modding 4age.... 150bhp?

[james123]

well im wanting to get abit more power from my 4age, the engine has just been rebuilt and it has a ss exhaust and k&n filter but apart from that its standard.
id like to get around the 150 bhp mark and was thinking what i could do to get it there?

[elbon50]

well im wanting to get abit more power from my 4age, the engine has just been rebuilt and it has a ss exhaust and k&n filter but apart from that its standard.
id like to get around the 150 bhp mark and was thinking what i could do to get it there?

Hot cams ?

Aftermarket ECU ?

Will cost a bob or three !

K&N will have made no noticable difference James

Only thing in their favour is if your'e keeping the car on & on over the years you don't ever have to buy another new filter

Exhaust may make a small difference. Depends

Peter

[james123]

thanks for your advice peter.
i was thinking some cams, what sort of gain would you get from some cams??
anyone used one of them power boost valves??
also spotted on the the fensport website a superchip... how do they work and do you get much gain from it??

[elbon50]

thanks for your advice peter.
i was thinking some cams, what sort of gain would you get from some cams??
anyone used one of them power boost valves??
also spotted on the the fensport website a superchip... how do they work and do you get much gain from it??

Recently bought some HKS cams from another member James

Will be fitting them later

The experts on here told me that power boost valves are no help

Peter

[SuperRedMR2]

Those superchips from Fensport give about 8-9bhp.

The chip to get is one called a Dastek - I've only ever seen a couple of these, but they are about £600.

Cams and ECU aren't cheap. There are some HKS cams on eBay at the moment which I'm bidding on

My engine is built to race spec for the mr2 mk1 champ series by Rogue Motorsport and I've got Blitz Filter, S/S Exhaust and Magnecor leads etc and mine is only putting out 130.6 when it was Dyno'd.

I dont know how much an ally flywheel 'frees' up if that is the word to describe it, Ill be getting mine fitted in October and then dyno'd after that.

[cartledge_uk]

google and the search function is your friend

all the info you need can be found here

http://www.billzilla.org/4agmods.htm

[PW@Woodsport]

It's all money down the drain in my opinion, the 4a-ge is already in quite a high state of tune, so getting more out of it is a costly excercise, once you come anywhere near the £1500 mark modding it then you may as well buy a SC engine and mod that.

Unless you can get the cams, ECU, exhaust manifold etc for peanuts the £ spent for BHP gain is huge.

I'm strapping a TRD SC unit to a 4a-ge and already the supporting mods have cost me well over £1000 without the cost of the charger, and i'll maybe see 150bhp if i'm lucky.

Tuning the 4a is a mugs game and only done by those who just don't want to swap the engine for something better, which i'm afraid to say is the far more sensible option.

[elbon50]

It seems that James' 4A engine has recently been rebuilt

Perhaps you are financially past the point of no return now as far as considering a swap for a 3S or V engine James ?

Peter

[Lauren]

As Paul says the gains are relatively small for the money on a 4AGE. But, that to me misses the point. It is nice to have a NA 4AGE that's got a bit more poke than standard and after all they do sound brilliant when at full chat. Plus you retain the character of the engine in line with the car.

Sure a 3SGTE (best engine in the world apparently) is fast, but it has none of the character and turbos will cost you big time in terms of throttle response, so you'll lose the response that you had with the 4AGE.

I've got HKS cams, 4-1 manifold + system, modded ECU and an AE92 bottom end with unknown internals. It certainly goes well enough and loves to rev.

I will be putting it on the rollers next month, so will be interesting to see what it puts out. I have driven countless 4AGE's and my current one does feel strong. What you notice with the cams (264's in my case) is that it pushes the power further up the rev range. Having said this, torque is still fine, so that's not a problem. With the 264's power comes on strong around 5500-8300rpm.

I'm not using my modified ECU at the moment, so with the stock one you are still well in the powerband when you hit the rev limiter, which is very easy to do. I will try both ECU's at the rolling road day I'm going to.

Though there are other engines that produce more power and forced induction and the like, I really think these lose the character of a high revving NA 4AGE.

Personally I'm not interested in chasing big power, it can be a never ending circle of always trying to get more. With cams, dastek and maybe a tubular manifold you ought to be able to get to around 150bhp. Mine already has that and I have the likely benefit of a high compression bottom end. I'll be very happy indeed if it makes 140bhp. We shall see!

If you go for cams, 264's with 8.1-8.3mm lift is the most a stock ECU can cope with.

Vashy has 264 inlet and 256 exhaust and he has played around loads with his cam timing. As it turns out he has found overlapping the exhaust a tad helps with midrange. For example mine are 3 degrees retarded on the inlet and 4 degrees retarded on the exhaust to provide a little overlap. This is how my car came over from Japan.

IIRC John went for 3 degrees retard on the inlet and 5 on the exhaust which he found to be the best settings. So you can have some fun playing around with it.

Go for it James, would be nice to see more MK1's with tuned 4AGE's rather than just plonking in a turbo lump.

If you want to see more about tuning NA 4AGEs, the AE86 forums tend to focus much more on this kind of thing, which just doesn't seem to happen here. aeu86.org has loads of build projects and techy stuff on tuning up a 4AGE.

See this thread for 4AGE power runs (thanks to James's forum):

http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/viewtopic. ... ghtsixcouk

[james123]

see where your coming from paul but as peter said ive recently spend quite abit on rebuilding it and only being 20 insurance is already abit steep never mind added a supercharger.
thanks very much for that lauren!
id be happy with a similar set up as yours... where could i pick up a dastek?? also will the manifold have to be custom made as i havent seen one made for the aw11?

