kev

I just got a confirmation that mine was shipped and I ordered mine 1 day before yours. However it is coming parcel post, thus it takes up to 10 days to show up at my door kev

Keep the posts going. This thread is very valuable for the modified quest owner. Both Chip and you are basically redefining the performance potential of the starquest. Some of the things you two are doing have never really been done before on these cars or at least documented in a place like this. I think Joel has a dyno run page on his tristarion.com board? I think it would be very good to through all these dyno curves onto that page so we don't have to do an extensive search again. I don't know how long you are planning to be down working on the car, but it may be worthwhile to see Tim's outcomes of the roller cam. He will be doing dyno runs and everything. kev

Ditto on Chad. Â I purchased his TC05-12a watercooled turbo. Â I've never seen an 18 year old used turbo look so clean. Â Can't wait to get it on the car. Â He had a good price, fast transaction, and had it to me exactly when I needed it. Â Plus he has always been a help in the troubleshooting and performance enhancement questions I have had in the past. kev

Notice that he burnt up a piston with the 8.5:1 CR JE's!! He dropped down to 8.1:1. I don't see any mention of what turbo that thing is though? kev

Nope 4th is 1:1 kev

I wouldn't feel that way, it was a good question. I saw a pic of someones car with one of these on it sometime in the past. If it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't have bought one. kev

It looks identical to the stock one when on the car. It doesn't stay in that cone shape. kev

Here is an even easier way to make an adjustable cam gear for only a couple bucks as obtained from the engine mods forum. http://www.starquestclub.com/index.pl?boar...;num=1024680213 kev

Yes RPW and TEP make adjustable gears for our cars or you can also make your own as Kevin C. stated. I will have to give you great credit though Kevin C. if this turns out to be the problem. When Tim, John, and I were playing around with the 284RH cam, you stated "make sure you degree that cam" repeatively. I think you said it about 6 times on the thread that I have printed out "the only way to sucessfully get the performance from an aftermarket grind it to degree it to the specs on the cam card". All quotes from you on this thread I have printed out, hehe. summitracing.com has a degree wheel and dial gauge specifically for degreeing in sub compact OHC cars in the Subcompact catalog. I think it is $90. kev

I do see what you are saying but on the upstroke a heavier rod will come into play in reducing the rpm potential of the motor (there is gravity there). Also I believe that any weight reduced on the rotating assembly of the engine will increase rpms thus increase horsepower potential. I actually do feel that lightening the flywheel increases horsepower (well at least horsepower potential, you need other things to take advantage of that slightly higher achievable rpm to generate the hp). It enables us to rev faster and farther due to the less mass. Now it only does it on the original full blown acceleration, it probably robs horsepower if you let off and then kick it again because the revs will drop faster and then have to restart. Anyways, I really do feel that this is the case here. Every dyno run has the similar drop off slope and response. A destroked engine is the key to bring out the higher rpm numbers. However will we sacrifice the excellent ramp up to peak horsepower if we do it? This is just like the big block vs. small block V8 situation. The big block has massive torque and a achieves high hp numbers very early in rpm range and falls off where as the small block takes a bit longer to hit its mark but the high rpms that it can hit are a huge benefit. I myself am happy with what I have (stock internals that have been lightened slightly). I will be happy to get the numbers Mike has and also play around with other things like turbo housings, cams, etc. to push that rpm dropoff a little bit further out there. Plus I already spend $3000 on machining this block, hehe. Ok tell us your secret turbo Mike, hehe. I actually have been greatly considering a T04B like Chad is running. It has very impressive flow ratings with a much larger exhaust housing. A bit more lag down below though. kev

Perhaps these damn internals are just too heavy! Heavy crank, heavy rods, long stroke, etc. Doesn't Bill TSG run custom rods? That may be the reason for the higher revs. Andy's, Chip's, Mike's, Lizzord's, etc. runs share the same pattern. Well so do Bill's but his pulls to a little bit higher rpms. Maybe the way to higher hp would be to destroke the engine? All of this data is basically making me conclude that this is about as much as we are going to get out of the stock 2.6 bottom end. The cams seem to be doing very little for overall horsepower. We upped the flow tremendously which produced higher numbers but still wouldn't let the engine rev. Only thing left is the bottom end! kev

Well it is leather not cloth, but I still think you are right. I don't think it will hold. A friend of mine said that he uses that shoe-gu for everything. He even used it to fix a ripped velocity boot once and it held for years. However the bottom of this seat would be very hard. Thanks for the reply, kev

Very interesting Chip. I find it weird that your run was almost identical to Andy's run and you had a 274 cam vs. his 294 cam. There is a huge resemblence to Mike's run here as well.

