Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Dyno and Drag Baseline dyno

I went to a local SVTOA dyno day this morning to try and get a baseline number before I start making major modifications. The temp was about 85, so I know I was getting a little heatsoak. The A/F wasn't working right on the dyno system, so we were using a seperate O2 with a digital readout. According to those there, I was running a little lean early on, but dropped to about 12.5 by the end of each run.

Run 1:



Run 2:



It was obvious where the secondaries open up, but the second run looked really severe. Is this the fault of the dyno, or might there be something with the car?

its really hard to tell what the cause of it might be. You could be hitting a lean spot when the secondaries open. Any chance you could get a air/fuel prinout from the dyno?

Not until they fix it. Or I could go to a different dyno.

With little mods that isn't too bad.

Other than the dip I was pretty happy that my 8 yr old car is still running like it should

It looks to me like your intake system needs a serious cleaning. If you haven't already done so that is. I'm talking about soaking your upper intake in cleaner, pulling the lower intake and cleaning it, and cleaning the intake runners to the heads. That is probably lots of turbulence when the secondaries open up due to gunk on the valves and on the plates/runners before the flow actually gets going.
Also, look how your torque just falls flat on its face...bad for an SVT. Another thing, you have the early lower intake. Change that biotch out to a newer version. While you have it out you can pull the rods and throttle plates out and bore that secondary runner over a bit either by hand or at a machine shop. I got rid of my dip almost completely by enlarging my secondary runner with a cutting bit and then polishing it with a drum sander. I took it over about 1.5mm and then readjusted the secondary stop since it was wider. THe benefits were that there is now a small gap around axis side of the secondary plates and air is alway flowing past them. This helps because it keeps buildup off the plates and walls of the runner since it is always flowing and it helps minimize that turbulence when the second column of air begins to flow when the plate opens.

Oh yeah, check your airfilter in case it needs help. Something is limiting your high rpm flow. It may just be the intake being dirty, it may be the filter and intake, and it may be all the above AND/OR exhaust.
Is the catalytic converter stock? I'm guessing that after 8 years the precats or main cat will be suckin in ultimate peak flow right now, especially if they are original.

That doesn't look too bad to me. My numbers were 169fwhp/153fwtq with a K&N RU-3530 and a TruBendz Magnaflow exhaust. The torque curve does look a little off though.

After what I saw after cleaning my UIM/LIM, changing spark plugs(looked really worn out)and wires,and optimizing my y-pipe I am expecting some decent gains. Sorry for hijacking this thread but does anyone want to take a guess at my new numbers?

Thank you for the suggestions. The intake does need a good cleaning on both my Duratecs, so that job has been on my todo list for a long time. Other than that I do have headers waiting to be installed, and I have a new LIM on my list of planned mods. The airfilter is just fine (hell the whole engine bay has remained mostly spotless for the last two years), but I was planning a cleaning before I put it in storage for the winter. Maybe I'll bump that up a bit.