throttle bodies question AGAIN

28th December 2016, 00:13

Hi guys Im sorry if this question has been asked before, I couldn't find a recent one and I know there is loads of bike throttle kits, throttle bodies using standard fuel rails, sensors etc so here's why Im asking the question.

I'm wondering if there is an ecu and throttle body combo that beats the rest for good value for performance. I'm in the middle of restoring my car atm and once its being built up I'll have a diff and fly added to the mod list.

Here's what I have at the moment just so people dont need to ask

2002 106 gti
3 plug ecu
catcams (Cant remember the number, newer version of the 708's)
stage from pug1 off (includes the cam's and mapping)
pugsport
raceland mani
raceland induction scoop with green filter

the car is used as a fun car, odd track day and just something to work on. I dont need to live with it daily.

My question is what is everyones favourite for value for money, ecu wise and throttle bodies. I just wanted to know if there was an all out winner

Thanks everyone

Sydor

28th December 2016, 10:40

Best value ECU by far is the stock one, it's free, it's also many times more capable than any aftermarket one, it has to be in order for the manufacturers to meet emission regs. Aftermarket ECUs have to be hugely 'dumbed down' to make them easy and quick to calibrate to virtually any engine. They also don't have knock control, unless you spend a lot of money on one.

With a stock ECU, you can have as much ignition or fuel as any other, you can adjust both header axes, rev limits etc etc; so with the exception of ease of mapping, there's no reason to change the ECU.

As for throttle bodies, you WILL lose torque compared to the stock intake. This is because you just can't fit the intake length in the space you have available because it's too tight, that's why the stock inlet manifold 'snakes' around from the plenum to the intake face. In a Saxo you can improve things by tilting the engine forward towards the radiator, but you also need to tweak the exhaust under the engine to suit.
That said, ITBs do work better typically above 5500 rpm, so you do get more power at peak, but the overall 'area under the curve' (which is what actually matters) could be less and certainly won't me much more. If you have a close ratio gearbox, you'll be going faster with throttle bodies. With a stock gearbox, you way well be slower, especially if you don't like to rev the nuts off it all the time.
Personally, I'd save my money and keep the stock inlet and make sure it's all set up tip top on a dyno. If I were to spend an amount of money on anything, I'd get some high quality, high compression pistons next. The higher compression will help everywhere, will allow for whatever cam timing you chose because the valve pockets are deeper and help scavenging because the clearance volume is reduced by virtue of the higher compression. The only downside is you'll have to run good fuel, so Tesco 99 or Shell V Power.

28th December 2016, 17:56

http://www.satchellengineering.co.uk...-manifold.html

cut the scuttle, plenty of length then.

28th December 2016, 18:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by welshpug

http://www.satchellengineering.co.uk...-manifold.html

cut the scuttle, plenty of length then.

They were the ones I was thinking tbh. I'm in the middle of redoing the engine bay, as there is abit of rust I want to take care of. Engine is out so wouldn't be a problem cutting, actually ideal time.

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28th December 2016, 19:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chipwizards

Best value ECU by far is the stock one, it's free, it's also many times more capable than any aftermarket one, it has to be in order for the manufacturers to meet emission regs. Aftermarket ECUs have to be hugely 'dumbed down' to make them easy and quick to calibrate to virtually any engine. They also don't have knock control, unless you spend a lot of money on one.

With a stock ECU, you can have as much ignition or fuel as any other, you can adjust both header axes, rev limits etc etc; so with the exception of ease of mapping, there's no reason to change the ECU.

As for throttle bodies, you WILL lose torque compared to the stock intake. This is because you just can't fit the intake length in the space you have available because it's too tight, that's why the stock inlet manifold 'snakes' around from the plenum to the intake face. In a Saxo you can improve things by tilting the engine forward towards the radiator, but you also need to tweak the exhaust under the engine to suit.
That said, ITBs do work better typically above 5500 rpm, so you do get more power at peak, but the overall 'area under the curve' (which is what actually matters) could be less and certainly won't me much more. If you have a close ratio gearbox, you'll be going faster with throttle bodies. With a stock gearbox, you way well be slower, especially if you don't like to rev the nuts off it all the time.
Personally, I'd save my money and keep the stock inlet and make sure it's all set up tip top on a dyno. If I were to spend an amount of money on anything, I'd get some high quality, high compression pistons next. The higher compression will help everywhere, will allow for whatever cam timing you chose because the valve pockets are deeper and help scavenging because the clearance volume is reduced by virtue of the higher compression. The only downside is you'll have to run good fuel, so Tesco 99 or Shell V Power.

