Pictured there is a 3A-C. I don't care WHAT you do to a 3A-C... if it doesn't involve some kind of boost (whether its internal charge cooler based Nitrous injection, or a mechanically operated supercharger or an exhaust driven turbocharger) then the 3A-C is not going to make 102 horsepower, let alone 182 horsepower.
The guy slapped some paint on a motor, and polished his valve cover. Big deal. He is running the stock carb (plainly visible around all of that hugger orange paint and the plastic timing belt cover that he spray painted white). Note that he blathers on about stuff that doesn't have ANYTHING to do with moving more air through the combustion chamber... alternator, muffler and starter. Worse, he mentions a "3 inch exhaust", which would result in a net LOSS of power, due to thermal expansion and no possible way to match the intake's resonant frequencies. The headers pictured are the old 4A-C ones from JC Whitney, which I think retailed for $80.
That engine PROBABLY makes about 60 horsepower. Like most every other normally-aspirated 3A-C engine
Pictured there is a 3A-C. I don't care WHAT you do to a 3A-C... if it doesn't involve some kind of boost (whether its internal charge cooler based Nitrous injection, or a mechanically operated supercharger or an exhaust driven turbocharger) then the 3A-C is not going to make 102 horsepower, let alone 182 horsepower.
The guy slapped some paint on a motor, and polished his valve cover. Big deal. He is running the stock carb (plainly visible around all of that hugger orange paint and the plastic timing belt cover that he spray painted white). Note that he blathers on about stuff that doesn't have ANYTHING to do with moving more air through the combustion chamber... alternator, muffler and starter. Worse, he mentions a "3 inch exhaust", which would result in a net LOSS of power, due to thermal expansion and no possible way to match the intake's resonant frequencies. The headers pictured are the old 4A-C ones from JC Whitney, which I think retailed for $80.
That engine PROBABLY makes about 60 horsepower. Like most every other normally-aspirated 3A-C engine
- Teddy
No, see this quote
Two K&N Filters with a Tornado fuel saver
The tornado ALONE makes at least 45% more HP to the wheels, c'mon man! everyone knows that if you SPIn your air then more gets in!!!
Oh, by the way if you didn't get it I'm being sarcastic. Spinning the air on a carb like ours would do nothing, you need a long, smooth air intake to get any positive effects from a intake spinner, and even then it's only a few HP.
teddy, how could his engine make only 60HP, which you are incorrect about, it's actually 62HP, when this guy guy has so much done to the engine w/o a turbo though. I talked to a guy selling the headers and he said "about a 13HP increase" for his, but maybe with some very high quality headers, like ones for trucks, you could gain maybe 50+HP at the wheels. The biggest turbo to safely put on a 4cyl engine, 1.5L especially could give you a 100HP increase. Also actually I think you may/may not be wrong in other ways because Flatlander Racing said that if you go for a Killer Nitrous ported head, you can expect to get a 99-100HP increase, I think, depending on the engine size and design.
Typrus, you can actually overbore a 3AC and use larger dome pistons. ROSS or Badger can make custom ones for you. Also, Typ, he probably used custom 4AC-styled valves from TOGA Performance or Flatlander Racing themselves.... http://www.autoperformancewarehouse.com/toga.html. You going to give me credit for giving you guys the link to his page?
I fully believe this guy, assuming his dyno figures are accurate, and all that he put on literally equalled 182HP.
Terceldude, he could get almost 200 hp out of it, BUT THE ENGINE WOULDN'T LAST LONG.
3a's aren't made to get up that high.
And also, the exhaust being 3 inch is retarded, it's too wide and it wouldn't create the backpressure needed.
He didn't put NOS into his engine, or at least it doesn't say he did.
Trucks using custom headers get more HP out of them, because they throw out more exhaust. Our 3a's dont put out a quarter of what a high output v8 does, so they need better headers/exhaust routing.
And 60 to 62 hp is just dumb to bring up. For all we know people may dyno a right off the lot 3a and GET 60hp based on climate and temperature, no HP is ever stable on every run, so bringing up a 2hp difference is being a pain.
