D&D F1000/ F1200 Arctic Cat turbo engine with Boondocker turbo system

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Lee Butler
5 years ago
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1 D&D F1000/ F1200 Arctic Cat turbo engine with Boondocker turbo system A while ago I posted here dyno test results of Glenn Hall/ Jason Stoviac s Firecat with a D&D F1200 engine fitted with a gonzo blast of N2O that made over 360 HP in controlled conditions on the dyno. After having mixed results with the 140 HPish load of nitrous (detonation related reliability and durability) Glenn and Jason jumped at the opportunity to install a Boondocker big HP turbo system. When I was involved with Aerodyne (and neglecting DTR) we provided turbocharger systems for sleds and Harleys and I have a good appreciation of the advantages and disadvantages of turbocharging. I have read that people who measure combustion chamber pressure on their dynos (beyond my current capability) report that doubling the HP of an engine with turbo boost only increases peak combustion chamber pressure by 20%. The peak pressure occurs at about 20 degrees after TDC even though spark ignition occurs way before TDC. The big power/ combustion chamber pressure increase supposedly to occurs well beyond TDC, and boosted engines are said to carry big combustion chamber pressure increases to well beyond 20 degrees ATC as far as 90 degrees ATC, where NA and nitrous assisted engine rapidly lose pressure. Those wickedly high peak pressures from huge N2O loads are what help create engine wrecking deto if things are not perfect, or the stars are not perfectly aligned. Moderate squirts of N2O are no problem for most engines, but blasting huge HP increases requires exacting control of N2O cylinder pressure (cylinder temp or regulated pressure), fuel flow, and octane of perfectly fresh race gas. Goof on any one of those and wrecked engines are likely to be the result. I ve done this for 20 years I know the results of those goofs. When deto takes peak cylinder pressure to 20x normal everything goes bad. Once I pleaded with the owner of a Suzuki dragbike to quit at what then was 100 HP more than Paul Gast s Pro Stock dragbike on my dyno. But he wanted more. The next run with bigger nozzles resulted in a snapped conrod and the engine was literally cut in half by that flailing rod, and this was my first and only dyno oil-down. I still occasionally find small pieces of that Suzuki crankcase during weekly tidy-ups. Not that turbo engines won t detonate they will, and do whenever limits are ignored and exceeded. We must match octane with boost levels/ effective compression ratio. That s why during the last year of turbo engines in F1 racing, Honda turbo engines approached 1 HP/cc on race gas in qualifying trim. They could run that unbelievable power for several qualifying laps. Had they been limited to NA with N2O they may have made that HP but the grenade effect would surely have limited their big power to short bursts. Now that everyone understands my pro-turbocharger opinion, we can all can appreciate my enjoyment of Glenn Hall s F1200 now with boost instead of N2O. Glenn and Jason showed up with their F1200 Firecat now fitted with the gonzo HP Boondocker turbo system that D&D plans to market to madmen flatlander lake/ asphalt racers this coming season. Stock single pipe with heat shields was used. This was sort of a prototype F1200 turbo system with a huge (=good) intercooler that is mounted in the front of the bellypan where the original airbox used to sit. With the hood

2 off, we were able to blast 80 mph air at the intercooler to achieve decent charge air cooling. I met Glenn and Jason at the dyno at an uncharacteristically early 8:00 AM to begin the tuning session. My first observation was being pleased at the huge intercooler, and wondering about the equally huge Garrett GT-30ish ball bearing turbo that would appear to be more at home on a Duramax diesel. How could this big turbo spool quickly enough to build meaningful boost at low revs on a 73 cubic inch twin? This would be fun. I recently totally rebuilt my SuperFlow 901 absorber to accommodate today s big sled engines. 20 years ago I had to cut down the rotor in the absorber to allow me to tune 340 and 440 twin low torque high RPM race engines. That limited my max torque capacity substantially, but has been fine for 20 years. Now I m getting these huge HP turbo things to tune, and I m on the edge of not being able to handle the torque. Justin Fuller came here with A-bay (Alexandria Bay, NY) madman Stanley Parker and his RX1 stage whatever turbo and that crazy thing finally brought my dyno to it s knees it made 410 plus HP but I couldn t hold the engine below 9000 rpm, a few hundred revs below HP peak. So the handwriting was on the wall! So I bought a new full size aluminum bronze 901 absorber rotor for 1200 bucks, plus a complete bearing/ seal kit for another $400 and 20 hours of pressing parts and bearings I m back to 1987 torque capacity. Bring em on! But leave the 340 race twins home or find a dynomite to tune on. So here comes Glenn and Jason with the same sled I struggled to control last time with 360 HP maxed out N2O but this time with turbo boost. I know Glenn does not desire to go backwards. I was pleased that I had the original 1000 HP rotor back in my SF901 absorber. This would be great fun. I have tuned several Boondocker controlled boosted sleds- Jason s Apex Boondocker turbo and Art Andre s Boondocker controlled MPI supercharged Apex. In both cases, tuning was straightforward and easy to perfect. So I didn t expect this F1200 to be any different. The F1200 with 10 psi low boost had a stock Ypipe, stock single pipe, F /1 head and made 325 CHP off the trailer on race gas. Excellent. A/F ratio and BSFC was dandy, very little tuning was needed. We had tweaked trhe Boondocker base setting here and there to get us 11/1 everywhere. Here is the dyno run. Test B baseline off the trailer 10 psi boost

3 Glenn installed a new D&D Ypipe specifically matched to the 1200 exhaust ports and we picked up 20 HP, but had to add a bit of fuel to make up for the added airflow CFM. Too much fun. Note that boost is ½ psi lower than with the stock Ypipe. Don t know why. Test G add D&D 1200 ypipe with 1/2 psi less boost

