25 replies to this topic

[t2vxt]

Big difference in price.As any body driven both to comp.Ie on track. I know tms intercooler looks better design.larger diameter pipe.What about back up and service,from these guys? Any comments please.Newbie thanks James.

[Thorney]

I think you need to compare like for like, Courtenay's version of a stage 4 is different to ours, best thing is to ask people who have one. We've done quite a few (have 3 more booked in over next 3 weeks) so get feedback from owners. I actually founded this site and whilst I know longer effectively run it I like to think that I am accessible for people for both good and bad issues.

[chancer]

I think you need to compare like for like, Courtenay's version of a stage 4 is different to ours, best thing is to ask people who have one. We've done quite a few (have 3 more booked in over next 3 weeks) so get feedback from owners.

I actually founded this site and whilst I know longer effectively run it I like to think that I am accessible for people for both good and bad issues.

Well looking at the available information, the Courtenay Chargecooler is a stand alone item comprising water radiator, swirl pot, heat exchanger which replaces the standard intercooler and high flow water pump. They use high pressure hosing and hydraulic fixings which cannot come undone under pressure (unlike hoseclips and rubber pipes which can work lose, which can be a complete disaster when they're inaccessable behind a clam!). The TMS set up is a supplemantary chargecooler, in that it retains the standard intercooler, and has a supplementary heat exchnager, swirl pot, water pump and water radiator.

The Courtenay Stage 4 comprises of the following Exclusive Courtenay Sport Software Upgrade, airbox modifications, Full stainless steel Milltek exhaust system (including front pipe), Bespoke Charge Cooler System (see below for full details), Z20LEH (Astra VXR) Hybrid Turbo charger with stronger cast manifold, VXR Actuator, Uprated Higher Flow Injectors, Rolling Road Tune, Courtenay Sport Lightweight Billet Steel Flywheel (outright not exchange), Uprated Sports Clutch which comes in at £4995 fitted. Power increases to about 285bhp at peak power rpm. (+85 bhp increase)

The TMS Stage 4 comprises ECU remap, full Milltek exhaust system, charge cooler, supplemental radiator, lightened flywheel, Sachs performance paddle clutch, hybrid turbo, uprated actuator – Approx +50 bhp (+75bhp midrange) - £6,500

I was chatting to one of the guys from Courtenay on Saturday who showed me their new alloy radiator set up with an extra large charge cooler pre rad for additional cooling and twin fan set up. It means that cooling radiator for the chargecooler set up is over twice the size of the current one. This is set for testing on their own car very soon and will I think be incorporated into the Stage 4 and 5 packages.

Also it is important to realise that it the diameter of the pipework on the system does not determine the flow rate of the chargecooler, but it is the pump. The pump they use is designed to maximise the cooling effect of the system as it is a very high flow rate pump. If they use a stronger a pump the water passes throught the chargecooler radiator too quickly and doesn't maximise the cooling effect. Having looked at the return feeds into the swirl pots on both set ups they both seem to return water at the same speed, which would assume similar levels of cooling. Larger diameter pipework, such as the TMS set up, just means that a different pump can be used to acheive the same given water flow rate.

Also Courtenay's guy was saying that they have tested two different maps for the Stage 4 on their own car. One producing around 295 bhp and 335 lb ft torque and the other producing around 285 bhp and 290 lb ft torque. Using the VXR injectors they can have a map written to suit an individual application, which I guess is why they can have 2 different maps on 2 different ecus for testing. The problem up until now for this level of tune has been the availability of the injectors, which were on backorder, but I undertsand they are now available. I know they have people waiting for this set up now that the injectors are available from Opel. Apparently the injectors are required as the standard injectors run out of duty cycle at around 270 bhp i.e. they cannot provide enough fuel, so hence the higher flow rate injectors and the re-calibrated mapping required.

They are also working on a Stage 5 which has been mapped in Germnay and produced around 400 bhp.

[Dakkon]

They are also working on a Stage 5 which has been mapped in Germnay and produced around 400 bhp.

But for how much? there comes a point when its simply better to just buy a faster car.

