Starkie's car...mods...pics (56K beware)

[starkie]

All of my mods have been intended to improve performance, while at the same time maintaining a "stock look" under the hood so as not to attract unwanted attention from the CHP whom, I understand, are now attending training so they can clamp down on "illegal" mods here in Caifornia.

For example, I currently use the stock air box with a CAI mod underneath instead of a brightly colored or polished cold air intake - I do this because I cannot find anyone who sells a CAI that is CARB certified although I hear K&N may.

But in keeping with the "stealth tuning" paradigm, I even went to the trouble of painting my Greddy catch can and DC front strut tower bar flat black (after removing the ricey little sticker of course).

For handling, I have MoPar Stage 3 coil overs, Manny Z forged rear lateral control arms with heim joints (snap oversteer is completely solved as is tail wag problem when braking at very high speeds), prothane sway bar bushings, DC front strut tower bar and PerformanceAuto#### rear strut tower bar.

I also have Centerline Storm 17 x 7 forged polished wheels which some may call "bling" but they actually save 7lbs (14 vs 21 for stock wheels) in unsprung weight on each corner which seems to help take-off acceleration, handling and braking a bit. I'm currently using the stock Pilot tires and they work well enough.

My car now handles really well on my daily commute on bumpy, back road twisties. It definitly handes better than when I had Eibachs which would often bottom out in the front because those springs were designed for a Neon, not an SRT-4 which is 350lbs heavier.

I also have poly-filled mounts (all three, strut, pencil and tranny) which helps control wheel hop without hardly any of the vibration I had with Rex inserts (vibration that can cause the knock sensor to falsely tell the PCM that the engine is pinging and to pull timing).

For performance, I have MoPar Stage 1 (PCM, injectors), AGP adjustable waste gate actuator set to 14psi, TurboSmart Manual Boost Controler set to 19psi, MoPar cat-back exhaust (sounds perfect to my ear and helps performance also), Screamin Demon coil pack, Crane Firewires and, most importantly, new (every 5k miles) Champion RE14MCC5 plugs gapped at .035 so the spark doesn't get blown out at high rpm when using high boost.

I finally got completely studder free boost at 19psi max falling to 15psi at redline when I switched the WGA pressure source from the turbo nipple (Green line) over to a T that I made in the manifold where the boost guage connects. My car definitly make better usable power with the manifold source than it did using the Green line.

I'm looking forward to visiting Shiv at Vishnu next Monday to check my car on his ultra conservative dyno. I want to make sure the air-fuel ratio is still safe (12:1 or lower) and, of course, see what the HP, TQ and Boost curves currently look like. I use an Auterra Dynoscan (Palm Pilot with OBD-II connectors) to log metrics like rpm, spark timing, boost, O2 sensor voltage (both of them) and other metrics which I then run through some simple C# programs to produce decent looking charts - this helps me measure the effect of a particular mod without having to go to the dyno each time (I can't afford that).

Other mods I have include Sylvania Silverstar head and fog light bulbs (much better visibility at night with them) and some nice loud 130dB FIAMM Italian horns (the stock "mweeb" horn had to go), tinted windows (15% back and rear door, 55% front doors, 15% strip on the top of the windshield) to help with keeping the car cool on hot days.

I'll probably get wider 225 tires soon (Potenza) since traction is now a major problem.

I may also get an LSD since steering gets a bit busy when I pass someone on the back road twisties.

Next round of mods (already purchased, just waiting for them to arrive) will include a Greddy Type-S BOV, MannyZ Upp Pipe, BOP, Blue line source for the WGA, Quaife LSD. I also have Stage 2 on order and will install it when MoPar gets around to shipping them

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[Mike-in-Orange]

Pretty sweet ride you have there. Those Centerlines look really nice, who cares if some call 'em bling! They may be shiny, but their styling is actually pretty understated; works well with the rest of the car. You must really be itching to install that Quaife LSD, especially once S2 is in. That should make a HUGE difference in your ability to hook up and run.

[bigdogdad]

As Mike in Orange said, very very nice. Everything lookin' good.[?]

[KingKole02]

Sweet color yellow.

[crazyjoe]

When you see Shiv, tell him everyone at DSMTuners says to go jump in a vat of crap. He's a jerkoff.

Other than that, I like your list. One question....why set the WGA at 14PSI and the BC at 19PSI?

