Need some help

Let me start by saying I apologize if this is in the wrong section and if it has been asked a million times before.
Now I have a personal project that I'm trying to do that I hope will help others with similar interests as mine. I am looking to create an article containing solid information about getting added performance from NA 4cyl motors. More specifically the Volvo B230 series motors. I am on a forum that is strongly opposed to the idea of putting anything but a turbo on a brick. I started talking to a couple members there about creating an article explaining ways to get more NA power and was suggested I start here on this site. Now I do have a very good understanding of how engines work, but not so much in the performance category. So any and all help is appreciated.
The things I'm looking for are tips and tricks to squeeze out more NA power, NA power "recipes" (not asking for the secret sauce though) and any dyno info.
In the article I plan on citing those who helped me with this and if you wish not to be recognized please let me know. Any and all help is appreciated and thank you in advance.

Compression, free flowing intake and exhaust, good cams, and rpm.

Look to the mini stock classes at your local circle track. Those guys are getting 240-260 hp out of the 8 valve 2.3 fords

Start with minor port work on the head. Not much has to go to get them to flow much better.
I have a flow bench you can try once you have a port you like.
All the turbo theory stuff still applies. Maybe find a cam with a little more overlap than you would use in a turbo setup, other than that, lotsa quench, good mix, cool charge, less restrictions hawwwddda, haawwwddddaaa.

Quote
ryanfay
Start with minor port work on the head. Not much has to go to get them to flow much better.
I have a flow bench you can try once you have a port you like.
All the turbo theory stuff still applies. Maybe find a cam with a little more overlap than you would use in a turbo setup, other than that, lotsa quench, good mix, cool charge, less restrictions hawwwddda, haawwwddddaaa.

Hey ! Student! Start where the knowledge ends so back up and find the research..

That may involve becoming one with another language....

When you've read some, then LOOK ---a lotta looking involved in learning, reading is looking, staring at the (clean0 ports is looking, lots of looking..

And if you look you'll see carefully done test show the head flows insanely well on both sides, in fact exhaust flow is way ahead of the desires ratio of intake to exhaust flow..., so no exhaust work needed, but maybe some intake just to balance the flow..

How's your Northern Branch of old Northern Germanic (that is what you speak, yaknow)?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Increase mean effective pressure. In other words, what Sean said. It is easy to get carried away, but it only has to be as complicated as you make it. If you have some phantasy of 1000 hp or unreasonable expectations your life will be hard. So many people just pick a hp number out of the air and say that is what they "need". In actual fact most internet wankers would be amazed with their cars if they even ran, were not worn out and were in tune.

---

Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

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Rallymech
Increase mean effective pressure. In other words, what Sean said. It is easy to get carried away, but it only has to be as complicated as you make it. If you have some phantasy of 1000 hp or unreasonable expectations your life will be hard. So many people just pick a hp number out of the air and say that is what they "need". In actual fact most internet wankers would be amazed with their cars if they even ran, were not worn out and were in tune.

Boys I don't quite know if the guy is looking for specifics "Tell the steps in my 16V Volvo normal aspirated to make moar powerz!!" or if he wants "this is the things ya do on (any) n.a. inline 4 to make it make...(what? horsies? or torquies? of to make the car quicker or faster of what..

Dave, you've opened a huge subject, you have to say what you are looking for: education? Enlightenment? quick? fast? step by step, hold the theory?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
phlat65
Compression, free flowing intake and exhaust, good cams, and rpm.

Look to the mini stock classes at your local circle track. Those guys are getting 240-260 hp out of the 8 valve 2.3 fords

N/A power depends a lot on if its going to be a race motor, or street driven. You don't want to have to run race gas on a street motor that idles at 1500rpms and needs valve adjustments every 5 hours.

But as to how to make power n/a asides from the conventional ported heads, higher compression, and larger cams, one needs to do a lot of black art tuning. Intake runner length matched to cam duration for pulse charging, exhaust runner length tuned to the same story. Port and chamber reshaping. Lightning of the rotating assemblies, etc. Mucho work and even mucho mas dinero.

In an overall package viewpoint I am a big fan of optimising the transmission, diff and suspension prior to looking for any more powarrrrs from zee engine.
No point having high power output if it drops out of the usable zone with every gear change, or shreds a single tyre, or handles like a barge.

