Originally Posted by rguy

you might be able to help matters by installing one of RENNtech's NACA ducted hoods.

Originally Posted by Marcus Frost

Derek,

I really don't mean to pick on you my friend, you know I have nothing against you at all it's just your post is great ammunition for my previous threads.

What Derek has also proven with this post is basically how dyno #s do NOT translate into real world performance all the time. He had a 60rwhp gain on the dyno from stock to Kleeman - but this is extremely deceptive. A dyno is basically a single gear pull, which only lasts a few seconds, and then you let off. Yes, there is a fan to help cool & some heat is generated, but really 1 gear is nowhere near as bad at creating heat as a full 1/4 mile pass. By giving the car time to really generate heat we see a tremendous drop in power in his 1/4 mile run as evidenced by his trap speed. We barely have no gain.

To put it another way, If he were to run on the highway against a car that was evenly matched before and after Kleeman, looking at his trap speed, there would be little to no difference in the results, even though the dyno showed a ~60rwhp gain. That's very disappointing.

With a 60rwhp gain, you should see at the minimum a 4-5mph gain in trap speed at the drag strip. That would put you from 114mph, to roughly 120mph, and in the low 11s. I cannot emphasize how irrelevant your ET is as compared to your trap speed. I know muscle cars that run low 11s @ 112, 114mph. However, an E55 that runs low 11s @ 120mph+ will absolutely destroy that car in just about anything but a dead dig run. ETs are the direct result of two things, your 60' time, and your horsepower. More 60' time than horsepower, which is why a car only running 112mph traps (what a stock 55 runs) can run a low 11 second pass.

So there's one more thing to take away from Derek, who's been a real good guinea pig for us all(thanks Derek):

Don't put your money on dyno#s and horsepower claims, take it to the track, and see what it has to say about your car, in terms of TRAP SPEED. That number is 100x the indicator of power than just about any dyno is. It indicates how your car is running, how it compares to other cars (as it is a factor of weight, and dyno #s are NOT), how consistent it is in the REAL world, etc.

A real discussion on trap speed, and just how great of a measuring tool it is, is probably something for another thread. For this one, I'll just say it one more time, a car's 1/4 trap speed is without question one of the best way at measuring a car's pulling power. Not 100% definitive (no figure is), but a damn accurate one.

-m

Originally Posted by Marcus Frost

A higher capacity pump still isn't the solution. Water has a very high specific heat (coolant shares very similar properties), basically it retains heat very well, although it takes a lot of energy to heat it up. Our engines have no problem heating our coolant up. What a lot of supercharged drag cars do is add more capacity to the cooling system with an additional reservoir. This will delay the heating process as the heat has to dissapate over a larger volume of water/coolant, however - if the intercooler and heat exchanger can't do their job, and things aren't being cooled, you will still eventually heat up everything and have a huge decrease in performance.

The intercooler and heat exchange system are at the root of our problems. They need to be made much, MUCH more efficient. A higher capacity pump will help, but it really isn't going to make that big of a difference on the stock cooling setup, just like Vadim is alluding to.

-m

Originally Posted by cte430

It sounds like you're saying short of some insanely expensive mod to our cars, this is a problem we will just have to live with? I'm still wondering if my "stalling" / shutting off issue has anything to do with heat since it usually happens in stop and go traffic.

Originally Posted by Peter B

it cost 1/10 to modify a cobra b/c there are more than 50x the # of cobras out there versus e55s. if mb were buiding 50k e55s a year tuners would price their stuff accordingly. but since they dont, THEY dont!

Originally Posted by DerekFSU

I've now had the Kleemann Stage 2 for about 2 months. This includes the ECU, headers, pulley (edited to add pulley) and sport filters. Additionally, the tires were swapped out for Michelin PS2's. Exhaust note became slightly deeper and just a bit louder. I wanted it to sound stock and it was not far off.

Dyno showed 403 hp and 442 torque at the wheels on a dynojet. After the mods, dyno showed 460 hp and 513 torque at the wheels. Kleemann claims these mods will provide 593 hp and 626 torque at the crank. "Assuming" a 17% drivetrain loss of power from the crank to the wheels, the dyno should have read (in a perfect world) 492 hp and 520 torque. Obviously the torque is pretty much right on where the HP was lacking.

Next up is real world performance. The butt dyno said it was definitely quicker and so did the burning of the new and much grippier PS2's. Traction is DEFINITELY a problem. I run it twice and am very disapointed. Best run is a 12.28 (best stock run was a 12.33) and most runs are between 12.3 and 12.5, exactly where I was stock. Traction with ESP off makes it impossible to floor it until nearly 40 mph or it just goes sideways. With ESP on, it would lose traction but then slam the brakes so hard so my 60' times were horrible, usually at and a bit over 2 seconds. Trap speeds are also disapointing at 113-115. While I am wishing for those extra HP I think I'm missing from Kleemann's claims, I know that traction is probably the bigger issue.

