[SienarSystems]

Glad you’ve got it all worked out and it sounds awesome! Scary fast and still streetable (even in CA). Enjoy!

[Flowtie1]

Nice !

[MakCamaro]

Well, thread resurrection after almost a year. Great write-up, thanks for sharing. I am planning to do the same down the road, so I am trying to get as much info as I can and threads like this one are nice to read. Keep it updated, might be useful for others as well.

[radz28]

Originally Posted by MakCamaro

Well, thread resurrection after almost a year. Great write-up, thanks for sharing. I am planning to do the same down the road, so I am trying to get as much info as I can and threads like this one are nice to read. Keep it updated, might be useful for others as well.

Since you've asked...

05.12.2021 - Update
Tune-wise: No problems or anything. I'll add that I'm probably not getting the full potential of this hardware set-up.

I've been trying to learn a lot more about the Gen V system (I've had some experience and some success with Gen III stuff), and have learned a lot, but KNOW there is a lot more.

I'm seeing there seems to be a fair amount of protection left in the canned tune. I'm not suggesting Magnuson wasn't thorough. I think it was probably to help save the car and drivetrain more than anything. Looking back, I could feel the power being pulled a WOT under some circumstances, and after monitoring for almost a year now (I've put probably 700-miles on the car, monitoring), I could actually see what I'm positive is the torque system pulling back power some. I can see throttle closing, mostly, and it seems to correlate to when I had felt it in the past - it's almost a near-dead spot when it happens, and I could pretty much repeat it at will. Timing can change and taper-off at times I wouldn't think it should need to, and that will pull power. That's all well and good, though, because I'd rather the car protect itself than break.

It's not because of the 91-octane (I've used some race-gas concentrate to bring octane to about 93 - I'm not getting spark knock or ignition activity that results in timing being pulled). Timing seems to be pulled mostly right before and after shifts, which make sense. Sometimes it seems to trail off slow after a shift, and I feel like I can feel that sometimes, but if it's for protection, while I have any warranty coverage, I think I can deal with it.

Fueling is good, and I'm pretty safe, running around 5-5.5ms of IPW. Low-side pressure is starting to fall (at the top of the RPM-range) to upper 60s, but high side is staying at commanded (I might address this down the road, but I'm trying to figure out if I can do a low-side and keep it stealthy or if I should only do a booster). I shouldn't need much more, so I might stay with a booster, but I think I'll wait until I get to the strip and see how fueling looks.

What I have learned is that a lot of this can be optimized for performance. I thin there is a good amount of performance left on the table. That might mean sacrificing warranty and such, but it seems like these cars can take it without much of an issue. I've also got emissions (because of CARB) in the back of my mind constantly, but this torque system seems to be the key.

I know the tranny can't be tuned, but know there can be small improvements through using some of the older A8 methods. These might be considered "raping", but there is a little than can be done for these A10s. I'm not looking for much anyways, because I haven't enjoyed any other transmission as much as I have this one.

I know there are several torque tables that can be optimized. I have another car where Driver Demand, Virtual Torque, Virtual Volumetric Efficiency, and many others can be manipulated, but pretty much all of them have to be optimized and then balanced. If you change/optimize one, you have to start shifting many of the others. I think this is probably the key in what I'm feeling from the car and what I'm seeing in the logs. I've seen some logs from other Members and even gotten tuning information from a good tuner that is showing me where a lot of this stuff can improve the calibration, and optimize the set-up. So - there's enough meat on the bone past the canned CARB-tune that it's probably worth dyno-street tuning. Cam, ignition, torque tables all correlate and you should address all of them, IMO. I think that would be my biggest suggestion - tune it for your set-up if you want to get the most out of it. And only get it tuned by someone that knows what they're doing. Some say VVE isn't important, and some of those people are WAY MORE skilled at tuning than I, but with the A10, I can't see that tuning doing more harm than good. It might take longer to balance everything else out, but if you're of a mindset similar to me, I'd rather spend the fuel and beat the car than just leave it for convenience. Some guys report problems, with trying to tune everything, but I have a pretty simple build compared to them, so I wouldn't likely face a lot of those issues.

Hardware or otherwise:
I don't have much to comment on. I can tell you the whine is louder, but not Hellcat-level. If you can open-up the air box (or replace the OEM one with an open-box-type [e.g. Rotofab), it's even louder (and probably still not quite HC-level).

