Who is happy the engine will be Naturally Aspirated?

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by uspspro

Some quick math...

SNIP

The potential tuneability of the NA engine worries me. Coming from the turbo world, there's lots of headroom available through breathing modifications (external to the engine strictly) before one moves into more expensive modifications that provide less return.

The problem will be keeping torque on the low-end while still having usable top-end. I redline on the street all day long, but those spurts of top-end don't last very long. Getting more meat into the middle of this engine is the goal, but I don't see that happening without changing cams and doing some DAVCS/other tuning trickery. With a turbo it's rather simple; I will admit I'm ignorant of N/A tuning.

[Levi]

NA = hard training
FI = steroids (easy cheating)

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by OrbitalEllipses

Getting more meat into the middle of this engine is the goal, but I don't see that happening without changing cams and doing some DAVCS/other tuning trickery. With a turbo it's rather simple; I will admit I'm ignorant of N/A tuning.

If you want "more meat into the middle", you'd want MILDER than stock cams to avoid the dip. That would fill in the middle, but kill the top end (no more 200hp!).

Many an n/a modder has been bitterly disappointed with getting a hotter cam "for more oomph" only to find that they lost torque in the rpm range where they spend 90% of their time. Cams don't magic you any more torque (for the most part) they just put the torque where you want it.

[OrbitalEllipses]

Heh, I know how cams work. Hence the preference for FI where moving the power curve is mostly dependent on choice of turbo and shifting the peak from there is accomplished with a hotter (or milder) cam.

[Visconti]

Yeah - So I'm not super disappointed with the car.

I knew it was going to be NA - and I knew it wasn't going to make a lot of power.

With some mods and a flash the TQ curve can be fixed and another 10-20whp can be picked up.

But why can't we just put a turbo on it?

-John

[Ryephile]

Originally Posted by John@TheShopCT

But why can't we just put a turbo on it?

Nobody is stopping you from taking this engine and making a billion HP. Big numbers and loud dyno videos project excitement and translate into sales, which is what you're ultimately after.

Those of us that genuinely want to retain this engine as N/A, isn't because we don't want more power per se, it's because we like the response, purity, and simplicity of natural aspiration. That doesn't make boosted setups wrong for others, it's simply reinforcing our desire to have an specific machine interaction as man-machine oneness.

If you want to garner the respect of the N/A crowd, competently develop an ECU flash with control of both fuel injector sets, spark, and cam phases. Work on intake and header tuning, and camshafts. If you want to get into cylinder head tweaking, by all means, go for it.

[SUB-FT86]

Originally Posted by Ryephile

Nobody is stopping you from taking this engine and making a billion HP. Big numbers and loud dyno videos project excitement and translate into sales, which is what you're ultimately after.

Those of us that genuinely want to retain this engine as N/A, isn't because we don't want more power per se, it's because we like the response, purity, and simplicity of natural aspiration. That doesn't make boosted setups wrong for others, it's simply reinforcing our desire to have an specific machine interaction as man-machine oneness.

If you want to garner the respect of the N/A crowd, competently develop an ECU flash with control of both fuel injector sets, spark, and cam phases. Work on intake and header tuning, and camshafts. If you want to get into cylinder head tweaking, by all means, go for it.

Every time I see you post this it makes me wonder why you never bought an Elise over your Exige since you could've had a cheaper car that's lighter and N/A. And in the Elise a N/A engine in a 1975 lb car is even more beneficial than it is in a 2750 lb car. Just saying.

[Ryephile]

You're reading way too much into this. It's all about fun. IMO, the 2ZZ in N/A form is annoying mainly due to its worthless small-cam torque, even in the Elise. The transition from small to big lift cams is immature and misguided. The driver can't adapt the road to the engines' preferred output range, it has to work everywhere. A supercharged 2ZZ behaves like a smooth n/a engine with a balanced and flat torque curve, because it flattens the transition between small and big lift cams. The supercharger makes for a nice band-aid to fix the drivability woes of the stock 2ZZ.

A big laggy turbo in a 2ZZ would absolutely suck. We're getting off topic, because the problem with the 2ZZ won't carry over to the FA20, which doesn't have 2-stage lift.

Since the FA20 is a new engine and very few know how it drives, we're all back to making theoretical arguments.

Long story short: I just want an engine that has good smooth predictable drivability. That means no obvious cam lift stage [i.e. VTEC and VVTL-i] and no turbo.

[SUB-FT86]

Originally Posted by Ryephile

You're reading way too much into this. It's all about fun. IMO, the 2ZZ in N/A form is annoying mainly due to its worthless small-cam torque, even in the Elise. The transition from small to big lift cams is immature and misguided. The driver can't adapt the road to the engines' preferred output range, it has to work everywhere. A supercharged 2ZZ behaves like a smooth n/a engine with a balanced and flat torque curve, because it flattens the transition between small and big lift cams. The supercharger makes for a nice band-aid to fix the drivability woes of the stock 2ZZ.

A big laggy turbo in a 2ZZ would absolutely suck.

Since the FA20 is a new engine and very few know how it drives, we're all back to making theoretical arguments.

Long story short: I just want an engine that has good smooth predictable drivability. That means no obvious cam lift stage [i.e. VTEC and VVTL-i] and no turbo.

Now I completely understand you now. But what if people end up feeling similar to how you feel about the N/A 2ZZ to the FA20? I know the FA20 is more torquey than the 2ZZ but FA also has 800 more lbs to deal with so some would love to go the route you liked with a Supercharged FA20.

[Ryephile]

It's only a matter of time before we find out how the FA20 drives in the real world. I'm confident the FA20 will drive quite well, considering the media feedback + DAVCS + D-4S integration.

A supercharged FA20 would probably be fantastic, assuming the combustion CFD can support it. If I "had" to go boosted, a TVS-based setup would be on the top of my list.

[linkwpc]

2.0L it just too low for a engine without a turbo. A 2.5L would have been a much better choice....

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by SUB-FT86

Every time I see you post this it makes me wonder why you never bought an Elise over your Exige since you could've had a cheaper car that's lighter and N/A. And in the Elise a N/A engine in a 1975 lb car is even more beneficial than it is in a 2750 lb car. Just saying.

Well what helps is that the S/Ced 2ZZ only has about 15% extra power, so for all intents and purposes it feels just like an NA motor. Crank the boost higher with a positive displacement supercharger and the throttle response should become less linear due to bypass valve control, I think... Of course this is a problem that can theoretically be corrected without too much difficulty but I don't think superchargers come with "boost controllers" (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

What I'm wondering is how hard it would be to create a variable intake runner type thing hehe.

[86'd]

Originally Posted by Ryephile

Nobody is stopping you from taking this engine and making a billion HP. Big numbers and loud dyno videos project excitement and translate into sales, which is what you're ultimately after.

Those of us that genuinely want to retain this engine as N/A, isn't because we don't want more power per se, it's because we like the response, purity, and simplicity of natural aspiration. That doesn't make boosted setups wrong for others, it's simply reinforcing our desire to have an specific machine interaction as man-machine oneness.

If you want to garner the respect of the N/A crowd, competently develop an ECU flash with control of both fuel injector sets, spark, and cam phases. Work on intake and header tuning, and camshafts. If you want to get into cylinder head tweaking, by all means, go for it.

This is what I want too! It's also about all of this plus power delivery, throttle response and sound.

As much as I like the distinct burble of a WRX, I'd rather hear a PO'ed free-revving N/A engine at 8-9k RPM.

[Homemade WRX]

I'm actually really looking forward to doing an NA street build before a turbo build on this engine. It's like going back to basics and is kind of refreshing.