K Series Upgrade

[tom7]

I am currently running a completly standard 1.8K, I am looking to get closer to something that will humble my cousins Impreza rather than just stay with it. I dont want to go down the supersport route as that seems to be a dead end.

Your mission should you choose to accept it, is to advise what is the biggest bang for my buck (just £1000) at this stage I can get.

Answers on a postcard.......

 

Cheers

 

Tom

[murph7355]

You won't get a massive improvement for that wedge but will be able to lay the foundations.

 

What sort of exhaust do you have? Race exhaust is worthwhile and c.5-600GBP.

 

To start upgrading properly you'll need a programmable ECU (500ish) and some throttle bodies (same ish).

 

I believe Emerald do a "kit" for 1600 or so (possibly +VAT) that includes ECU, cams and TBs (I think - good value really). But you'd need the exhaust too if you currently have one with a single pipe exiting the body.

 

Cams and ECU only + mapping would probably be doable for 1k (effectively what the Supersport u/g is) but it won't be optimal by some margin.

 

 

 

andy@c7consulting.com

[scooby dooby doo]

An emerald alone and mapping session will give a decent boost in low down torque. if you've got an exhaust that goes to one pipe internal to the bodywork then get a decent exhaust as well/instead. This should stop power being thrown away.

 

you're then well set for a cams, verniers and TB upgrade next year to give you more power again.

 

HOOPY CYCLE WINGS CUCUMBER

[tom7]

I have the standard Caterham collector in the chassis exhaust.

Cams and programmable ecu sound good.

I realise I'm not going to turn my car into an R500 for a grand, however, as you suggest a useful improvement (which should be better than the Caterham ss package) would only be the foundation.

I have read all too often how this disease eats away constantly until the children are starving, the wife gone AWOL, the house reposessed but..... you are the owner of the best looking, best sounding, fastest 7 known to man.... I think I need to lie down.

 

Tom

[No Nuts]

Except the Emerald doesn't fit the EU3 loom. ☹️

 

I must get around to bodging something so it will!

 

NN 😳

Lotus @ Herts

[scooby dooby doo]

exhaust then. that'll eat about 500 of your budget (if you get a powerspeed custom job which is better ad cheaper than the caterham one)

with an emerald you'll be some way over as its about 700 and you can get a good enough map off somebody else and just get a few tweaks on it.

 

 

HOOPY CYCLE WINGS CUCUMBER

[John Howe]

I agree with all that said before, but don't start spending money without flowing the head. In its standard form it is shouting for a face lift, which you can do yourself and is the cheapest upgrade you can get.

 

Read DVAndrews web page is a must to visit, full of common sense, costings and advise. Dave is, as from today, giving up IT and going full time on engine tuning and is the best K series head tuner on the circuit.

 

JH

 

 

 

[dino ferrana]

I think the Supersport conversion is good on a £1000 budget afterall it does give you 20 bhp or so. Running throttle bodies and upgrade ECU probably on't do a lot on stock cams. Each other way seem to keep inviting you to spend more and more money to get the same result as Supersport.

 

Superpsort won't be a dead end forever as the R300 engine is based on the 1.8SS so there is a clear upgrade path with Caterham. I know it won't be as cheap as Emerald or whatever but there will be a value to it when you come to sell. Whatever some people say some of us are put off by conversions done by companies other than Caterham.

 

I personally would not buy a car that has been heavily modified with other peoples bits and no way would I pay a premium for it. On the other hand Roller Barrel Throttle Bodies are worth paying more for on that noise alone!

[Peter Carmichael]

Good points Dino. The exhaust will still need doing to get the best out of the Supersport conversion, so you are way over the 1000 budget all told. Of the things to do, the exhaust is first (purely because of the single pipe exit exhaust being particularly bad). If that leaves you with a few hundred quid to play with, the best bet could be a set of tyres, say A021Rs.

[tom7]

Thinkng along the lines recommended by Peter, a new exhaust seems a good place to start. As all correspondents have said, throttle bodies and ECU's aren't cheap, but on the intake side of the engine, does anybody have experience of the vvc manifold and 52mm throttle body as an upgrade over the standard restrictive inlet. I believe this is the main element of the Lotus 135 kit for the Elise.