He doesn't have a turbo, end of that. And even WITH a huge turbo, the engine wouldn't last. You'd warp the head, mess up cylinders, etc.
Teddy -
I could not agree with you more. I trust you realized my comment about the Boss 3A-C was tongue-in-cheek.
You have been away for a while and missed many postings back in late '05 and '06 from a certain (now reinstated) T4WD voyeur-member about ludicrous power claims and parts recommendations.
My "hop-up" experience, to use a term popular when I was a pup, was confined to mild massaging of a couple of BMC A-series motors.
However...
From my own 948cc experience, I have an idea of how much one can coax from a Falabella, and while it could be a Shetland, it sure as heck ain't a Clydesdale.
I refrained from commenting on the purty orange motor, as it would have elicited an impassioned and oblivious defense of the power that the owner of the motor claims. Mind, not that he did not work on it - if he did it himself, that in itself is admirable. If the grunt work was outsourced and assertions made to him, then perhaps he would be interested in a bridge...
You will soon learn that facts - AND actual, experienced, observed, and empirical knowledge - are irrelevant to this
member: Witness the comments in a current Off-Topic thread on bicycle components...
Tom M.
P.S. Welcome back !
T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit." T.S. Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates." Mark Twain
Typrus wrote: Revving past 7000RPM regularly probably isn't the best bet on a non-balanced set of internals... We've seen up to, what? 50 grams off balance on the piston-rod assemblies? However we share the same part number oil pump as a 4AGE so oil supply is very unlikely to be an issue, unless internal block flow is constrictive or filter media is too constrictive.
May I suggest idling your engine for 60 seconds before shutdown to help cut back on heat soak?
Thats new info for me. Mabye I should install rev limiter, just to be on the safe side. Has there been rev limited model, and where was the limit? If not, what would be good limit to set? 7000rpm?
Ive always tought that the idling before shutdown procedure was for cooling the turbo, as it is used even in the newer fuel injected cars?
SR5 Tercelerator wrote:What do you guys think about using a turbo from an older RX7? (we've got one) I've always wanted a car with boost...and one this ugly will be nothing but fun!
I would say go for it. Turbo horses in my mind are by far easier and cheaper to get than NA ones, or motor swap. That was kinda the guideline in my build, trying to keep it (relatively) cheap. I think that the most expenive single part was the hose between the turbo and the carb, at around 34€. That is if I dont count the turbo or the carb themselves, since I already had them taking up space. Almost everything else was begged off from friends or sto... ahem, borrowed fom work
I modified the fuel pump bracket to to soak up some of that dreadful noise the pump is making, and managed to get it decently quiet. but then it died during test drive Friend of mine came to rescue me by pushing the car from its back bumper, with with his ATV!Looked funny as heck going trough the neighborhood like that And it didnt even dent the bumper, strong cars these. Back at home I started to search for the broblem, first I tought that the pump overheated since it was wrapped in a sheet of foam in order to quiet it. But after I took the pump apart I found out that some crud had jammed it solid. I think there is a lesson to be learned here, about beaing too cheap in wrong places. Anyway, got a new fuel filter, and changed the rubber hoses too, just in case, and its working again
Well, yes, it is primarily to cool the turbo, however if you have a large chunk o' cast sitting that close to the carb, cooling it off a few degrees will certainly help lower underhood temps at least a wee bit.
Factory red line is 6000RPM. I used to tease 6250-6500 nearly every day with mine and it did alright, but under boost I can't say for sure to be honest.
DOH! What kind of filter had you been using? I always figure the bigger the better in regards to filtration. Heck, I stuffed a FRAM TG8A oil filter on a 3AC! Next step, to see if the PureONE equivalent will mate up!
A Better bottom end WOULD help, without doubt, and maybe if you could bump up the head bolt size and increase clamping tension it might hold more pressure as well. Not to mention better rev handling and safety. Some 4AGE bottom end combos will hold 11,000RPM consistently. Expensive though. 9500RPM is much more realistic in that regard. As long as flow can keep up, power will just climb with revs... Flatter that torque curve the better.
I am confident that a 120HP naturally aspirated 3AC or 4AC is well within reason, with the correct modification.
