset. I have tuned a few cars in my time so I know what they need to make them run efficiently and safe for the Road Course.
Let me know if you have any more questions or you can contact me directly if you would like.

 

You are correct. We have proven several times that the car reads anywhere between 11-15% off the local dynojets in our area depending on weather conditions.

Joe's best time was 132 missing 2nd and 4rth.
When he gets back we will hit the track again next week.

 

Ive been on dynojets, dynapacks, mustangs, and BR's mustang. It has been the lowest by far. Its a heartbreaker but its true hp and tq readings. Thats why I continue to go there.

 

I haven't noticed 15%...maybe 10%, but it's also not 100% linear, so it's hard to say.

132 missing 2 shifts...ok. Going to need about 143 to prove the power.

 

Thanks for the answer...it is what I expected to hear.

 

It should do better than 140. We were shooting for 144-146