I left at 7:00am Monday and had a two-hour plane switch in Atlanta and then arrived at PHL at 3:15pm. Took about 40 minutes to get the rental car. I had my MapQuest instructions to get to KDR in Nazareth, PA. About 30 miles out during rush hour I had a flat tire. It was pretty scary changing it with vehicles rushing by you 3 feet away. Then the exit (33) I was to take was blocked off with flares. Radio said it was closed indefinitely. So now it’s 17 miles to the next exit (34). All of a sudden traffic grinds to a halt. Took about 45 minutes to get through that. It was because of a tollbooth. Now I don’t have any maps for where I am and I’m kind of lost and it’s dark outside. I asked the tool booth person and he gave me instructions on taking 248 to Nazareth. At this point I’m really late and I needed to call Dave and let him know. I stopped at an Exxon station and had my $30 bag of coins for all the tollbooths for my trip back to MN. I called Dave and got a recording and left a message that I’m on my way but will be late, but I’d be there. Took off and about 15 miles out I noticed I left my bag of coins at the Exxon station. I rushed back hoping no one stole it. Picked it up and started out again. I was told to go straight on 248 to Nazareth. Went through a small town and went straight but after about 5 miles this was not 248. Stopped and found out that 248 in the small town was not marked and I should have turned left at the stoplight. I received more excellent instructions and made it to Nazareth. Needed more instructions on getting to KDR. Everyone I received instructions from were great. Arrived at KDR at 8:10pm. There was a note on the door that Dave left at 8:00pm and assumed I was going to sleep over in a motel. Now I’m really screwed, as I will not make it back home in time for my 12.5-hour work shift and I loss that pay. Now there is no way I can make it back with no sleep for 70+ hours so I need to stay over and that will cost me. I then go to a bar to try to get a hold of Dave so I can get back on schedule. I called Gordon, the guy that was to pick me up at the airport. He could not as he contracted pneumonia. Gordon gave me Dave’s cell phone and I called. Got a recorder and left a message for him to call me at the bar. It was Monday night football and it was Philly vs. SF and the bar was full of drunken Philly fans. Game was a route and boring for me. After an hour I called Dave again and left a message. At this point I decided to stay at the bar and then go to KDR and wait in the car till he opened in the morning at 9:00am. That was a lot of fun starting the car every 30 minutes to keep warm.

I will not go into all the details of my day at KDR. Turns out Dave left his cell phone at work so he did not get my messages. I guess he had to leave at 8:00pm the night before to get his wife to some place at 8:30pm. Those ten minutes that I missed him really cost me. One bad thing did happen during the day. I brought my 24 CDs of music for my 12-changer CD player to listen to on my long trip back. During the 20 months my car was there someone stole it, so nothing to listen to on the way back. Dave said just get a new one installed and he’d send me a check as soon as he receives the bill including installation. I leave KDR at about 4:00pm. I’m driving a high-powered light sports car with high performance wide tires that are only good when the roads are in good shape. If the road conditions are bad these cars are very, very dangerous to handle. Those who know these cars know what I’m talking about. About 150 miles out of Nazareth it starts snowing. Semis don’t care they just keep going at high speeds. Roads start getting wet, then snowy and then icy. Every time a semi passed the wind would make my car unstable. I can say this for a fact; I’m darn lucky I did not end up in a ditch or worse.
I also can say that the traction control feature I added to my car saved me for those next 50 miles of hell. The radio said the storm was all the way to Ohio so I knew I had to get off the roads ASAP. I stopped at the first opportunity and stayed at a Super8 motel. Watched the weather channel all-night and got about 3 hours of sleep. Took off at about 8:00am and the next 100 miles the roads were not great but okay. Then it started to snow again. Now I really worried that I’ll have to stay over again and miss Thanksgiving with my relatives. The roads were not as bad as the night before and I limped along until I got past Cleveland and the snow stopped and the roads were good again. Now I get to Chicago during rush hour and its getting dark. It’s also holiday time and I spent 2 hours in stop and go at 5mph getting around Chicago. The rest of the way was uneventful. Made it home with no speeding tickets. Arrived at 12:05am Thanksgiving. Slept for 4 hours and made it to the dinner. All I have to say is my prayers were answered and I thank God I made it back okay.