And always physically measure the engine dimensions such as clearance volume when calculating any machining work such as skimming head to increase compression. Any calculations one makes based on printed matter by the manufacturers or on the internet is not always correct. Been there myself. VW state 9.5 CR on a certain engine when it CCs out at 8.3:1. On a small engine that is a big difference with how much metal you need to remove. And inversely on a larger 2.3 engine due to the the proportional differences it is easy to go too high on CR.

---

Disappointingly not yet a Jackass

Quote
danster
In an overall package viewpoint I am a big fan of optimising the transmission, diff and suspension prior to looking for any more powarrrrs from zee engine.
No point having high power output if it drops out of the usable zone with every gear change, or shreds a single tyre, or handles like a barge.

And always physically measure the engine dimensions such as clearance volume when calculating any machining work such as skimming head to increase compression. Any calculations one makes based on printed matter by the manufacturers or on the internet is not always correct. Been there myself. VW state 9.5 CR on a certain engine when it CCs out at 8.3:1. On a small engine that is a big difference with how much metal you need to remove. And inversely on a larger 2.3 engine due to the the proportional differences it is easy to go too high on CR.

Good point and why I say to the boys "be mindful that we don't drive engines on (road or) Stages, we drive cars"...

And very good point about actually LOOKING at the numbers you do yourself rather than presuming "wull da book says I haz 10.4 comp soooo if I carve off dis much..."

And using your example of a VW thing coming in at 8.3, the next thing is: when does the intake valve close......cause if its say 55^o ABDC, well ya don't have 8.3 cause it's a pretty well established fact that you don't make any compression when there a huge fawkin hole open ...


See the hard thing ---as always---is we don't know the level of ready familiarity the reader--or other person has, so I don't know how much boring basics need to be filled in..

Most guys believe it (seriously I have done this) when I wave a copy of Scientific American---which every issue has headlines about the latest genetics research, and DNA---and say to guys "Oi! Lookie, latest issue has a report on DNA and they've found the location on the helix right where men have genetic car knowledge!!! Proof! Finally!!!"

And most guys actually say "Ooooooh that's good!"

Of course at that point I roll the magazine up and start beating them with it....

And this is why Dave is here asking not the notorious Turbopricks where a thread began with an innocent question by some newb "How much powerz can ya get in a n.a. Redblock?" and the worst of the trolls came out screaming "That's stupid! +T it, its easy, it's cheaper" and the few idiots that actually have built some serious motors and or referenced good builds were screamed at "We don't need some theory of some high revving thing, plus T (+T is Turbopricks code word for adding a turbo onto the very likely 180,000+ mile tired old thing and giving it boost untill the rods come out the side of the block--which those guys do constantly) +t it is cheaper!!1 And EASY!!!!"

A good fellow from Finland, Markko but solid examples of his own motor, and referenced the amazingly good forum "Sävarturbo" based up on the Arctic Circle and was blindly attacked..."that's stoopid you can +T it, why would anybody want to spend thosands for just 10 or 12 more Haitch Peas?"

So Dave-Meatwagon has to come here and do like I like to, tell us more about yourself, your age, experience etc so we know what language to use..

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

You are not going to get any impressive number out of NA b230 without spending some impressive $. When it come to real power per money rates of return "those guys" are right, the volvo turbo option can't be beat.

NA b230 has like 115 hp, for about $1000 you can do a complete b230ft turbo motor swap with stock everything and have over 200 reliable hp. To get 200 hp out of a NA b230 will realistically cost $10,000 for all the custom unobtaium from Sweeeeden, many months of machine work, and it will never ever smog in the state of Ca.

As for recipes, my personal experience with NA b230 powah has been this; tubular header, free flowing exhaust, head shaved 50 thou, thin head gasket, K cam. All together cost maybe $700 with fresh gaskets, good tune up and such. Power increase is maybe 15 hp at most, better feeling torque and throttle.

Theoretical next stage would be lightweight rods and flat top pistons, bigger valves, porting and special cam, ECU with special chips. Aprox $3000 if you are good at bargain hunting. Who knows what it will make, expect not more than 150-160 hp

Dreamy next level: Throttle bodies and aftermarket ECU, or carbs. Meaning also special intake mani and lots of high end tuning. Lots of thousands of dollars...


I laugh and laugh when I drive my daily stock 240 turbo wagon that has 2/3 more oomph than my "tricked out" NA rallycar

Thanks guys for some of the info you have already given.