[elbon50]

Alex (SuperRed) mentioned £600 for a dastek

Phew !

That all fits in with Paul's point I think. Spend lots of dosh for small gains

Peter

[tonigmr2]

If you want to make the car go faster chap most obvious thing is to strip some weight out of it. Very cheap, well until you get to lightweight alloys and that sort of thing.

I had a MK1 on a unichip, think it made 137bhp or so. Felt very pokey that was the main gain.

[cartledge_uk]

see where your coming from paul but as peter said ive recently spend quite abit on rebuilding it and only being 20 insurance is already abit steep never mind added a supercharger.
thanks very much for that lauren!
id be happy with a similar set up as yours... where could i pick up a dastek?? also will the manifold have to be custom made as i havent seen one made for the aw11?

Any mods really need to be declared to your insurance company, otherwise your insurance could be invalidated leaving yourself with a very big bill!


If you go with webers, the ecu sde would be cheaper

[pk_090]

Im not going to spend mega money on mince, but i want to buy a second spare engine to rebuild so i can rebuild it without the car being off the road. I plan to put new everything in aswell as the TRD cams and throttlebodies on that i have acquired. This would mean ive got to run aftermarket ECU with the throttlebodies so ive been thinking about a megasquirt ecu. Either this or drop the 20V blacktop engine in which has all this done as standard, but i think blacktop's go for around £500 and i dont know what it will do to my insurance being young also.
Alex

[Lauren]

To be fair if you want a small upgrade that'll give you a bit more oomph, then your options are:

Dastek and getting it set up. Had a friend who made 142bhp with this a filter and exhaust.

Or, get some second hand cams, but don't go over 264 duration. A popular option is to stick in 264/256 as Vashy has done. This will run on the stock ecu no problem.

As for a manifold, I'm not sure that there are many available for the AW11, no idea why as there's loads for my car. But you could get one made, but it'll cost you a fair amount. Or just keep checking the usual places worldwide and see if anything comes up.

Why not just do a thing at a time and see it as a long term project.

Sure you won't make mega power but it'll be something different than the usual 'stick a 3SGTE in it because nothing else is worth doing' type of talk.

I have a lovingly rebuilt GZE sitting in the shed, but I'm in no rush to put it in and am not sure that I will tbh. It's more a back up engine option.

Forget Webers or Dellortos, they'll ruin your fuel consumption and never be as good as a proper throttle body setup. Throttle bodies do seem to offer some really good gains and you can fit the throttle bodies from a 20v. It then needs some fettling and a piggy back ECU at least will be needed, so it racks up the cost. Sounds good though.

20V is good (PK won't be able to afford the insurance though) especially in Blacktop form. I've driven a silvertop 20v in a MK1 and it didn't really impress, though it sounded nice. On the other hand I drove a Blacktop 20v in an AE86 (okay a fair bit lighter) and it was quick.

Trouble is doing these kind of conversions will cost money and you'll need to a competent mechanic in order to attempt this. Things like waterways and the like need fettling, not to mention the wiring.

If I was you, I'd look around for some cams, you can stick them in and then if you want to progress it further use something like a Dastek. As for setup you need to find a Dastek dealer. I don't know where in the country you are.

As Toni says you can strip weight out of it, but the trouble is you need to go mental to make significant gains in weight loss. This tends to ruin the car as a daily driver really.

[Lauren]

Im not going to spend mega money on mince, but i want to buy a second spare engine to rebuild so i can rebuild it without the car being off the road. I plan to put new everything in aswell as the TRD cams and throttlebodies on that i have acquired. This would mean ive got to run aftermarket ECU with the throttlebodies so ive been thinking about a megasquirt ecu. Either this or drop the 20V blacktop engine in which has all this done as standard, but i think blacktop's go for around £500 and i dont know what it will do to my insurance being young also.
Alex

I seriously doubt you'll be able to afford the insurance for any of these kind of modifications. It will put it through the roof most likely. On my insurance a modified ECU (which I have but is not on the car) cost me an extra £50 (I decided to leave it on so I can use the other ECU if I wish). But I'm expecting your age and lack of driving experience will not help you with getting mods like these insured unfortunately.

Have you really got TRD cams? What are the specs? I think 20v engines may be a tad more expensive than that as they are a little hard to find.

[elbon50]

If you want to make the car go faster chap most obvious thing is to strip some weight out of it. Very cheap, well until you get to lightweight alloys and that sort of thing.

I had a MK1 on a unichip, think it made 137bhp or so. Felt very pokey that was the main gain.

Yes but after bumper bars, interior trim (not very heavy anyway) where do you go then to find more weight to remove Toni ?

Peter

[Lauren]

The MK1 has 5 bulkheads, this is why they are so heavy.

In terms of what else you can remove there isn't that much. Obviously if you were doing this you wouldn't start with a t-bar. Things like GRP/Carbon bucket seats save weight over the stock items.

If it's a road car, I wouldn't recommend stripping it, been there done that!

[tonigmr2]

Well it was mainly seats and carpets and sound deadener, trunk and front I was thinking of. But I admit I had 'track car' in my head rather than daily driver!

Carpets and sound deadener are more chunky than you think...8kg each side on my MK1! Yes 16kg of carpet and black tar!

Obviously the major gain is buckets over stock seats though.

[cartledge_uk]

Well it was mainly seats and carpets and sound deadener, trunk and front I was thinking of. But I admit I had 'track car' in my head rather than daily driver!

Carpets and sound deadener are more chunky than you think...8kg each side on my MK1! Yes 16kg of carpet and black tar!

Obviously the major gain is buckets over stock seats though.

And wheels! the stock wheels are very heavy.