I purchased an 06 CS 3.4l with a TPC turbo kit installed by TPC. It has Tractive suspension,
GT3
brakes,electro hydraulic steering pump, Snow methanol cooling as well as all the Tarret parts underneath. This is a full caged car with front splitter and large rear wing. trailered to track used for HPDE
This is the first car i have driven that i did not build. When i got it i think it was running about 6.5# boost but never had a non NA car so struggling to figure out what I am dealing with.
Well at beginning of last year battery went dead causing GReddy Pro Spec 2 boost controller to reboot. now it seems to be at 4.5# which i believe is basically as if it was off.
Tried contacting. TPC but they seemed pretty busy and unable to help.
Can anyone recommend what the controller should be set at or how i might go about getting this sorted out.
You’d think TPC would use their own manual boost control. I’ve had a perfect B boost control and I threw it in the garbage with a host of other jdm alphabet soup gizmo’z… id get a manual turbo smart setup… if you don’t take my below advice 😂
Turbo’s on a 12.5: 1 compression flat 6 motor…🤔 No-no-no!! You’ll blow that motor I guarantee it… even at 6psi. These motors are already wound pretty tight… so, if you want my opinion there is another component for the garbage can… and now your saying they aren’t returning you messages… bingo…
if you want more power (and I’ve told this to a few
Porsche
friends), sell your motor because they go for a nice premium and get a 996/997 TT motor and do this right… or you’ll blow yours and that’ll cost 20k for a rebuild anyway…
As
Porsche
described above, the
M97 engine
was not designed for this extra compression. So, what to do. My opinion and that's what you are getting here is opinions, just leave the boost at 4.5 for the time being and get used to the car. Do not over boost this engine, as the rings, cylinder walls and pistons will not transfer the heat correctly. Try to find out what stage kit was installed. One stage, TPC actually cracked the block and changed pistons and added more oil spray on the piston skirts to reduce piston skirt heat and increase oil film on the cylinder walls. Google to see these kits for sale. Then try to determine which kit was installed.
Some owners have had great success with these kits while others got a lot of metal like flakes in their oil filters. If you are able to drive to TPC, make an appointment for a boost controller refit or tune. Ask as many questions as possible face to face as they are making money again on this project, so they are more likely to answer your questions.
Your car has a number of great parts so do not turn it into a roller. Get a strategy together to keep that M97 alive. Check out Jake Raby at flat6innovations and watch his videos on bore scoring. Then think about how to protect your piston skirts and cylinder walls from the additional stress of the turbo boost. I use
Motul
300 v Power 5W40 ester based product. Also find out what TPC recommends and why. Let us know your progress, Others exactly like you have recently gone through this process on P9.
Well said Apex ^
It’s also in the tune..I’d love to see the A/F mixture at their max boost. I have 25yrs of boost history (I started young) with an RX-7 in 1996 before the craze hit, then an NSX, MR2 and an Exige. You want to talk about walking on eggshells shells? Rotaries and boost can be like that… that’s what this can be like too… but I can rebuild a rotary for 500.00. M97’s will cost you 20k… let that marinate for a while
what a great response so far from group. Before
Porsche
drove Ariel Atom K20 NA car so this is a new adventure for me. This will be my 2nd season in CS since last year was kind of a bust. New to this group but been on ******** chasing stuff around.
I was thinking i would just drive the car until it failed and then replace motor with a Flat6 3.6l upgrade. I never considered anyone would want this motor with turbo. Our season starts soon so thinking of just leaving it as is and if it makes it pull motor in fall and swap. I do 20+ track days a year and car is so solid in corners i can hold my own except in straights.
Also i have the oil tested at
LN Engineering
and so far not issues. Taking it back to TPC is a great idea. I will call TPC and see if they have some type of refresh program
If you know of anyone who might want this motor send them my way.
again thanks
Stugatts - This project is a great example of the history of the M97 and what may happen by carefully using available information and your builder to complete the race season with this motor. The cylinder walls are a matrix of sodium and aluminum and the piston skirts have a plastic type coating, so heat and pressure are the main issues here. Can TPC tell you how to modify the air/fuel mixture to help keep the heat down. The piston rings take the blunt of this extra compression, turning the ignition explosion into a downwards force. So see what their (TPC) engineers thought about to keeping the rings in the grove in this and the ring lands smooth. The “ring lands” are the two horizontal faces (in case of vertical cylinder axis) in the piston grooves for the rings where the rings land, when they are bounced up and down in the grooves, by combustion pressure, intake vacuum and friction.
This is a very important sealing face affecting compression and leak-down numbers. The ring lands should have close to mirror surface finish.
Too much detonation can open up the grooves and result in excessive ring groove clearance, typically a precursor to broken ring lands.This message is regarding the lower builds from TPC (without cracking the engine case and installing new pistons) using the OEM pistons and cylinder walls.
You will be running OEM pistons and cylinder walls with at least a 17 to 1 compression ratio. This puts a lot of extra pressure on your
ECU
software package to control preignition and piston heat build up. I would get Scott at Softronics involved, if TPC does not want to help for various reasons. Scott could find a way using the existing
ECU
unit to control various maps with 10 times as many data points as standard. This is key to preventing overheated piston skirts and ring groves/lands securing the rings that are sliding on the sodium/aluminum matrix cylinder walls from scaring. Then, find a engine oil that can withstand this work environment without additives causing interaction with either the plastic piston skirt coating and ring lands or the sodium/aluminum matrix.
I would encourage you to look at the web site 540 RAT Tech Facts.
Quaker State
Full Synthetic (QSFS) 5W 30 has a wear rating PSI of 152,674 at 230 degrees which is excellent. This wear index indicates the boundary layer film lubrication of the oil. More importantly at 275 degrees F the rating only fell to 148,133.
Let us know how you are progressing with TPC and
ECU
retune as others are also looking to see if you are successful until the end of the season.
Do not exceed 4.0 psi. The original boost controller was very confusing to program. I have no idea what they are using now. Most the parts are Chinese copies , example the turbo, the waste gate, etc.
Some of the other parts are Porsche parts, the 3erd radiator.
Make sure you change the oil frequently. If you use the turbo ( run boosted). A lot , 3000 miles is not a bad idea. Use any 0w-40 European formula, fully synthetic.
TPC is not very helpful once they have your $$.
A knowledgeable local tuner can also do the work. They might use a different boost controller. The hard part is finding a good local Porsche tuner that knows a boosted engine.
Be very careful with boost, otherwise you will have a very expensive paperweight. Rebuilding this engine correctly will cost as much as the car is worth!
As I’ve said… ^ and I agree hole heartedly… what’s really sad, you could build this yourself and still have enough for a Stand alone
ecu
.. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again..sell your N/A motor, buy a 996/997TT motor/
ecu
and do this right… or it’ll be a paper weight.. shitty company charging way to much for a grenade… 4-5psi for 7-8k? 🤦♂️