[Thorney]

Firstly the BHP numbers are on their dyno, we've had Courtenay cars on our dyno and they measure approx 20-30bhp lower on ours, doesn't mean they're lying just measuring it differently. Courtenay ditch the standard intercooler on their system and frankly I've no idea why. The stock IC was designed by Lotus and they spent months developing it and couldn't better it, the after market ones I've seen (that retain the same bodywork) don't work any better so its a silly thing to ditch IMO. IC's work better than CC's when there is airflow so whilst a CC will cool the air more effectively than an IC when airflow is compromised to only have a CC set up when there is some airflow to an IC is plain wrong. Pace (who designed the Courtenay system agree). We designed ours so that the air if cooled by the IC then by the CC then directly into the engine intake. I disagree on the pipe comment, what cools the air in the CC is not the speed it goes through but the volume of air/water cooling ratio - more water going through the CC then the cooler the air passing thorugh it will achieve. Passing the water through their at high pressure or high speed is a bit daft as their is an optimum flow rate but the crucial thing is the sheer amount of water passing through. We use 1" diameter pipe compared to Courtenays 3mm internal so the level of flow we get is a clear multiple of what you'll get with their system. We also use a larger specification water pump (largest available) and its the combination of the amount of water and the rate it flows that cools the air. We both use the same VXR Astra turbo although we only spec it with the uprated actuator (doesn't seem any point not to) but you don't need the VXR injectors, the standard VX220 injectors are capable of flowing the fuel. Agree they run out at about 270bhp but we've never seen anything like that on this engine without stronger internals (pistons/rods), stick with stock injectors unless you're planning a different turbo. We do have a VXR injector version available but we find torque is enhanced with the smaller ones. We don't mod the airbox - daft to try as it as it kills air mass meters. There are a variety of flywheels you can try in a range of prices and remember you need to replace the release bearing as you can't re-use them. Basically you pays your money and takes your choice

[Jon]

Firstly the BHP numbers are on their dyno, we've had Courtenay cars on our dyno and they measure approx 20-30bhp lower on ours, doesn't mean they're lying just measuring it differently.

Courtenay ditch the standard intercooler on their system and frankly I've no idea why. The stock IC was designed by Lotus and they spent months developing it and couldn't better it, the after market ones I've seen (that retain the same bodywork) don't work any better so its a silly thing to ditch IMO. IC's work better than CC's when there is airflow so whilst a CC will cool the air more effectively than an IC when airflow is compromised to only have a CC set up when there is some airflow to an IC is plain wrong. Pace (who designed the Courtenay system agree).

We designed ours so that the air if cooled by the IC then by the CC then directly into the engine intake.

I disagree on the pipe comment, what cools the air in the CC is not the speed it goes through but the volume of air/water cooling ratio - more water going through the CC then the cooler the air passing thorugh it will achieve. Passing the water through their at high pressure or high speed is a bit daft as their is an optimum flow rate but the crucial thing is the sheer amount of water passing through. We use 1" diameter pipe compared to Courtenays 3mm internal so the level of flow we get is a clear multiple of what you'll get with their system. We also use a larger specification water pump (largest available) and its the combination of the amount of water and the rate it flows that cools the air.

We both use the same VXR Astra turbo although we only spec it with the uprated actuator (doesn't seem any point not to) but you don't need the VXR injectors, the standard VX220 injectors are capable of flowing the fuel. Agree they run out at about 270bhp but we've never seen anything like that on this engine without stronger internals (pistons/rods), stick with stock injectors unless you're planning a different turbo. We do have a VXR injector version available but we find torque is enhanced with the smaller ones.

We don't mod the airbox - daft to try as it as it kills air mass meters.

There are a variety of flywheels you can try in a range of prices and remember you need to replace the release bearing as you can't re-use them.

Basically you pays your money and takes your choice

Hi I havent posted for a while but really felt the need once my attension was drawn to the above, so here goes....

Agreed our dynos are of different design and measure a different way, however just to qualify our power, at recent TMS rolling rad day our Stage3 car belonging to Stickle was the most powerfulll stage 3 on the day even eclipsing a number of stage 4 cars. Granted it was down on what we we saw it at 2 years previously, yet still ahead of other similar packages and higher specced packages. So just to clarify, yes our car was down but it's also important to remember that everyone else's were down too, often a lot further than ours!

With regard to the charge cooler we took the oportunity of completly reworking the system. As I stated a few years back, when we worked with Lotus on the original VX220 Turbo Sprint Car we were party to alot of information. One of the biggest problems on the car in mapped form was that the standard intercooler, whilst in isolation it is a good cooler, it is being serviced very poorly by the amount of air flow that the pods and engine bay will flow. This is why we and Pace (who designed the system with I will add a free reign) felt that with this and other information the standard intercooler was better ditched. The same as JT says, the charge cooler is far more efficient that an intercooler so we replace the intercooler as a whole with a large charge cooler to maximise the cooling used by this area. You can see by the pictures on our site that the heat exchanger is very large. Another benefit of our charge cooler being situated in the intercooler area is that we remove the standard intercooler ducting, to allow more air around the heat exchanger (cooling it further) and allowing more air though into the engine bay.