If I have to have a criticism, it would be the way the dipstick mounts. You have to raise it the thickness of the coil relocation bracket mount (essentially). Thus far - I haven't found or noted any leaking or weeping from the tube hole or anything. Oil level indications don't have seem to changed anything notable or, in my estimation, worth worrying about. I might try to protect the coils from manifold heat down the road, but haven't noticed an issue yet.

I've added a couple adel clamps for some of the kits' hoses, here and there. Part of it was symmetry but the other was just piece of my mind. I had deviated harness and hose routing a little from the instructions (mostly based -off of my visual preference), so some of that has to do with the clamp additions.

I added a catch can (which is not CARB-compliant) but don't care. There was a little oil film in the OEM blower when I removed it. I can say that the can is catching oil and there are traces of residue in the blower snout (behind the catch can port), it is nothing close to similar to not having the can. I've seen as much as 16-psi (and a couple spikes of 19 in extreme cold air) pretty regularly, and am going to control the oil vapor as much as I think is reasonable. I'd definitely recommend a catch can.

Consider getting as much air to the blower as you can. If you really want the most out of this blower, in any case, I think having as much air as possible is best. There are excellent Calibrators here that will say you only need a 95 or that might not even be worth it, but from everything I'm seeing, and stuff I see on the web (I know...), it seems it is very likely to be worth the trouble. I can see around 2-plus-inches of vacuum in the snout, and that's very likely power that's left on the table. If I could get a 103 on there, I would, but it's not stock appearing, so I don't think it's worth the trouble for me. I bet that's probably about 10-15 I'm leaving on the bone right there, but I'll probably never feel/appreciate that for what I do.

This whole experience has been almost as much fun as getting my dream car itself. I don't know that I could offer constructive feedback for this kit much more than what I've touched on here. For the needs I have, and the expectations I came in with, I couldn't be happier, really. I mean - I always want more power, and I very much perseverate on optimization, and while I recognize there stuff that seems can be, I also recognize it's in the interest of keeping the car from destroying itself that some of the meat remain on the bone. I'll probably end up correcting that, but this is probably going to be the last of the big mods' for me. I have a set of ZLE cradle bushings that will go in, but my car is about perfect now. I haven't been able to get to the track yet (thanks COVID and California...), but am eager to see what waste-time on street tires I'll have and what my drag pack will get me. I never got a chance to do a stock pass, but we all know about what to expect. I'll probably report back after that, unless there are other comments or questions.

I'm very grateful and blessed.

[radz28]

07/23/2021 Update
For those who might be interested (maybe more so for California residents than anything), here's another update:

There's another car I'm aware of almost identical to mine (minus a RFBG and 95mm TB) because they have the same intent I do on keeping it visually copacetic at this point, for now. So I'll share what I noticed from that combination, since it would (most likely) be the same for me if I kept optimizing.

Tuning for the other car improved with having more traction available. You could get into the pedal a lot earlier, and stay in it more. On the stock tires (before changing to the DRs), you could roll into WOT in the middle of 2nd-gear and have enough traction as the 2-3-shift approached, and just keep the pedal down. You could feel the car try to spin the tires, and it was on the verge, but was just under the threshold of losing grip.

The DRs went on, and street tuning continued, and is pretty much done. Now - with the DRs, the car will try spinning the tires, from a roll in 3rd, from about 40-or-so, all the way to the 3-4-shift at around 80-MPH. The torque transformation is nearly completely different. This tuning was done recently, in 80-plus* conditions around sea level, on clean asphalt. There was no burn-out or effort made to heat the tires (FULL weight, 20-psi cold tire pressure, no cool down or anything), other than a casual 10-mile warm-up prior to really getting on the gas (this comment was added just for reference for conditions). Rolling into the pedal around 2000-RPMs yielded spinning rear tires moments later (between 7-10-MPH difference in speed to the front tires was logged in the Scanner) through the shift into 4th-gear. I don't know if the owner would say the Driver Demand/Virtual Torque/VVE-tables were necessarily optimized to each other, but they would say there was 100% throttle opening when commanded and zero Torque Management retard. A calibrator might say the tune looks bad, but everything lines-up and there is no limiting. The car's on a blend of Racegas concentrate (orange can) and full tank of 91-octane (trying to get to about 93-octane safely), and seeing around 21* of timing at WOT with no knock (MATs are pulling almost a couple degrees because of temperatures). The standard Maggie tune is about 17*, if I recall, but I think that's based on 91 (and MATs would pull the same timing for the same temps). But the car's an animal now, and rips to redline. It feels altogether faster than my car. No dyno or anything to actually prove an improvement, but there was all manor of throttle and timing adjustments with the Maggie tune (again - as said before - probably protections to the powertrain, like GM does). The differences in mods' should show power, too, but, back to my car:

