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Eddie FourFather Hill here, with a Pro Formula Mazda open wheel road racer powered by a Renesis engine that I turbocharged and converted to methanol fuel. Big fun! I have seen over two gee cornering.
Cheers,
As far as I have been able to determine, no one else has ever turbocharged a Pro Formula Mazda before. So we had to fabricate our own turbo manifold and exhaust, along with everything else. The cars come with sealed engines and password protected MoTeC ECU's, so we had to get MoTeC to unlock /completely wipe clean the ECU, and start from scratch with a tune. The original tune for unblown gas was not much help for turbocharged and methanol fuel.
But the result has been worth it.
Cheers,
Eddie
Eddie, that looks amazing! If there are any videos of it running I'd love to see them. Also, can't help but notice the GT in the garage. Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing.
For any of you that don't realize who is posting, Eddie is a racing legend, on land and water.
Welcome to the forum Eddie!! Glad to have you here, as I'm sure you are a wealth of knowledge on many fronts!! Would love to see more pictures of the car if you had any available!!
Yeah, deleted that. Thought that was it in the build photo, but now see it’s painted same color, but with a Renesis intake that I didn’t notice before. So obviously not the PP engine then.
Thank you for sharing the pictures!! That's an awesome car! Incredible that you built the car in house! A lot of time went into that and you really did a nice job with the car!
Here is one straight (out of the five straights) at Hallett Motor Raceway just west of Tulsa.
You can see from this data log that the car accelerated from about 40 mph to 126 mph in about six seconds, starting from Hallett's slowest corner in first gear and no-lift shifting through the gears into fifth before shutting off for the next corner. You can also see the boost follows the throttle opening almost exactly. Half throttle-half boost,and - full throttle full boost, - here about 190 kPa or around 13 pounds gage. Straight methanol fuel, no inter/after cooler used, or needed. EGT's lower than when it was unblown gasoline.
Fun Stuff!
Cheers,
Eddie
Last edited by FourFather; 02-03-2020 at 05:46 PM.
You can see from these shots why we had to fabricate our own installation- to snake through the chassis tubing, and there was just barely enough room. Challenging, but satisfying.
Looks like you changed the turbine housing. Which model BW turbo is that?
I've been through a lot of changes getting this to where it is now. I am now happy with a Borg Warner EFR 8474 with aluminum CHRA and external wastegate.
I saw 334 at the tires very early in the project, with the smaller turbo and less boost than I'm using now.
I pay more attention to the acceleration of the car than I do dyno numbers, and 40 mph to 126 mph in six seconds is a good place to be, along with lower EGT's than gasoline, and very safe Lambda.