I picked up my car with the BBSC installed on Wednesday with the intent of having it dynoed at Cybernation Motorsports in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday. Unfortunately, my aftermarket ecu chip was not swapped out during the install with a "stock" chip. I noticed the problem on my way to Ft. Lauderdale when getting on boost once weather and traffic conditions permitted. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. I called Mark Basch and he made provisions to get me a compatible chip asap. Unfortunately, that wasn't until Friday night so I wasn't able to do any dyno runs at Cybernation.
About midnight last night I was able to get the ecu chip swap done with the help of Greg McCarthy and Andie Lin...many thanks Andie for your time and efforts in getting the pins on the chip perfectly aligned so that it would fit into the socket on the ecu board! Andie and I warmed the car up upon completion and took it out for a test drive at around 1am. My '94 has a six speed, 4.55, Comptech powergrip clutch with light flywheel, headers, no cats, and a custom catback system. 253rwhp before BBSC.
First impression with BBSC- the power comes on relatively smoothly or what some would refer to as linear power delivery. There is no moment when it suddenly comes in, it's more like as your natural powerband comes on you feel like there's just a good bit more power until you get above 5500 when it really gets humming. I did a second gear roll on from 3,000rpms and ran it up to redline through second and third and into fourth before running out of road. The car pulled strong and without any trouble. Andie and I were pleased that the chip swap seemed to have worked out and called it a night.
This morning, the Florida Chapter hosted a back roads drive that included some spirited driving on a sunny Florida day. After about twenty minutes of driving I started hearing some engine pinging under boost. Detonation...ugh! I took it easy until the next scheduled stop and then added some octane boost which seemed to mitigate some, but not all of the pinging. I was running 92 octane gas from "Speedway", the only fuel available at 7am this morning in Lake County where the event is taking place. I am home now and near "E" and will fill up with some name brand 93 to see if there is any difference. I will post the results.
Mark B. has told several of the Florida "Installees" that there is another software update forthcoming in the next few weeks. If the better fuel results in no pinging, which I hope for, I will have the car dynoed on the same dynojet I did my baseline run at and post the gains.
I did have an opportunity to compare the car to SMOORE's yellow nos NSX on the way back to Tampa Bay this afternoon. We did a 70 iph (inch per hour for you LE officials) roll on which put me at 5300rpms in third and went side by side up to 140. The cars were dead even in their acceleration, each of us carrying one passenger. I'm not sure how much nos SMOORE is spraying, 70 shot or other, but I would surely hope that if it is a 70 the BBSC in it's final tune would have an edge. Perhaps SMOORE will read this and post the details of his nos setup for us to have a better feel for the results.
All in all, it's a work in progress which I understood at the beginning of the week when I dropped my car off. Mark B. is committed to getting any needed changes made as well as the forthcoming upgrades of the different pulley, blowoff valve and cold air intake. Once he's had the opportunity to make these changes and get the car fully tuned with the software I will do another dyno session and post those results for all to see.
I hope this post helps shed some light on the current status of BBSC as I know just last week I was one of the masses wanting to know more. I'll keep the info coming as things develop. Peace and safe speed to all,
Scott
[This message has been edited by TampaBayNSX-R (edited 29 June 2002).]