I still haven't gotten to the track. COVID farked that up until recently and as soon as that kinda' was less of a deal, then it got hot. I don't race when it's more than 90*, so I probably won't be at the track for a couple more months, after it starts cooling off. IATs/MATs all start coming down quickly under WOT, so the intercooling is great. When there is no airflow demand, and at low speeds, there just isn't much a PD-blower can do to cool the air until the throttle opens, and air actually starts moving through the system.
It's cool to see the temperatures start falling almost immediately though. It justifies not sticking to the OEM blower. Anyways - I'll see what the differences are between my car and the other one with the tuning. They feel different, but there are no numbers to show yet. I can see differences (throttle/TMA) in the logs between the cars, and mine's definitely limiting power. Magnuson is advertising different power numbers for this kit now in a way, but I'm not that concerned. It sounds like they're within a couple months of CARB-certification, so that's good for a person like me, with the margins I'm trying to stay within. Depending on what the other car does, maybe down the road I'll relax my constraints on tuning a bit, but I paid for a CARB-tune, and will need it down the road, so who knows? With the mods'

There might not be much left to report for this little project. It's not interesting to anyone else who's not a CA-resident interested in staying legal. I'm not sponsored in ANY way by anyone affiliated with Magnuson. No one asked me to share any of this. I think I wanted to try to offer hope to someone who might be interested or has to deal with similar circumstances. All hope is not lost on us Californians. For a person like me who is keeping this car probably past when there is gas available to drive it, I don't have a mentality of doing whatever I want to the car, hoping I don't get cited for illegal mods' until I just trade it in when smog is due. This is a permanent mod' for a keeper car. As always, I hope my honesty and transparency might be at least a little helpful to anyone thinking about this. There are a lot more exciting and complete builds than this one. I've always said I just wanted between about 600-650 to the tires, and I think my build puts me comfortably in that area.

[clg82]

Originally Posted by radz28

07/23/2021 Update
For those who might be interested (maybe more so for California residents than anything), here's another update:

There's another car I'm aware of almost identical to mine (minus a RFBG and 95mm TB) because they have the same intent I do on keeping it visually copacetic at this point, for now. So I'll share what I noticed from that combination, since it would (most likely) be the same for me if I kept optimizing.

Tuning for the other car improved with having more traction available. You could get into the pedal a lot earlier, and stay in it more. On the stock tires (before changing to the DRs), you could roll into WOT in the middle of 2nd-gear and have enough traction as the 2-3-shift approached, and just keep the pedal down. You could feel the car try to spin the tires, and it was on the verge, but was just under the threshold of losing grip.

The DRs went on, and street tuning continued, and is pretty much done. Now - with the DRs, the car will try spinning the tires, from a roll in 3rd, from about 40-or-so, all the way to the 3-4-shift at around 80-MPH. The torque transformation is nearly completely different. This tuning was done recently, in 80-plus* conditions around sea level, on clean asphalt. There was no burn-out or effort made to heat the tires (FULL weight, 20-psi cold tire pressure, no cool down or anything), other than a casual 10-mile warm-up prior to really getting on the gas (this comment was added just for reference for conditions). Rolling into the pedal around 2000-RPMs yielded spinning rear tires moments later (between 7-10-MPH difference in speed to the front tires was logged in the Scanner) through the shift into 4th-gear. I don't know if the owner would say the Driver Demand/Virtual Torque/VVE-tables were necessarily optimized to each other, but they would say there was 100% throttle opening when commanded and zero Torque Management retard. A calibrator might say the tune looks bad, but everything lines-up and there is no limiting. The car's on a blend of Racegas concentrate (orange can) and full tank of 91-octane (trying to get to about 93-octane safely), and seeing around 21* of timing at WOT with no knock (MATs are pulling almost a couple degrees because of temperatures). The standard Maggie tune is about 17*, if I recall, but I think that's based on 91 (and MATs would pull the same timing for the same temps). But the car's an animal now, and rips to redline. It feels altogether faster than my car. No dyno or anything to actually prove an improvement, but there was all manor of throttle and timing adjustments with the Maggie tune (again - as said before - probably protections to the powertrain, like GM does). The differences in mods' should show power, too, but, back to my car:

