Hi all. With so much information to share, I have no idea where to begin. Please disregard the lack of organization within this post, as ideas will cross between paragraphs. If anything is confusing, or you have additional questions please don't hesitate to ask. I'd like to begin by thanking everyone for their support, interest, and most importantly PATIENCE as this kit has developed.
Last week we were at SEMA. We didn't bring a car to show, as we've entered production a while ago and Jig manufacturing has already begun. The main purpose to our trip was to see what everyone else is offering to the LX community, and see if we have a fair offering with great value as we had hoped. The outcome of the trip was nothing short of amazing. I got on an airplane headed for home with such a feeling of confidence, because I can see VAST differences between our turbo kit, and every other power adder out there. A huge sigh of relief letting us know that all this hard work was for a reason!
Now what about the kit itself? I'll start with basic details, and expand from there. The Cartuning Performance LX Turbo kit is a single turbo low mount application (refer to following pictures). This means that like a conventional turbo kit, the turbo is mounted within inches of the manifolds, but rather then being under the hood where it can heat things up, it sits right below them. Clearance is a NON-issue. The kit was tested on a car with a 2.5" suspension drop and not one turbo component ever came close to the ground. It's physical location (still within the engine cradle) does not allow it to touch anything.
All piping, and flanges are made from 304L stainless tubing. All flex foints are stainless interlock (very different from conventional exhaust flex's) which are easily 10x stronger then your standard flex. This kit is built and designed to be used with your stock exhaust system from the suitcase back. This means from the manifolds to the suitcase is all replaced. A highflow 3" Carsound catalytic converter is also included as part of the kit. We laser cut all our 304 flanges to OUR specifications. All of our piping is bent on CNC controlled Mandrel Benders. This means that once we aprove a software set, each and every pipe will be identical within 0.001". They are all welded to flanges in robotic welders and pressure tested for exhaust leaks before they are installed in your car. We also take heat radiation very seriously. Each and every hot pipe is ceramic coated for 2200f both inside and out. Parts that need special attention will also get a heat barrier nothing like a tight exhaust header wrap which just rots out pipes over time. All high stress and high weight areas are TIG welded rather then MIG, guaranteeing better penetration and a stronger joint.
Cold Side pipes. As production continues, we have silicone tubing being made to very precise shapes (one over 48" in length with multiple bends) just for the LX platform. Stainless T-bolt clamps are used everywhere, no gear clamps. All the cold side pipes are being treated with a great stipple black powder coat. We do this for longevity where rocks/dirt can spit up off the road. Again, everything here is mandrel bent from one piece. When you don't have to weld multiple pieces of tubing together, the end result is much less turbulance in the tubing. Finally, we have placed a 50mm BOV in the upper charge pipe to relieve boost pressure.
Intercooler. Here's a big one. When properly designing a turbo kit, flow dynamics is king. Don't just grab an intercooler that will fit from ebay, and slap it in. What's better, horizontal flow, or vertical, and why? We've been over and over this until we got the best possible unit for the hemi. The end result is a vertical flow IC core which was custom cut to size just for YOU. The fin staggering inside the core was even evaluated to be optimal for a low boost application. There are huge difference (for what is optimal)from IC to IC based on boost, displacement, tank design, etc. The end tanks were also manipulated on a flow bench a lot until we were satisfied. All in all we've been through over 12 combinations of core size, end tank design, fin stagger. The end result is spectacular. Instantaneous boost, with ultimate cooling efficiancy.
Fuel/Ignition tuning. I'd say that paragraph title is a dumbed down version of what we're doing here. First of all, our solution is a FULL PLUG AND PLAY installation. This means you'll never need a soldering iron, wire cutters, or electrical tape. EVER. Unplug the connectors on your pcm, plug them into our box, and plug our box back in to the pcm. DONE. What can we manipulate? Just about everything. Folks, this is what took us 8 months to perfect, this was the huge challange with this car. We have control of fuel everywhere, timing everywhere, and much much more. For example, your Plug and Play unit will work with your new 180 deg thermostat to turn on the low fan speed at 182, and the high fan speed at 190. You don't have to do anything, no fan mod, no switches to run inside the car, fully automated fan control. Included with the kit will be 8 new larger injectors. Also plug and play, these particular injectors are 45 lb/hr units that can support well into 500whp. In order to take full advantage of these larger injectors and higher hp numbers we've also made a few fueling changes. The first is a fuel pump rewire kit which is INCLUDED in the turbo kit. Making some of the highest horsepower and torque numbers of any LX in the world during testing, we've found that the stock pump is very under-powered and needs some help. This fuel pump rewire kit is also plug and play, and basically takes pump voltage up to where it should be (factory uses very small wiring) bringing supported HP numbers to 500whp with ease. The second modification is a fuel delivery system. Many man hours were put into this innovation which makes a small EASILY REVERSIBLE change to your fuel system which converts it from a returnless, to a RETURN style system. The advantage here is that you can get easy idle and start up from large injectors, while still getting the power and AFR you need at WOT. Yes, all this is still included in the box you get. There's more.. but we can't give it ALL up just yet.
Summary. To sum up, we've got a great product offering for the masses. We feel this package is more complete then any other power adder out there for the LX forum, with more thought, pre-production testing (25k hard miles), and production quality. Our test RT made an extremely impressive 393 WHEEL hp and
475 ft/lbs of torque (wheel) at a measily 4.5 psi. That was on a 100% stock RT with a 100% stock exhaust system (suitcase, stock manifolds, etc). Since that last dyno, we've changed the intercooler design numerous times to a VERY noticable difference. Since that time we've increase the boost to 6 - 7 psi to an EXTREMELY noticable difference. We've also changed the turbo sizing, exhaust turbine wheel, etc. I'd confidently say that a production RT kit will make well over 430whp SAFELY. SRT's are expected to be about 100whp above that number. Add your own exhaust system, or the one we are looking to release for it in the near future, and those numbers only go up. The tune is based on 91 octane. We have monitored timing, knock retard, AFR, IAT, EGT in all weather conditions only to say we're finally happy with a very safe solution. Expect installation times of about 1 day for a nice clean install.
Pricing on the kit is $6300 USD. Although this number may go up a bit in time, we're already currently taking order deposits locking in this price. We expect to ship kits some time in January with full installation CD's included, etc.
Lastly, we'd like everyone to understand the quality of product going in these boxes. With literally hundreds, hundreds, and hundreds of kits already out there for the W body (GM FWD) community.... our kits have had no failures. No cracked pipes, no broken wastegates, no ruined turbo's, no oiling failures. Our track record shows value, quality, and most importantly power. We constantly get emails about improved mileage, amazing 1/4 mile times (
[email protected] in a daily driven regal for example) and confident reliability. There are NO ebay parts in this kit. No generic wastegates with unknown brand name, no generic intercoolers, no generic turbo's.
Now, bring on the questions