The thinking is that if I can achieve 135 bhp with the vvc manifold and then add a decent exhaust, I will have achieved ss power....or will I?(" 🤔")

 

Tom

[caterhamnut]

Highly recommend exhaust upgrade just to echo what has been said.

 

😬24,000 miles in 1 year!

angus@tinyworld.co.uk

[scooby dooby doo]

peter raises a good point. you can get 4 sets of sticky tyres for £1000. alternatively 1 set of sticky tyres, a track day to prove to the impreza how much quicker you are, and 600 for the exhaust...

 

HOOPY CYCLE WINGS CUCUMBER

[tom7]

Exhaust upgrade it is then.- But which one? Caterham, 4-2-1, 4-1, Which would give me the greatest improvement. I have followed various debates over which is best but have been unable to decipher the definitive answer. For my engine, in its current state of tune what gains could I expect. At some point in the future I will find some more money to spend on the engine but this is unlikely to be enough to improve the bottom end, so will retain hydraulic tappetts therefore top end performance is not essential, the car will remain predominantly a road car.

If the exhaust is to improved, is there a quick (cheap) fix to improve the breathing beyond 5500rpm, is the head, cams, or inlet manifold the restrictor...It would br rude not to try to improve both sides of the equation.

 

Tom

[Peter Carmichael]

Right Tom, listen carefully and don't let these others distract you. There is a world of difference between fixing a fault and developing an optimum solution; the difference is measured in thousands of pounds. The thing to concentrate on is that the existing exhaust is wrong and needs replacing. There are two candidates in Caterham's parts catalogue. Both will be a huge improvment. The difference between them will be minimal.

 

If you plan to take the engine much further in the future, the 4-2-1 may work out best but it will make stuff all difference now. The VVC manifold and throttle body are a dead-end, so don't bother. Also don't bother with a K&N filter just because the rice boys claim they get 20 bhp.

 

Tuning to get a good all round solution is about optimisation across the board. The path has been well described here. Changing induction parameters without matching it with a programmable ECU is pointless. The next price point is to get sorted with throttle bodies, a ported head, a step up in the cams department and an ECU and a mapping session to get it all sorted. Getting your hands dirty, it is possible to do this for 2000 and you can chose a power level up to 180-190 bhp depending on how far you go with the porting and the cams. If you aim this far you will need to go to solid (or converted) followers and single piece valves and forged pistons, which can easily add in another 800.

 

You will be much faster than any Impreza in a straight line by this stage, but if you have the chassis set up incorrectly it will be unrewarding. Chassis set up can cost very little and be much more rewarding than thousands of pounds on engine work.

[tom7]

Peter,

Thank you for the good advice.

If I understand you correctly and bearing in mind the primary use of the car, the way to go seems to be:

1. Dump std exhaust for performance 4-1 system, (EBD?) to save a few quid I beleive I have the option of retaining the std cat & silencer.

2. Find the cash for an Emerald ECU, I have read that Roy Booth achieved a 10bhp increase on an otherwise std. engine following a mapping session, this seems like good value as it is continually upgrade-able.

3. As finances allow, actually get round to changing / modifying some engine parts. The final power figure is then dependant on how much I have to spend.

 

Taking your chassis set-up advice on board, the car at present is Caterham supplied widetrack with the std. springs and Bilstein dampers running 185/60x14 Avon ZV1's that came with the car.

If I am unable to find cash for exhaust and ECU, then following your previous post maybe exhaust and some tyres is the best use of the currently available cash.

 

As an aside, trashing Impreza's is not a goal in itself, there is much mutual respect between the drivers, but as I was only able to keep station with the car, a bit more grunt is always welcome.

 

Tom

[Johnty Lyons]

I was at Emerald when Roy borrowed my *biggrin*ECU and Karl substituted my map for a std 1.8 K Map and saw the back to back improvement against the Std Rover MEMS there where two power runs done one exactly after the other and the only change was to move the plug from one ECU to the other. So that fact on that car is proven . It is also a fact that the single pipe inside the engine bay is a serious criticism against Caterham it has the most disasterous effect on engine performance so listen to PC If you intend and time will tell to go further the optimum exhaust is probably the 4-2-1 but as PC says at this moment in time anything will be an improvment. Speak to DVA he is now unashamedly in the tuning business as a rcognised K expert and is offering Kits to enhance your cars performance. 😬

I drive a 1.8DVA K at 191BHP and can thoroughly recommend it.

