93 Octane Tune on Boosted Motor

[Soulless302]

Hi Guys!

I've got a question and it seems like this forum is actually active. I thought internet forums have become a thing of the past with social media and specialty groups. This is nice to see!

Anyway, I've got a 2012 Boss 302 with a D1X ProCharger and a 4.13 pulley on corn and tuned by PBD. I also have the Fore Innovations 450LPH triple pump return-style fuel system, ID1050X fuel injectors, and a Gen 3 short block build by AMS Racing with 12:1 compression. Along with several other mods which I don't think are necessarily relevant to this question. I use this as a street car and drive it to work once a week and everywhere on the weekends, but I'd like to be able to drive it on the occasional long trip without E85 anxiety.

So, is it possible to have this thing tuned to 93 without risking catastrophic failure?

It put down 754whp on a 100 degree ambient temperature day this summer. I plan to turn it up a bit and be closer to 900whp after this round of tuning. I will have it retuned on E85 and 93, if possible.

Note: I am not running any meth injection.

Thanks for any input!

Edit: I added a more extensive mods listing to my signature below.

Sponsored

 

[Need4SpeedMotors]

Hey Jon, you should be able to have the car tuned on 93 but from my understanding 10lbs of boost is about the max you can run to keep the motor safe. Depending on the amount of boost your current pulley is making you will need to put the 10lb pulley on for 93 octane. My car is tuned by Lund and the is what they told me. My Vortech car was making 15lbs and I had to drop back down to the 10lbs pulley for a pump gas tune. I would just talk to your tuner they will let you know what needs to be done.

 

[Soulless302]

That’s good information. This pulley makes 10psi at 8200rpm. I plan to knock the rev limiter back down to stock and I’d guess it’s probably closer to 8psi there. I’ve always heard it based upon horsepower numbers, such as 650 being the limit for a safe tune on 93, but psi makes more sense. We only wrapped it up to 7200rpm when it was on the dyno.

I would imagine I could pulley down to a 3.77 to keep it around 10psi at 7500. Or maybe put a 93 octane tune on the current 4.13 then have a kill tune on a 3.4… Decisions decisions. lol

 

[Joshinator99]

You can definitely drive around with 93 octane once the tune is squared away. I’d look at something like a Smoothboost controller that will let you limit your boost when running 93 though. That’s what I run on my Camaro. So 750 WHP or so on the street (running 93) with the boost knob halfway and when I run E at the track I turn the knob back up and have the full 1059 WHP ready to rock and roll.

 

[Soulless302]

Is it possible to control the boost with a knob on a ProCharger? I thought it was only controlled by the pulley. That would certainly be much more convenient than swapping pulleys as needed.

Edit: I looked into it and it will work with a centrifugal system. For that price, I’d rather swap the pulley. Lol

 

[Joshinator99]

Is it possible to control the boost with a knob on a ProCharger? I thought it was only controlled by the pulley. That would certainly be much more convenient than swapping pulleys as needed.

Edit: I looked into it and it will work with a centrifugal system. For that price, I’d rather swap the pulley. Lol

Not cheap, but once you have it, you’re glad you do. ;)

But yeah, swapping pulleys is an option too.

 

[Soulless302]

It’ll certainly be on my wishlist for a possible future purchase, but it’s just not in the cards for now. Would it require a separate tune for every position on the dial or can the computer account for small adjustments to boost?

 

[Joshinator99]

It’ll certainly be on my wishlist for a possible future purchase, but it’s just not in the cards for now. Would it require a separate tune for every position on the dial or can the computer account for small adjustments to boost?

Nope. You tune for max power and everything under that is good to go. If you change pulleys to a more aggressive setup (more boost than your previous maximum) then that’s when you’ll need to revisit the tune.

 

[stang17]

Do yourself a favor and get with a tuner that can utilize PCMTEC to build you a custom multi tune. We finished setting up my buddie's car for canbus flex and am about to set mine up the same way.
You can have tune limit airload based on ethanol percentage so that you maybe get a cap of say 1.5-1.6 airload when on 93, but full load on e80+. This way you can run the smallest pulley all the time and have tune automatically adjust for when you have 93 to keep it safe. Basically, tune will start to close throttle once airload is reached.

