Lonnie
Blue Oval Chips
Had a customer with a very low mileage 97 that wanted a nitrous setup installed and dyno tuned. Since he lived 5 plus hours from me he wanted to try and have it done all in one day. Well Murphy’s Law took over just like it always does when you try something like this.
The kit was a Zex dry and no support equipment, ie window activation, gauge, heater. The install took longer than expected because of how much of a pita the Marks are for space and running wires into the people compartment from the engine bay. He wanted to go for the 125 and I suggested the 100. I was worried about the fuel pump. Ran out of time to fully run the wiring so I made up a make shift setup under the hood for the dyno.
Now he's had one of my mail order chips for awhile so it was supposed to be just a simple a/f adjustment for the NA program. With the first pull he was in the high 13s and making 218 rwhp. Once I got the a/f back to 12.5 which took a little work his power dropped to 212 but tq was the same. It was also about 97 degrees in the dyno bay with 3 fans going. I should also note that this dyno jet has always shown lower numbers than others that come from up north or from the east. Started tweaking on the timing but this car wouldn't take anymore. Even a degree more would send the KSs off and they would rape out 4 - 5 degrees no matter what. So we were stuck with 212 / 238.
Next was the nitrous pulls. Purged the system to make sure everything was working and then went for it. The car went lean big time and backed out of it. Fuel pump was not doing what it was supposed to be doing. Lesson 1, that I keep telling everyone don't think your 10 plus year old car's fuel pump is in any shape to stand up to any real performance even if it only has 30 some thousand miles on it. Lesson 2, never run any nitrous or forced induction setup without a real wide band O2 air/fuel monitoring setup.
The guy took the car back home to have a new 255 pump installed.
Back for round 2. The customer didn't feel that the new pump had any effect on the vehicle. First NA pull with the exact same program I had previously dynoed with a pretty much perfect 12.5 a/f and 212 hp. The conditions were slightly changed, it was 95 in the dyno bay and 10% more humid. The result of that first pull the car drifted from 11.7 - 12 a/f. That tells us that his pump was shot. With the new pump he's now much richer and so I had to retune it for the new pump. At one point I did get it a little lean 13.5 and that run made a peak of 220 which is pretty much normal for these Gen IIs, but this dyno reads low like I said before. After getting the air fuel settled back in again I ran into the same spark issue so the end result was 209 / 241 NA.
Now before I put it on the dyno this time the customer showed up with a really nice MSD electronic window switch, a gauge and heat blanket for me to also install. I really like the window switch setup, all digital.
First pull on the dyno and the a/f was all over the place. On initial activation it shot up to 16 and then dropped to off the scale below 10. So much for the Zex company and them saying No Tuning Needed. 9 pulls to dial this in and that got the initial shot down to 13. 2 and then holding at 12.0 - 11.8. The end result was with a heat soaked engine 306 / 386. Lesson 2 should be strictly followed. Oh and we pretty much used up the bottle with those pulls.
Now I think back at how many times I've read on various forums that so and so installed a nitrous system and never installed a wide band setup to monitor their a/f or even got it dyno tuned much less a mail order. And then I've had others that ordered a mail order program and then never got back to me with a/f and data logs. If I had to do this car by mail order I would have been pulling my hair out and lost money big time. I don't know what was up with this one but it wasn't as simple as others that I have done. So there's Lesson 3, not every vehicle will respond the same to the same given parts, expect the unexpected.
The kit was a Zex dry and no support equipment, ie window activation, gauge, heater. The install took longer than expected because of how much of a pita the Marks are for space and running wires into the people compartment from the engine bay. He wanted to go for the 125 and I suggested the 100. I was worried about the fuel pump. Ran out of time to fully run the wiring so I made up a make shift setup under the hood for the dyno.
Now he's had one of my mail order chips for awhile so it was supposed to be just a simple a/f adjustment for the NA program. With the first pull he was in the high 13s and making 218 rwhp. Once I got the a/f back to 12.5 which took a little work his power dropped to 212 but tq was the same. It was also about 97 degrees in the dyno bay with 3 fans going. I should also note that this dyno jet has always shown lower numbers than others that come from up north or from the east. Started tweaking on the timing but this car wouldn't take anymore. Even a degree more would send the KSs off and they would rape out 4 - 5 degrees no matter what. So we were stuck with 212 / 238.
Next was the nitrous pulls. Purged the system to make sure everything was working and then went for it. The car went lean big time and backed out of it. Fuel pump was not doing what it was supposed to be doing. Lesson 1, that I keep telling everyone don't think your 10 plus year old car's fuel pump is in any shape to stand up to any real performance even if it only has 30 some thousand miles on it. Lesson 2, never run any nitrous or forced induction setup without a real wide band O2 air/fuel monitoring setup.
The guy took the car back home to have a new 255 pump installed.
Back for round 2. The customer didn't feel that the new pump had any effect on the vehicle. First NA pull with the exact same program I had previously dynoed with a pretty much perfect 12.5 a/f and 212 hp. The conditions were slightly changed, it was 95 in the dyno bay and 10% more humid. The result of that first pull the car drifted from 11.7 - 12 a/f. That tells us that his pump was shot. With the new pump he's now much richer and so I had to retune it for the new pump. At one point I did get it a little lean 13.5 and that run made a peak of 220 which is pretty much normal for these Gen IIs, but this dyno reads low like I said before. After getting the air fuel settled back in again I ran into the same spark issue so the end result was 209 / 241 NA.
Now before I put it on the dyno this time the customer showed up with a really nice MSD electronic window switch, a gauge and heat blanket for me to also install. I really like the window switch setup, all digital.
First pull on the dyno and the a/f was all over the place. On initial activation it shot up to 16 and then dropped to off the scale below 10. So much for the Zex company and them saying No Tuning Needed. 9 pulls to dial this in and that got the initial shot down to 13. 2 and then holding at 12.0 - 11.8. The end result was with a heat soaked engine 306 / 386. Lesson 2 should be strictly followed. Oh and we pretty much used up the bottle with those pulls.
Now I think back at how many times I've read on various forums that so and so installed a nitrous system and never installed a wide band setup to monitor their a/f or even got it dyno tuned much less a mail order. And then I've had others that ordered a mail order program and then never got back to me with a/f and data logs. If I had to do this car by mail order I would have been pulling my hair out and lost money big time. I don't know what was up with this one but it wasn't as simple as others that I have done. So there's Lesson 3, not every vehicle will respond the same to the same given parts, expect the unexpected.