 

jj

N.I. L7C AO.

Membership No.3927.

[Paul Bowden]

Don't foget what no nuts has already said and that is,

"Emerald doesn't fit the EU3 loom."

[scooby dooby doo]

however, there are EU3 cars running with an emerald...

it does involve a bit of DIY loom making though...

 

HOOPY CYCLE WINGS CUCUMBER

[tom7]

All good advice, My car is a 1999 EU2 version so no need to worry about compatibility.

Johnty, was Roy still using the standard exhaust when the ECU's were changed or had he already made his change.

Anyway it seems the concensus is to dump the std. exhaust ASAP.

Sounds like I'm going to have to find the funds for an exhaust and an ECU at the same time!!

I will be talking to Mr. Andrews at some point in th near future.

 

 

Tom

[Geek]

You don''t necessarily have to ditch the entire exhaust. I had a DVA head upgrade done to my 1.6K last year, but because I''ve got a factory built car I wanted to keep the exhaust can itself (including cat) so I wouldn''t have to start swapping around at MOT time (and to save a bit of cash over a complete system).

 

EBD made a new 4-2-1 manifold up for me and attached that to the front of the old can (and cut a bigger hole in the side of the car - I had the short 4-1).

 

Result - the huge hole in the torque at around 4k completely disappeared, and when it comes to MOT time I just load up a modified ''emissions-special'' map into the emerald. 😬

 

A piccie of it can be seen at http://www.barriskell.com/se7enstour/images/euro/eurb020.jpg

[John W]

Race Logic do a quick conversion called a V-SAM which fits into the wiring lomb before the standard ECU.

 

It''s good value at about £200 and gives around 8 to 10 bhp plus a better throttle response across the range. It can be fitted, or unfitted, if needed in about 2 mins.

 

I have one on my 1.6 k series and it''s a worthwhile converson and good cost/bhp gained

[scooby dooby doo]

have you any more info on the race logic system? I'm interested to know how/what it actually does...

 

HOOPY CYCLE WINGS CUCUMBER

[John W]

Hoopy

 

Try the race logic web site www.racelogic.co.uk, there is a link page specifically about the V-SAM and how it works.

 

Race Logic are located in Buckingham, Tel No 01280-823803.

 

I have to say that I have been impressed with the increase in performance, throttle response and torque from my 1.6. k series.

 

John

[Peter Carmichael]

If the racelogic thing isn't programmable or auditable then it is a pile of sh1te. Simple as that. We have seen other piggyback systems like the Superchips Icon make matters worse rather than better. They are bold claims - extra power and better throttle response, but the only way you can get that is to change the fuelling or the advance. If you cock up on either of those it is new engine time, so for chissakes get some understanding of what a device does before strapping it into your wiring loom.

 

Do not buy products on the strengths of unsubstantiated performance claims. The claims are easy to make but difficult to prove. Do not buy products that cannot explain how they work, because you cannot judge how they interact with other peculiarities of the whole engine system.

 

I am wary of making too big a deal out of Roy Booth's extra power from the Emerald transplant. It still falls in the category of fixing a fault, because the fuelling with the MEMS was patently incorrect. Without a full audit on the engine and control systems it is difficult to know why the MEMS was performing so badly - by design or by accident? I don't want people to be misled into thinking that bolting an Emerald ECU onto any engine will "give you 10 horsepower" because that is obviously bunk.

 

*Borrow* an Emerald if you can, like Roy did, and see whether there is any benefit before committing 700-800 quid on an ECU and mapping session.

[scooby dooby doo]

the racelogic thing claims to mod the advance by meddling with the crank sensor signal. this would need to be done very carefully to stay safe - but maybe it does it successfully. even so - the fueling needs changing as well and anything that fools the existing system is always going to be compromised. its also a non programmable dead end...

 

The Roy Booth experience is a good advert but Peter's caveat's should be born in mind. Even so - I found the Emerald gave me so many advantages at part throttle, the throttle response and low down torque on my 1.6 K SS that I'm pretty close to offering unreserved recommendations over the standard system.

 

HOOPY CYCLE WINGS CUCUMBER