vrus

Hey Marcus,

I think it was Darren_Dallas that told me (not 100% sure) that he dropped the car off for K2 and when he went to drive home his check engine light came on so he went back to the shop and Cory disabled the O2 sensors using programming. I kind of assumed the programming was done with Star Diagnostics since Kleemann USA doesnt do ECU programming in house.. The files are sent from Kleemann Denmark for the ECU.

I think you will see more power out of your 2.75" setup if you are using 2 cats like mine. The 3" is just overkill at the stock power levels.

Hurry up and get that beast on the dyno so I can see the differences..

Cory: What do you think? Do I need to get the O2 disabled ??

Marcus Frost

Victor,

Very interesting. I did not know Cory disabled the O2s. Maybe time for a software change!

I don't know if my car will make more power than yours, but per our previous discussion I am wary of increasing piping size because I thought 2.75" should be more than sufficient and my old rationale "bigger is not always better". We will see what happens, I really think my headers + cat delete will yield the bulk of my gains with the x-pipe & resonator delete just being pudding.

I think you may be calling Cory soon for a software upgrade if you can't solve your problem... which isn't necessarily a bad thing

-m

vrus

Marcus,

I found a "buddy" locally here who has access to the hardware AND software required to program our ECUs..

He already created a base program for me with NO VMAX!!! Good ridance.. Now I can dyno in 4th right to redline. He changed the fuel maps and increased the ignition advance.

I havent loaded the program because I want to get the car running 100% and fix this O2 sensor problem before I change anything else. He isnt sure how to disable the O2 sensor so he is looking into it.

If I cant find anything I will have to wire in the O2 sims and put it on the dyno again.

vrus

*** Update ***

Ok.. Found the damn culprit... Fluid pump went south on me and IAT were skyrocketing and therefore ECU was cutting power on me and putting me in limp mode. It was driving me crazy because it was an intermittent problem for a few days and then all of a sudden today the pump didn't run at all and that's when the lightbulb went off in my head. Damn it!!!

Sent an email to EVO.. They are going to overnight me a new pump. I guess my pump was part of the bad batch that was shipped from the manufacturer. Vadim told me that after that bad batch they now test every single unit before they ship it to a customer to make sure it is in good running order.

This might also explain why my engine temp seemed a bit higher.. Maybe the higher IATs put more stress on the motor and increased the internal temp???

Anyways, I will install new pump once it comes, rig up a switch to give permanent power to the pump and then redyno.

Hopefully my long lost power will come back to me now.

darren_dallas

Victor,

You're correct. I had the problem with the check engine light after the installation of the K2 setup. I took the car back to Cory and he disabled the line of code that checks for the primary cats. The O2 sensors are still there and not disabled (as far as I know).

Kleemann USA does not use Star Diagnostics to accomplish this (they probably have it in house for other things), rather it's another package whose name escapes me right now. As soon as I think of it I'll let you know.

Thank you,

Darren

rflow306

Victor that's awesome news all things considered. I could not understand why you did not pick up peak hp or torque. As efficient as the factory exhaust might be AMG has to contend with emissions. That alone leaves room for improvement.

vrus

Wow.. You guys would not believe how SLOOOOWWW the car is without the fluid pump running.. I can barely pass the Civics on the road. I have to behave and drive like an old man until this gets swapped out.

Initially I was on a wild goose-chase because my Autotap logs showed the secondary O2 were reporting a 99.2% STFT.. This made me believe that it was starving for fuel (even though the A/F looked ok)... Well, after analyzing the logs that Marcus sent me he has the exact same readings. In fact, Autotap keeps reporting 99.2% CONSTANTLY no matter what you are doing.. So, that number is basically meaningless. THANKS B&B ELECTRONICS!!!

When I designed this exhaust in the beginning the placement of the catalytic converter was decided based on the fact that I didnt want to get a check engine light and didnt have a means to program them out.

After speaking with Cory at Kleemann (he told me he could program them out for me if I need to) and my local buddy here I was told that I can accomplish what I want. Once the pump is replaced, I will do another dyno to see the new baseline. At that point, I will attempt to reflash the ECU locally and will also move the location of the catalytic converters to further down the pipe just at the point where it straightens out and is parallel with the bottom of the car. This should give me the optimal power out of them since they wont be choking the headers by being so close to them. It will in effect lengthen the primary pipe another foot or so.

This should be interesting....

E55AMG99

I've got my fingers crossed for you hoping you get this resolved soon! Good luck.

E552006

Vrus
Any updates?

vrus

Haven't made it to the dyno yet. Still working out some issues with the car before it is ready to hit the rollers. Exhaust is 100% done for now. Just working out some issues with the intercooler pump.

vrus

Pump Issues:

Well.. I finally straightened out my issues with the cooling system. My intercooler fluid pump was a little unreliable and eventually quit working on me. Evosport responded very promptly and overnighted me a new pump. It took a while for me to coordinate everything (my time, and shop time) and resolve all the issues but I finally have the intercooler cooling system running 100% again.

