(Not*) Mediocre 242

[blkaplan]

Very nice!

The EFRs use some very... uh, "legacy" compressor designs and never really impressed me in that regard. The turbines were ambitious and interesting, the overall turbo product line was comprehensive, but it seems like BW ran out of steam or didn't have the resources to develop a proper modern compressor for them.

Thats odd, I have never heard that critique of the them but I also have not looked for any.

To me, the strong points of them was the strength of the packaged accessories and varieties of housings available. Good internal gates and CBVs that can stand up to the performance of the turbo.

 

[Duder]

Thats odd, I have never heard that critique of the them but I also have not looked for any.

To me, the strong points of them was the strength of the packaged accessories and varieties of housings available. Good internal gates and CBVs that can stand up to the performance of the turbo.

I benchmarked several of them when they first came out, like 2013ish. They all used the same compressor design just in different sizes, which was lackluster in my opinion, after looking at the data.

Since then I've talked with former BW employees who basically confirmed that the compressors were veteran designs and nothing special when the EFRs were introduced. Considering the turbo architecture and turbine wheels were all new, I guess they had to compromise somewhere.

 

[klr142]

It was nice to meet you this past weekend!

I have not seen this thread or your car before (knowingly, anyway). Very cool! I look forward to one day having time to read the thread through and looking closer at the car in person.

 

[towerymt]

I'm not sure if I said it before, but I had some machine work done to my engine from January 2020 to June 2021 because I heard a knocking from the engine when initially installing the transmission. Turns out my main line bore wasn't great and one of the main bearings had some uneven wear. I had a machine shop fix the main line and polish the crank. I then installed some new bearings and rings. The machine shop took forever, but seem to have done a good job. In any case it runs now.

Did the change to studs have had any affect on the roundness of the mains? Do you recall how the previous main bearings looked before the studs went in? I went back ~10 pages but didn't find the origin of the studs vs main bolts, so wasn't sure how the mains became an issue.

Just to confirm...was the blowby issue fixed with just new rings and a honing? Came across this post with the ring end gap: http://forums.turbobricks.com/showpost.php?p=5782328&postcount=497

My B23F block with standard ET pistons pushed out a lot of oil into the catch can. Half a quart or more in one ~20min track session. It's coming apart soon and now I'm really curious to know the ring gap.

 

[blkaplan]

Did the change to studs have had any affect on the roundness of the mains? Do you recall how the previous main bearings looked before the studs went in? I went back ~10 pages but didn't find the origin of the studs vs main bolts, so wasn't sure how the mains became an issue.

Just to confirm...was the blowby issue fixed with just new rings and a honing? Came across this post with the ring end gap: http://forums.turbobricks.com/showpost.php?p=5782328&postcount=497

My B23F block with standard ET pistons pushed out a lot of oil into the catch can. Half a quart or more in one ~20min track session. It's coming apart soon and now I'm really curious to know the ring gap.

Was your block bored / honed with a deck plate?

 

[John242Ti]

It was nice to meet you this past weekend!

I have not seen this thread or your car before (knowingly, anyway). Very cool! I look forward to one day having time to read the thread through and looking closer at the car in person.

Tate's car used to belong to Luke (luke242ti back when he was active here and didn't drive an '05 Honda Accord sedan). So, you've seen it, but back when it was mostly stock except for amber turn signal lenses.

 

[klr142]

Tate's car used to belong to Luke (luke242ti back when he was active here and didn't drive an '05 Honda Accord sedan). So, you've seen it, but back when it was mostly stock except for amber turn signal lenses.

That's awesome! I wonder if Luke knows what Tate's done to it.

 

[blkaplan]

I benchmarked several of them when they first came out, like 2013ish. They all used the same compressor design just in different sizes, which was lackluster in my opinion, after looking at the data.

Since then I've talked with former BW employees who basically confirmed that the compressors were veteran designs and nothing special when the EFRs were introduced. Considering the turbo architecture and turbine wheels were all new, I guess they had to compromise somewhere.

Threadjack

It looks like some of the turbos got redesigned compressor wheels in 2018 / 2019

I have no idea how good or modern the design of the wheel is but thought it might be of interest.

https://www.borgwarner.com/newsroom...ower-capabilities-of-efr-series-turbochargers

 

[Duder]

Threadjack

It looks like some of the turbos got redesigned compressor wheels in 2018 / 2019

I have no idea how good or modern the design of the wheel is but thought it might be of interest.

https://www.borgwarner.com/newsroom...ower-capabilities-of-efr-series-turbochargers

Those definitely look better than the legacy design. Seems like they've only rolled them out in 84mm and 92mm (exducer) diameters. Comparing maps to similar G-series, the BW 8474 peak efficiency island occurs at lower pressure ratio range (1.8 - 2.7) vs. G30-1050 (2.0 - 3.3) which also has an 84mm compressor.

From what I can see of the geometry of their newer wheel from photos I can say I'm not surprised that it behaves that way... wide flow range with peak efficiency happening in the bottom half. It's a "low work" compressor stage meaning it would be best suited to low boost applications like larger engines. It looks very similar to the older GTX3584RS compressor map, and that aero is a generation behind the newer G-series stuff.

It's always good to have competition in the marketplace, it makes everyone work harder. Any company in the Tier 1 automotive supply industry does take a long time to catch up when competitors make advances. Nature of the beast I suppose.