Hi Wayne, Ive seen you pop up alot and from I've read alot of people rant and rave at how good you are. I have seen you mention mapping the standard ECU a few times. My worry is I'm up in Scotland and I'm not sure if there is anyone up here who is as capable or knows the standard ECU aswell as yourself.

The other idea I had was getting it piggybacked. I know you'll probably tell me not to waste my money, so I'd wonder if you could send me in the right direction of someone up here or if there is anything you could do. I'm in Edinburgh.

As for the high comp pistons that's a route id be interested in. I feel the way my car is ATM it's nothing until 4500rpm which I don't like. If throttle bodies are going to just amplify that I don't know if that's what I want.

I intended to get a lightened flywheel and already have lighter pulleys, just trying to help the lower down revs.

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28th December 2016, 19:39

my car didn't lose torque.

30th December 2016, 09:05

no need for t/bodies with 708 cams - only when you go more aggressive cam profile do you need t/bodies
you next problem is if you have a very strict mot tester cutting the scuttle panel would cause a fail as you have removed metal within 30cm of a load bearing area.
t/bodeis make nice noise ,but as wayne says romping up compression if keeping 708 cams is cheaper and the extra you gain from t/bodies will not be be good value for money spent
higher lift cams .then t bodies

30th December 2016, 10:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by axsaxoman

no need for t/bodies with 708 cams - only when you go more aggressive cam profile do you need t/bodies
you next problem is if you have a very strict mot tester cutting the scuttle panel would cause a fail as you have removed metal within 30cm of a load bearing area.
t/bodeis make nice noise ,but as wayne says romping up compression if keeping 708 cams is cheaper and the extra you gain from t/bodies will not be be good value for money spent
higher lift cams .then t bodies

Agreed, but I would add that you can't run much more aggressive cams with optimum timing on stock pistons anyway.

Engine tuning on an ad-hoc basis very rarely works out well. It's always best to start with a budget, and do what you can withing that budget, or set a target, and do what you need to achieve it.

30th December 2016, 10:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by welshpug

my car didn't lose torque.

The air is different in Wales then.... :-D

30th December 2016, 10:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sydor

Hi Wayne, Ive seen you pop up alot and from I've read alot of people rant and rave at how good you are. I have seen you mention mapping the standard ECU a few times. My worry is I'm up in Scotland and I'm not sure if there is anyone up here who is as capable or knows the standard ECU aswell as yourself.

The other idea I had was getting it piggybacked. I know you'll probably tell me not to waste my money, so I'd wonder if you could send me in the right direction of someone up here or if there is anything you could do. I'm in Edinburgh.

As for the high comp pistons that's a route id be interested in. I feel the way my car is ATM it's nothing until 4500rpm which I don't like. If throttle bodies are going to just amplify that I don't know if that's what I want.

I intended to get a lightened flywheel and already have lighter pulleys, just trying to help the lower down revs.

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Piggy backs are usually dreadful things that people solder in, which makes problems later in life with broken wires due to solder 'wicking'. They also don't allow you to do everything that you need to to get the best out of your engine, in terms of performance or drivability.

Edinburgh isn't that far, I go to Knock Hill on occasion and that's further.

30th December 2016, 11:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chipwizards

Piggy backs are usually dreadful things that people solder in, which makes problems later in life with broken wires due to solder 'wicking'. They also don't allow you to do everything that you need to to get the best out of your engine, in terms of performance or drivability.

Edinburgh isn't that far, I go to Knock Hill on occasion and that's further.

Ah I see. So are you mobile with your mapping?

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31st December 2016, 10:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chipwizards

Agreed, but I would add that you can't run much more aggressive cams with optimum timing on stock pistons anyway.

Engine tuning on an ad-hoc basis very rarely works out well. It's always best to start with a budget, and do what you can withing that budget, or set a target, and do what you need to achieve it.

you certainly run more agressive than 708,s on stock pistons that would benifit from bodies-
just a dry build test to check for valve clash problems
all depends how thin the head is head or gasket choice

1st January 2017, 20:20

Thanks for all the info guys. I may just end up getting someone to fit high comp pistons then and have it mapped. The engine will be out the car for a while so it makes sense to get it done now if the engine is going to be split, do it now.

Again guys thanks

10th January 2017, 11:29

The Satchell Throttlebody kits are the only ones to have now
If you want to see some nice pictures of what you get pop along to my site
https://www.kamracing.co.uk/car-tuni...j4-tu5jp4.html

11th January 2017, 19:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by KamRacing

The Satchell Throttlebody kits are the only ones to have now
If you want to see some nice pictures of what you get pop along to my site
https://www.kamracing.co.uk/car-tuni...j4-tu5jp4.html

Yeah these were the ones I was looking at tbh. Seem to be the best value for money and it looks like sandy has really went the extra mile when developing them

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2nd October 2017, 07:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chipwizards

As for throttle bodies, you WILL lose torque compared to the stock intake. This is because you just can't fit the intake length in the space you have available because it's too tight, that's why the stock inlet manifold 'snakes' around from the plenum to the intake face. In a Saxo you can improve things by tilting the engine forward towards the radiator, but you also need to tweak the exhaust under the engine to suit.