This new pump is SUPER QUIET!!!! It is barely more audible than the stock one. Now I am 100% sure my pump was bad from the beginning. My original pump made a hell of a racket and sometimes quieted down a bit, but not as quiet as this one.

It is still rigged up like the factory one (ECU turns it on when it wants to). My next step is to rig up my switch so I can selectively turn it on when I want to or leave it in ECU control.

Exhaust Issues:

I made some changes to the exhaust configuration.

1) I removed the race cats from just below the headers and had a 3" downpipe fabricated to go in its place. The race cats are now located near the middle section of the undercarriage a little further down from where the original SECONDARIES were located. This was a must because those race cats are only 4" diameter. They were choking the exhaust flow being that close to the headers.

2) I removed the X-pipe and put an H-pipe in its place. I am still going to be doing some testing but I swapped it out for now because there just wasnt enough room to fit it in. I will have to do some more reconfiguration later to retest the X-pipe.

Results:

I went to the dyno last night to recheck and make sure the car is healthy. Unfortunately their printer was on the fritz so I didnt get a hard copy, but I have the numbers:

443rwhp, 500rwtq

This was run in 4th just like my other pulls and stopped at 5,400RPM due to fuel cut. I am a little higher than I was BEFORE the exhaust, BUT, there is promise showing in those numbers.

I will explain:

After doing some datalogging and looking at the MAP values it looks like I am down almost 2lbs of boost with the headers & exhaust configuration.

Ontop of that, the dyno was showing some pretty lean A/F #'s... 14:1 A/F from 2,000RPM to 3,000RPM. 13:1 from 3,000RPM to 3,500 or so RPM.. it hit 11:1 at 5,000RPM but I think that was ECU just protecting the engine.

There is alot of potential if I can get the car the fuel it needs. The really lean mixture is causing the engine to build heat, which in turn probably tells the ECU to pull timing.

The bottom line is I am just over the power levels I was at BEFORE the exhaust but with less boost and a very lean A/F.

Moving Forward:

All of this testing basically tells me the stock exhaust is more than sufficient at the stock levels and even with just headers. Maybe its because I put in the 3" tubing.. Not sure.. If Marcus gets his done we can compare and see if a well built 2.75" exhaust is any better than the stock one.

I am hoping my exhaust will show its potential once I push the HP levels higher and give the engine more breathing room.

In order to remedy the boost loss situation and really put this car where it should be I broke down and ordered the Evosport pully kit. I chose this kit because I want to extract as much power as I can from this car and they provide underdrive pullies for the alternator, power steering, and water pump. Their crankshaft overdrive pully also supplies +3lbs of boost which would put me just over the stock levels.

I also have a custom ECU program done for me which will be put into the car also. This was done from someone I hooked up with here locally. He has access to the hardware & software to do custom mapping, so that's what we did. I will be putting the ECU program in tomorrow (hopefully he won't cancel on me) and will retest with just the ECU update.

More dynos to follow once ECU is updated and then once more after the pullies.

lbE55

Victor:

Thanks for the update. After reading your posts, I always find new things to think about.

Mark.

jparch

Vic, good luck with re-map, that should produce some nice numbers!

E55 RUSS

Good topic...

Ok...here is the info I've got from Kleemann Germany when I was thinking about doing the same...

When you make exhausts more free flowing (header, cats and the rest) the Boost goes down from 0.9 to 0.7...thats why you loose power...you need to adjust ECU to bring the boost back to 0.9...then you get the advantage of the exhaust...

I think you better get Kleemann ECU for Stage 2 + rest of exhausts...If K2 makes 560 HP with Pullies, Header (pirmary cats removed) and ECU...With the rest of the exhaust system, Kleemann cats, middle and racing muffler, I was told it would make around 580-585 HP...

If you remove the cats and leave all O2 sensors in place, you shouldnt get SES for O2 sensors, since they still working, but O2 will detect more AIR flow and make the car to run RICH, black smoke from the rear sometimes...but better get ECU without O2 sensors, they will make your car run rich...

That what happend to my M5 when I did this (removed CATs, 63mm X-pipe and 63 mm racintg mufflers), the car made extra 20 HP on Dyno without ECU adjustments...and sounded insane, runned (revved) faster as well, especially on TOP...but my friend kept stock exhausts and just removed the CATs and HE was as fast as ME, had some advantage at low end and I had advantantage of TOP end...

What I wanted to do is just to remove all CATS, make X-pipe andracing cat...but now I can see that I will definately need specific ECU for this mods...

I hope you sort you problems soon...

Good Luck...

medici78

When you moved the cats downward, did you relocate the O2 sensors?

vrus

Thanks Mark! It's been an interesting adventure thus far.

Thanks buddy! I am hoping so.