Ken, 58 years young
'94 white, pep, red leather,
mods: Hayes/KDR street port & polished,
3mm Hurley racing seals,
upgraded coolant seals,
Power FC ecu, Commander, Datalogit,
XS T04e single turbo kit,
GReddy SMIC (400+cu.in.),
Aquamist 2s water injection kit,
Pettit ss resonated MP,
Pettit ss cat-back,
RP Racing fuel pump,
1600cc injectors,
Profec B(16&22psi),
3-Bar Map Sensor,
Centerforce clutch,
Racelogic Traction Control,
Under pulley kit (no air pump),
Pettit short shifter kit,
LaBreck's bushings,
Evans Coolant
http:///luv94rx7.html

 

ken, i'm glad u made it back home safely. best of luck with the "new" ride. i will be taking a trip to kdr in the spring for dyno tuning.

 

Dave's a good guy. He tuned my car to be bullet-proof. He said that my mods will make it that way. He also said my water injection cut my air intake temps 35F on the dyno. He also said my IC and XS T04e kit were the simpilist he ever worked on. If you have a high-powered FD don't be without traction control. It saved my life. On dry roads it kicks butt. Dave could not believe what it does.

Ken, 58 years young
'94 white, pep, red leather,
mods: Hayes/KDR street port & polished,
3mm Hurley racing seals,
upgraded coolant seals,
Power FC ecu, Commander, Datalogit,
XS T04e single turbo kit,
GReddy SMIC (400+cu.in.),
Aquamist 2s water injection kit,
Pettit ss resonated MP,
Pettit ss cat-back,
RP Racing fuel pump,
1600cc injectors,
Profec B(16&22psi),
3-Bar Map Sensor,
Centerforce clutch,
Racelogic Traction Control,
Under pulley kit (no air pump),
Pettit short shifter kit,
LaBreck's bushings,
Evans Coolant
http:///luv94rx7.html

 

"I also can say that the traction control feature I added to my car saved me for those next 50 miles of hell."


Traction control? That's a new one on me. Can you supply any details of the system you added to your car?

 

http://www.racelogic.co.uk/

Ken

 

hey Ken, now that you have your car will I see you on the track this season?

 

If anyone would like 5 pics (100KB per pic) of my engine bay and see the Aquamist water install then just e-mail me your address and I will forward them to you. Takes about 4 minutes on a 56kbs modem.

Ken

 

My e-mail address is luv94rx7@aol.com

Ken

 

Ken, I was up at KDR and Dave showed me your turbo...anyways I think it was your car (it was the summer of 01 when I got a streetport) Sounds like a nightmare day for you - glad you made it home safe, especially in the snow. Not sure if you were able to test out the car on any dry roads yet but I think you'll be happy with the T04e, especially with water injection. Should spool like the sequential stockers and be much more reliable. Although it was 20 months , hopefully you'll have a lot of fun in your basically new car. Atleast you didn't get the flat in your FD on the way home

 

Ken:

If I read the info correctly, the traction control is via controlling the fuel injector pulse? Won't that cause a lean condition when the system activates? Can you share more info with us? Thank you.

Chuck

 

bklues@swipnet.se

Is on the "Big List" and says there are about 5 FDs with traction control. I'm asking him to post his experiences. It does cut the fuel down. Dave says I will be fine with my water injection as long as my air intake temps stay below 150F. I have the Commander to monitor that as well as 4 Omega air temp probs that are set up at many places. One is at the K&N air filter, one after the turbo(Max so far was 198F at 15psi), one after the IC and one after the water injection.

Ken

 

Ken,

I plan to have Dave Barninger re-do my motor when the time comes...

Why did it take 21 months for KDR to do your car?

My plan was for Dave was to tear down a new Malloy Mazda Reman, and rebuild the reman with a port job and reliability mods. He estimated about 2 weeks for the job to be done, not counting the install, which I'll probably have him do as well (estimate a day's worth for the install)?

 

Don't ask. I will explain in the long range future.

Ken

 

I as thinking the same thing. There DOES seem to be one for cars with EFI though. It connects over to the ignition...

Ken, I'm glad you made it home ok. When I lived next to KDR, I heard MANY horror storries of people picking
up their finished car at KDR and never making it home

By the way, I'm still picturing some guy walking around with a bag full of $30s worth in coins

 

It reduces the fuel to the maximum traction setting(0, 5, 10, 15, 20%). Dave said don't let it go above 150F intake air temps and I will be okay. I have all the temp gauges that will tell me that.