http://www.jcwhitney.com/product.jhtml?CAT...341&BQ=jcw2 I just ordered a burg. one for my white car. They charge $10 to ship the stupid thing though! kev

Of course I lost the email from RPW about the adjustable cam gear but if memory serves me correct, it was only around $100 US currency. kev

Ok I have two rips right at the seams on my 87 style burg drivers seat. Anyway to seal them up? If I pull tight enough I can close the gap, If I had some very strong glue it might stay. Anything in mind? I don't think I will be able to sew it or anything. I have heard of a thing called "Shoe-gu" However can't find it anywhere. kev

In all honesty I think the 7:1 CR is capable of the most horsepower. However your everyday driving will suffer tremendously in my mind. You have to think about what you want here. Do you want a car that will give super high hp numbers on the dyno and great times at the track or do you want a street rocket that will blow away almost anything on the roads and highways but still pull pretty nice at the track? I myself go for the street rocket. I need that low rpm kick just as much as I need the massive pull at 4000 rpms. I am not willing to sacrifice this cars drivability over a bit extra pull and an extra 20hp. Thus I think I will stick with the 8:1 CR. Chad noted that even with his mega To4 turbo, he still has about the stock pull on the very low end with the 8:1 CR pistons and lightened internals. Any less in CR, you will have less lower rpm power then the car was stock! So in all, I will stick with 8:1, Magna MPI, and 10-15psi. When we figure out what is keeping your curves from increasing past 4000rpm, that car should pull 250-275 rwhp at only 10psi. I will be very happy if I could get my car to that point.

Yeah I know we have been through this before. I thought about this long and hard in the beginning of the year and I proved it to myself that it worked but for some reason it didn't sound right to me this morning. It takes some thinking to undo the tricks the car manufactures did in the past and to actually think about it the way it "should" be.

Ok I think I figured it out and SDS got back to me and confirmed it. The distributor is set at one particular spot (i.e. you want it to always fire at the same position (10BTDC, 5BTDC, or whatever). The hall sensor reads the actual position of the engine, send the signal to the ECU, and the ECU makes sure that the coil provides spark to the distributor when that rotor hits the prong for the certain cylinder. Thus there is no cheating by mechanically altering the rotor position in the cap, it is all done electrically. Only drawback to the distributor is you need to initially set it exactly where it needs to spark. Sorry for going off on this subject. I thought this might have been one of the problems but I guess not. I think I do like the 'F' system better though. kev

I just sent an email to SDS asking them to clarify this. I skimmed the SDS website and I couldn't find any info regarding this subject. I will have to break out the owners manual for the computer tonight or this weekend and see what it says. I kinda wish I would have spent the extra $100 for the F system actually. kev

I understand how the hall sensor enables the computer to know the timing and adv/retard it. However I am running a distributor. If I had seperate coil packs, the computer will just tell the coils to fire when it wants to and it fires. However with a distributor, that rotor only contacts the plug wire in one specific spot if all the other mechanisms are gutting in the distributer. So how can the computer tell it when to fire and when to not fire? It has no choice, it only fires when that rotor hits the prong in the cap kev

OMG Craig, it looks great! Night and day difference from before. Lets get a mini meet going in Pittsburgh sometime soon. My car is almost done, your car looks like brand new, Lars' V8 starion is on the road, etc. kev

Ok so what you are saying is there still has to be some control in the distrib to advance and retard the timing when the computer tells it to do so? There is no other way you can do it in my mind. I have the same SDS computer as Mike but unfortunatly I have been too wrapped up in the body work on my blue car and trying to get my white car back on the road that I haven't even been able to think about the blue cars engine for some time. I just remember Mike saying that everything needs to come out of the Distrib (vac advance, counter weights, etc etc) and I don't recall ever seeing some kind of electronic solenoid that needs to go in there to adv and retard timing. Thanks for the detailed info and yes I am used to reading endless info, hehe. I wouldn't call it useless though. kev

Mike, Forgive me for my lack of info on the SDS system (mine is still in the box on my workbench). How does the ECU change the mechanical timing? You said you pulled all the weights off of the distributor, you have no vacuum advance, and you have no electronics hooked to the distrib right besides the boost of the MSD? So what is advancing your spark when you accelerate? I am not understanding something here. I can't see how this computer can mechanically change the timing when still using a distributor. Also if your valves start to float at high rpms, you could be getting the back pressure of the exhaust into the cylinders and cause detonation especially on the decent like you were describing. It might be worth swapping your valve springs, aren't they a few years old by now?

Maybe something as simple as a custom header would help out? I know that Bill TSG has higher rpm power with a slightly smaller turbo, MPI, and SFP header. kev