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Upgrade advice


Andy Lef

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Firstly forgive the preamble.  

Back in 2008 i had a 1.4ss - 1.88ss upgrade with a ported head carried out by Dave at DVA. Dave gave it a 1.8ss map and I have had loads of happy motoring miles under me since then.  Success!

Roll forward the years to December last and I discovered that I had bowel cancer (this is just to let you know that I am creating a bucket list off things to do to get me through the chemotherapy - I am currently on cycle 3 of 8 before the drs leave me alone and i click into the 'are you clear scan checks).

As part of the bucket list I have been getting the car back on the road (SORN at the mo and hasn't been driven for 15 months.  Simple things like a new battery / headlight mounted indicator repeaters / a general tidy up etc etc etc.

In addition I thought that a progressive power upgrade programme might be a good thing to take up in slow time.  

Money is always an issue but if it's a progressive set of steps then it might be manageable?  

All thoughts are welcome but I thought that maybe;

  1. More aggressive cams?  which ones?
  2. 4-2-1 exhaust?
  3. DTHB?  which ones?
  4. ECU - again which one

I accept that doing much of this in one go wiil be cheaper but it may be that the power itch might be scratched after e.g bullet 2 but ..........

in anticipation 

Andy

 

 

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Andy,

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis though you seem to be on the treatment path and be in the right frame of mind.

If you've not found it already (I bet you have) then Daves' DVA power website is a good read. I think Jenveys, Emerald ECU are a well trodden path. The cheesman 421 no longer seems available and powerspeed expensive so not sure - wanted advert perhaps? Cams - not sure - there is only so far to go with hydraulic lifters.

Other advice is just to use what you have - my K is only a 1.6SS 135bhp and it still scares me and gets me into trouble! 

Hope your treatment goes well.

Best Wishes

Ian

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Andy,

Best wishes with treatment  -  I don't know your driving level so please take this the right way -for me  the best upgrade I ever did was driver training, you have a great day and can get even more out of the car (and any others you own).

What ever you choose definitely enjoy the car as the other best upgrade is using the car as often as possible.

Curly

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Hi Andy I hope your treatment is going well.

It depends how much power you want.

I fitted an Emerald K6 Jenvey DTH throttle bodies and an exhaust system to a 1.8SS and I was under whelmed 

The main sticking point is the cylinder head the valves are too small for the 1.8  after all that work I managed around 127bhp at the wheels at 5900 rpm and no amount of cam timing air air horn length made any difference. It did however have a completely flat torque curve and drove really well on the road. 

I would concentrate on the cylinder head as that is main restriction either bigger valves or try and get a VVC head and work from there. Bare in mind the standard pistons are a weak point so you don't want to go to wild.

For a comparison just changing my cylinder head and camshafts from Supersport for Piper 285 hydraulic cams bumped up the power from 127bhp at the wheels@5900rpm  to 167bhp at the wheels@6900rpm measured on the same dyno   

 

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<>

Given the amazing work done by Revilla creating his mapping tool is the Emerald still necessary on a car with MEMS3?  

Can the IACV be used with the Jenveys, do they have a port for idle control? <>

Idle control is built into the Emerald, I don't think the Mems would handle throttle bodies too well as it's load sensing is MAP based, throttle bodies and bigger cams do not offer a stable MAP signal at lower RPM while off cam. 

Oily

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Firstly,hope you are doing well

I too fancy a bit of upgrading,i currently run a 140 X power 1.8 K with the Caterham 6 speed box.I fancy too the DHTB (with a new ecu)and 421 system,what kind of best price are we talking for this stuff? obviously second have would be good

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