So far max after turbo is 196F. Intake was 96F.

That's with water off as it broke. It is now fixexd.

My guess it will be 60F after high boost(15psi) with water on, water now works.

Ken

 

Just e-mail me at

luv94rx7@aol.com

About 30 have already done so.

Ken

 

http://flathat.woodstream.net/LUV94RX7/

Some pics.

Ken

 

Dyno?

Regards,
Brian

 

14psi boost.

330 lbs torque at 5k rpms.

rwhp rpm
053 - 2.5
084 - 3.0
137 - 3.5
212 - 4.0
260 - 4.5
300 - 5.0
330 - 5.5
345 - 6.0
340 - 6.5
325 - 7.0

CARTEST2000 simulates it at high 11s - low 12s 121mph at 14psi.
124 mph at 21psi.

Not as good as I had hoped but Dave said with the water injection it should be bullet-proof. Dave does not tune at the ragged edge.

Ken, 58 years young
'94 white, pep, red leather,
mods: Hayes/KDR street port & polished,
3mm Hurley racing seals,
upgraded coolant seals,
Power FC ecu, Commander, Datalogit,
XS T04e single turbo kit,
GReddy SMIC (400+cu.in.),
Aquamist 2s water injection kit,
Pettit ss resonated MP,
Pettit ss cat-back,
RP Racing fuel pump,
1600cc injectors,
Profec B(14&21psi),
3-Bar Map Sensor,
Centerforce clutch,
Racelogic Traction Control,
Under pulley kit (no air pump),
Pettit short shifter kit,
LaBreck's bushings,
Evans Coolant
http://nopistons.com/luv94rx7.html

 

Looks good to me!

 

The lean condition that it will create will be too lean for ignition. Spark control would work also, but cutting fuel supposedly makes operation "smoother".

This is from RaceLogic:

"Fuel Cut
The idea of cutting fuel to an engine sets alarm bells ringing in engine builders, as they all know of the potential disaster of a high revving race engine running lean. Running in a lean combustion mode will elevate in-cylinder temperatures very rapidly, the denser the air/fuel charge, the more heat the lean burn can generate. Therefore it is vital that a fuel cut system will not cause a lean burn.

The simplest way of preventing a lean burn is to remove more than 50% of the fuel from the pulsed delivery. A mixture will only ignite if the air/fuel ratio is within a tightly defined window, look at the efforts being put into making lean burn engines fire on very low air/fuel ratios (1:20 or more). Removing more than 50% of the fuel will cause an air fuel ratio of over 1:25 and will result in a complete miss-fire, with the unburned fuel passing out through the exhaust valve. Even if a high air/fuel ratio did manage to ignite, the energy available from the amount of petrol injected wouldn't be enough to elevate temperatures significantly. Of course the ideal system will remove 100% of the pulsed fuel delivery, allowing the cylinder to take a gulp of fresh air, and the in-cylinder temperature would remain virtually unaffected.

Prolonged fuel cut on one particular cylinder would cause scavenging of the petrol lining the inlet tracts, and when the next full fuel pulse arrived, it would be partially reduced in quantity by the re-wetting of these tracts. Therefore it is often important to manage a rotation of the cylinder cutting to prevent this situation from occurring.

Spark cut
Cutting the spark to an engine will stop any chances of a weak mixture occurring, but it carries it's own potential problems due to a large quantity of unburned fuel travelling through the cylinder and out of the exhaust. This petrol can remove some of the oil lining the inside of the cylinder, and pass it thorough the exhaust, again this only becomes a problem if the fuel to one particular cylinder is cut for an extended time. The best way to overcome this is to rotate the order in which the cylinders are cut.

The unburned fuel in the exhaust will have a catastrophic affect if there is a catalytic converter in the exhaust, as it will try to convert the unburned fuel to harmless elements, effectively burning the mixture. This causes the catalytic converter to heat up very rapidly, reaching temperatures in excess of 1000°C, and possibly melting down completely. Thus prolonged spark cut is not recommended for catalytic equipped cars."

 

what happend to them, did they die? i never knew a trip to kdr could be so dangerous. and all that snow, im thankful i live in texas.

 

Yeah I remember a certain someone driving his single turbo into a tree 30 min after he left Daves on his way back to STL.

 

what's w/ the bag of coins? why no cell? those coins cost you a lot more than what they were worth.

 

You got that right.

Ken