so really 400bhp and 350lb-ft is where you want to stop. anything more is issues with other parts of the car.
i can see how your car is safe luke due to the lower torque but how does it deal with the extra heat futher up the rev range and extra boost?

My car has monstrous levels of torque which is great fun, but I am starting a gearbox fund now, as I think it just a matter of time.

Oh, and Nigel, the Paddle clutches aren't 'that' bad. I am quite used to mine now...

Hah. When I drove Joe's (now Eldinho's) that paddle clutch was a nightmare. Or a joke; I'm still not sure which.

Your c/r is slightly lower than jasons aswell mate

I think there is more to come from your car still with a bit more mapping and now your intercooler has been cleaned out

I've driven paddle-clutched cars - I agree, they aren't horrible to drive, but compared with a "normal" clutch, they are difficult

On mine, I can slip the clutch in first or second gear and pull away without even touching the throttle - its very controllable.

With a paddle, it WILL be grabby, and at low revs, it will stall the engine, so you end up having to dial in 1500+ rpm just to move three feet in traffic.

Tiresome, especially with a 3" exhaust

Nope - I'll stick with my organic - if I need to cope with more power, I'll find a more controllable way, such as twin-plate

Oh same here I think, now that I have a new clutch I know.. Synchro on 4th gear.
Is it really worth it to rebuild, or is a new box cheaper?

The irony now Neil, Eldinho's new paddle clutch is the best I have ever driven. In fact I REALLY don't think Mark knows how good his Coupe is...

As for a reliable 350bhp, well Neil has hit it squarely on the head, reliable in terms of what? There is a quantum leap when going from normal driving to full throttle redline activities. You could do a lot of things when building a car, more so at the factory level, but everything is done to a budget. Some will take it to the Nth degree and not accept anything less, others will be totally ignorant and "tune" accordingly. For most people getting the right balance is key, and with this approach you can have a reliable 350bhp.

I would also note that most "tuned" cars are killed by bad tuning. Too much boost, too much torque are the inherent danger for a standard piston and rod so we look to keep that in check, but when you start melting pistons, burning valves, bending rods, bending valves, spinning bearings... none of these are symptomatic of the "level" of tune, it's either a poor build, poor tuning, negligence or plain old bad luck.

I drove Marks car quite a lot when Joe had it and the clutch was horrible. I would not have lived with it. In fact it was one of the major reasons Joe sold the car.

However they really do mellow with age. And it is probably much better now. I am really happy with mine. It is much better than others I have driven, and I can even do hill starts quite happily.

on the paddle clutch issue, I've managed 20K km on JohnS s/h paddle clutch it is still hard, it is still grippy, yes you do need 1300-1500rpm to get the thing rolling and yes I avoid taking the car to Athens traffic jams. It does take a lot of abuse though and if you're happy doing 200kg on the leg press on the bench on the gym you should be fine

V.

just out of interest how much differance does say the extra 70-80 bhp on a coop? so rather than 400bhp like nigel and going full forge engine at great expense would it but worth the extra power and cost over say a safer 320-330 bhp?
some people like nigel have said a decent well set up 320 bhp would beat his on twisties due to the less lag and more useable power range.

Thanks again Leighton for the comments, I really do love the car I think I'm just being stupid even thinking of selling it. I may just turn it into a weekend car. Anyway I don't want to go off topic.

The clutch has now done around 8k, I would say the clutch got 10 times better between 1k miles and 3k miles. I now don't like driving with normal clutches anymore. They just don't seem purposeful.

In reply to peanuthead, my car makes around 380 at 1.25 bar. so at 1.1 bar (which I drive around with on most days) I will probably be making 360ish bhp. When I turn the boost up the difference is a world apart. Its probably more the jump in torque which makes it feel like that but it feels like a totally different car.

Nigel is probably right about a car with a smaller turbo keeping up or being faster on twisties. But they would have to be quite tight twisties in my opinion. Don't forget if you go forged you usually have an extra 500+ rpm to play with as the limiter will be raised in most cases, so you just have to be a bit more clever with gear selection. As long as you can be on boost from second upwards then the more powerful car will be faster IMO.

Also these larger turbo's aren't quite as "laggy" (boost threshold to keep Beggars happy ) as what people make out (unless you go too big). My 3071R doesn't seem to feel much different than the RS. Obviously I have things like raised CR and headwork but you should be getting these mods if you are going forged anyway.

i see where you are coming from as i know it will be quiker and 70bhp is alot of power but it about 3k more to build so it would have to be worth it.
so the main thing is if you make sure you stay on boost then you are ok but whats town driving like?

you would be nuts to sell now mate you really would be.

the head work would be a must for me as it makes the car run much better and you get better mpg when crusing

It probably isn't worth it, obviously it depends on what you want to do with your car and how long you want to keep it. I do want to compete in TOTB one year, so really I need the extra power. (I think that says I should keep it).

Town driving is fine, and it actually can be quite civilised. It drives great down the motorway and with only having to give a tiny bit of gas the 3" exhaust isn't even that boomy. Again though it depends on your tolerance levels with things like noise. I can live with them quite happily.

Single plate paddle clutches will always be a pain to use - though they do get a bit easier after a good thrashing, you can get the same or higher power potential from a Twin or triple plate, but you are looking at a grand plus...

A big factor with Eldino's car is that it is a 2.1? and the CR is higher, + also some headwork? This is all going to help getting a bigger turbo spinning...

about 2047cc I think it is! 9:1 CR and yep headwork

The extra 47cc makes no difference in my opinion. The head work on my car seemed to make it much better off boost though. It is resonably civilised in town now.

