im headed back down to smg on wednesday to put my much tamer girl back on the dyno so ill talk with him about it but most likely the decrease in compression without doing anything to increase the boost caused a loss of power. as for the pipe i would not have gone bigger, the pipe acts as a radiator for heat energy, the turbo is supposed to be eating up the expanding gasses as they are coming out of the head. by the time they hit the lower exhaust pipe they are just about done combusting. the bigger pipe has much more surface area to bleed heat and it reduces the speed of the exhaust gases by giving them a bigger area to move through. twincharge can work, but doing it remote is challenging, you need to use narrow pipe and heat wrap the entire length to trap the heat in until it can spin the turbo. if the car runs well and hauls ass it may already be ready to sell to recover your cash. 390 at the wheels is a ton of power for a fwd car. if your just going to sell it she it probably ready for that as is.

 

Well your view changed 360* on the whole thing it seems

 

How did that convo go over with him? I was at the shop today and mentioned what you told me about losing heat energy and he said thats only to help spool the turbo which he said has not had a problem. He seemed to disagree that wrapping would help. Was just wandering if you agree with that now or still think he should. Tomorrow he is putting my stock cams back in to see if that fixes it. He seems to think the problem lies with either the cams, valve springs or both

 

the cams and springs are possible culprits, hes the one with 80 hours of hands on time with that car, im comfortable with defering to him at this point. the truth will out once the car is back on the dyno. freds a excellent mechanic, one way or the other your car will be a firebreather again.

 

i was at SMG yesterday around 4:45pm to drop off my zzp cams.

I can't wait for this twin-charged balt to run at the dyno.......and show its full potential.

im hoping that the stock cams will solve the issue.

good luck!

 

FINALLY found out today the boost drop was occurring due to the valve springs I used the ZZP 78lb valve springs. He ended up taking out the stage 2 turbo cams and used the stock cams and the boost drop went away. We are going to try to still use the stage 2 turbo cams but order the supertech valve springs instead.

 

Your link goes to the supertech springs order page at ZZP stating that they were the culprit but then you say that you have to order the supertech valve springs instead...Im confused lol

 

That's good news. Hope you move forward with your project.

 

Once i get the exact wording Ill post it. But yes those in the link are what I have and its something about the lift height being too much for those cams. This is horrible wording but Ill be sure to post it up with the exact numbers and everything.

 

hopefully now this thing can move forward and start making the power it should

 

Oh I see. Those springs are incompatible with the agressiveness of the turbo cams I guess. You probably needed stiffer springs for those cams.

 

What? The max lift a spring can handle wouldnt do that, only not enough spring pressure or broken springs which would not be surprising coming from the zzp springs.

 

Yeah, not sure why though since those were the recommended springs when I bought the cams.

Like I said once I get the info from him ill post it so you can understand exactly whats going on.

 

was thinking the same

 

did you all not notice they are supertechs not zzp springs? lol......
not that it would matter if it was either one, installer error is always a huge factor.

 

good to hear!

 

They were ZZP Springs. Super Tech uses the dual coil springs.

 

so why post a link to supertechs saying that they were the problem?

 

Because I screwed up lol

I actually don’t see the ZZP 78lb valve springs w/retainers listed anymore that I bought from them a while back.

 

Oh ok yea they have the 82's listed now, maybe they had problems? call and see if they agree and will help out with a new set?

 

^ this. They're in the thread and know what's going on

 

When did you purchase the springs from us? We had a couple issues with our first supplier, but changed quite a while ago. FWIW, I ran the original ZZP valvesprings on my 600+ whp LNF setup. Ryan is running the newer ZZP springs on his 9 second Cobalt. We have never had any issues with them. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it seems that SMG is claiming that our springs are not good enough for a 12psi supercharged setup. It does not sound very likely. If they wouldn't work in the current configuration, then you would have had massive valve-float and serious misfiring when they were running 28psi on the dyno with the turbo in place.

 

i'll say it's probably the old set of springs .. OR .. hate to say it for the smg nut huggers (which after this whole thread i'm really not sure how any of them are left) installer error. I had an issue with 1 of my valve springs but zzp rectified it immediately and I purchased mine ages ago (when the initially came out 2 years ago ) since then they've changed suppliers and are now advertised at 82 lbs springs

 

Sorry fellas, I lost all faith in SMG. He has horrible customer service among many other things.

After what I saw in his tuning it's hard to say if there wasn't an issue on install.

OP, glad he is doing something to make this right. But, I wouldn't pay any more money. Make sure it's right when you take it home, otherwise it'll be hard to get a hold of him.

 

im glad it was figured out. hopefully now it will make some good power.