4 Dale Roes just rolled in from D&D in Loweville, and had a lower compression head to test. Glenn installed the 11/1 head or thereabouts, and we wound up adding some HP boost for boost. With a turbo, lower compression making more HP is a very good thing, as long as off the line takeoff is not compromised. So dropping boost back to original 10 psi, here is the F1200 final baseline with D&D Ypipe and low compression turbo head. Test J add low compressi on turbo head Then we merely used the Boondocker supplied boost controller to add two psi boost. 380 HP was the result. Note that airflow and HP were both increased 8%. Test M increase boost to 12 psi Adding three more psi boost brought us well beyond the 400 HP mark. Note that airflow and HP were both increased about 10 %. Test T increase

5 boost to 15 psi Glenn s Boondocker turbo system has a small squirt of N2O ostensibly to help get the sled off the line. I m suggesting that since this 1200 engine builds boost so quickly off idle, savvy clutch people will not require nitrous oxide to get things moving. But N2O makes things easier, and there s nothing wrong with a shot of nitrous to get a decent holeshot. We did run this engine with a whisper of Boondocker controlled N2O (used momentarily for maximum HP launch) and it added 20 HP at 10 psi. But I was not interested in seeing torque added to the 15 psi setting my 130 lb/ft rated tubular drive shaft was being overstressed by 100% and that was enough. Finally here is an aborted dyno run. Somehow Glenn Had had goofed (intentionally?) on his boost setting. But when I loaded the engine to begin the test I saw nearly 400 HP as the engine accelerated from 6700 to 6800 and I wisely chickened out and aborted the run. Normally, I watch the real time HP graph as the dyno test proceeds, and if HP tails off I abort. But in this case HP was climbing too high so I stopped the test. But we can interpolate the rest of the test/ graph had I not chickened out. test X inadvertan t too high boost setting, aborted test

6 This session is a compilation of over 20 dyno runs; boost/ fuel settings/ timing etc were constantly massaged to safely find our way to 414 HP. There is way more there if the chassis can handle it, I m betting 500 as our own airflow numbers and the Garrett compressor maps indicate. The average guy in the field is probably fine on race gas with 350 HP with base settings. But I believe tweaking to over 400 HP is best done on an instrumented dyno. Having Glenn Hall help with Boondocker settings/ clutch/ chassis is a huge plus as well. The other very interesting observation of this day on the dyno is how quickly that biglooking Garrett ball bearing turbo builds boost! Dale was sitting behind me as I warmed up the engine with light load I set the lower RPM limit on the dyno at 6800 and the computer controlled servo does whatever it takes to hold the engine at In this case, Dale and I were both amazed that at half throttle the dyno would load the engine and HP would show on the HP readout! This engine ran smoothly at low revs, sounding and acting more like a stock F1000 with maybe a mod muffler than a small block Chevy as output would indicate. That fast-spooling turbo is as quick or quicker than any sled engine with my old favorite model Aerodyne turbo. But it s the lightly lubed ball bearings in both turbos that contribute most to fast spoolup, not the VATN. The advantage of the scarce high buck Aerodyne is self lubrication with a built-in reservoir of oil. In this Boondocker system the Garrett ball bearing turbo sits directly on the oil reservoir. A tiny 12vdc oil pump is immersed in the oil, and is powered by the

7 sled s electrical system, no battery required. After engine is fired up, oil is pumped up to the bearings, and then drains back out of the turbo center section back into the reservoir tank. For sled use this should be a viable and simple lube system. Pump gas with a turbo F1200 on the trail? Be afraid, and that can be doable. Stock F1000s with a Y pipe, pipe and Boondocker box can make 190 HP about max for 87 octane pump gas. Why 87 octane? Why not 93 octane and more HP with more deto protection? A recent Car and Driver magazine had an assessment of high test pump gas in the state of Michigan. About 1000 samples were taken, 10% were substandard at 87 or below. So if you tune some gonzo HP sled engine, turbo or otherwise to max HP on true 93 Michigan gas 10% of your fill-ups will burn you down. Well-tuned high HP sled engines deserve respect, and octane. Do not ever expect that the pump will deliver octane as posted. Those evil cheating bastards are happy to wreck an engine and turbo so they can make an extra $.34 per gallon on their low octane gas by passing it off as high test. When I was doing Aerodyne turbo kits for sleds and Harleys, trying to get OEM interest, we understood that dilemma. Back then Dateline NBC had done an expose of California Esso (Exxon) gas stations, where 8% of 800 samples tested were substandard due to outright cheating by station owners and/ or goofing by distributors. The worst sample tested was 75 octane, good for maybe one second WOT on a turbo sled. So why roll the dice? Yes turbo sled trail riders, even upnorders can ride safely for long distances on the gas they buy at bars and marinas (surely from last fishing season). But the smart guys will always begin their rides with full tanks of good race or 100LL av gas, then water it down with trail gas as they go, understanding that their octane is constantly dropping and time at WOT must be reduced accordingly. It s all about respect for your engine and power adders. As these dyno numbers show, boost is a very good thing. But any boosted engine requires respect.

09 Arctic Cat Z1 turbo w/ D&D HiJacker boost/ fuel controller

09 Arctic Cat Z1 turbo w/ D&D HiJacker boost/ fuel controller Nelson Cadieux and Scott Brownlee of Carlson Sports (Arctic Cat) in North Bay, Ontario (www.carltonsports.com) made their fourth tuning trip