Tuning Rolling Road......

[thefrannyman]

Didn't realise it would spark this much debate, i dont know if anythings been done to the engine and dont have the expertise to check it really.

I only went for fun, jst to see what sort of power i had and was well chuffed

 

[StoneNewt]

Totally agreed, even on the same RR on the same day I see a 1% or so variance from at the wheel figures, then up to 2% of variance for trying to work out the gearbox drag. So I say I'm looking at -/+2% error comparing runs on different days from the same RR. Across different RRs that's going to be even bigger so maybe +/- 3% should be considered 'noise'.

Basically if you want to really know your flywheel figures then you need to bolt the engine to an engine dyno.

 

[fingers99]

Didn't realise it would spark this much debate, i dont know if anythings been done to the engine and dont have the expertise to check it really.

I only went for fun, jst to see what sort of power i had and was well chuffed

It would be interesting to return it to "standard" spec and try again: might even produce more power!

 

[balidey]

and I know a few things about these engines.

Hi Oldschool, what would your honest opinion have been if someone had said they had a stock 1108cc engine that had been RR'd and shown to produce 30% more power than standard? As you are considered by many to be a leading authority on the Fire engine, and you have personally measured plenty. Does it not surprise you that its so high? From your experience, does that sound within normal limits? To me it just doesn't sound right, but I have no experience to back that up. So hence the question to you.

And no I'm not being sarcastic, it is a genuine question, as you can see from previous comments, lots of people seem to think its impossible to see those figures, but perhaps you have seen other 1108's reach similar results from stock?

And if you have, do you see similarly high (or even, perish the thought) similarly LOW results from any other engines in the Fire family? ie a Punto 60 or 75, have you witnessed any with anywhere near this 30% 'profit'? I don't expect you to produce detailed accounts of every RR session you have done, but a brief summary of what sort of results from stock, or nearly stock engines you should be able to let us know what sort of variance an average person might see from one car to the next.
Thank you,
Steve

 

[Italian Coke Can]

Prob got a 1.2 in it . . . My cinq had had the engine swapped around without anyone saying.

 

[Oldschool]

Hi Oldschool, what would your honest opinion have been if someone had said they had a stock 1108cc engine that had been RR'd and shown to produce 30% more power than standard? As you are considered by many to be a leading authority on the Fire engine, and you have personally measured plenty. Does it not surprise you that its so high? From your experience, does that sound within normal limits? To me it just doesn't sound right, but I have no experience to back that up. So hence the question to you.

And no I'm not being sarcastic, it is a genuine question, as you can see from previous comments, lots of people seem to think its impossible to see those figures, but perhaps you have seen other 1108's reach similar results from stock?

And if you have, do you see similarly high (or even, perish the thought) similarly LOW results from any other engines in the Fire family? ie a Punto 60 or 75, have you witnessed any with anywhere near this 30% 'profit'? I don't expect you to produce detailed accounts of every RR session you have done, but a brief summary of what sort of results from stock, or nearly stock engines you should be able to let us know what sort of variance an average person might see from one car to the next.
Thank you,
Steve

I don't think you are being sarcastic. Nothing to worry from this side.

When the car (in question) was running up the rollers, it was pushing faster than the usual standard engine. The Land & Dea rollers are very heavy at 1.5 tons, which means there is quite a bit of effort to get them going and when you spend a lot of time on the rollers you get a feel for it. Augusto and me were looking at each other when running it up and making a gesture of being impressed.

I have seen some weird things in all the years I am working with the FIRE engines. Some cars, which I know that they never had been touched on the engine internals had much more aggressive cams (4x4). On the late Punto 60 engines they used up 866 cams.

The 4x4 cam gave the 999 engine a good power increase.

There is quite a good chance the head gasket went on the car a while ago. If the head is skimmed it will help and a manifold that matches naturally does help too.

It is not unheard of that certain exhaust-induction-engine combinations enhance performance considerably compared to others..

There is quite a few variables, which I have seen in all these years playing with the engines on the rr. I know it sounds rather vague what I am getting at, but there is a lot to it and this is why I invite the people to come to the rr days (if you come to one of them I spend all the time in the world with you to go through this one).

