Never time to do it right, always time to do it over...

[speedtrapped]

That phrase glared at me for 2 years in high school drafting class, thank you mr. Gaffey.
So here I am today, awesome car, great deal on a nicely modded engine and trans, and I could never leave well enough alone.
From the day I picked up special sauce, a 620/788 bhp/btq beast I always thought I knew better, or let me add enough.
I buy an unproven CAI, instead of leaving the DBR stage3 race kit intact, I swap CAI. From day one, I was running into lean issues....many a member was kind enough to help troubleshoot. Fueling, O2's, and other suggestions.
Bigger injectors bought, and now I need a new tune and to save some $, I use a green tuner to our platform. Still can't find the gremlins. Lean with bigger injectors.
Stratmosphere Bob(yep that guy) gave me the best advice of all, call dahlback direct and describe to them everything, I bet they will help. Dah right? Well I shied away for so long because I heard of their bad customer service reputation. I was not the original purchaser of their product.
Well hans was a huge help. No sir, kit is NOT designed with bigger injectors, I have track proven this set up. You have a MAF seal leak.....Bingo!
I trade my FMU for a my old DBR CAI(Josh1) benefited.
Ok, ok now I am ready, custom tune car with original set up and bigger injectors! Let's go!
Sadly Josh 2 is a great guy, but the cart is before the horse and that's all I will say about that.
Car was running weaker, and cutting out 5800 rpm, 03,31,115 were fine, there was a missing file in the 'tune'.
So back to Dions the car goes, wife has had it.
DBR ECu back in, everything original on special sauce....I have a set of used EV14 if anyone cares.
$1100.00 FMU
$600.00 josh2
$300.00 dyno
$450.00 vast EV14.

$2450.00.... Oh well, it's not a cheap lesson learned, but as the title says and I am slow to learn, patientance, contentment, and humility are traits I am still trying to acquire.

So the saga goes, the rs6 will be p/u tomorrow. I will enjoy the car for at least thru the winter w/o touching it, I swear.
Thanks again everybody for your input and help over the last year+.
Stephen

[JSRS6]

I think the Kubler theory of 5 stages of grief apply here somehow :hihi:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

[speedtrapped]

That's too funny! Thanks Josh!

[MaxRS6]

Sooooo...you pick it up tomorrow as it was originally- and it is back in fighting form? At least the hunt is over and you can now enjoy the car- You also get kudos from me for sharing with us the trials/tribulations. Takes a big fella (all 6' 4) to admit mistakes and share.

They are still searching for my issue. The local indy shop is now in direct consultation with APR. I'm trying to keep from torching crazy and calling it over. However; after a while, I know what you mean by the "wife has had it!". If I wasn't such a fine fellow (LOL)- she would have cut parts off me by now. I may have to refill the gallon liquid valium intravenous drip since its been a few days since the last fill up..;0

[JSRS6]

That's too funny! Thanks Josh!

I do what I can :hihi:

[skribe]

Bah, could be so much worse. From the title of your post I thought you were going to say you melted a piston and seized the engine.

It's in the nature of some of us not to know when to quit, not to know when to leave well enough alone. The same qualities that create our biggest successes sometimes cause our biggest blunders.

You got off easy.

[speedtrapped]

Thanks fellas, I been driving the V so much, and I miss the beast. She is pure sex, and when she is back in form tomorrow, built for speed!

[JSRS6]

Hehe, too bad you're "speedtrapped"...:lovl:

[speedtrapped]

One can work around obstacles....

[SteveKen]

Welcome to the B5 S4 circa 2003

[speedtrapped]

The beast lives....I drove her home from Dions, tough 18 miles in bumper to bumper NJ traffic, but then on parkway, a sorry ass late model lancer with a hige wing decided to challenge, he had some exhaust mod, not a fart can but I swear cut outs, I smoked him. The car. Is back to original DBR stage 3 race kit form, fast as sh#t! Top end, beautiful the wideband looked great. Now my plugs has about 2k miles on them, and I asked dion to take a look...he said change them, there blackened from the last 2 weeks. I couldn't be happier. I will log in a day or so and share.

[na1mt]

Special sauce..........and now it ends


Glad it's finally sorted out

[Spidercat]

Awesome! Great to hear that your beast is back on the street and kicking ass!

[Ruergard]

Great to hear this. :thumb:

[4everRS]

What an adventure this has been for you Stephen. Very glad to hear its working again.

[speedtrapped]

Log her today, now the DBR tune runs 23psi, I can get 26, but why screw with it? My lambdas, .845 by .86, I did not run it to 6600, only because it was a beautiful day and a lot of cars were out. But those lambdas were at 5800 in 3rd, wot. Everything runs great. Going to give her a bath tomorrow, :)!

[JSRS6]

Awesome, man. What'd I tell ya about them plugs? :hihi:

[RSSIK]

Congrats, thats great news and I bet a relief like no other for you. I would love to see it now. Maybe one day you'll grace us with your presence here again.

[speedtrapped]

Ha...Ty Ehab.....3 little ones leave very little time for my hobbies. I will be by soon.

[RSSIK]

I know how it is. Im just busting your chops. Im going to have to stalk you at the train station soon just to see the V. Lol. Im jk. Actually a good friend of mine and his wife own the salon at the station and I had to drop him off there and didnt think to look in the parking lot to see if your car was there.

[speedtrapped]

Won't be there...I drive to cheese quake and take a bus from there.

[Elevens]

Log her today, now the DBR tune runs 23psi, I can get 26, but why screw with it? My lambdas, .845 by .86, I did not run it to 6600, only because it was a beautiful day and a lot of cars were out. But those lambdas were at 5800 in 3rd, wot. Everything runs great. Going to give her a bath tomorrow, :)!


Never heard of a V8 running boost that high. Must be some extensive engine modification to prevent it from Blowing up. Any way good luck with that DBR setup. Must be incredibly fast running that kind of boost pressure...............................

[speedtrapped]

Nope, really, not sure what u mean. I have spoke to Hans dahlback, MRC, and unit20. There were no surprises with respect to psi level, other then, if you run it 26 psi, ur at the threshold. There is no head gasket spacer if that's what ya mean. And I know Marklar found out from Mahle that the pistons are forged, etc. Hans designed the kit quite some time ago. He had it on an c5 rs6, that he tracked for some time as per our conversation. There are only 2 kits sold in the US, mine is one of them. About 15 in Europe, no blown V8's. But heck, considering I paid $6000.00, for the kit, engine(52k miles) and a custom level10 trans......sure will be fun trying to blow it up, I always have a spare engine and trans, ;)

[Elevens]

Yea its just that I know that 4 and 6 cylinder turbo cars sometimes run boost pressures in excess of 30psi. But never usually a V8. But apparently your Bottom end has been reinforced to handle such boost pressure and the resulting increased power. I'd be curious to see what it dyno's at. With Proper Fueling the numbers should be pretty high.....

[speedtrapped]

this is my engine, ecu and trans in the car I bought from a wreck....it was Maha'ed dyno'ed 2years ago @ KMD...Dion was a partner there and was involved in the install....

[speedtrapped]

To be fair... i have yet to dyno since i did swap. I will try and set up next friday....