Turbo Technics S280

[atlantaM3]

I don't understand why you keep going post go back to "designed for turbo charging" position... that's exactly why ford decided to make such a pitiful engine, made for mass produced disposable cars.

Whether or not it was designed for that, the engine is a textbook example of lack luster effort.

Head porting and a good cam will see big gains on this motor especially taking advantage of the higher rpms you can tap into.

Regardless back to the original question, we should only allow as much boost as the cylinder head can efficiently and effectively take in.

So for your bolded comment - how much more expensive would have been acceptable for the car to be to meet your personal expectations related to the mass produced economy car head? How much more expensive would be ok to make the car a 300hp car from the factory? Calling the engine 'pitiful' is easy when looking at it in isolation absent design target criteria.

Honda had to have materially different head designs to meet target objectives for power production vs cost, absent forced induction. Thus 7500-9000 rpm ranges on various Honda engines, which begets a whole raft of other design considerations re reciprocating assembly, etc. How much more to buy a Honda engine in a crate?

 

[dhminer]

I regret to interrupt the debate, but can I get a preinstall sanity check real quick? I think I've got it set up right, but it doesn't hurt to be certain

EDIT: I did not have it set up right, I was thinking intake/outlet on the turbo side rather than the BOV's respective intake/outlet sides. Outlet into turbo intake/intake from turbo outlet makes more sense.
View attachment 57641

Good catch. BPV is the wrong way, otherwise all good.

 

[New_Daily]

So for your bolded comment - how much more expensive would have been acceptable for the car to be to meet your personal expectations related to the mass produced economy car head? How much more expensive would be ok to make the car a 300hp car from the factory? Calling the engine 'pitiful' is easy when looking at it in isolation absent design target criteria.

Honda had to have materially different head designs to meet target objectives for power production vs cost, absent forced induction. Thus 7500-9000 rpm ranges on various Honda engines, which begets a whole raft of other design considerations re reciprocating assembly, etc. How much more to buy a Honda engine in a crate?

The driving idea behind my point. Thank you.

One of the best parts about our cars is the price relative to overall performance and fun.

 

[Williamson]

Good catch. BPV is the wrong way, otherwise all good.

Sick. Just pending my base map from Jason and some time in the next couple weeks (In my fleeting two week break between college semesters) to install this and the Wavetrac LSD. I'm probably a little under spec'd for the S280 right now but I'm just gonna see what I can get with what I've got for now and get a retune if (when) I replace stuff to give it some more headroom.

I love the Air Force and all, but being a Reservist is NOT paying the bills besides my college lmao.

 

[Mega ST]

The driving idea behind my point. Thank you.

One of the best parts about our cars is the price relative to overall performance and fun.

Absolutely. Ford put the money in the handling department and took pretty much an off the shelf engine already in service in other vehicles and put it in a light weight chassis. How much money did they save not including a switch for the interior lights? Lol. Honda always trickled down their F1 tech into their production cars. Even the lowliest models. Unfortunately at this point they have nothing as fun or with the personality of the FiST. And I refuse to do a K swap.

 

[Mega ST]

I regret to interrupt the debate, but can I get a preinstall sanity check real quick? I think I've got it set up right, but it doesn't hurt to be certain

EDIT: I did not have it set up right, I was thinking intake/outlet on the turbo side rather than the BOV's respective intake/outlet sides. Outlet into turbo intake/intake from turbo outlet makes more sense.
View attachment 57641

I've never seen a hose like that. Glad you caught the routing error. Once I install the S280 I was planning on running the BOV in place of the Symposer and VTA. Anyone plumbed back in with the BOV in that location? Any CEL's?

 

[dhminer]

I've never seen a hose like that. Glad you caught the routing error. Once I install the S280 I was planning on running the BOV in place of the Symposer and VTA. Anyone plumbed back in with the BOV in that location? Any CEL's?

I have a symposer port BOV. Use a CEL defender and you’ll have no issue.

 

[Focused]

Apples to oranges comparison. The Honda stuff was designed with efficiency in mind, as a naturally aspirated engine. For the small engines they usually build, they had to do everything possible to get decent power in a small package.

As Im sure most of us know, boost is simply the turbo (or a supercharger) forcing more air into an engine than the engine can combust. Super smooth and efficient head port design doesn't really matter. As has been stated, our motors were designed as a turbo motor to begin with. Do you think the snake work of boost piping and the IC is good for smooth and easy airflow? Doesn't matter, the turbo is cramming boost through there.

That’s exactly the point, Honda designs with extreme efficiency in mind whereas mass produced Ford motors have historically been designed on the more “bare bones, just cram boost in to get our targeted performance” type of way.
I get what you’re saying, but it’s undeniable that from an engineering (philosophy) point of view, Honda has been putting excellent products for years, superior in many ways to our Ford ecoboosts (and others manufacturers).

