When I made my 14.22 run and my recent 14.27 run I had ~3 degrees of KR dropping my timing a bit through the run, mainly at the top of second and into third, effecting my back half MPH as indicated by strong 1/8 mile speeds.

Installed my 180 Thermo 2 days ago, finally got out on the freeway for some mock 1/4 running in open lanes. You will also note it was 69 degrees out when the run took place, and my IAT'* never went over 81 in the city and dropped to 77 near 100mph.. I'd say the $8 CAI works and works well. There are gaps in the scan times because of the scanner being used doesn't have a very fast refresh rate.

RPM - MPH - SPADV- IAT - KR - o2b1s1
3538 48 14 81 0 837
3625 49 14 81 0 893
3814 55 14.5 79 0 893
4125 60 15.5 79 0 906
4245 64 15.5 79 0 911
4343 67 15.5 79 0 911
4476 72 15 79 0 906
4683 75 14.5 79 0 906
4821 77 14 79 0 893
4910 80 14.5 79 0 898
5004 80 14.5 79 0 906
5081 83 14.5 79 0.1 898
5243 85 14.5 79 0 902
5328 88 14 79 0.2 906
5576 91 15 79 0 898
5697 94 15 79 0 902
5772 96 15 79 1.5 902
5438 96 -6.5 77 1.3 893
4231 98 15 77 0.8 902
4259 99 15 77 0.3 898
A blip of .1 / 2 and 1.5 on the shift as indicated in bold, it quickly goes back to 0.

I'm very impressed. It felt a lot stronger yesterday and seeing 14.5-15.5 degrees of timing today indicates my butt dyno is working correctly.

Anyway, lots of fluf here, but yeah, I was excited

A

Nice, when i put my 180 t-stat in i didnt feel much of a difference, but i noticed a little better gas mileage and my engine was running much cooler (think old t-stat was faulty)

sounds like that 180 tstat eliminated all your KR! good job!

Anyone know what the ratio is between KR and hp, as in a drop of 1 KR degree=X HP?

When I had my rad flushed I asked about a 180 tstat and the tech said it wouldn't matter because fans don't turn on till 220 degrees.
Is that true or boloney?

It is true that the fans come on at 220, however the fans are really only used in stop and go traffic. I went 40 to 100 and right after that checked the coolant temp and it was at 183. The drop in 20 degrees and cooler air from my cardboard CAI seems to have eliminated the Knock.

I like the research you did and an aftermarket PCM can make the fans come on at 180 if you so desire.

that PCM would help you alot with your cam and other mods too.

Even with the stock fan turnon settings of 215/219 degrees going to a 180 degree thermostat is gonna help. The fans help pull in air when the car is moving slowly...however when you are out on the highway you're fans aren't doing much good because the air coming at your car at 70+mph is gonna be a lot better than what your fans can draw in. So basically, the only point where your fan turn on points matter is in slow moving traffic or when the car is stopped, when little or no air is flowing to the radiator...because then the fans turn on to draw the air in. However if you put in your 180 degree thermstat the car is gonna run like 185 degrees down the highway instead of 200+, and will be much better under WOT.

My car has a 160 degree thermostat in it (along with our other '90 Turbo GP, and our '02 GTP, and our '00 SSEi has a 180 degree in it) and it runs that cold almost all the time. Fan 1 is set to turn on at 167 degrees and fan 2 at 169 degrees, and I have NEVER heard fan 2 on (except when I turn it on manually), however every once in a while when sitting at a stoplight I can hear fan 1 come on. So basically the fan turn on points aren't helping except for when I'm stopped. Our other '90 GP is the same way, fans rarely on. The fans in the GTP are set at like 180 some degrees but they never come on by themselves because we always turn the fans on first...however it is rare. That car usually runs about 165 degrees on the street without using any fans...although the electric water pump does help with that some. So basically the thermostat will help in a lot of driving conditions, but at times when not a lot of air is getting to the radiator, its not gonna help huge amounts. But for the little amount of money it costs, its worth it...if it wasn't I don't think we would have colder thermostats in 4 different cars.

Shawn

Oh believe me I know I need that PCM, it WILL be purchased soon I personally like to do one mod at a time and tune the car until it'* ready for the next one. I feel I went quite far on a fairly 'bad' configuration.. open cone, stock thermostat, etc. So, 14.2 with what I had.. and now gaining power on smaller things to tweak the config... then adding the PCM, I'll be in the 13'* no problem at all.

Two good reasons for it. First, Shifting at 5400 out of first and 5700 out of second with this cam is killing my times, totally. The sloppy torque management shifts included. Second, added timing... It felt SOO much better simply going from 11/12 to 14/15.

I think someone asked how much hp timing is worth. By my rough estimates it is about 2/3hp per degree of timing. Thus some cars that put on a smaller pulley and get 8 degrees of knock are no faster than they were with less boost and no knock as the pulley gives you 30hp but you lose 24ish through the timing.

The INTENSE pcm will give me an additional 4 degrees, roughly 8-12 more hp and keep me in my power band longer.

You all should see some good times coming and by august I think someone will pull a 13.5 in a 2k+ SSEi non nitrous. I hope it to be myself However I think rogue may do it first if he does heads like he'* thinking about hehe. I'm just trying to get the most bang for my buck. I haven't put more than $900 in performance into this motor.

1 degree of timing is ~2-3hp like you said, however the higher you go the smaller the gain is, and after a certain point you will actually lose power if you add too much timing, even without knock, and I think its the same the other way, after you pull so much timing, pulling more doesn't have a huge effect anymore, somewhere around 23-26 degrees seems to be the "sweet spot" for these engines. Personally I would get some sort of adjustable timing so you don't have to run a lot of timing all the time but can if you want to. With the GTP we have adjustable timing and we can add up to 10 degrees (25 total degrees), and pull up to 5 degrees (10 total degrees), but on the street we turn it back down to only 2 added degrees, sometimes 0 added but thats rarely.

I definately agree that those low shift points are hurting you horribly with the cam. You need a different PCM and fast. You can shift that thing a good 1000rpms higher. Probably 6500ish. That should gain you a LOT. I don't see any reason why that car wouldn't go mid-high 13'* with a different PCM and a few more degrees of timing with some decent tuning.

I feel the same way about maximizing your current setup before moving on to something new. If you just throw on 10 different things at one time you don't have any idea what did what, and if one of those things hurt you or helped you or whatnot, so i always do things slowly and just do one thing at a time until I feel that the current setup is maxed out, then I move on to the next thing. I think that is one of the reasons why I am the only person to ever run 14'* in a '89-'90 Turbo GP with the stock computer...granted it was only a 14.96, but it was still 14'*, and nobody else had ever done it. (although one guy did go 15.000)

Shawn