I personally don't give anything for bhp figures. They have got a limited meaning and for me are only of value for development purposes.

What I am interested is the torque per liter output and (possibly even more so) the torque per ton on the wheels, which indicate what the acceleration of the vehicle is.

 

[BumbleBee]

I had to put a thank you on that.
Its good when someone is willing to spend the time and run through the details you should know but necessarily don't get.
So well done! :slayer:

 

[ycming]

So has the car got more mods than the 2 stated ?

Or it is normal for a seicento with a K&N and exhaust to achieve 72 bhp?


Thanks
Ming

 

[Pep0]

When the pol hair dry you, or pull you over, you say

'good morning officer, did you calibrate your speed gun/speedometer this morning?'

If their answer is yes you write it down and ask them when and how and do they have independent witnesses, and get them to sign, for the whole dialogue...

This is still good if you think you were doing 130 and they say you were doing 110...

Noel

 

[AppleSei]

When the pol hair dry you, or pull you over, you say

'good morning officer, did you calibrate your speed gun/speedometer this morning?'

If their answer is yes you write it down and ask them when and how and do they have independent witnesses, and get them to sign, for the whole dialogue...

This is still good if you think you were doing 130 and they say you were doing 110...

Noel

This isnt the first time i have found some of your posts really weird i dont get what this has to do with the whole thread or certainly the direction it was heading unfortuneatly

 

[Ffoxy]

This isnt the first time i have found some of your posts really weird i dont get what this has to do with the whole thread or certainly the direction it was heading unfortuneatly

Glad its not just me, he seems to be vaguely implying the RR at Red Dot isnt correctly calibrated to me.

 

[fingers99]

Glad its not just me, he seems to be vaguely implying the RR at Red Dot isnt correctly calibrated to me.

Problem is that:

a. You can't really calibrate a RR

b. There are so many other variables (and designs of RR) (let alone operators) that it wouldn't make sense to anyway (if, by calibration, we mean getting it to give the same readings as another RR).

I thought all this was widely known? For a sometimes cynical view, see the A Graham Bell books, for a view from the inside, the Dave Walker one.

 

[Ffoxy]

Problem is that:

a. You can't really calibrate a RR

b. There are so many other variables (and designs of RR) (let alone operators) that it wouldn't make sense to anyway (if, by calibration, we mean getting it to give the same readings as another RR).

I thought all this was widely known? For a sometimes cynical view, see the A Graham Bell books, for a view from the inside, the Dave Walker one.

I'm sure a RR can be checked for accuracy via best practice. Calibration doesnt have to be the same as another RR just accurate bearing in mind results can be subjective.
By the way all I did was suggest what that previous Poster meant, I have been a very happy Red Dot customer.

 

[fingers99]

I'm sure a RR can be checked for accuracy via best practice.

Deliberate flash readings apart, it really can't. What you goin to check it against? See the Walker book. In one issue of PCC, I remember DW recommending a RR to someone and commenting that the other guy's RR gave much lower readings than his!

Calibration doesnt have to be the same as another RR just accurate bearing in mind results can be subjective.

Logically, that's nonesense, isn't it?

By the way all I did was suggest what that previous Poster meant, I have been a very happy Red Dot customer.

I think he meant much the same as me. I've nothing against Red Dot, and Oldschool was open enough to invite me down just for the crak. (But it's so far away...........) But, I'm pretty sure that the Red Dot guys would back the assertion that RRs are really a development tool, not intended for back to back comparisons with other RRs, etc. Just as the older posters have said.

 

[Pep0]

The police have to calibrate their equipment every morning, before they pull you, or the judge and brief, will let you off 'Scot free'.

A rolling road is more difficult to calibrate as you all seem to be aware...

That is probable a partial answer as to why auto has so many BHP.

Noel

 

[ycming]

The police have to calibrate their equipment every morning, before they pull you, or the judge and brief, will let you off 'Scot free'.

A rolling road is more difficult to calibrate as you all seem to be aware...

That is probable a partial answer as to why auto has so many BHP.

