The results of my trip back from Gotham Racing were interesting.

I had my new FD dyno tuned by Steve Kan two weekends ago. I picked it up on Tuesday and drove back non-stop, left at 4:00pm Tuesday.

I decided to see what kind of MPG I could get as I timed my trip it to get to the Twin Cities right after rush hour in the morning, Wednesday, more on that idea later.

He made 27 pulls on the dyno. I ended up with 406rwhp. He had to turn off water injection. Sounds like my injector is too big. It was 101F degrees outside and air intake temps were about 150F degrees. I know I’ll get better power in the cooler MN climate. Aquamist site claims for a drop of 75C degrees intake temps should be good for about 33% more power. I should be able to drop those intake temps at least 30C. That should be good for at least 10+% increase in power. Anyone disagree with Aquamist?

The results show that not only does Steve Kan do a good job at tuning for reliability and performance, but also economy. In this world of spiraling gas prices and rotaries getting poor MPG this is a good thing. This trip I did not have cruise control and I was carrying about 80lbs of my crap and I had my brother’s new Mazda reman FD motor on the passenger seat belted in. I think these numbers are really amazing. I wonder what they would be with cruise control and 300lbs less dead weight onboard.

My air fuel meter was always in the 14s while I was cruising at all speeds.

Here are the results:

Leg 1, 95 octane, AC on, water temps 102C, air intake temps 52C, 64 mph average, 22.5MPG.

Leg 2, 91 octane, AC off, water temps 80C, air intake temps ??C, 57 mph average, 24.6MPG.

Leg 3, 89 octane, AC off, water temps 80C, air intake temps 28-30C, 52 mph average, 23.5MPG.

Leg 4, 89 octane, AC off, water temps 80C, air intake temps 28-30C, ?? mph average, 24.2MPG.

Octanes were calculated properly.

The last leg turned out to be a disaster. I ran into a big rainstorm 40 miles out and hit a mess of a rush hour at 9:00am. I ended up staying at a service station for 1.5 hours and then drove home emptied the car of my stuff. Loaded up with race gas, it went up 40 cents a gallon to $4.40 for 111 octane unleaded. I dropped my brother’s motor off.

I was disappointed in the third leg, I purposely tried to keep it at 55mph. If I had cruise control I’m sure my MPG numbers would be better. Maybe I had a bad batch of gas with methanol. I thought that leg would have the best numbers. Maybe FD’s get better MPG at 65mph than 55mph.

Anyway I’m pleased with 24+ mpg cruising down the freeway at 65mph.

 

That's just depressing, we're paying $6.89 per US gallon over here in the UK and that's for Shell Optimax which has an octane rating of 98. Would donate organs to get high octane fuel for that price.

Have to say on the whole that I'm impressed with the MPG figures you got.

 

When I drove the car from SC to TX it got 17.7 mpg with AC on and 20.4 and 19.0 with AC off.

So Kan's tuning did a lot of good.

The previous owner thought the map in it was a Kan map. It was not. Kan knows his maps.

Thanx,

Ken

 

yes, steve DOES know his maps. hahahaha. no kidding on that

those numbers are very nice. have you thought about leaning it out a bit? i know A LOT of owners tune the cruise area for 16s!!! i thought that was crazy at first, then noticed more and more people chiming in on the fact that its "a-okay".

very impressive indeed.

 

Good MPG numbers. My best to date is 17mpg a tank, for 3 tanks, just driving back and forth to work, 22 miles a trip. AFRs at 13.7 in cruise cells. EGTs reading on my gauge 16" from turbine, 1250F.

As far as 16AFR being safe...have you ever tried it? Try it and report back. Oh, you might want to watch your EGT temps too, while you are at it!

Edit: this is with near 5100cc of injectors.

 

i got 23mpg with Steve's tuning and no more clothes that smell like gas after driving. friggin awsome lol Steve's the man

 

I only ever run my fd on 98 octane.

116,000 km on orig motor

 

That's awesome mpg for all the mods you have. Good post man. Thanks for the info.

 

should I get my car tuned by steve? I have HKS RS intakes, Rotary Extreme V-Mount IC setup, Apexi GT Spec Exhaust, and PFC. Oh yea can anyone tell me how much HP at the wheel I might be getting at the moment and how much i'll get after Steve. Im also getting a rebuild right now so can you guys tell me the info witha rebuilt motor? Thanks

 

I was trying to see what kind of MPG my car would get. I did a CARTEST2000 simulation on fuel economy to see what the program would give me for an increase in MPG if the car weighed 300lb less. I had my stuff and my brother's Mazda reman in the car.

Using the programs numbers for highway driving I would get an increase from 24.6 mpg to 26 mpg. I think I could have even done better with cruise control.

Who knows what it would be if you can safely cruise at 16 A/F ratios instead of in the 14s.