Thanks. Once the ECU is remapped and I retest I'll know whether or not I was right. I think the real power will come once I throw the boost pullies on there. We'll see soon enough...

Nope. O2 sensors are still in the same spot. They just dont have a cat in between them anymore. Check Engine came on but that will be taken care of shortly.. My ECU program will have the secondary O2 sensors programmed out.

Grumpy666

You mentioned this once before and I didn't follow your reasoning then, either. How does moving the location of a restriction in the exhaust make it less of a restriction?



Do you have data logging for the boost pressure pre-exhaust and post-headers? I would be surprised if your exhaust mods contributed much to the lower boost.

Grumpy666

These statements need a little clarification. Having a lower boost level after exhaust mods does not mean you're losing power. It means the exhaust system was not capable of flowing as much air as the engine. Lower boost doesn't always mean lower power. In this case, Victor's engine is making more power with less boost because he increased the air flow through the engine via the headers/exhaust mods.


In most cases, this is not accurate. The purpose of the seconday O2 sensor is to monitor the efficiency of the cat. If the cat is removed, the secondary sensor will see the same rapid cycling between rich/lean conditions that the primary sensor sees. If the ECU detects that the secondary sensor is trying to cycle like that, it will assume the cat has failed and throw a code. Also, the sensors are designed to react to the presence of O2, not air flow.

vrus

I am not saying that it makes it less of a restriction. I know that the restriction is still there. I am assuming it's affect has been lessened to some degree. Here are a couple of my assumptions:

1) The exhaust gasses are hottest near the header flange. They cool and slow down as they move further away. Having the catalysts further from the header would allow the exhaust gases to keep their velocity up a bit longer before encountering the restriction and therefore allowing the engine to breath a little easier.

2) Keeping the restriction further from the header lengthens the tube from the point of the collector. Doesn't having a longer downpipe attached to the collector of the header in effect increase torque? We are increasing the volume of pipe (the distance between the header flange and the entry to the catalyst) the engine can pack before it encounters the restriction. Doesn't this also lower the heat that is created by having the restriction closer to the header?

Maybe I am completely off-base, but, these are the thoughts that were in my head that prompted me to make the decisions I made. Am I completely wrong here?

Unfortunately, this is where I slacked off a bit. I didnt give detailed enough names to the files when I saved them, so I cant be certain what was done to the car at the time the logs were taken. I only definitively know that the boost level is lower now by 2psi than it was before.

As always, your input is appreciated.

vrus

Not to be a nitt-picking little a$$, but, shouldn't that statement be the other way around?

The engine was not capable of flowing as much air as the exhaust could handle.

Grumpy666

I can't fault your logic, but I'm not sure how valid it is in your application. Exhaust gasses travel at about 350 ft/sec as they exit the engine. That means the leading edge of the gas flow hits your repositioned cat less than 1/100 second later than the stock location. So, in my mind, it seems doubtful that moving the cat will result in better engine breathing.


This works when the exhaust is open after the header/tube. The tubing is providing a predetermined flow resistance to tune the backpressure for a specific RPM range. In your case there is a cat and a muffler, and more pipe after the tube, which will determine the tuning range.

Grumpy666

No, it's correct as written. Think of it as a supply and demand situation. At a given RPM, the S/C produces a given amount of air flow. If this flow is greater than what the engine can handle, boost will occur. The boost level will be determined by whatever mechanism is limiting flow. In the case of the E55, boost reaches equalibrium at about 12 psi.

If there is a restriction in the exhaust system, then the spent gasses will not be completely evacuated from the cylinder and will limit how much fresh charge can enter. This will determine the engine's flow capability and, hence, set the boost level. If you remove this exhaust restriction, the spent gasses will be scavenged more efficiently and more fresh charge can enter. More charge entering means more air flow through the engine. More flow means more demand on the S/C. Since its output is fixed (by the pulley ratio), the boost level will go down.

ScottCLS55

Well I guess the "AMG" rep was right after all. Cant wait to see the gains with the pulley. grumpy, how the hell do you know that exhaust flows at 350 ft /sec.. are you a Rocket ship engineer if so you should be over at ferrarri chat and lamboworld with those skills.

again vrus good luck

E552006

Exactly
Boost is the variable and everything else is fixed when you are talking S/C vs NA or Turbo. A SC will move a fixed amount of air. Any restriction that is removed will LOWER the boost level.
You are not going to gain much HP with a S/C when you remove a restriction due to the fact that you are not increasing the superchargers ability to move air to much degree.
Yes, you may lessen a small amount of air density that will effect the S/C efficiency but what you are doing to a much greater degree is lowering the boost level.

Grumpy666

BUT ....... you are increasing the engine's ability to move air - and that will cause a gain in HP, independent of what the S/C is doing. Plus, lowering the boost level by removing a restriction will lower the intake air temperature and increase charge density, which also increases HP.