I still haven't gotten to the track. COVID farked that up until recently and as soon as that kinda' was less of a deal, then it got hot. I don't race when it's more than 90*, so I probably won't be at the track for a couple more months, after it starts cooling off. IATs/MATs all start coming down quickly under WOT, so the intercooling is great. When there is no airflow demand, and at low speeds, there just isn't much a PD-blower can do to cool the air until the throttle opens, and air actually starts moving through the system.
It's cool to see the temperatures start falling almost immediately though. It justifies not sticking to the OEM blower. Anyways - I'll see what the differences are between my car and the other one with the tuning. They feel different, but there are no numbers to show yet. I can see differences (throttle/TMA) in the logs between the cars, and mine's definitely limiting power. Magnuson is advertising different power numbers for this kit now in a way, but I'm not that concerned. It sounds like they're within a couple months of CARB-certification, so that's good for a person like me, with the margins I'm trying to stay within. Depending on what the other car does, maybe down the road I'll relax my constraints on tuning a bit, but I paid for a CARB-tune, and will need it down the road, so who knows? With the mods'

There might not be much left to report for this little project. It's not interesting to anyone else who's not a CA-resident interested in staying legal. I'm not sponsored in ANY way by anyone affiliated with Magnuson. No one asked me to share any of this. I think I wanted to try to offer hope to someone who might be interested or has to deal with similar circumstances. All hope is not lost on us Californians. For a person like me who is keeping this car probably past when there is gas available to drive it, I don't have a mentality of doing whatever I want to the car, hoping I don't get cited for illegal mods' until I just trade it in when smog is due. This is a permanent mod' for a keeper car. As always, I hope my honesty and transparency might be at least a little helpful to anyone thinking about this. There are a lot more exciting and complete builds than this one. I've always said I just wanted between about 600-650 to the tires, and I think my build puts me comfortably in that area.

So to start off please excuse my ignorance as I've been following every word you've said about the Magnuson and am about to pull the trigger. First off is the other car staying CARB compliant? isn't the 95mm throttle body as well as the big gulp and his Magnuson required to have a retune therefore making him fail smog, or is the CAN CARB tune that Magnuson supplies efficient enough to use that combination? Also how much boost does the Magnuson can tune produce on your somewhat "stock" car?

[radz28]

To stay CARB-compliant, stock TB and air cleaner have to be installed. It's hard to say if a 95 TB and Rotofab (non-BG, for example) might play nice with the canned Maggie tune. I, personally, fiddled for a little bit, with the standard RF on the car, with the stock TB, and it seemed to be fine, but I didn't take any data during that time. The gauge registered what looked like good EQ while I could look at it, but I didn't do any data collection for that. The 2650 produces about 14-psi in this Summer weather on my car. It goes up a pound or two in boost weather sometimes, but the average is at least 14-psi. Magnuson posts 725 on their website now for this package at 13-psi, so you kinda have to take it they way you take it. You'll probably pick-up a little boost with a 95 and RFBG, but that's about all (as I've read about) you'll want to regularly run with stock manifolds and cats'.

The 95 and a CAI are easy enough to tune for and remove and reinstall before and after inspection. It's easy enough to flash and re-flash for inspection. It's not yet known how the re-flash count may or may not complicate inspections though... That's the tricky question, among some others I could thing about.

[clg82]

Originally Posted by radz28

To stay CARB-compliant, stock TB and air cleaner have to be installed. It's hard to say if a 95 TB and Rotofab (non-BG, for example) might play nice with the canned Maggie tune. I, personally, fiddled for a little bit, with the standard RF on the car, with the stock TB, and it seemed to be fine, but I didn't take any data during that time. The gauge registered what looked like good EQ while I could look at it, but I didn't do any data collection for that. The 2650 produces about 14-psi in this Summer weather on my car. It goes up a pound or two in boost weather sometimes, but the average is at least 14-psi. Magnuson posts 725 on their website now for this package at 13-psi, so you kinda have to take it they way you take it. You'll probably pick-up a little boost with a 95 and RFBG, but that's about all (as I've read about) you'll want to regularly run with stock manifolds and cats'.

The 95 and a CAI are easy enough to tune for and remove and reinstall before and after inspection. It's easy enough to flash and re-flash for inspection. It's not yet known how the re-flash count may or may not complicate inspections though... That's the tricky question, among some others I could thing about.

Thanks for the response radz you're always informative! How did you find out the CARB approval was only a few months out?

[airtroop01]

@radz28 - Your posts have been interesting to read so thanks for taking the time to share. It was a large part in my decision to go the same path having a California car and similar goals in mind.