 

[Focused]

So for your bolded comment - how much more expensive would have been acceptable for the car to be to meet your personal expectations related to the mass produced economy car head? How much more expensive would be ok to make the car a 300hp car from the factory? Calling the engine 'pitiful' is easy when looking at it in isolation absent design target criteria.

Honda had to have materially different head designs to meet target objectives for power production vs cost, absent forced induction. Thus 7500-9000 rpm ranges on various Honda engines, which begets a whole raft of other design considerations re reciprocating assembly, etc. How much more to buy a Honda engine in a crate?

Fair points. But also to be fair, I’d wager daily bean was strictly speaking from an engine design perspective. It goes without saying the overall package of the ST is an amazing thing, as a whole, for the price.

 

[Focused]

Absolutely. Ford put the money in the handling department and took pretty much an off the shelf engine already in service in other vehicles and put it in a light weight chassis. How much money did they save not including a switch for the interior lights? Lol. Honda always trickled down their F1 tech into their production cars. Even the lowliest models. Unfortunately at this point they have nothing as fun or with the personality of the FiST. And I refuse to do a K swap.

lol I won’t lie, I contemplated a k swapped Fiesta over the past couple months, esp after seeing that vid of Misha on the ring with one.

Note: as an addition to my stock ST stable, not replacement.

 

[New_Daily]

That’s exactly the point, Honda designs with extreme efficiency in mind whereas mass produced Ford motors have historically been designed on the more “bare bones, just cram boost in to get our targeted performance” type of way.
I get what you’re saying, but it’s undeniable that from an engineering (philosophy) point of view, Honda has been putting excellent products for years, superior in many ways to our Ford ecoboosts (and others manufacturers).

Well no, I’d still say that’s not the point.

Even if it were objectively true that Honda had better overall engine designs (I’m not a Honda expert so don’t know one way or another) you can’t make an accurate comparison between an engine designed as a factory turbocharged engine, and a non turbocharged engine. Even in this very narrow case where the main point of comparison was just the head intake ports. There are still major differences in design considerations when designing for a turbocharged engine and not.

If we wanted to compare who has higher performance cars, can we compare a Ford GT to a Civic? Even the Type R version? Whoa look at that wing on the civic, it doesn’t even have speed compensated automatic actuation, psshhhh what a bargain basement piece of junk.

Despite 100+ years of refinement, cars are still difficult to design for. So many factors have to be balanced especially when you’re making a more performance oriented vehicle. Cost is still a major concern. Reliability and longevity. Ease of maintenance. All that factors in on the manufacture level, and then all the armchair engineers on the internet come out and saying this is better than that when they’re citing one super narrow example and generally not really having an idea of the bigger picture.

 

[Focused]

Well no, I’d still say that’s not the point.

Even if it were objectively true that Honda had better overall engine designs (I’m not a Honda expert so don’t know one way or another) you can’t make an accurate comparison between an engine designed as a factory turbocharged engine, and a non turbocharged engine. Even in this very narrow case where the main point of comparison was just the head intake ports. There are still major differences in design considerations when designing for a turbocharged engine and not.

If we wanted to compare who has higher performance cars, can we compare a Ford GT to a Civic? Even the Type R version? Whoa look at that wing on the civic, it doesn’t even have speed compensated automatic actuation, psshhhh what a bargain basement piece of junk.

Despite 100+ years of refinement, cars are still difficult to design for. So many factors have to be balanced especially when you’re making a more performance oriented vehicle. Cost is still a major concern. Reliability and longevity. Ease of maintenance. All that factors in on the manufacture level, and then all the armchair engineers on the internet come out and saying this is better than that when they’re citing one super narrow example and generally not really having an idea of the bigger picture.

The post by @IDailyDriveABean you replied to was all engine related. He was speaking specifically to the inefficiency of our motor in comparison to Honda motors. Had nothing to do with anything else (costs/packaging/etc).

I agree with you in regards to the “big picture” you’re referring to, and yes it does become an apples to oranges comparison when talking about cost/packaging/etc; but speaking purely from an engine design perspective (ie cost/packaging/all other aspects aside), I agree with dailybean that our motors do not flow well comparatively and are not as efficiently designed as most Honda motors, whether it be the older B series or (esp) newer K series. NA or boosted, doesn’t really matter. And I bet you’d agree too if you delved deeper into the engineering designs of them and compared it to ford’s 4 cylinders.

Does it do the job Ford intended? Absolutely. Does it outperform Honda motors? Not too hard to argue no.
The 2 manufacturers have different engineering philosophies, it is what it is.