Re the pipe size and flow. I can only think that some wires are crossed on this point.. I will try to correct this one:
If you use a pump with too high a flow rate the water will pass too quickly through the front mounted radiator not giving it enough time in the radiator to cool, the hot water will return back to the header tank and then back to the heat exchnger .. not good. So it is a balance of water speed through the radiator so get the maximum temp drop at this point. Our pipe work is smaller yes but please be accurate as it is not 3mm internal it is 7mm, and larger pipe work will hold more water agreed, however to balance this we fit a larger header tank than the TMS kit.

Furthermore when we developed this kit which was a while ago now, 260 ish BHP was about as much as any one was achieveing. With the current stage 4 and now the stage 5 we have an even larger system in development. Mark will post some pictures later.

With regard to the injector size on our stage 3 we ae getting close to maximum duty cycle but there is still enough left in case the engine develops a fault and the system decides that it need to fuel dump for safety, such as a high engine water temp or a high inlet air temp for example. This is why the VXR Astra at 236 bhp runs larger injectors to fuel dump to protect the engine and the cats.
With the hybrid Turbo whether its the Turbo Dynamic unit or the now ubiquitous VXR unit, the standard Zlet injectors WILL and DO run out of duty cycle. This is at 25.6 millisecounds. This factor is a non variable it cannot be mapped out everybody's software will have the same limitation. All stage 3 Astra and stage 4 VX's we have ever seen regardless of the map used are at this point, virtually maxxed out injectors!. In Germany due to the availablity of the Auto bahns etc all reputable tuners change the injectors at this leval for safety
Any one who has an OBD PDA (or Tech 2) can check this. Just look at the injection duty cycle. If your car is developing good power at stage 3 you will see how close you are getting to this mximum duty cylce. It can be up to 24 millisecounds.

The torque will only be affected if you have not corrected the base firmware to the rellevent injector flow rate and then as a consequence you will run rich. What the larger injectors do is allow is more boost (if required) though the mid range as the correct air flow ratio can be maintained without running out of duty cycle, hence the reason they are in on the stage 4. On our High Torque Stage 4 we run 25 psi overboost, holding 20 psi through the mid range and only dropping to 17/18 psi at peak power, which is another reason we run the bigger injectors to run the higher boost. The low torque version of the map runs about 20 psi on overboost.

Air box mods kill the air flow meter In modding the air box you are trying to allow more air though. Our mods ensure that only the bottem part of the box is modded so that all the air still passes through the filter. Sorry this cannot kill air mass meters. If allowing more air through did this, then every remapped car would kill the air flow meter as the remap ups the boost and thus pulls/sucks more air in through the air box past the airflow meter. I can only assume that in reading "air box mods" it is assumed that we are adding an oil based air filter as well, which is not the case. On VXT we use a paper element. Unfourtunatly the meter head is just very poor, Vauxhall have had enough warrenty claims on standard cars to back this up.

I hope this adds another angle to the debate.

All the best Jon

Edited by Jon, 31 August 2006 - 01:44 PM.

[Thorney]

Jeeeesus thats high boost Sorry about the 3mm/7mm however I still maintain that its the volume of water flow which effects the CC efficiency not the speed or pressure it goes through, we'll just have to agree to disagree. At the TMS day we had no stage 4's running at all, we have a VXR stage 2 which pulled 250bhp but thats all.

[Jon]

Jeeeesus thats high boost

Yes it is.... its good fun in Astra's but frankly a bit much in VXT's the lower version is still daft but more freindly.

Talking of high boost Stephan's (Klasen our mapping man) Speedster is Running 1.8 bar (26.46 PSi) stable through to 7500 rpm

[casino]

Jeeeeze , thats a lot of tech data for anyone to digest, bl00dy hell! wouldnt like to be stuck between tha pair of you on a plane. Read all this hoping somewhere there might be an answer to TonyKL's lag issue ( see my thread on replacement turbos) Answers in less than 10 words please !

[pfw]

Personally I really enjoy reading these discussions. I understand almost nothing of what is said, but it all sounds great fun (and does convince me that the tuners out there care about their work ) Luckily someone will usually eventually stop talking about inlet manifolds or flux capacitors and use a word like "daft" or "frightening" or "oooh" to describe the mod. That's when I find myself checking my credit limit

[casino]

Personally I really enjoy reading these discussions. I understand almost nothing of what is said, but it all sounds great fun (and does convince me that the tuners out there care about their work )

Luckily someone will usually eventually stop talking about inlet manifolds or flux capacitors and use a word like "daft" or "frightening" or "oooh" to describe the mod. That's when I find myself checking my credit limit

Yes I read the whole lot and missed several rounds in the bar. Completly different mind set than the folks at Vauxhall WestEnd. Agreed its good to read the depth to which some people will go to satisfy our greed for speed.

