"I got dragstrip courage
I can really drive a bed"
Only thing that kept me up some nights was the specter of reversion - took up residence over the VE valves and in my head when thoughts of slapping an FMAX Stage II (or any other turbo) worked their way into my brain (check out the cam overlap diagrams on page 2). Zealots tend to have selective vision with respect to the object of their zealotry and as I am clearly one, I found it took some effort to approach this project with a critical eye trained on vulnerabilities. This project platform, I must admit, has its weak points (overheating, cam overlap, etc.) and they demanded an unbiased survey of all of the available options before they could be properly addressed. I tried to do this with as many redundant systems as possible.
Photo by Bubba Z.
In my mind the VE was always considered a great foundation for a fun project - not an end unto itself.
Amendments/updates to the Mods I section (in case you care)
1) The ECU program directed the VE to be rich under WOT to the tune of about a 7hp penalty previous to its cross-country jaunt/new program version.
2) The stock pistons of the VE are flat, not domed as was speculated. There are pics of the stock VE pistons on page 4.
3) An SR20DE header gasket and possibly aftermarket DE header WILL CHOKE the SR20VE. I had an aftermarket DE header on the VE previous to the engine rebuild/turbo stage and my VE was in fact being choked by the DE gasket and possibly even the header itself by a 0.25" overhang! This was due to the slight difference in the positioning of the DE exhaust ports relative to the VE exhaust ports. Obviously this not only overrides any possible gains from scavenging effects etc. but also causes nasty amounts of reversion and turbulence which leads to power loss. A shot of the VE head on page 3 (exhaust port side) clearly shows a black exhaust pattern that points to serious leakage problems. The OE VE manifold is pretty good and I should have stuck with it until the turbo stage.
Had fun all summer, bought a house, got married, began building a garage and prepped for the winter hibernation/transformation.
Almost all of the pictures on the following pages are thumbnails linked to larger ones, click on em' if you're interested in more detail. If you are interested in even more detailed and larger versions than the larger posted pics, drop me an e-mail. I can send them to you if you need them for technical reasons. I have most of these pictures in a larger format than what is posted (they would take a LOOOOOOOOONG time to reach your machine and would take me too long to upload to the various servers I use).
BIG thanks to Mike Smith of MS Performance and Jim Wolf Technology (JWT) for all of the non-FMAX fabrication, which was almost EVERYTHING, for managing the project, for doing some amazing work, for all of the pictures (except where noted) and all of the expertise below. Mike is the BEST.
Also BIG thanks to Mike Kojima for developing the turbo and brake packages.
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