 

[t8fanning]

Did the change to studs have had any affect on the roundness of the mains? Do you recall how the previous main bearings looked before the studs went in? I went back ~10 pages but didn't find the origin of the studs vs main bolts, so wasn't sure how the mains became an issue.

Just to confirm...was the blowby issue fixed with just new rings and a honing? Came across this post with the ring end gap: http://forums.turbobricks.com/showpost.php?p=5782328&postcount=497

My B23F block with standard ET pistons pushed out a lot of oil into the catch can. Half a quart or more in one ~20min track session. It's coming apart soon and now I'm really curious to know the ring gap.

Yes the change to studs without touching the main line bore had a negative affect on the main roundness. After a couple years there was some slightly uneven wear. Nothing too terrible, but resulted in a small knock that a hone would have prevented.

The blowby was mostly fixed by the new rings and honing. It was a definite improvement.

As of right now I have no blowby accumulating in my catch can, but I do see oil smoke on the transition from vacuum to boost. I think it's either poor ring seating due to the tune being too rich and glazing the cylinders on initial startup, or me not being able to drive and load the engine properly shortly after startup due to having to figure out the DCT tune, or valve stem seals.

This winter when I upgrade my ECU, I'll probably do a leakdown test and see if its in the head or bottom end. I'll drive it for now though because it shouldn't hurt anything.

It's always good to have competition in the marketplace, it makes everyone work harder. Any company in the Tier 1 automotive supply industry does take a long time to catch up when competitors make advances. Nature of the beast I suppose.

There are two sides to that coin. If you're a small automotive supply company you can be nimble but not have a broad product release.

 

[John242Ti]

That's awesome! I wonder if Luke knows what Tate's done to it.

He does now. Sent him the link night before last.

 

[t8fanning]

It's been a while, and the car has been sitting. I took the ECU and some other parts out a few months ago to prepare for DBW and Motec. I figured I'd add some sensors while I'm at it. I have added turbo speed, wastegate position, coolant and crankcase pressure, and front left wheel speed.

Motec was backordered pretty heavily, but most of my stuff has finally shipped and should get to me soon. In the mean time, I adapted a DBW pedal to the stock 240 mounting points:

Added a Bosch throttle body to my intake manifold:

Swapped out my old dash for an almost uncracked 92 or 93 dash I found in a junkyard:

Made a mount for the C125 display:

Andrew Nance and I both had staggered sets of BBS LMs and had talked about swapping two to give us each a square set. We did that, so I now have four 17x9 with 245/40r17 Falken RT660s on the car. They're way meatier than the 245/40r17 Pilot super sports I had on the rear before. I also cleaned up the barrels a bit while I had them split. After some adjusting of the rear axle, I don't have any rubbing when I jump up and down on the trailer hitch but we'll see what happens when I drive it:

I've gotta make an engine bay harness for the additional sensors and then make a jumper harness from the ECU to the engine bay harnesses once the ECU shows up. My goal is to drive it to Davis.

 

[Stiggy Pop]

crank case pressure logging will be interesting!

 

[Quin]

at what point does the thread title reach obsolescence?

 

[t8fanning]

at what point does the thread title reach obsolescence?

It's never going be exactly how I want, so it's always going to be mediocre to me.

After a couple months I finally received some good parts. Motec still owes me a couple things, but I've got enough to work with for now:

 

[brickborg]

Man this thing is phenomenal. Great work, looking forward to more!

 

[Hank Scorpio]

I fixed your thread title to reflect reality. Such a rad car!

 

[t8fanning]

I'm waiting on a few things before I can wire up the M150, so I started messing with the dash. I wanted to match the Stack gauges I have, so I came up with this:

This is the main page I'll have, but I also made a couple extra pages more for diagnostics without a laptop if needed.

I depinned the stock instrument cluster connector and will hook them up to the ECU. The ECU then will broadcast the information to the dash over CAN. I'm sure it can be done, but I still have to figure out how to give the odometer the right value.

I'm currently waiting on some laser cut parts to mount the ECU. It's going on the passenger side footwell where my megasquirt was, but because the M150 is bigger, I had to mount it horizontally.

Once these parts show up and I get them welded, I should be able to start wiring. I think the next hurdle is figuring out how to program the ECU. I got a developer license, so I'm sure I'll need to mess around with that for a bit before it'll be able to run again.

 

[Harlard]

This is FancyBricks

 

[t8fanning]

My car has been sitting for a while because my EFR started leaking oil out of the turbine housing and made it not fun to drive due to the smell so I took it off. However, this just showed up in the mail the other day:

It's the first one we've cut, but it's a 60mm inducer, 75mm exducer wheel paired with a 64s (72/64mm) turbine wheel. I designed this compressor wheel and housing to be efficient at lower pressure ratios. The compressor efficiency is above 80% from ~35-70lb/min between a PR of ~1.75-3.5. It's going to be a great mid power street car turbo. I'm waiting on an oil inlet fitting so I can make a new oil feed line, and for my injectors to get back from cleaning and flow testing, but I'm hoping to get it driving and on the dyno in a couple weeks. Wish I could get rid of the T3 manifold and do a proper vband one, but that's a project for later.

Since I was in there anyway I made a new 3.5" downpipe, a heat shield to protect my wiring, and added a TiAL QRJ:

Hopefully the transmission still works and I can actually get some good miles on this thing again.