KO3 boost questions

[Oranoco]

Right, my long suffering wife is going to get me an intercooler kit for the car and I'm thinking of adding an EBC (Apexi AVCR). How much boost will the old K03 give before it craps itself? Is 18psi hoping for too much?

 

[Lee Goodall]

I would've thought you'd be pushing your luck with much over 14 PSI to stay reliable.

 

[Broken Byzan]

On the Zine, there are guys running up to 22 psi on daily drivers, so IMHO 18psi isnt too much, especially if the charge is cooled properly.
Also as you have an early vehicle you wont have the limp mode problem due to high spikes( over 20) that the later cars can suffer with.

But i think the AVCR will allow you to tweak the peaks with duty cycle etc

 

[jcb]

when you think about the 9psi it is running at normally, you could blow down the intake and create more pressure.

I belive it will run out of breath and efficiency around the 20psi mark, by then you are blowing hot air and your cooling would have to be seriously effective. water injection is very good and cheapish.

what map will you be running?
their is a usefull article on VWvortex of a KO3 running around 240bhp ona few mods.

will dig it out

 

[Oranoco]

As far as the map goes it's running a Superchips chip. I'm quite happy to change this as required and have access to a wideband and a very good mapper. Also have an ERL water injection kit in my Ford Escort that it no longer requires. I could if needs be pinch it from that.

If you can find the article that would be great.

To be honest I will be pretty happy if I can nudge it part the 200bhp barrier.

 

[jcb]

cinytt is running 200 with a Ko3 at 19psi with a diode mod

 

[Blue_Thunder]

JimboKing (I think) was running 21psi at the ASN rolling road day back in March.

 

[Jimbo.King]

JimboKing (I think) was running 21psi at the ASN rolling road day back in March.

Mines been running 21psi for well over 12 months now with no probs on a k03, its mapped at this with no extra add ons though.

Just had it back on the rollers this week at rs tuning, 196bhp with a mad touque figure of 269ft-lbs.

 

[Blue_Thunder]

Jimbo, what did you make when you ran on the rollers at Awesome?

My figures for the day seemed very low.

 

[Jimbo.King]

It made 163BHP + 220ft-lbs @ Wheels at Awesome

 

[aragorn]

imo water injection is a bit of a bodge and needing it probably points to inadequate charge cooling...

I'd only ever turn to that once all other methods have been exhausted, IE an intercooler the size of the moon and water->air charge cooling.

You should certainly never plan to use it as a normal thing...

As for pushing the K03 to ~20psi, i'd really like to see where that ends up on its compressor map... i'd imagine you get to a point where the extra psi's doesnt actually give you any more power due to the manifold/chargetemps/turbo efficiency etc all being inadequate. IE the example above 21psi producing 198hp, if the turbo was still as efficient as it was at 8psi you'd expect that engine to be producing 230hp+ at that boost pressure, you probably find if you dropped the boost to say 18psi, your power wouldnt drop by much or at all, yet your turbo life would be extended and the intake temps would drop, making the whole package safer.

 

[aragorn]

http://www.not2fast.com/turbo/maps/k03_2072.gif

Struggling to find a compressor map for the k03-011 used in the 150hp 1.8T but that map will give you an idea of the problem, 20psi is a PR of 2.36, which gives a spindle speed of 180krpm which is seriously bad for turbo longevity...

I'm not sure what the maximum safe long term spindle speed would be for such a turbo, but pushing it that fast on a daily driver will probably kill the turbo pretty quickly...

 

[Broken Byzan]

Thats not much power for 198bhp? Mine did 199 on 12psi on its shagged out k03,strange how differnet tuners tune the cars etc

 

[Oranoco]

Dynos and their operators differ as well.

My 181bhp is on a DynoDynamics unit so on lesser rollers I might see as much as 20bhp more.

 

[Jimbo.King]

Thats not much power for 198bhp? Mine did 199 on 12psi on its shagged out k03,strange how differnet tuners tune the cars etc

What was the torque figure for 12psi, i can have more bhp with lesser psi with adjusting the map but will have less torque, i like the harshness of the torque though, bit like a diesel, more torque than bhp.

Dynos and their operators differ as well.

My 181bhp is on a DynoDynamics unit so on lesser rollers I might see as much as 20bhp more.

Mine was on a DynoDynamics, 1 day old so it should be accurate.

 

[Blue_Thunder]

From what i've seen, big boost = big torque!!!

Did an RR recently where there were two of us running K04'd S4's. We both got within 15bhp, but he had massive torque (>500 lb-ft) and massive boost (+5psi on mine) throughout the range.