For instance-
A Weber side-draft manifold equipped with some pertyfull purty (LOL) Weber side-drafts. Some 4AC guys are using it. 4 barrels at maybe 40mm a piece overkill? Maybe. But it seems to work. Have fun tuning.
Custom header to mate in the Weber manifold and create as smooth as possible a downward bend and as smooth as possible a transition to a round shape, close to equal length as possible with some nice mandrel bends and smooth welds and junctions. No jutting edges into the exhaust stream.
Paradise racing dual-valve spring setup. If you want their cam, go for it. Otherwise maybe try a Schneider higher end one to keep the power building higher up.
The best port job you can muster. Smooth the air flow for sure, and get it to exit the valves cleaner as well. Look to Petros for head mod guidance? He cleaned them up about as much as possible without breaching a water jacket. Not much room to unshroud the valves here, but still, a little bit beats none.
Through in a high-volume oil pump if you plan on supplying 7500+ revs regularly I'd imagine.
Perhaps use the older Tercel's distributor along with more powerful external coil, and if at all worth it, you could toss on a 6AL or the likes to really light it up.
At very least a fresh IIA... For newbies thats our distributor with the coil on it.
If you do do a 4AGE bottom end, you open up to the possibility of some lighter flywheels. Saying this gains HP is controversial, but you cannot argue with grabbing revs quicker.
Take off Power Steering and the A/C. Make sure the bearings in your alternator are fresh, not adding drag.
Reduce electrical load in the car as much as possible. LED's where you can, more efficient headlight reflectors to reduce the need for higher wattage bulbs up front.
Rewire what you can to high amp loads (headlights for instance) with a bit thicker wiring to reduce voltage drop, thereby also reducing overall amps pulled.
Try and get the driveline as cleaned up and fresh as possible. You'll lose a LOT of energy into stiff U-joints for instance. A fresh tranny will help cut back on parasitic.
I think that with a cleaned up head, higher compression, better cam, better intake and exhaust, and tilling to 8-9500RPM would get us to 120, maybe a hair higher.
OR...
Go find a 7AFE and nuke its EFI and go dual sidedrafts and you've already got plenty of torque.
Go find a 4AGE and do the Weber to it. Pretty big aftermarket following, plenty of parts, and a good-flowing head that'll happily spin 7200RPM all day. With a few mods, 9000RPM is easily obtained.
But, if you want your 4wd, you are essentially capped to roughly 100HP and 100ft/lbs lest ye risk carnage on a grand scale. Though I still wonder about cryo-dipping.....
But, I'm sure with some minimal modding, one might find that a RWD conversion may not be so hard. Subframe ties and a rollcage later and 400HP will be cake.
Don't take it personal if we say someone else lied, and don't nitpick dude. Please. I told you'd I'd try and keep it civil, but the inability to remember that not everything is a world-changing end-all occurrence is going to make that difficult.
Just chillax man.
RIP 10-07- 1984 Toyota Tercel SR5 4wd Wagen 6 speed
RIP 04-05- 1986 Toyota Tercel SR5 4wd Wagen 6 speed
"Paradise racing dual-valve spring setup. If you want their cam, go for it. Otherwise maybe try a Schneider higher end one to keep the power building higher up."
FYI: Higher spring rate (to include dual spring) valve spring setups LOSE power, not gain it.
The higher tension against valvetrain (primarily friction against the cam surfaces) reliably loses several horsepower.
The REASON that higher rate springs (and dual valve springs) exist is when they are necessitated by extreme lobe profiles with lots of lift (so, its radical cam profiles with gnarly duration and lift that MIGHT increase top-end horsepower, at the expense of power in the lower end... but, the fact remains, dual valve springs and higher rate springs reduce horsepower).
Again, like I was saying earlier, 180 bhp from a normally aspirated 3A-C is simply not possible. 100 bhp is BARELY within the envelope of "reality", but would be a senseless, inctractable, misbehaved motor. A few years ago, we easily got the 3A-C engines dyno'ing around 75-80, but those were ill-tempered in that tune (Weber carb, sheet metal fabricated aluminum intake manifolds made out of stuff we had kicking aroung, etc.)