[chancer]

Talking of high boost Stephan's (Klasen our mapping man) Speedster is Running 1.8 bar (26.46 PSi) stable through to 7500 rpm

26.45 PSi OMG that cannot be the standard turbo ?!!

[Dakkon]

Talking of high boost Stephan's (Klasen our mapping man) Speedster is Running 1.8 bar (26.46 PSi) stable through to 7500 rpm

26.45 PSi OMG that cannot be the standard turbo ?!!

I imagine the whole thing starts to glow

[Jon]

 Manifold_front.jpg   96.31KB   9 downloads

26.45 PSi OMG that cannot be the standard turbo ?!!

No, the manifold and turbo have had a minor tweek

Edited by MAP18W, 01 September 2006 - 09:31 AM.

[TonyKL]

Read all this hoping somewhere there might be an answer to TonyKL's lag issue ( see my thread on replacement turbos)

Sorry if I've given the wrong impression, I dont mean that the VXR astra turbo is laggy, just doesnt quite feel as though it spools up as quick as the OEM one did, hense a little hesitation.

Q: Would I choose the Astra VXR turbo again?
A: Without any doubt YES!

Edited by TonyKL, 01 September 2006 - 09:15 AM.

[casino]

Sorry if I misread your lag issue Tony. Whats the blue structure/unit in the pic branching off to the left of the pipework ? (excuse my ignorance )

[MAP18W]

Whats the blue structure/unit in the pic branching off to the left of the pipework ? (excuse my ignorance )

Its a blow off valve, effectively an external wastegate.

[Dakkon]

Read all this hoping somewhere there might be an answer to TonyKL's lag issue ( see my thread on replacement turbos)

Sorry if I've given the wrong impression, I dont mean that the VXR astra turbo is laggy, just doesnt quite feel as though it spools up as quick as the OEM one did, hense a little hesitation.

Q: Would I choose the Astra VXR turbo again?
A: Without any doubt YES!

I really don't want to hijack this thread as I find it fascinating, but are you based anywhere down south? as I would really like to feel what the turbo is like.

I used to run an MR2Turbo which I tuned a lot so I understand some of what is being said above plus once I have sorted brakes and suspension I will be looking at raising the power and will need to make my own decision on which route to take.

[Thorney]

I think these threads are actually preety informative. Whilt we both have different ways of doing things (and no doubt will extoll that method as the best) both TMS and Courtenay do know each other well so there is mutual respect. That said I'm buggered if I'd release a map to the public pullin that kind of boost, its a warranty claim awaiting a date imo

[Jon]

That said I'm buggered if I'd release a map to the public pullin that kind of boost, its a warranty claim awaiting a date imo

Thats just the point John on standard Z20LET injectors the EGT (exhaust gas temp) is so high its a blow up is waiting to happen. One thing that is important to remember is that when developing our software we use air/fuel ratio combined with EGT (Exhuast gas temp) as perfect air fuel is great for power, but does not tell you that the cylinder temp is sky rocketing and a potential melt down is iminent. Infact with the VXR injectors the EGT is far cooler than when running on the standard ZLET injectors, as there is fuel available to correct this factor. With the VXT we recomend the lower boost map as we feel it is easier to drive given the VX's nature to go track daying.

The map we run on the stage 4 VXT runs similar levals of boost to other people's maps, however because we run with higher flow injectors we have more safety in the map than on the standard injectors which max out raising the EGT's, especially in high load situations such as track days. Running the bigger injectors ensures we have greater safety margin and lower EGT's, than on standard injectors. We do recommend however, that any one on stage 4 runs fully sythectic oil both in the engine and gearbox for greater protection.

On Mark's car we have two ECU's programed with the two different maps, so we can show either, as it is important for us a Tuner to showcase what we can do with this ECU and software. We have the information available to us so that we are able to tell the ECU what size injectors are installed and we re-callibrate the map accordingly. Also on the high boost version we can alter the map sensor calibration to a 3 bar map sensor as at 25PSi the standard map sensor is out of its range momentarilly, and would not calculate the fuel demand accuratly. In the past we have not had this mapping information available to use to and as such were incapable of produing this power safely. We now have, thanks to Stephan which is why now we can safely offer this version.

Just as Stephan showcase's his 395 BHP Speedster that runs 10.6 second quarters and is currently the fastest Speedster in Germany, it is to show what can be done with the standard managment once you have full control of the mapping perameters and map locations.