Pretty random at this time, but seeing that I am very interested in FC3SDrift's roller, I was wondering if the REW was cheaper to get a hold of or should I just stick with making the 13b peripheral port motor... I'm planning on using it primarily for track use. Opinions on this? Lmfao and no, not using 3/4 rotor motors until I win the lotto

 

P.Ports are not cheap............trust me. If you are looking at any type of street driving a P.Port will not work very well at all, ours wont even run well below 6,000rpm, but when you get above 7500................WOW

 

I completely understand what you mean My pops races a PP and a race ported 13b in Guyana but that 13b PP in our FC runs pretty crummy at 3k and below.. But why would you need that low anyways? So I guess ill stick with the REW idea... But what car do you have the PP in? I'm only 18 (Since last Monday) but I can get the PP to run at 4k pretty solid I love when I get it to make the constant boop boop boop sound, that's when I know its boss enough to run. As long as that suspension can survive.....

 

This one lol. This engine is carburated and idles at 2200 RPM, at 3,000 its still undriveable

 

Not to thread-jack, but, Al, do you have any info on your front splitter? (jumped out at me in the picture) My old one is some expensive fiberglass shards now, and I'm thinking about trying to build my own.

To the original poster, an REW is probably going to cost less to buy, and last longer between rebuilds, but, well.. can you put a price on the sound of a PP? If you can, figure out what that price is, and if that price is less than the cost of the engine, you have your answer.

 

Dang Al that thing looks sweet! I wish I had time to set a car up here but no time
I really appreciate your responses guys

 

We have a local 2 rotor Pport that rips on the track but has been seen driving on the street as well he doesn't seem to have any issues idling at a reasonable level, and driveability seems to be pretty decent too. He's got a fair amount of experience building and tuning Pports so maybe that's whats made the difference?

His new engine will be street driven as well.

 

Yea not intended to thread jack but al can i also get specs of the front lip/splitter off you?? pleassseeee

 

I got the splitter from Mariah Motorsports they used to run e-prod in the SCCA. I dont know if they are still operatingm the sites last update seems to be 2006. It is a foam core with fiberglass over it, not cheap but very light weight. I think I paid about $1,000 US back in 2005 or 2006

http://www.mariahmotorsports.com/

 

EFI pports are street drivable but noise and fuel economy would be a problem of course. REW is a better option though unless you want the brap brap.

thewird

 

Yeah, why even bother trying to pull big numbers out of an NA engine when you can just turbocharge it and have bigger numbers with low RPM grunt, reasonable fuel economy, quiet exhaust and much easier tuning? I guess unless your racing class is NA only, or you just want it for the "Fun wow!" factor.

EFI makes high overlap ports easily drivable and idle well, but fuel economy will always suffer (hard to beat physics) and in order to get the maximum benefits of high overlap NA ports, the exhaust and intake are going to be loud. Not loud and you're restricting the engine. Fuel economy can be improved somewhat by carefully tuning injector timing. Always going to be down a lot from a regular street/stock port though.

The way I see it is that there's a PP NA 13B making 350HP at say, 9500 RPM. It's very loud, gets poor fuel economy, requires a custom intake and all the machining associated with the whole PP setup. Then there's a mild street port turbo 13B making 350HP with torque from 3000 RPM to 8000 RPM, that gets ~20 MPG in the city and close to 30 MPG on the highway, idles at 800 RPM and doesn't require ear plugs. I know which one I'd choose.

 

I understand. In conclusion, I'm deciding to go with the 13B turbo instead of the PP. I am still going to make the PP maybe March time, but im just going to look for a turbo 13B motor. Btw, Does anyone have a Turbo 13B S4 motor? I don't feel like working with the S5 as it gives me headaches for some reason....

 

REW would be my first choice or S5 T2 with a large/race streetport , S4's will not hold up to hi HP for track use.

 

S5 TII is almost the same as S4 TII. The only major difference are the turbocharger/manifold, slightly larger intake runners, electronic metering oil pump, thicker rear iron casting, and slightly different water pump housing/front cover to accommodate the electronic metering oil pump.

A track version won't use the metering oil pump so I don't see why you'd avoid the S5 engine because it is improved over S4.