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
Rallymech
Increase mean effective pressure. In other words, what Sean said. It is easy to get carried away, but it only has to be as complicated as you make it. If you have some phantasy of 1000 hp or unreasonable expectations your life will be hard. So many people just pick a hp number out of the air and say that is what they "need". In actual fact most internet wankers would be amazed with their cars if they even ran, were not worn out and were in tune.

Boys I don't quite know if the guy is looking for specifics "Tell the steps in my 16V Volvo normal aspirated to make moar powerz!!" or if he wants "this is the things ya do on (any) n.a. inline 4 to make it make...(what? horsies? or torquies? of to make the car quicker or faster of what..

Dave, you've opened a huge subject, you have to say what you are looking for: education? Enlightenment? quick? fast? step by step, hold the theory?

Now to answer some questions. I went to school for automotive repair. I know how the engine operates, what is required for it do so, and how to diagnose and repair most problems. I just never took the performance classes. What I'm looking for is good solid information that I can put together into a solid report how how to increase the power and efficiency of Volvo's 2.3L Red Block. So John, all of the above, any education, step by step, and theory is appreciated.

The the info I'm looking for is more based on the Red Blocks 8V or 16V, but I don't want to rule out any good info NA 4 bangers. Now I'm not specifically looking for 400HP recipes, more in the 200HP range, but all info is appreciated. Like John mention NA questions get quickly shut down from that Brick site, so I would like to make a comprehensive article that will help people like me who want to go the NA route or are limited to NA by events they wish to compete in. Now I'm very much interested in this for personal reasons as I would like to build my NA motor to have some more oomph and eventually have fun in rally style events (I don't care too much about winning, have no delusions of being the next Pastrana, I just want to have fun). My plans are to do a 16V head and increased compression as I know more flow is important and increased compression increase power, but beyond that I'm lost.
So any and all help is greatly appreciated and I want to thank you guys for some of the info you have already given me.

Oh and I forgot, John I am 27 in April



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2013 05:04PM by CaliMeatwagon.

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
ryanfay
Start with minor port work on the head. Not much has to go to get them to flow much better.
I have a flow bench you can try once you have a port you like.
All the turbo theory stuff still applies. Maybe find a cam with a little more overlap than you would use in a turbo setup, other than that, lotsa quench, good mix, cool charge, less restrictions hawwwddda, haawwwddddaaa.

Hey ! Student! Start where the knowledge ends so back up and find the research..

That may involve becoming one with another language....

When you've read some, then LOOK ---a lotta looking involved in learning, reading is looking, staring at the (clean0 ports is looking, lots of looking..

And if you look you'll see carefully done test show the head flows insanely well on both sides, in fact exhaust flow is way ahead of the desires ratio of intake to exhaust flow..., so no exhaust work needed, but maybe some intake just to balance the flow..

How's your Northern Branch of old Northern Germanic (that is what you speak, yaknow)?

Well I am a trained observer . Drawing cross sections of my field area as I type.
One more thing to consider is if you up the rev limit to 8,000, you'd be at the 200 mark.

And how might I do that?

A fun read is that NA 16 valve toyota writeup.

Al- why wouldn't an ecu and re wiring be the first step? Switching to something like VEMS with GM coils would swap to any motor and fresh wiring never hurt and at $700 with full motorsport capabilities and no soldering involved it's cheap.

Also wanted to point out that EZ wiring is the way to go. Less than half the cost of anything painless puts out and a freaking sweet kit! Started laying mine out in the living room but I need a dash to go further.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2013 11:36PM by aj_johnson.

Quote
aj_johnson
A fun read is that NA 16 valve toyota writeup.

Al- why wouldn't an ecu and re wiring be the first step? Switching to something like VEMS with GM coils would swap to any motor and fresh wiring never hurt and at $700 with full motorsport capabilities and no soldering involved it's cheap.

Also wanted to point out that EZ wiring is the way to go. Less than half the cost of anything painless puts out and a freaking sweet kit! Started laying mine out in the living room but I need a dash to go further.

AJ you smoking lichen and buffalo chips?

Management manages what the engine asks for and what the engine asks for is a function of the air flowing thru and thats a function of how much it gulped in, squeezed and popped last time...
Who even said the management---which really is a separate subject---ain't working?
Or "working for what"

Dave, begin reading here. Read everything.
http://www.billzilla.org/4agmods2.htm

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.