Intelligent Engine Modifications

With so much misinformation and BS out there in the performance aftermarket

world, we have decided to offer the reader some real tips based on 20 years of
performance engine building and turbocharging experience.
Street or Race?
This is probably the biggest question related to successful mods and the most often
ignored. Many people just don't understand why you can't drive a race spec engine
on the street. Let's examine the differences in the 2 different worlds:
Street
A good street engine should have a smooth idle, have lots of low end torque, a wide
powerband, long life and good fuel economy. To get these characteristics, most
street engines have relatively moderate camshaft timing, small turbos, small
diameter intake ports with long runners and usually cast pistons. They are designed
to run on gasoline with an octane rating of 87 to 92 RON in most cases and usually
produce less than 100 hp/liter in naturally aspirated form and 120 hp/liter in
turbocharged form
Race
Ideally, a good race engine should have all of the same characteristics that the
street engine has above but since high power output is one of the primary concerns,
many compromises in those other desirable traits must be made to achieve this
power level. To achieve higher power, ports are opened up for increased flow at high
rpm and camshaft timing and lifts are increased, both of which kill off low rpm
torque, power, fuel economy and that smooth idle.
The rpm capabilities are upped to permit higher airflow rates. This is usually done
by changing to stronger parts such as connecting rods, pistons, crankshafts and
valve springs. If the engine is turbocharged, a larger turbo and intercooler along
with forged pistons and stronger rods are fitted to handle the loads. Raising the
redline will not make any more power in most cases unless the engine components
are modified to efficiently pass that increased airflow.
On naturally aspirated engines, the compression ratio is often raised substantially to
boost torque and power. This is possible when using high octane race fuel. On turbo
engines, the compression ratio may either be raised or lowered depending upon fuel
octane allowed, maximum boost pressure and possible fuel limits for the race.
As you can see, the two engines vary considerably in requirements and execution.
The problem comes in when someone wishes to increase the power output of a
street driven engine beyond reasonable limits while expecting no major degradation
in "streetable" qualities.

Naturally Aspirated Engines for the Street

On atmo engines for street use, there are only a few ways to substantially increase
airflow and thus power.
Porting the head will improve airflow if done correctly. If the ports and runners are
enlarged greatly, low speed torque will suffer considerably.
Higher duration and lift cams are the main modification for increasing power. The
more duration and valve overlap a cam has generally, the worse the low end torque,
fuel economy and idle will be. Of course, top end power should be better. On most 4
cylinder engines, going with more than 285 degrees of duration at 0 lift will result in
truly gutless bottom end power. With too much cam, the effective powerband
becomes so narrow that the car is just plain miserable to drive in traffic. Most street
engines spend the majority of their time in the 2000-4500 rpm range. Engines
which are heavily cammed may not begin to produce substantial gains until above
4500 rpm and you are paying for this 95% of the time while being able to enjoy that
top end only 5% of the time. We see more problems and complaints with people
fitting race type cams in street type engines. It makes the EFI hard to tune and the
car annoying to drive in many cases. Don't overcam!
Increasing the compression ratio is another way to increase power. It also increases
fuel mileage. Unfortunately, the pump fuel available in most areas limits the
compression ratio useable on the street to under 10.5 to 1 on most engines. The
difference in power is minimal going from say 9 to 10.5 to 1 and it is a lot of work to
shave the head or install new pistons. Again, if you get stupid and try to run an 12
to 1 CR on 92 octane fuel, you will suffer with lots of pinging and eventual failure.
Many high compression street engines must have their timing severely retarded to
avoid detonation which reduces the power right back to stock levels. Don't raise
the compression ratio too high!
Raising the redline to achieve higher airflow through the engine is another way of
increasing power. To do this effectively, you will likely need to install a hotter cam
with stiffer valve springs, port the head and possibly install stronger bottom end
parts like connecting rods. The factory redline is there for a reason. If you exceed it
repeatedly by a large margin, you may eventually have a catastrophic failure.
Installing a header and free flowing exhaust along with a cold air induction system
may free up a few more hp on certain engines. Don't expect gains of over 10% with
these mods on most engines.
Nitrous oxide injection is used quite extensively in drag racing for a substantial
power gain. When adding large amounts of nitrous, engine components may have
to be upgraded to withstand the higher pressures involved. This is not usually a
great mod for street use as everything must be just right as far as fuel and nitrous