You're using the wrong bodies kits Wayne! Of most of the bolt on kits, this is true, but properly developed kits gain almost everywhere. I don't have a recent/scientific back to back example of Saxo/106 to show, but we did this not long back with a totally standard crate Clio 182 engine, mapped thoroughly on DTA both ways, utterly honestly. The Clio has less room for length than a Saxo/106 with our kit, so the compromise is greater. Here are the results:

https://scontent.flhr2-1.fna.fbcdn.n...6f&oe=5A855EFB

https://youtu.be/HNrzEJHmN1A

2nd October 2017, 08:34

both set-ups using OEM cams on std settings ?

2nd October 2017, 11:14

crate 182 engine as they said.

2nd October 2017, 16:17

so std ecu --std cam timings -
just change of ecu or remap could account for most of that
and of course no atmospheric data -- to see difference inlet temps +pressures on each day
I am not saying t/bodies --his or any others are not good -
just its very hard to a real back to back test to say all the difference is from the one thing in this case t/bodies
If all things equal its shows how crap std inlet + t/body +air filter assembly is on std car
the std graph looks very poor the way it dies at 6k -- for a 2litre 16v
quite possible renault did it on purpose same as ford did with st fiesta and focus st with same engine

couldn,t accept the fiesta would be faster --so put a restriction on inlet

2nd October 2017, 16:43

no, std ecu was not used, only dta

2nd October 2017, 18:11

SAE corrected results, fully calibrated (this dyno even zeroes itself at the start of each test), settled steady state recorded, run in fully before testing started.

As you say, the Clio engine does its best work lower down, it's designed to do that, Double squish, smallish valves, long stroke, long inlet. Phaser switched at 1500 RPM in both cases BTW, which is what worked best overall on the std plenum.

3rd October 2017, 21:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandy309

You're using the wrong bodies kits Wayne! Of most of the bolt on kits, this is true, but properly developed kits gain almost everywhere. I don't have a recent/scientific back to back example of Saxo/106 to show, but we did this not long back with a totally standard crate Clio 182 engine, mapped thoroughly on DTA both ways, utterly honestly. The Clio has less room for length than a Saxo/106 with our kit, so the compromise is greater. Here are the results:

https://scontent.flhr2-1.fna.fbcdn.n...6f&oe=5A855EFB

https://youtu.be/HNrzEJHmN1A

I was talking about the TU, not a Clio. Gains obviously depend upon what the stock intake is like, and people seriously misunderstand how good the stock NFX intake manifold is.

I've mapped literally hundreds of these engines and, unless special measures are taken to make space to increase the inlet length, they DON'T make as much mid-range with the shorter intake offered by throttle bodies over the stock manifold. OK, if you're revving the thing to circa 9k then the resonant frequency of the short intake does then work in that range because the frequencies match.

A study of organ-pipe theory shows the sort of lengths required to operate on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th harmonic (with respective diminishing amplitudes) and the indisputable physical facts are that an optimum length just won't go into the space available without adding a long curved section to make the length more compact. This is why throttle bodies only tend to gain over stock in the higher rev ranges, and lose through the middle. Take a good look at how long the stock intake is and you'll see what is needed.

If anyone disagrees with my findings/opinion then they must surely want to PROVE how wrong I am and show how good a particular set of throttle bodies are over a stock intake on a stock or mildly tuned engine. Anyone thus should feel free to send me a set and I'll dyno them and publish completely unbiased results, no problem.

Maybe I'll be corrected. I'm willing to try, are you?

3rd October 2017, 21:53

lol, given the results Sandy has been getting regularly from a TU engine, I'd imagine he has tried.