However,the biggest gripe I have with my car is the incredibly noisy 3" exhaust I have. It really annoys me

Yup - same as mine then - 83mm pistons @ 9:1 CR

I've always said that a 300bhp Coupe is really not that far behind a 400bhp Coupe in the real world (ie away from the track or drag strip)

At Curborough sprint course (VERY tight & twisty), Leighton's car was awful - it couldn't get on boost until halfway down the straight. Dave_t's car (small turbo - might even be standard) - was by far the fastest car there, mainly because of some well-considered handling mods and some trackday tyres

If I were in Jules' position, I'd go for 330bhp on a small turbo and have the handling sorted - the car will be 90% as quick as a 400bhp car when on track, about the same as a 400bhp Coupe on a decent A road and quite possibly quicker on a twisty B road.

Dave's car is on a standard turbo and 1.2 bar.

Cheers nigel that makes me feel so much better after I've just spent ££££'s on modding my car to get 400+ bhp lol

i am sure a 400bhp car will give you a much bigger kick in the back and the most roads i drive down are a roads or motorways so really 400bhp would be better for me but at a big cost

Don't get me wrong - 400bhp is HUGELY entertaining, but its not used all that often - I run at 1.2 bar for the daily slog, which probably equates to about 340 - 350bhp. Even at this lowly boost level, Its fast enough to destroy almost anything on the road, right up to M3s and most 911s. M5s and M6s need 1.5 bar and Ferrari 360s need a bit more.

However, the power is at the top end and its VERY rare that I get to use the entire rev band. When you think about it, all I have to do is hit my (increased) redline in second gear and I've broken the motorway speed limit. If I do it in 3rd gear, I'm in ban territory. If I do it in 4th gear, I'm heading for serious trouble. If I do it in 5th or 6th, I'm looking at a custodial sentence

Therefore, I'm VERY selective about when I chose to use the performance.

At some rev points, a small turbo will be 50-75bhp UP on my power output, which makes it quicker (and easier to drive) on public roads

I wouldn't swap mine for anything this side of JohnS or Taz's cars, but if I sold mine and fancied doing it all again, I'd do it differently.

in fact - when I drove my son's 16v n/a, I found myself thinking "this is plenty for everyday driving". Its only 1% of the time that I can exploit the extra bhp, which means the £xx,xxx I've spent is pretty poor value for money

And just to bring all of this into perspective....

back in 2002, when I had the 355, I went on a Coupe meet in East Anglia. On the drive through some gorgeous A and B roads, I had a play with a mildly-modded Coupe - perhaps 280bhp. I REALLY struggled to stay with him and couldn't have passed him if I'd wanted to. OK - he knew the roads and I didn't, but I was following, which is MUCH easier.

I still maintain that a 300 - 330 bhp Coupe with good suspension and brakes will be just as quick as a 400bhp Coupe for 99% of the time. Only when the 400bhp car gets to use the full rev range will the difference be seen.

Jules - save your money, get the car you showed me and take it to the SAFE limit of the standard internals, with a good GT turbo (GT28RSR??). Spend a few quid on suspension and brakes and drive it with the smug satisfaction that you're almost as quick as the big power cars, but you've spent just a couple of grand to get there. If the big power bug bites, you can always develop the car in stages, but I reckon you'll be happy below 350bhp

And therein the point, of course. In day-to-day driving, what matters is bottom end torque, not absolute power. It's the big V8 technique of being able to put your foot down and rip up the tarmac at slow speeds that shifts you... I might venture to suggest that a 1200 Mk1 Punto is probably quicker than the majority of coupes to 30mph; the coupe has barely woken up.

Back in the day before Joe sold his car to Eldinho, he couldn't get away from me on the twisties... the shortest straight, and off he went, but while it was twisty, he was mine. And others who have been to Red Lion meets when we've had a run will testify that the 16NA does not hang around.

Is it time for my perennial suggestion that the best mod for a 20vt might be a *smaller* turbo? Less top end power, but more torque at the bottom... it'd be spinning all the time. (I recall driving a 1050 turbo 127 - an absolute hoot!)

can i just Nigel that Dave only beat my time at Curborough on his last run once I'd gone home, so to say his car was by far the the fastest is a bit unfair on myself and the others. My car was on fairly worn road tyres, i'm sure some sticky track tyres would have helped a fair bit. I was caught off boost a few times, but nothing too drastic. Nothing like the lagmeister was experiencing. Not taking anything away from dave though. Great car and some great driving

Oi! The lagmeister wasn't that far behind either, and Nigel it wasn't awful!!!??? Curborough is a sprint track, everything is 1st and 2nd gear at pretty slow speeds until the straight finish, so it suits the low to midrange punch. Certainly nothing like a proper track or your average country road, I would have swapped turbo if I had known

It's worth someone getting some dyno print outs of peoples coupes with different setups and over laying them to see where different setups are making there power in the rev range


It's quite interesting and can give a good idea of what setup suits

Neil, your spending a bit too much time in the tuning section these days! Are you hankering after more power?

I must admit that I really liked my car when it had the GT28RS, but it went pop, so that's why I went the forged rebuilt route.

So, I suggest you go for no more than 320bhp, and just keep putting cash aside in case you break something expensive.

Leighton - sorry - "awful" was a bit strong!. However, it was just a very graphic example of a big-turbo'd car on a very tight twisty track - it just never got into its stride, simply because it didn't get above 4k rpm until it was on the main straight.

Mine wouldn't have been much better, so I doubt that Eldinho's would have been either.

However, if we do the next FCCUK trackday at Silverstone, the results would be completely the opposite - Dave wouldn't see which way we went

Squid, nah, just looking for hints as to what will break when/if I get a 20vt... step one, don't buy one that's been messed around with!