flow goes and of course the major disadvantage is that the tank runs dry after only
a few minutes of use and must be refilled.
Conclusion
On street driven atmo engines, there are minimal gains to be had on most small
engines without sacrificing a lot of driveability. If you need more power, you need a
larger engine usually. Expecting your 18 second car to do 13 seconds while
retaining good idle and fuel economy when modified is unrealistic most of the time.
Turbocharged Engines for the Street
Turbos are a different ball of wax but many of the same mistakes are made when
modifying them. Most of the same power increasing methods from above can also
be applied to turbo engines. Because turbo engines usually have lower compression
ratios than atmo engines, they do not take kindly to hot cams on the street. The
gain in top end will almost always be offset by a huge loss in the lower powerband
and more turbo lag. Stock cams are the way to go on most turbo street engines.
Don't waste your money on so called "turbo cams" for 4 and 6 cylinder engines.
These may boost economy slightly but they almost always lose power. Most of these
were designed by guesswork rather than by actual turbo experience. 4 Valve
engines in general when turbocharged do not need hotter cams for the street.
Porting a turbo head will make the same type of gains as on an atmo head despite
what some people say. You can make the same power with less boost or more power
with the same boost.
To obtain higher than stock outputs, the compression ratio should be LOWERED on
a street turbo. This will permit higher boost with optimized timing on low octane
fuel. Forged pistons are an excellent idea on turbos as they have 2-3 times the
strength and heat dissipation of cast pistons. Forged connecting rods, colder spark
plugs and stronger head gaskets are also recommended.
Stock turbos are usually sized for mid range torque and are undersized even for
stock top end power. Compressor and turbine size upgrades are needed to realize
substantial power gains. Going too large on turbos will lead to poor low end
response. Turbos need to be properly matched for the application and primary
intended usage. A couple of rules of thumb can be used if you have access to a
compressor map. HP X 1.62 = airflow in CFM, HP divided by 8.07 = airflow in
lbs./min. Avoid matching for efficiencies of under 65% at full power and operation
near the surge line also.
Intercooling is extremely important. Stock intercoolers with a few exceptions are
total crap when used for performance applications.They offer low efficiencies and
high pressure drop. Install a properly matched core from Spearco. The closer that

your charge temperature is to the ambient temperature, the higher the HP potential
will be.
Finally, boost pressures can be raised to increase engine airflow and power. This can
only be done within the limitations of the fuel octane rating and ignition timing.
Read the other tech articles relating to combustion and fuel for a better
understanding. In any case, running 20 psi on the street is relatively meaningless.
High boost pressure does not necessarily mean high HP. If you are running this kind
of boost on the street, you probably have a host of mismatched or restrictive parts
on your engine. With properly matched components and an efficient intercooler, one
rarely needs to exceed 15 psi on the street. With these in place, you will be at the
safe mechanical limits of most stock based engines and HP will be doubled or tripled
over stock. Check out some of the cars on our project page prepared at Racetech if
you don't believe this. Since engine life will plummet once you exceed this type of
output, it is not a viable option for most people to be rebuilding an engine every
10,000 miles. You don't have a streetable engine in my opinion at this point.
Conclusion
Power may be increased substantially through turbocharging on the street but
reliability will suffer unless it is applied correctly.
Turbo Race Engines
I will use a Toyota 2TC engine which I prepared for road racing use a few years ago
as an example of what can be done with properly applied engine modifications and
turbocharging. The stock engine starts out as a 1588cc, 2 valve per cylinder,
pushrod, crossflow hemi. The stock hp is rated at 70 at 6000 rpm.
The block was bored out from 85mm to 88mm to fit Mahle VW forged pistons. This
mod brings the displacement out to 1702cc and drops the compression ratio from
8.6 to 7.2 to 1. The rest of the block is totally stock as is the crankshaft.
The connecting rods were polished and shotpeened. They were converted to a full
floating pin arrangement to suit the new pistons and Ford SPS big block bolts were
fitted to withstand the higher anticipated rpms.
The camshaft selected was the same cam we used on our race atmo 2T engines
with .430 valve lift/ 284/222 degrees duration at 0 and .050 lift respectively on 108
degree lobe centers. Valves were enlarged from 41 to 44.5mm on the intake via
Ford 6 cylinder ones and from 36 to 38mm via Nissan 200SX ones. The head was
extensively ported on the flow bench taking intake flow from 82 to 122 cfm and the
exhaust from 66 to 86 cfm. Valve guides were shortened and bronze bushed for
increased flow and heat dissipation. Exhaust seats were widened to .080 for better
heat transfer. Norris triple valve springs and aluminum retainers were also used.
A stock oil pump was used and an HKS 1mm metal head gasket was fitted.