100 horsepower should be easily had via forced induction.
The whole reason I am hot on the 7A-FE and 1N-T swaps is because you are right from the get-go talking about engines that can grossly exceed the nominal horsepower and torque of the 3A-C without any strain whatsoever. The head on the 7A-FE is a heavy breather, and the 1N-T turbodiesel motor can be easily dialed in to 220 ft. lbs of torque with simple fuel enrichment and boost increases (using all stock parts). Emplacing an engine that easily doubles your previous engine's stock power mitigates a lot of future problems and increases reliability (ergo, don't expect an 80 horsepower 3A-C which is hotrodded within an inch of its life to last very long at all, but a 7A-FE mildly massaged to 130 bhp and 150 ft. lbs of torque COULD be very reliable). The additional beauty of the 1N-T in the Tercel Wagon would be getting about 50 mpg. Fifty miles to the gallon has merit, and I think anyone would agree with that.
Anyways. A moderator should shut this thread down, unless there are other people that want to give Kumppari some more kudos. I note that there seems to STILL be a lot of people blathering on about "hypothetical" stuff, and mentioning "this part" and "this technique", but I wonder how many of them actually have any clue what the hell they are talking about? Anyone who *thinks* that a 3A-C could ever make 180 bhp is smoking crack. Eighty horsepower (normally aspirated) is pushing the envelope... I know, because we did lots of hotrodding and lots of tuning and spent time on the dynos.
Kumparri: That really was some nice shadetree hotrodding.
Way cool.
Last edited by Teddy on Sat Oct 04, 2008 1:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
..........
Hey, I'm allowed to be hypothetical dangit. lol
I still don't know crap. I try, and I try to keep learning, but I only have been really at cars for coming on 5 years. True I know more than most people I know. But you want to know what I do with the people who do know more? Hang around their shops, talk with them, try and learn everything I can from the pros. Most people have some bit of knowledge that even their close colleagues don't, so it's always worth picking their brains.
I mentioned the valve springs along with the more aggressive cam for a reason. Not just by themselves.
But saying that a properly designed lumpy cam with more aggressive valve springs will take away power and might add something is like saying putting on a blower on a 350 will take away crank horsepower and maybe, just possibly your 4 PSI of boost will do something to offset that. Yes power may be taken, but the improvement is the offset.
BTW, I exchanged at length with a guy who had a 4AC with the dual 2-bbl Weber 44 sidedrafts, a custom header, minor port work, higher compression, and a lumpy lumpy cam. He hadn't dyno'd it, so one can only speculate there. He said he had a hard time keeping idle in and power was pathetic till about 2000 where it felt on par with stock up to about 3000 where it just started to take off up to his self-imposed 8000RPM redline. He said he could easily outrun mildly modded 4AGE GTS's. By that he said he meant a cold air intake and quality exhaust including header. BTW this was with his AE86 SR5. So, if the 4AGE makes roughly 112HP factory, a CAI and proper exhaust would add maybe 10HP so that would put him at least right around if not above 120HP. Claimed he'd been running that setup for around 30k miles with no problems other than carb tuning.
I've been asking around about a GT25... Nobody seems to have one around here. Lol... Consider my interest peaked. Lol... Actually I wonder.... (goes off on a mental tangent about old 1.5L NA VW diesels that rev to 6k needing a mild dosage of boost....)
RIP 10-07- 1984 Toyota Tercel SR5 4wd Wagen 6 speed
RIP 04-05- 1986 Toyota Tercel SR5 4wd Wagen 6 speed
Friend of mine came to rescue me by pushing the car from its back bumper, with with his ATV!Looked funny as heck going trough the neighborhood like that 
And it didnt even dent the bumper, strong cars these. Back at home I started to search for the broblem, first I tought that the pump overheated since it was wrapped in a sheet of foam in order to quiet it. But after I took the pump apart I found out that some crud had jammed it solid. I think there is a lesson to be learned here, about beaing too cheap in wrong places. Anyway, got a new fuel filter, and changed the rubber hoses too, just in case, and its working again