Turbo Smart Owners - Report card?

[LittoDeviL]

Originally Posted by burtandnancy

Littodevel, great to see your honesty here. 2 questions; what are you doing to prevent detonation and are lower compression pistons available? In theory, anything above 14.7 lbs boost = twice the hp. I'm waiting for your dyno results...

Not sure what I should call you.. Burt or Nancy so.. Burt and/or Nancy... heh Currently the only thing I could do is..

1) Lower the intake air temp charge...

2) Retard the ignition timing...

3) Lower the fuel temp going into the engine...

4) Install headers...

5) Install colder rated spark plugs...

6) Make the whole air fuel mixture richer...

This is just my experience with tuning other vehicles in the past, a few things I've currently done up to date was install headers and this allowed me to advance the ignition timing back up to gain more power but if I didn't do that, just by installing headers and lowering the exhaust temp would prevent some denotation but I personally used it to my advantage and increased the boost and advance the ignition timing haha.

The spark plugs in our smart is by denso and is a unique plug as it has a 12mm thread yet a 26.5mm thread length, denso's Irdium plugs don't come out for another 90 days... I might be looking at other plugs as currently i'm mis firing from probably all the knocking I've been doing to the engine, and after pulling the plugs out, they are wearing out.

I'm designing the water to air intercooler setup which should allow me to keep the intake charge lower to ambiet temp as much as possible, I've been able to reach the max 196 degrees under load, full throttle going up an incline on the freeway at around 10 psi of boost.

I modified the fan design and gave Tim over at SFR a new supplier for new fans and with this I installed 2 instead of 1 fan on the air/air intercooler... if you have no fans you could easily reach 250 degrees on the intake air temp which I've done as well. With two fans you can easily run the vehicle hard and it'll drop back down to a more stable 140-150 degree intake air temp under boost easily. You would really have to try to get the max intake air temp of 190 like I did and in the process there's a great chance you'll get a speeding ticket =P...

While crusing with easy throttle and no boost the intake air temp is around 112-118 on the freeway while being 55 degrees outside, ambient temp. On a hot day with it being 80 degrees out, my IAT (Intake Air Temp) is 139 with a/c on, light throttle and no boost.

I have a lot of data I collected and made my smart car do a lot of weird things but this is in the goal of having the ultimate turbocharged smart car while retaining the stock engine. And it also helps me be more then just sell and install these turbochargers for the smart car but also help other smart owners find better way to install the kit and be more of a technical assistant when one does run into an issue. Someone has to run into the issues first and being the one to run into them first, finding solution would allow me to be able to provide answers

Lower compression pistons are not available at the moment, they would be if I destoryed my engine... because then I would lower the compression ratio of the engine

Today I'll be ripping the front end off to see what is the largest heat exchanger (radiator) I could fit for the water to air intercooler setup.

Cheers!
Larry

[burtandnancy]

Thanks Larry, I think you're really on to something and its obvious you know what you're doing. Down here, our outdoor temps are quite a bit higher (in the summer), so inner cooling is mandatory. You've got lots of miles on your smart and its amazing your trans is holding up so well.
My background is turbo engines in race boats. Lots of cooling water for the inner cooler, oil and headers, but you're in a whole new arena. I'll be watching for your reports...
Burt (Nancy was my support and boat backer/upper, cheerleader and cold beer getter)

[LittoDeviL]

Hey Burt,

Wow turbo charge race boats... we used to have a turbocharged honda jet ski ;)... but that's as close to turbocharge boats as I've experience. I wish I had unlimited cool water running thru the engine haha...

One other thing I didn't mention that I'll be doing is changing the thermostat on our engine.. once I can find it that is... the current thermostat is designed to start cooling the engine at around 205 degrees. It's between 190 and 210 I think... I forgot could be 200. That temp is great for higher gas mileage but I'm looking to lower it down to 180 degrees as that would help too, not to mention that engine compartment of ours is hot!

Is your smartie turbocharged or were you planning to get it turbocharged?

