tips or hints on tuning a long header turbo car

Hey guys,

we're about to tune a 4 cylinder inline 8 valve 2.5l turbo'ed car with a header that basically moves the turbocharger over to the other side of the engine bay.

I reckon, that this might produce some funny results in regards to spool up, EGT, knock threshold and so on, as the header material will take a while to heat up.

The header is wrapped all the way from flange to flange, so we should be able to keep the heat inside.

Any hints what could happen or evolve into a problem and how to approach it?

thanks a lot and cheers,

Andy

I've tuned plenty of drag engines with very long turbo headers and the approach really is no different.

You're right in so much as it will take a little longer to get heat into the manifold - It's not much different than tuning a Subaru Sti though. A tip I use once I'm close with the tune is to begin a ramp run and back off once the engine has reached full boost. Allow the rpm to drop back to your start point and immediately begin a proper full run. This gets heat into the manifold on the first part-run, and then the subsequent full run is more realistic as to how the engine will perform at the track.

thanks a lot for the hint, worked out great ;)

Glad to hear it Andy!