 

[Ludeem1]

Those B16 and B18 were pretty sexy. I guess the H22 to as well Prelude? but not as familiar with it lol I had an F22 in my 97 Accord 5 spd. Loved that car

I had a H23 non VTEC 94 Prelude and thing had massive torque. Miss that car

 

[Williamson]

Huge pain in the ass later and the turbo is out. Definitely not a day job for me, even with tons of tools at my disposal. LSD will have to wait for another day, I'll probably ask Jason to keep it a little more moderate since I won't have the LSD to help put power down. My hope is to have it in at least a trackable configuration in the next week and a half as I have two track days coming up in the same week.

Honestly I don't know how I could have been much faster, maybe with a lift and removing the subframe. But even then so much stuff is just at an uncomfortable or weird angle it went slow since it was mostly hand tools.

 

[Mega ST]

Did you remove the cowl? Removed from the top?

 

[haste]

Did you remove the cowl? Removed from the top?

His 2nd photo shows cowl removal. I personally disconnect the wiring harness from the three connectors shown in the picture for that bit more clearance when removing/reinstalling.

 

[Williamson]

Did you remove the cowl? Removed from the top?

Yeah, I wanted to drop the subframe originally but came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the effort as I don't have a lift, didn't have a complete list of discard bolts and really didn't want to fuck with an alignment again as I like how it's set up and it's just extra cost. In hindsight, the 7 ton jacks I used are really nice for being under the car (and were super nice for when I was working under there) but I'd have stuck with shorter jacks if I were to do it again. Too tall to get to stuff so I was kneeling on a scaffolding piece and honestly it just gets really old leaning on shit in your engine bay for a couple hours that is at best uncomfortable lol. That said, the hardest part was really just getting to the turbo. The actual manifold and turbo removal? One of the easiest parts of the job. Heatshield was a bitch. Coolant lines were a bitch, specifically the driver's side was a nightmare, the clip rotated 90 degrees to the left which put it facing towards the block and my 90 degree needle nose pliers just were too big to get an angle on it. Ended up using a 45 degree fuel line disconnect plier which got it loose enough to rotate back to where I could get it, then push it off onto the hard line.

Honestly my biggest problem right now is my poor job of labeling. Pretty sure I know what everything goes to. I think. Most stuff is new replacements so it's mostly the stuff I took off at the start of the day and even then most of those are hose clamps which are still attached or very obvious. But there are a couple that I am totally stumped on. So huge recommendation: Label everything at least for what part of the car it goes to.

 

[haste]

Turbo swap on rhino ramps is the way to go. Easy to reach from the top and laying on the back from the bottom.

According to a coworker with 30+ years experience I also have bitch mitts(he has potato diggers) and the reach of Mr Fantastic. Take it for what its worth.

 

[Williamson]

Turbo swap on rhino ramps is the way to go. Easy to reach from the top and laying on the back from the bottom.

According to a coworker with 30+ years experience I also have bitch mitts(he has potato diggers) and the reach of Mr Fantastic. Take it for what its worth.

Rhino ramps probably were the way to go, but my coolant/oil catch was pretty big and I was a fool and popped my old oil filter off going through the motions of an oil change and then realized my fatal error AFTER I just let it sit halfway covered in the used oil. So I had a slow drip to catch the entire time which reduced my room (Not enough to matter, but rhino ramps would have been in the way). Ah well, for next time... hopefully not

 

[dhminer]

Yeah, I wanted to drop the subframe originally but came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the effort as I don't have a lift, didn't have a complete list of discard bolts and really didn't want to fuck with an alignment again as I like how it's set up and it's just extra cost. In hindsight, the 7 ton jacks I used are really nice for being under the car (and were super nice for when I was working under there) but I'd have stuck with shorter jacks if I were to do it again. Too tall to get to stuff so I was kneeling on a scaffolding piece and honestly it just gets really old leaning on shit in your engine bay for a couple hours that is at best uncomfortable lol. That said, the hardest part was really just getting to the turbo. The actual manifold and turbo removal? One of the easiest parts of the job. Heatshield was a bitch. Coolant lines were a bitch, specifically the driver's side was a nightmare, the clip rotated 90 degrees to the left which put it facing towards the block and my 90 degree needle nose pliers just were too big to get an angle on it. Ended up using a 45 degree fuel line disconnect plier which got it loose enough to rotate back to where I could get it, then push it off onto the hard line.

Honestly my biggest problem right now is my poor job of labeling. Pretty sure I know what everything goes to. I think. Most stuff is new replacements so it's mostly the stuff I took off at the start of the day and even then most of those are hose clamps which are still attached or very obvious. But there are a couple that I am totally stumped on. So huge recommendation: Label everything at least for what part of the car it goes to.

I fold an old moving blanket and put it on top of my engine so I can comfortably lay on top of it for turbo work. Game changer.