Cheers!
Larry

[2micro4u]

Well I can say is I have only been quiet because I have not purchase mine quite yet from SMARTMADNESS. But once the funds are readily avalible I will be making the call to purchase the set up and or taking the drive to So-cal and camp out there for a week or so and have the install done aswell.

Boris And Rachel from my experience in the scene have one of the best set ups and pricing for its Dependable

[burtandnancy]

Larry, no turbo so far, I've only got about 4500 miles on it so far. If I were to do a project car, I'd think about installing a Harley -V Rod, water cooled twin (as I own one). 120 hp, 9200 rpm's, smooth as silk, and a very nice sound.
Forgot to look at the turbo set up at smartmadness when I visited last Saturday, but going back in early July to have the cruise installed...
Burt

[tbone28]

That was a cool video, Larry! I loved the ending! LOL. Your car looks fast. Is that exhaust note from the SFR muffler? Or did you change that? Can you youtube a 0-60mph?

[Repsol]

Congratulation Larry, very nice video.

Good sound by your 451 and wtf how much does it run!!

[headless]

After reading LittoDevils posts, he sounds as if he knows what he is talking about when it comes to engine tuning, so here is some advice from someone who has had a turbo on his smart roadster for 5 trouble free years.
The cooling is essential and as standard the 700cc turbocharged engine runs with a charged air cooling system, that helps cool the air going into the intake after the turbo has warmed it up, (you should know what I am talking about), the turbo as standard boosts to 1.0 bar, but mine is running 1.5 bar with no trouble, and has been for a couple of years.
The thing to remember with turbocharged engines is to warm them up slowly before gunning them, and then cooling them down properly before switching off, I generally run the last few miles home at a nice slow pace to help cool the turbo down, the people I know that have had trouble with their smart turbos are the ones that don't follow this proceedure.
Good luck with your project.
Ellis

[tbone28]

Any feedback from any other owners besides Larry? He was the only owner to post when the turbos were initially released, and the only owner posting again.

Would love to hear back from others

[eskargo]

hey there, tbone...

i, too, am SFR turboed. and the installation was done by littodevil. i'm the 08 red cabrio mentioned some threads earlier. i will not go into technical details. besides, there is no way i can explain it better than littodevil. but let me elaborate on the drive and service aspects.

first off, i used to drive the smartie strictly in auto mode. since having the turbo installed, i drive it 99% of the time using the paddle shifters. note that the turbo was installed and then a week later, i went in for the 2.0 upgrade.

i basically have just one word to describe it... WOW!!!
what a difference?!

the accerlation/power...
the fun factor...
the added vroom sound... (no headers, just from the turbo kit)

not sure how to compare the sound with other exhaust systems.
but my concern was that it may be too loud. as i like to drive with the top down and still be able to enjoy the music and passenger conversations. with the turbo kit, it is a nice vroom. and changes in gears is noticable but no where near deafening or annoying. frankly, makes it sound like a sports car.

the performance gain is there when you needed. no more worrying about short merges into the freeway. no more worrying about passing other cars. no more worrying about the steep hills. punch it and see it go. downshift, punch it and see it fly.

as for mileage. you do lose some mpg. what is my comparisons?! i do a lot of local driving with my smartie. prior to the install, i would fill up after 260-280 miles and just under 8 gals at the pump. now, i'm getting about 230-250 miles. can i get more miles? absolutely! like all new toys, you tend to play with it more in the beginning. i'm not pushing any limits like littodevil but i am feeling out the power. so i'm not really worried about the mpg aspect. i've only put on about 600 miles since the install. that's 2 fill ups. which means as time passes and i put more miles under the engine, the mpg should go back up a bit.

let's talk service. it was top notched. very professional and personal. it helps that his garage is 10 mins away. it helps that i see him at least once a month (monthly SCOA SF meetings) whereby a personal inspection to see how everything is holding up can be performed. but i think the best part is that he is pushing his car so much to find the kinks before his customers. his refinement of the kit to make it perform better and making it more reliable makes his service distinguishable. basically, i dont feel i'm left hanging after the installation.

overall:
is it expensive? yes
is it for everyone? no
is it necessary? no
is it fun to drive? YES
is it fast? YES
is it worth it? YES (obviously, IMHO

report card: A