When the proper timing presented itself, I sent the car back down to Chris Chapas at C2 Designs in Tampa, FL. He found a bad seal/gasket/or something like that on the headers and fixed it. He also sent the ECU back to Kleemann in Colorado. Additionally, he installed the Kleemann LSD and ordered a set of BF drag radials on OEM rims to be changed at the track.

Kleemann sent the ECU back with another program on it. They seem to use 2 different programs for the E55 and opted to try the other one. The car was then re-dyno'ed on the same dyno and returned 470 hp and 506 torque. This is a 10 hp increase and a 7 ft/lbs torque decrease from the prior Kleemann ECU program. That's about 20 hp and 14 ft/lbs shy of Kleemann's marketing claims. I'm sure there is some margin of error for environmental conditions in the dyno shop, fan speed, dynos, and performance differences between stock cars of the same make & model. What the acceptable error would be is something I don't know.

I picked up the car last night in Tampa so I could run it today in Valdosta, GA. I switched out the rear tires for the drag radials once I got to the track. The compound on those tires are amazing. They are VERY tacky and almost feel like an eraser, and that's while they are cold. After a 10 second burnout in dyno mode, it runs a 12.07 with a 1.843 60 ft at 116.17 mph. The launch was a whole new world with the drag radials and the LSD. Not a bit of wheel spin. Trap speed was a bit higher but time was still slow.

Now here is where I hit a problem, I could not get out of dyno mode. I tried reversing the same method by which I got into dyno mode, left the car off for quite a while, took the keys out, etc. Because of this, I wasn't ever able to run the car with ESP on or even with it off and the backup traction control being active. The good news is that I wasn't EVER able to get the car to lose traction on the start.

I started reving at 1000 rpm's before launching and went up from there for each run. I could not rev beyond 2000 rpm's without the car pushing over the starting line. I need more practice on this part.

While I raised the hood after every run, I only used ice on the engine for the last two runs. After using ice, reving to 2000 rpm's, and flooring it in dyno mode just a split second after launching, I got an 11.975 with a 1.785 60 ft at 116.3 mph. With the same method, I then ran a 11.856 with a 1.780 60 ft at 117.9 mph. Weather was in the mid 60's all day.

While I'd like it more in the mid to low 11's after having spent about $12,000 on the Kleemann Stage 2, BF drag radials, and the Kleemann LSD, 11.85 ain't all bad. With more launching practice, I think I can get it down closer to 11.6 or better.

In summation, my times improved from 12.33 to 11.85, a .48 time reduction. With more practice, that improvement could be as much as .75 seconds. If that's worth $12,000 to you then I would recommend you look at the Kleemann products and if you're in or around Florida, I highly recommend Chris Chapas at C2 Designs.

Originally Posted by SGC

I am not sure if the cooling issue is the largest concern, nor the limited slip differential.

My car with minimal cool down between runs has been consistent within a few hundreds of a second on the same night. I have had numerous turbo and supercharged cars in the past, and believe we may be overlooking the importance of getting air in and getting the exhaust out of the E55 (i.e. better air box, supercharger porting and less restrictive exhaust). 03-04 Cobra owners are picking up 3-5 mph in trap speed having the stock supercharger ported. Years ago, with mainly intake and exhaust modifications my Buick Grand National went from 13.90's to 11:70's. At a point during the process of modifying the car, the more boost I ran through the stock exhaust the car actually began to slow down.

With respect to the limited slip, for $380 in drag radials you get the same result. My car has gone 12.10's @ 116 on stock Continentals in 70 degree weather in humid Florida and 12.00 @ 117.34 on drag radials in 60 degree weather. Only modification, K&N filter.

In essence, changing the pulley and modifying the ECU without modifying the intake and the entire exhaust (not just headers) may be a large part of the problem. Just my opinion.

Originally Posted by Rev It Up

I just got my Kleemann Stage 2 completed by Automotive Concepts, Stratford, CT. It includes the ECU, headers, pulley. I also had the lowering module installed. The dyno results are considerably different then what you are experiencing above. I am getting 501.2 hp and 560.3 torque at the wheels. I can post the dynorun if anyone wants to see it.

Originally Posted by BenzoBoi

Jus a quick question. Isn't 501 hp and 560 torque a good figure? I mean isn't this what Kleemann is claiming? All I am trying to say is that those numbers are actually true to what kleemann claims. I'm jus gettin worried lately of modding because tuners claim a certain hp and torque rating and when people go to the dyno it's not quite up to par.

Originally Posted by DerekFSU

Kleemann claims crank horsepower to be 593 and torque to be 626. If you adjust it by 17% for drivetrain loss, then he is 9 hp higher and 40 ft/lb of torque higher than they claim.