4th October 2017, 08:23

and all the above was why my first t/body set up had 180 degree bent /tapering kevlar trumpets inside a plenim chamber which was very close to same length as std inlet set -up after experimentation with jenvey st bodies and samco 180degree hosing+ short alloy trumpets and crude plenim
the result was gains everywhere
I made 20 of them and most went to germany as finished unit looked very simlar to std unit +it was quiet and ideal for usual slightly modded road conversion
noisy t/bodies shows bad pulsing+ loss of torque
-that would be 16years ago anyway
that was when I turned seriously to super charging as best compromise for serious road usable every driving power
i stopped making the set-up because people were only interested in price .
expensive to hand make 180degree trumpets in kevlar and to get plastic or alluminium ones cast at sensible price would mean buying them in hundreds

4th October 2017, 09:02

The Clio comparison is a worthy one. The standard F4R 730 plenum manifold is a very good design, which by your reasoning Wayne, should be even more of a challenge to beat and the rhetoric trotted out in the RS community on this subject is very similar.
The NFX manifold is a good design, I agree. In 2008 on Sun Ram XII rollers, using only wheels figures and a weather station, on Nick Charles' standard NFX engine with supersprint exhaust manifold; using a DCOE pattern manifold we fabricated to fit, I found initially at around 330mm overall tract length (with Jenvey 40mm flared trumpets), that the power seen from 2000-5500 more or less matched the plenum and then improved beyond that; it stands to reason that a shorter length might show respond as you've described. This initial result obviously dissapointed me and the only longer trumpets I could find to fit at the time, were 60mm long (350mm overall) with a more parallel shape and rolled mouth. The results from 4000RPM improved markedly all the way. I've built on this work since and the ITB kit we currently produce fits 350mm overall length comfortably within an unmodified engine bay and feature a billet trumpet profile evolved over the years.

If a suitable opportunity arises, with an appropriate engine John or Wayne and I can be there to satisfy myself that the conditions represent a fair comparison, then it would be interesting.

4th October 2017, 22:42

Morrison's book, "The Scientific Design of Exhaust and Intake Systems" is a very good read if you've got time.

6th October 2017, 07:59

Any chance Wayne, that you could provide some reliable test data of your own, to qualify your assertions; with the level of background detail and relevance you expect me to give? I'd be more interested to read that than Google results.

I'm sympathetic to the value of supercharging John, I've set up a lot of Rotrex fed engines, yesterday I did a GSXR1000 K1 on one that's ramped up the effectiveness of the engine massively and quieter for those that prefer. I'm one that prefers the nature and noise of a well tuned atmo engine though I'm afraid and it's a fools paradise to think boost is cheap, not reliably anyway! Each to what suits best.

8th October 2017, 22:06

After several thousand, possibly tens of thousands of dyno runs of engines of just about every imaginable spec I know what I know. I'm not going to trawl through files of graphs just to publish some wiggly lines for people then to wax lyrical over for days on end. I've been doing this job since the 1980s. I don't need to sell any BS because the multiple championship wins I get year after year do all the sales talking that I need, as I'm sure you already know, Sandy.

Shall we make things absolutely clear? I have no axe to grind. I neither sell nor endorse any throttle bodies from any manufacturer. I am unbiased thus; so if I say something with respect to tuning, then it's true, and if I haven't had what I believe to be adequate experience to express an accurate opinion about something I say "I don't know", because I don't KNOW.

With your overall tract length of 330mm you're only catching the 4th harmonic at around 6000 rpm. The amplitude, and therefor the effectiveness of the resonant waves diminishes with every order of harmony (it's like a sinusoidal decay). While it's generally never possible to catch the first harmonic due to space constraints it is sometimes possible to catch the second (depending how high your engine revs) but in a French tin there definitely isn't room for the second so the third harmonic is really what you want to aim for at an rpm where peak torque is going to be useful, which there isn't room to do without extensive curved packaging.

Boosted engine are generally only unreliable when poorly implemented. The trouble with it is that morons always think more is better and then when things break it's the boosts's fault. Getting power is all about increasing the 'relative filling' or 'N', the number of times the cylinders are filled. This is done either by increasing the VE, which is difficult given how efficient most modern engines are, by increasing the rev range or by increasing the pressure so that a greater mass is passed into the cylinders each cycle.

Increasing the revs has a much greater stress exponent than that of increasing pressure. Increasing pressure raises the stress by approximately the power of 1.4, which is to do with the ratio of specific heat capacities between adiabatic compression and isothermal compression, in case you were wondering.

The change in accelerative stress increases either squared, cubed or to the power of four, depending upon which component you're analysing; so more revs is much more likely to bring on failure than more pressure.

Remember when F1 was running 18,000 rpm and only seven or eight cars finished races? Now you know why, the stresses are HUGE.

9th October 2017, 08:54

Hi sandy
I understand your view point on N/a
but really bang for buck boost wil always be more economic
I also have to agree with wayne that boosted blow ups is nearly always due to bad conversions
very few super cars that are not boosted now , same goes for most of the hot hatchs
even the economy specials are boosted 1litre engines

but the secret is total control of the boost .
which is why I like the s/c --for those that don,t have the pockets for modern turbo +full fly by wire control of it
yes low revving boosted cars sound boring -electric cars will be even more boring LOL