Still waiting for my Maggy 2650R to ship out… purchased through CSP Racing; week 5 already.

While the 100% CARB compliant Maggy tune is with the stock TB and stock airbox, I intend to get a custom tune and run with the 103 snout, NW 103TB and a RF Big Gulp. I also added a JMS/Lingenfelter fuel booster for safety.
The intake parts are easy enough to swap out over a weekend and reflash the CARB tune and put some miles on it before an inspection.

Exhaust and in particular the cats are problematic for making power at this level.
I would run high flow cats but that’s a no go so… while I try to do the right thing by the environment I may be looking into obtaining a spare set of cats to hollow out just because the lawmakers are not being reasonable either and it force’s ones hand to do things a certain way.

[radz28]

Originally Posted by clg82

Thanks for the response radz you're always informative! How did you find out the CARB approval was only a few months out?

It's my pleasure. I'm glad it's at least a little helpful. I reached out directly to Magnuson. There was a problem with the validation car, so it seems like they had to almost start over, to a degree. They bought a ZL1, and it sounds like that car is now the validation car.

I read a snippet somewhere about one of the tests the companies have to go through. This test was where the car was sealed in a building for some length of time and CARB would monitor fuel emissions from various parts of the car. This could be partially why CAIs don't pass that often. I know some cars have forms of charcoal filtering in air cleaners, and this starts making sense. This is just one of the many tests. It sounds like it can cost somewhere to $50K to certify!!! Jesus...

Originally Posted by airtroop01

@radz28 - Your posts have been interesting to read so thanks for taking the time to share. It was a large part in my decision to go the same path having a California car and similar goals in mind.

Still waiting for my Maggy 2650R to ship out… purchased through CSP Racing; week 5 already.

While the 100% CARB compliant Maggy tune is with the stock TB and stock airbox, I intend to get a custom tune and run with the 103 snout, NW 103TB and a RF Big Gulp. I also added a JMS/Lingenfelter fuel booster for safety.
The intake parts are easy enough to swap out over a weekend and reflash the CARB tune and put some miles on it before an inspection.

Exhaust and in particular the cats are problematic for making power at this level.
I would run high flow cats but that’s a no go so… while I try to do the right thing by the environment I may be looking into obtaining a spare set of cats to hollow out just because the lawmakers are not being reasonable either and it force’s ones hand to do things a certain way.

That is who I went with, and though it took about 2-months to get, I saved a butt-tonne of money, so it was worth it. They were great with me, and it went exactly how they said it would. That was RIGHT before this COVID BS. I imagine it's not as fast now, and that sucks, but they did me right with pricing. I am grateful for that. I'm not sure what they've shared with you as far as shipping and all that, but I'm happy to share my experience more, if it is helpful.

I like the sound of everything you're planning. I'm considering it, but was concerned about hearing something about a flash-count, that apparently, smog shops might have to evaluate. That detail seems to conflict a little with other information that seems to be coming out, but I'm not too sure what to believe. As you already said - all that stuff is easily swapped out when it's necessary. I really believe all that stuff is actually effective and worth the trouble, if you're trying to make the most, of what we can reasonably, with this blower. I am a firm believer there is a lot left to optimize in the tune, and am sure I can prove it eventually.

I've been pondering mod'ing the cat' pipes. Someone posted adding the newer high-flow cats', and I think someone else overseas posted replacing the OEM cats', with the same high-flow cats', and all the intermediate pipes from the manifold flanges to the outlets that connect to the large intermediate pipe section that goes to the muffler. I've seen someone here say (JRE I think) that after about 650-RWHP, the OEM cats' start choking (so-to-speak), and a lot of heat starts to work it's way back up and into the exhaust ports and eventually the combustion chambers, requiring pulling timing back, and lowering torque (power). Anyways - I've been thinking about replacing all those little pinched manifold-connection pipes with better 2.5-3" pipes (if possible) and using the OEM-cats'. It's probably not worth the effort, but sometimes I just have to find out for myself.

It's for guys like you that I try to post what I do. No one else, really, is going to give a toss about this combination, and I don't really blame them. No one else, really, has to put up with the BS we have to in this state. I can't leave, and I'm not getting rid of this car, so this was the direction that gave me what I wanted. It's not for many others outside of CA. But - if it helps anyone, it's worth the hours I've used to try to offer value out of all my babble.

[Dave777]

Originally Posted by laynlo15

Great information for anyone thinking about a switch.

Yep. Very nice build.