I would think for someone who drives an FD a lot with an aftermarket ECU it might be cost-justified to have it tuned proplerly almost just for the fuel savings. At least after tuning properly you can be fairly sure that you are less likely to blow it up and you are getting close to the maximum safe power.

Ken

 

I just figured out the tires on the car have a 2.5% larger diameter than the stock ones Madza had. So when you add 2.5% to the MPG figures you get 25.2 instead of 24.6 and 27.7 instead of 26.

Ken

 

man, thats not bad AT ALL ken. . . almost 30mpg!!!! man, im gonna have to start playing again. hahahahaha.

alright. . . on the AFR's note. "evidently". . . when leaning the car out at cruise. . . youll see the egt's go up. . . obviously, but when you get passed a certain point they go back down. . . thats when you see the 16:1 AFR's. . . and oddly enough the car keeps on running. hahaha. ill try it out and report back. . . although, ive seen the documentation in other sections on this forum, and by people who have seemed to know what theyre talking about in the past.












this is so funny. . . "SCREW POWER!!!! i want economy out of my hot-rod!!!!"

 

on my trip down to Rotary Revolution 2005 from Syracuse ny, i averaged between 20-21 mpg going about 75 most of the way, with a couple of nice blasts to 150 or so. 700 miles one way trip.

One time on my way down to KDR (about 230 miles) I got 23.5 mpg but i always felt little hesitations at certain points in my cruise range, so i had it richened up a bit and it cleared up the problem. But then again thats when my mpg went down a bit.

 

how do you run such low octane, were you using the water injection on this trip?

 

Ken, what are your Air/Fuel ratios after Steve tuned your car?

-s-

 

Kan said if I wanted to save on gas I could run 87 octane and don't boost it(not over 2-3psi).

So I filled up with 87 octane twice and calculated the octane mixture.

Never used water injection becauase it kicks in at 10psi boost.

I drove very carefull, I had a 200+lb rotory motor sitting in the passenger seat next to me.

Ken

 

I have a A/F meter in the glove box that displays in real-time the numbers. When I was cruising at a steady speed(55, 65, 75mph) it would be 14.1-14.7. When I would accelerate it would drop to 12 or whatever.

Kan would have to explain his tuning philosophy. All I know he has a data base of many many maps and he knows his stuff. I guess he blows up his own race motors because he tries to run on the ragged edge to get max power but when he tunes other cars he does not blow them up. If they blow it would be due to poor gas, bad apex seals etc. He's going to DE to tune 8 cars this weekend. I told him good luck. He said I will not blow up any cars. I'd like those guys from DE to check their MPG before and after tuning. They might be pleasantly surprised.

I had crappy Hayes seals in my other car, that blew then had crappy Hurley seals and that did not work out well either. My brothers has Atkins and they have blown twice. My brother decided to go with Mazda Reman to save money and have something that is not going to blow up again. Steve just uses Mazda seals. He has seen too many aftermarket seals fail.

He's been going around the country for more than two years now tuning cars. All reports have been positive from I've seen.

He laughs when he sees people taking a map and loading it in their car thinking the configuration is close enough to work. It might work but not work optimally.

He has a guy coming in next week to have it tuned and then he's moving to Las Vegas. Kan knows how to tune it for the big altitude difference between Fort Worth and NV.

Thanx,

Ken

 

ive heard and read a lot of times that 87 octane is THE gogo juice for NA rotaries. never tried it though. . . i guess it does make sense. . .

 

i never would try using 87 octane that's dangerous if you forget and try to pass someone with 10-15psi it's pretty much over depending on the tune. Also I bet that engine totally fucked up your passenger seat

you should have unbolted the seat and left it at home thrown the engine on top of a few towels on the floorboard...

 

I drove very carefully. I'm 61 years old and not an idiot. There was no need to boost. Taking 35w back to MN there was no reason to pass anyone. I was worried about emergency stops and the motor going through the dash board. The motor was put in a plastic case and it fit perfectly, plus I brought lots of padding for the seat. We seat belted it in and it was just like a heavy passenger that kept VERY quiet. The car was in Fort Worth and I was picking it up so leaving the passenger seat in TX was out of the question. The seat is in fine shape.

I do agree with you, running 87 octane is very dangerous and I would not recommend it for the reasons you stated.

Thanx,

Ken

 

ken I just imagined that it would disform the seat especially if it's leather

maybe you are responsible enough to run 87 octane but there is no way I'd trust myself to do it!

sounds like a successful trip

 

My only question...how much does Steve charge to tune?

 

why dont you pm him on the forum (pluto) or go to his website and email him gothamracing.com

 

it's free with an engine rebuild lol

 

102°C equals 215.6°F

thats pretty hot...

also, i wanna know how much kan charges to tune as well.