[starkie]

quote:Originally posted by Mike-in-Orange

Pretty sweet ride you have there. Those Centerlines look really nice, who cares if some call 'em bling! They may be shiny, but their styling is actually pretty understated; works well with the rest of the car. You must really be itching to install that Quaife LSD, especially once S2 is in. That should make a HUGE difference in your ability to hook up and run.

Thanks. Yep, most SRT-4's have either gum-metal or black wheels and they all look like something from the former Soviet Union LOL!
Definitly I am licking my chops waiting for LSD to improve hookups. The other reason has to do when I pass other people on my daily bumpy twistie commute...steering become a bit of a handful when I cross the crown of the road to pass...more than once, I've noticed really huge white eyeballs in the driver seat of the car next to me...I don't like scaring other people (or myself!).

[starkie]

quote:Originally posted by crazyjoe

When you see Shiv, tell him everyone at DSMTuners says to go jump in a vat of crap. He's a jerkoff.

Other than that, I like your list. One question....why set the WGA at 14PSI and the BC at 19PSI?

Shiv is like Latin or Greek - very difficult, but makes everything else seem easy. But he has been known to smile on my efforts, rarely. He's OK in my book but maybe it doesn't seem that I think that way.

Regarding the WGA psi versus the MBC psi...when I had just the AGP WGA and no MBC, I found it was necessary to overtighten the AGP WGA adjusting nuts so they were almost touching to get 18psi...this meant that there was way too much load on the WGA arm...some SRT-4 owners even broke their AGP WGA actuator arms doing this. Also, adjusting the WGA too tight caused studder (jerkiness when flooring the gas at 2Krpm...I usually avoid that anway, but you get what I mean). So I found that adjusting the WGA to 13psi (I reduced it from 14 even) and then raising boost with the MBC to 19psi (raised thet too) got rid of the studder and allowed me to hold higher boost (about 14psi) from 4500 until redline (the small stock turbo can only produce so much boost before running out of breath at high rpm).

Oh and for the WGA/MBC pressure source, I found that running a line from the manifolt (where the boost gauge connects to the Throttle Body) makes for a much smoother ride (again, no studder) than what I previously had with the WGA/MBC connected to the Green line off the back of the turbo (with that setup, the car produced crazy TQ but was studdering at mid rpm a bit...and I believe HP was down even though TQ was up).

This seems like a really nice forum. Look forward to hanging out here for a while.

[Ian-PT-GT]

Starkie,

Welcome.

It looks like you have been having fun learning the engine manerisms.

I love to read some of the data that you have puled from the PCM with the Palm.

Where did you get the software and wire to plug into the ODB Port?

I have a Tungsten Palm and a HP Pocket PC... I would love to start logging my data.

Ian

[starkie]

Ian,
Auterra has a nice website at http://www.auterraweb.com/index.html.Their product includes all the necessary adapter cables for OBD-II to Palm as well as the software to gather the data. Cost is about $289. It's plug and play.

Understand though that the Dyno and ET functions does require some setup and are calculated using configurable weight, gearing, frontal area values. Also MAF sensor is expected for calculating fuel economy, but my SRT-4 doesn't have a MAF (it's calculated real-tim by the PCM) so fuel economy doesn't work for me. In fact, my Stage 1 PCM confuses the Auterra a bit causing it to decide I have OBD-I even though we know it's a OBD-II (well, hybrid OBD-II I think).

It was more convenient to write my own C# (VBA would work also) programs to make the resulting .xls files more humanly readable (charts). The Auterra product does a good job of converting the Palm Database files to Excel files after the HotSynch uploads them. As a data logger, the Auterra hard to beat as it gathers rpm, spark advance, coolant temp, o2 voltages, boost (well, manifold). Also, since the Auterra gives me real-time readings for O2 sensor voltage from both O2 sensors, I decided that I didn't need the MoPar A/F gauge and WideBand sensor I had bought, so I sold them.

quote:Originally posted by Ian-PT-GT

Starkie,

Welcome.

It looks like you have been having fun learning the engine manerisms.

I love to read some of the data that you have puled from the PCM with the Palm.

Where did you get the software and wire to plug into the ODB Port?

I have a Tungsten Palm and a HP Pocket PC... I would love to start logging my data.

Ian