 

Don't even consider an s4. S5 or rew only. Rew being the better choice. Rew with fd harness + powerfc = win.

thewird

 

Alrighty then! Now all what I need now is time

 

A few comments about P.ports with EFI etc. The only truly proven EFI system for a P.Port is offered by Racing Beat and it is a Motec system. They have now taken the price off their website, last time I looked with all "options" it was $10,000.00! All of the issues with P.Port EFI happen over 8500 rpm, which any good P.Port will spend most of its time at or over. While the Turbo cars make good power etc etc, not many of them have had any proven reliability in even completing a 20 minute regional race. The guys from Ottawa can attest to that. We make 330 engine horsepower and my engines last forever, the only thing that needs maintaining are the carbon apex seals, and if I ever spent an additional $3000.00 I could use ceramics and not even have that issue. There is a reason most of the racing rotaries are now 3 or 4 rotors and NA, its the reliability issue.

 

Microtech is a great simple system for pport and it costs a little over 1k with new wiring harness AND ignition coils. It has also been proven over the years in racing and high horsepower machines. It's also, by far the easiest ECU to tune out there for n/a's in my experience. The guys in Ottawa never had any electronics issues as far as i know.

On a unrelated note, my car has more track time then any race car and the only real issues i ever had were exhaust leaks from cracked manifolds or blown gasket from loose bolts (wrong turbo bolts). I did have a failed turbo but that was my fault for using a turbo blanket after being advised not to. Granted I only take it to 8,000 RPM but I'm also pushing ~20 PSi of boost most of the time and have zero overheating issues after 25 minute Mosport sessions on a hot and humid day. JDK's car can attest to similar in reliability as well, our cars are very similar ATM and we're both pushing over 500 crank hp.

A turbo rotary can be reliable if you know what your doing but quite frankly most people don't even though they think they do and/or cheap out on critical pieces of the system often which becomes more expensive down the road.

FYI, ceramics cost ~$1k shipped from NRS. They currently have a sale for imperfect seals for $500-$700 which are fine for N/A's as well.

thewird

 

In this day and age, there is no reason to use a Microtech for anything. Maybe if you get a good deal on it and are building a track only car. Anything that runs on the street needs an ECU with decent interpolation, 3D ignition tables, closed loop, idle valve control, etc. which the Microtech doesn't offer.

 

My suggestion was for pport race car which the microtech is perfect for. Simplicity in a race car is always preferable unless you have a tuner on standby to tune every bitty detail of a more advanced ecu, which isn't even benificial in a n/a pport imo.

And the Microtech, even new is still cheaper then other options so it can always be seen as a "good deal" given the need for it.

thewird

 

Bogus!
Motec makes a great system but there are other options. Microtec not being one of them lol

 

True enough. For a track car that is spending all it's time at high and wide open throttles in the upper RPM range, the Microtech will do the job in much the same way a carburetor will. But after being involved for so long with the LT series, since they came out in fact, I would never suggest one for a street car these days (as much as it pains me to say this).

Entry level Haltechs sell for about the same price but offer a far better feature set. Then there's the Megasquirt, which comes in at under $800 for a very capable ECU. With MS3, gone are the days where one needs to build circuits or adapt the ECU beyond setting a few jumpers and configuring the software.

 

[QUOTE=thewird;10992502]Microtech is a great simple system for pport and it costs a little over 1k with new wiring harness AND ignition coils. It has also been proven over the years in racing and high horsepower machines. It's also, by far the easiest ECU to tune out there for n/a's in my experience. The guys in Ottawa never had any electronics issues as far as i know.

On a unrelated note, my car has more track time then any race car and the only real issues i ever had were exhaust leaks from cracked manifolds or blown gasket from loose bolts (wrong turbo bolts). I did have a failed turbo but that was my fault for using a turbo blanket after being advised not to. Granted I only take it to 8,000 RPM but I'm also pushing ~20 PSi of boost most of the time and have zero overheating issues after 25 minute Mosport sessions on a hot and humid day. JDK's car can attest to similar in reliability as well, our cars are very similar ATM and we're both pushing over 500 crank hp.

A turbo rotary can be reliable if you know what your doing but quite frankly most people don't even though they think they do and/or cheap out on critical pieces of the system often which becomes more expensive down the road.

