For awhile I've been pushing the idea that the MS6/3 are dynoing lower than they should b/c people don't make an effort to get cooling air through the TMIC. From what I've seen there's almost always just a single big fan out front with the hood open. This is fine for N/A and FMIC engines, but it's just blowing air across the TMIC. Anyway this is an interesting follow up response to a question I posted on Automobilemag.com about their neglecting to send any air through the TMIC when they dynoed the MS3 in a comparo with the GTi and Civic Si:
An update on the TMIC cooling thing...
Mazda contacted us said that they've managed to get repeatable 242 whp and 282lb-ft out of their cars by using a ($1000) 50-mph fan blowing on the front of their cars, and a powerful house fan bungee-tied to the top-mount. Ouch, that's a lot of power!
The product development engineer who gave me those numbers knows his stuff... enough so to admit that the GTI's intercooler also wasn't getting the air-flow that it would at high speeds.
Again, our goal wasn't to get peak numbers, just to look at how differently the cars made their power.
Of course, I'll be curious to see how much MS3 buyers can get their cars to put down when they resort to all the old tricks - icing the intake plumbing, spraying water on the intercooler, etc. But that certainly wasn't our goal here!
Jason
And my response:
Excellent stuff. Thanks for following up with Mazda. And while I appreciate what you're saying about advantages and all, it seems to me that you gave the GTi an advantage since the fan was at least blowing through its IC instead of over it. A $1000 50 mph fan is not crazy expensive or crazy powerful and how powerful could a house fan be? My point is that this is not trickery to get max peak numbers. It's just trying to approximate real-world airflow as much as possible. I'll definitely run my first dyno with a box fan bungeed on the TMIC.
Again, I appreciate your efforts to delve into the totally different ways the GTi, Si, MS3 engines make power. Whenever, I step on the gas in my MS3, I think I made the right choice, but can easily understand how others will find that the GTi or Si do a better job for them.
I'm sure that the Mazda figures represent just about the maximum possible in ideal conditions. Everyone else will fall short of that, but it shows that we should be using this setup when we do our own dynos. We need to get the shops to use more than just a single fan up front since this will not accurately reflect real world conditions for a TMIC engine. Few people seem to care about this issue. Maybe it's just b/c results vary so much and people figure the curve doesn't change much even with proper TMIC cooling. Anyway, I find it interesting.
An update on the TMIC cooling thing...
Mazda contacted us said that they've managed to get repeatable 242 whp and 282lb-ft out of their cars by using a ($1000) 50-mph fan blowing on the front of their cars, and a powerful house fan bungee-tied to the top-mount. Ouch, that's a lot of power!
The product development engineer who gave me those numbers knows his stuff... enough so to admit that the GTI's intercooler also wasn't getting the air-flow that it would at high speeds.
Again, our goal wasn't to get peak numbers, just to look at how differently the cars made their power.
Of course, I'll be curious to see how much MS3 buyers can get their cars to put down when they resort to all the old tricks - icing the intake plumbing, spraying water on the intercooler, etc. But that certainly wasn't our goal here!
Jason
And my response:
Excellent stuff. Thanks for following up with Mazda. And while I appreciate what you're saying about advantages and all, it seems to me that you gave the GTi an advantage since the fan was at least blowing through its IC instead of over it. A $1000 50 mph fan is not crazy expensive or crazy powerful and how powerful could a house fan be? My point is that this is not trickery to get max peak numbers. It's just trying to approximate real-world airflow as much as possible. I'll definitely run my first dyno with a box fan bungeed on the TMIC.
Again, I appreciate your efforts to delve into the totally different ways the GTi, Si, MS3 engines make power. Whenever, I step on the gas in my MS3, I think I made the right choice, but can easily understand how others will find that the GTi or Si do a better job for them.
I'm sure that the Mazda figures represent just about the maximum possible in ideal conditions. Everyone else will fall short of that, but it shows that we should be using this setup when we do our own dynos. We need to get the shops to use more than just a single fan up front since this will not accurately reflect real world conditions for a TMIC engine. Few people seem to care about this issue. Maybe it's just b/c results vary so much and people figure the curve doesn't change much even with proper TMIC cooling. Anyway, I find it interesting.