On the externals; A custom, equal length header was made using 1.625 inch ID
thick walled tubing , a custom intake manifold was made fitted with a 70mm
Mercedes throttle body and eight Bosch 490cc injectors. The turbo was a Garrett
TO4 with H-3 compressor and a .58 turbine. This blew through a massive Spearco
intercooler measuring 17 X 21 X 3 inches and 2.5 inch mandrel bent tubing. The
exhaust was 3 inch mandrel bent tubing open. Fuel was M-85.
This engine produced 358hp at 7700 rpm at only 15 psi boost. The stock hp was
quintupled! Engine life was approximately 6 hours at this power level and about 15
hours at 12 psi and 310hp. Eventually, the main bearing caps cracked from the
power output but this was caught before major damage occurred. The effective
powerband was 5000 up. Redline was limited to 7700 rpm mainly for valvetrain
longevity although hp was still increasing at this point. This engine was used for
road racing so the life expectancy had to be about a full season or 15 hours.
Conclusion
Turbocharged race engines can produce staggering hp numbers given strong
enough parts however engine life goes down as power is increased. A narrow
powerband may be acceptable on a race engine because close ratio gearboxes are
usually fitted to minimize rpm drop between shifts.
There seems to be two types of people preparing turbo race engines for import drag
racing. One school uses small, stock based turbos for quick spool up. These engines
run super high boost but don't make any power. School two fits turbos which are
way too large. These have poor turbo response and a super narrow powerband.
They produce very high hp across only 1000 rpm on the top end and as a result are
not very quick. Bigger turbos don't necessarily mean quicker times. Turbos must be
properly matched on the compressor as well as the turbine end.
Some people really know what they are doing and some don't. 450 hp out of a 16
valve 1900cc Acura drag motor at 25 psi is just not impressive when years ago Jack
Roush was producing in excess of 700 hp out of 8 valve 2.3 and 2.5 liter Ford Pinto
engines for road racing events running from 2 to 24 hours.
Engine Displacement
For street use, you want as many cubic inches as you can get. Torque on the street
is king. Always go for as many cubes as you can if you have a choice of engines.
Performance EFI Considerations
When increasing airflow through your engine for more power, you must also
increase fuel flow to match. At some point, the stock injectors and possibly fuel
pump will not supply enough fuel. Larger injectors will have to be fitted. As soon as
you do this with the stock ECU, the engine will no longer run properly. You will have
to either rechip or install a different EFI system.

If your engine uses a vane type airflow meter, you are losing a substantial amount
of power potential through its restriction. It is foolish to spend a lot of time and
money improving engine airflow, then strangling it with a door type meter on the
front. Engines fitted with this type of meter will usually gain at least 10% when
changed to a large hot wire or speed/density type system. It is important to note
that when the airflow flap bottoms out at high airflow rates, it is no longer capable
of sending a proper signal to the ECU. The fuel mixture will no longer be correct.
Some companies offer rising rate fuel pressure regulators with their turbo kits to
allow increased injector flow rate over stock pressure. Instead of adding 1 psi of fuel
pressure per psi of boost as in a conventional FPR, they will ramp up at 2-5 psi per
psi of boost. Some of these work OK at low boost but the fuel delivery curve is now
in the hands of a mechanical device, not the ECU. This is crude at best. It takes 4
times the fuel pressure to double the fuel flow. If your stock fuel pressure is 45 psi,
you will need 180 psi to double your fuel flow.
Two things happen here. First, many injectors become non-linear in fuel delivery
above 60-70 psi differential or may not even open, leading to a possible lean out
condition under boost. Secondly, the fuel pump is not designed to do this. It either
can't produce the pressure or volume needed or will burn out quickly due to the
massive increase in current draw. These are a bad idea at high boost pressures.
Conclusion
Use the right tool for the job. You don't normally use pliers to turn a screw in. It
works, but not well. The same thing goes for performance EFI applications. Sure,
you can trick an old L-Jetronic system with a resistor on the water temp input and
get some more fuel out of the system but the method has serious limitations past a
point and will not really supply the correct mixture across the operating range.
Hopefully I have touched on some of the major points here and saved you some
money and time on your project.