FYI, ceramics cost ~$1k shipped from NRS. They currently have a sale for imperfect seals for $500-$700 which are fine for N/A's as well.

thewird[/QUO

You sound exactly like I did before I started racing. I spent from 1990 - 2003 lapping and I will tell you that it is nothing like racing when it comes to abuse on your car. You come out to Mosport or Shannonville and run your car for at least 20minutes at full throttle all the time, maximum rpm on upshifts and downshifts, no rest, no getting stuck behind a slow car until you reach the passing zone etc. You will very quickly see the needs are totally different from lapping to racing. We are constantly upshifting at 9500- 10500 rpm, downshifting well above 11,000 rpm at times and that happens 9 times every 1 minute 17 seconds at Shannonville pro, and 11 times every 1 minute 37 seconds at Mosport. That is not just one hot lap done at those lap times, but lap after lap except the maybe the 1st 2 of the race. There is a big reason why these cars still run distributors and carbs, not crank fired ignition and EFI.

 

Again, my recommendation was for pport race car. I have tuned a few street cars with Microtechs though and its not terrible (especially N/A's). Hell, even tuned a turbo RX-8 boosting 12 PSi and its still running after 3 years. Granted, I wasn't satisfied with things like idle and injector staging but it did the job and hasn't failed. I understand completely where your coming from for a street car though.

3 years ago, I would have said you are crazy for suggesting a Haltech in a rotary race car. But now with the Platinum series they have fixed there issues and are easier to tune with more features as well. However, they are still pricy at a starting price of $1,600 for a P1000 which is feature limited (taking away some of its advantage but for a pport race car nothing is lost, only gained). This puts it at $300 more expensive and still doesn't come with ignition coils. So there is still some advantage price wise for a Microtech.

I haven't dealt with a Megasquirt yet so can't really comment on it. However, I will be tuning a BMW e36 race car with the latest Megasquirt so that will be interesting considering its the first piston I tune as well as Megasquirt hehe

Al, you should know I'm less of a time attacker and more of an endurance until I'm forced to get off the track. Maybe thats why I find CSCS boring. Anyway, your right every lap isn't a hot lap when you catch up to someone and have to wait for the next straight to pass. But often towards the end of the day you do have full clear sessions as not many are on the track.

RPM isn't really related as thats 99% engine build and car setup as it really has nothing to do with fuel/ignition control when using the correct equipment for the task (coils, injectors, crank sensors, ECU that supports the RPM which is all of them nowadays)

Hell, I got Dave to switch his 20b perry to EFI (Microtech) and he is happier then pig and **** (his words). The car makes more power and is easier to drive then the distributor/carb setup on the same engine. It also just works and required no tinkering, tweaking, or touching of any kind after I tuned it. The only requests I got from Dave was "raise the rev limiter" a few times which I was more then happy to do .

Also, I don't mean to be a dick with all this back and forth but I do have a little tiny bit of experience in the EFI/tuning field in a variety of applications

thewird

 

I love the "ECU wars".

No, it's not terrible and I agree that on a race car, the simplicity of the Microtech is an advantage. That's of course their legacy and probably the reason why the LT series comes from the factory in carburetor mode. The main issue I have is with tuning them in any application is the stone aged software. Compared to the old Halwin or Megatune of 8 years ago, the Microtech software is insanely behind the times. It is hostile to the user. Once used to it's quirks, there are a few neat features but that doesn't make up for the rest of the experience.

Regarding price, there is the Sprint RE. I can't find any max RPM specs on the Haltech site (didn't really look very hard) but as long as it will read to 12,000 RPM, then use on a peripheral port race car (if desired over the Microtech) would be fine. Only high impedance injectors though. Meh, the Haltechs of 3 years ago were fine, or even those of 10 years ago (minus some reluctor issues in the K series) for track cars as they were about the state of the industry at the time. Compared to today of course they are dinosaur. In the late 90s, if you had an RX-7 with a standalone, it was running a Haltech.

I think you'll be quite surprised and impressed once you see how capable the MS3 is, and how easy TunerStudio is to work with. There's a reason why 90% of the ECUs I've installed over the last 6 years have been Megasquirt. Now with MS3 you can truly make a direct comparison between the MS and the other ECUs on the market. Very excited for this weekend as my friend will be finally bringing his MS3 to the shop so the install can begin on his FC. Small street port, hybrid stock turbo, upgraded top mount IC, full idle/boost/twin scroll control. It will be such a nice car to drive.

MS on piston cars is, well, basically the same on rotary once you have the ECU configured. I've tuned Megasquirt on a turbo Dodge 4 cylinder (Daytona), NA I6 Supra Celica, twin turbo Windsor 302, some kind of VW based thing and an Audi A4. Ignoring the issues caused by those who have put the cars together, the Megasquirt part has always been positive.