Noel

should of said that in the first place, no need go round the bush ..

Ming

 

[fingers99]

A rolling road is more difficult to calibrate as you all seem to be aware...

That is probable a partial answer as to why auto has so many BHP.

I'm more inclined to go with Oldschool's explanation. As I've said, I'd love to see the results with the obvious tuning parts removed: I think that may be a rather special little motor, and the tuning parts may well be holding it back!

 

[StoneNewt]

I still think some human error crept in on that run but the base line data is correct. Anyway what would be interesting is to see that car up against GoBe's Sei in a straight line. That's produced 50 to 52whp across 4 different RRs, one of those runs which may have been on the RR in question, equating to somewhere between 64 and 70bhp depending on the RR/calculation method used.

 

[craigb244]

at the end of the day its just numbers... nothing more nothing less.
they mean nothing to anyone other then the person who owns the car. the only way to compaire cars it same dyno same day same guy running it... and even then you dont need bhp numbers or anything it could be simply 1 2 3, a b c,

only thing there good for it tuning a engine cos the numbers dont matter at all... you could be running 10000000000 bhp but it showing 0.1 bhp your still only tuning to get the highest number(sometimes) in the position you want it(always).
the piece of paper it just something to show your mates down the pub

 

[Oldschool]

I still think some human error crept in on that run but the base line data is correct. Anyway what would be interesting is to see that car up against GoBe's Sei in a straight line. That's produced 50 to 52whp across 4 different RRs, one of those runs which may have been on the RR in question, equating to somewhere between 64 and 70bhp depending on the RR/calculation method used.

We aren't idiots.

Augusto from Red Dot is the son of the owner of a supplier/producer of performance goods as well as standard parts for vthe automotive industries. He has got a racing back ground on top of it. Power testing, acceleration and deceleration have been part of the work his company was involved with on a permanent basis.

Tony has got more than 30 years background in the industries from testing development and production and has got what it takes to run and evaluate a rolling road professionally.

My background is in development, testing, racing, working on the rolling road as well as track and consultancy work. We have means to check that we are reasonbly accurate.

We take this issue very serious and try to do our best to produce results as accurate as possible within the constraints.

It is possible to calibrate a rolling raod, which is fairly straight forward. But to be scientifically accurate it needs to be done at intervals several times a day.

To be reasonably accurate it has to be done on a regualr basis.

But calibrating will still show differences going from one rolling road to another even if it is the same rolling road in a different place because different conditions will affec the readings. This is why the DIN specifies the correction vlaues.

Transmission losses can be measured as torque on the wheels can be measured. Unfortunately most of the rolling road operators don't know the procedure at all or don't know how to do it correctly and most people aren't interested in it.

This is 2 examples of losses measured after the quote:

Originally Posted by faster4_tec
before I started fiddling my 60 I got 47 from a rolling road (albeit this was withou a service and it had a vacuum air leak), I wouldn't expect too much more, but as a very rough estimate take a manual transmission to loose about 10% of power and 10% torque

This doesn't represent the real losses.

Example 1
Transmission loss
@ 2500rpm = 11%
@ 3000rpm = 11%
@ 3500rpm = 11%
@ 4000rpm = 12%
@ 4500rpm = 12%
@ 5000rpm = 12%
@ 5500rpm = 14%
@ 6000rpm = 16%
@ 6500rpm = 19%
@ 6750rpm = 24%

@ peak power 17%

The car was a modified Punto FIRE with 6 speed gearbox.

Example 2
Transmission loss
@ 2500rpm = 17%
@ 3000rpm = 17%
@ 3500rpm = 18%
@ 4000rpm = 20%
@ 4500rpm = 21%
@ 5000rpm = 23%
@ 5500rpm = 26%
@ 6000rpm = 29%
@ 6500rpm = 34%
@ 7000rpm = 39%

@ peak power 29%

The car was a FIRE engined Seicento with a 5 speed gearbox.

Both vehicles were tested on the same rolling road. This particular rolling road is known to be accurate within 1bhp!

This is the readings taken from a TAT (I posted this some time ago in a different thread):