Trimming the fat... not what you think!

OK - not really about weight loss or removing stuff from the car to make it lighter, but ever since I had the larger heat exchanger mounted, the E55 has had a bit of a 'swollen lip' look to it... notice the bottom of the chin spoiler, you can even see a chunk taken out of it from scraping... oh the joys of bigger parts...

Well, over the past 9 months of that little 'extra' fat lip, took its toll.  Here's what I found a few weeks ago after a long drive to Monterey, CA and back.  

Yes, that's a little rubber strip that is usually below the oil cooler, and part of the underbody tray directly below the heat exchanger.  The wear and tear of little bumps here and there eventually cracked the parts off.

So, now that I have more clearance due to the plastic pieces coming out, I figured I'd give a trim to the fat lip.  Used a simple utility knife to gracefully trace the lines between that 1/4" edge and the rest of the bumper lip.  

And here's the result of my handiwork.  I think it slimmed things down quite a bit, even though it's only a 1/4" edge!

Hopefully I wont run into any more sharp pointy things!

Gotta love Dyno time!

After my previous dyno results, I had to get my inter-cooler pump replaced.  It's amazing how much power is lost when you have lots of heat.  My IAT (intake air temps) were in the 170-180* range which is way too hot.  Since that dyno last summer, the pump was replaced and I have a heat exchanger that is 2x the OEM stock size.  Now my IATs hover ~10-15* above ambient temps - woohoo!

I took my car to Universal Technical Institute (UTI)  in Sacramento.  Nice thing is that my nephew is a recently graduated student (and driver in the video below) and we ran the numbers on the Dynojet - MUCH better!  The instructor was a big E55 fan and it was great to see about 100 students crowded around the dyno room - man it made some noise!

The printer was almost out of ink so sorry about the hard to read graph.. 446HP and 487ft-lbs!

Gotta love that crazy torque!

Dyno and a disappointment!

Well, a few weeks back we had a group Dyno day - never did that before, so I figured why not check it out!?  My brother and I drove a few hours to San Francisco and the guys at Dito's Motors were great!  Two days of dyno tuning for our group - probably 15 guys with their AMG power.

Jerry came in from Texas ( http://www.eurocharged.com/) to do the dyno tuning - and MANY guys had a blast and some big power was put down.  It was a usual Bay Area day - about 58 degrees outside, of course my brother and I forgot that it was colder there so it was quite chilly in our shorts and T-shirts (LOL).

I had my first run around 11:15am - got on the dyno and did a baseline...  

A whole whopping 400HP at the wheels... which isn't all that bad, but in perspective to other cars but we knew something was up...  my secondary water pump was failing so it couldn't cool the intake charge, my IATs were 170-180F so the computer was dumping all the fuel possible into the cylinders which pretty much made my AFR's dive into the low 10's (most likely into the 9s and even 8s)...  so we had to pack up and get a new pump installed...  The guys were great at the shop, a few guys even offered to replace the pump that day and get things dialed back in- but I let it up to the warranty to fix things (hey, that's why you buy one!) :-)

Oh well, next time I run into a Dyno - things should be much better!  I got a new toy to start logging my ECU to make sure stuff like this doesn't happen in the future... next blog!

Got some new stuff installed!

FINALLY got the S/C pulley installed, and re-tuned from Eurocharged - wahoo!  Also, during the downtime had the plugs installed (NGK LFR7AIX) and the brake fluid flushed.

  

I'll have a dyno tune done later this month to see what power gains are to be had with this lightweight pulley but the torque curve is MUCH broader than before - almost feels like an even BIGGER V8 or maybe a V12 :-)

 Next on the list is a new Gates K080505HD V-Belt, this will help keep this pulley from slipping as the stock belt is a little long at 51", the new belt is 49.6" and should keep things snug and spinning!

So far so good, the new Heat Exchanger from Fabtech-Performance has kept the 100+ degree days at bay and kept the S/C from overheating.  Next is to start logging data, really curious what the IATs are now with the new pulley and blistering CA heat!