For canbus flex you will need a Zeitronix box and ethanol flex fuel sensor.

 

[80FoxCoupe]

Hi Guys!

I've got a question and it seems like this forum is actually active. I thought internet forums have become a thing of the past with social media and specialty groups. This is nice to see!

Anyway, I've got a 2012 Boss 302 with a D1X ProCharger and a 4.13 pulley on corn and tuned by PBD. I also have the Fore Innovations 450LPH triple pump return-style fuel system, ID1050X fuel injectors, and a Gen 3 short block build by AMS Racing with 12:1 compression. Along with several other mods which I don't think are necessarily relevant to this question. I use this as a street car and drive it to work once a week and everywhere on the weekends, but I'd like to be able to drive it on the occasional long trip without E85 anxiety.

So, is it possible to have this thing tuned to 93 without risking catastrophic failure?

It put down 754whp on a 100 degree ambient temperature day this summer. I plan to turn it up a bit and be closer to 900whp after this round of tuning. I will have it retuned on E85 and 93, if possible.

Note: I am not running any meth injection.

Thanks for any input!

Edit: I added a more extensive mods listing to my signature below.

What size crank pulley? If you are only seeing 10psi now, you will be fine with a tune with less timing for 93.

Fyi my car made 1100whp with a D1x and 4.0 pulley. We may have different crank pulleys though. I just mention this because 750 seems low for a d1x and 4.125

 

[Soulless302]

Do yourself a favor and get with a tuner that can utilize PCMTEC to build you a custom multi tune. We finished setting up my buddie's car for canbus flex and am about to set mine up the same way.
You can have tune limit airload based on ethanol percentage so that you maybe get a cap of say 1.5-1.6 airload when on 93, but full load on e80+. This way you can run the smallest pulley all the time and have tune automatically adjust for when you have 93 to keep it safe. Basically, tune will start to close throttle once airload is reached.

For canbus flex you will need a Zeitronix box and ethanol flex fuel sensor.

Nice! I'd like to get a flex fuel set up but had been told that they're not compatible with the stock ECU. This must be a new product.

What size crank pulley? If you are only seeing 10psi now, you will be fine with a tune with less timing for 93.

Fyi my car made 1100whp with a D1x and 4.0 pulley. We may have different crank pulleys though. I just mention this because 750 seems low for a d1x and 4.125

I have the factory crank pulley. 1100 seems high to me, and I'm sure ProCharger would be surprised too! When I did the initial install I only wanted 800whp so I didn't have to immediately upgrade from the RST clutch. I told ProCharger tech support my goal and this is the pulley they said would accomplish around that number for my build. What size crank pulley are you running?

 

[80FoxCoupe]

Nice! I'd like to get a flex fuel set up but had been told that they're not compatible with the stock ECU. This must be a new product.



I have the factory crank pulley. 1100 seems high to me, and I'm sure ProCharger would be surprised too! When I did the initial install I only wanted 800whp so I didn't have to immediately upgrade from the RST clutch. I told ProCharger tech support my goal and this is the pulley they said would accomplish around that number for my build. What size crank pulley are you running?

Ah you are running on the stock balancer. I have the stg2 8in crank pulley. Big difference. 1100whp is not high for what I had at the time. That's what a stg2 d1x with a 4.0 pulley makes.

 

[Soulless302]

Yep, that 8" balancer makes a big difference. The 8" balancer with a 4.00 pulley is spinning the blower 11,000rpms faster than my setup. It all makes sense now. Are there advantages to increasing the crankshaft pulley size rather than decreasing the blower pulley?

 

[80FoxCoupe]

Yep, that 8" balancer makes a big difference. The 8" balancer with a 4.00 pulley is spinning the blower 11,000rpms faster than my setup. It all makes sense now. Are there advantages to increasing the crankshaft pulley size rather than decreasing the blower pulley?

Yes, more belt to pulley contact.

 

[Soulless302]

I didn't even think of that. That's a very good reason to increase the crank side. I have seen numerous posts about aftermarket crank pulleys snapping the snout off. It's the ATI pulley that is usually the topic of the conversation.

Sponsored