Dual Plenums for turbos

Real tech discussion on design, fabrication, testing, development of custom or adapted parts for Pontiac Fieros. Not questions about the power a CAI will give.

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draven
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Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by draven »

Does anyone have "any" information about the effectiveness and utilization of the dual plenum turbo designs, such as these below?

The theory is that the conical portion of the intake equalizes the intake charge across all runners in a boosted scenario. As long as the area of the open portion / slit between the cone and the primary plenum is slightly larger than the throttle body opening, no loss in air velocity should occur.

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Or is this even needed at lower boost levels, i.e. 10-20psi

I've also read that this was done by Audi in lemans so that they could run as lean as possible due to fuel conservation limits..

The current modded plenum design on my 3.4 DOHC lends itself to this design..
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Aaron
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by Aaron »

Let's see pics of your TDC manifold. I've seen designs like that over on the Bimmer forums but can't speak of their effectiveness. It'd be pretty easy to fabricate on a 3.4 DOHC turbo.

I'm only running 8.7psi on my DOHC turbo, factory 96-97 manifolds, a 3" intake arm, and a 75mm throttle body.

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Last edited by Aaron on Fri Jan 31, 2014 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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draven
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by draven »

As it came out of the car... Its currently being worked over but can take closer pics of the manifold if necessary

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Last edited by draven on Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by Series8217 »

Can't see your photos. Your hosting service doesn't allow hotlinking from those URLs.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

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Series8217 wrote:Can't see your photos. Your hosting service doesn't allow hotlinking from those URLs.
Ah.. had to move the pics to my public skydrive folder... let me know if it isn't working..
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by Aaron »

They work now. I bet your motor really screams up top, with the later heads and that intake.
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draven
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by draven »

Inspired by Kohburn's composite intake manifold, I'd like to incorporate this intake manifold top as sold separately by Holley but would really like some good info from the group about the effectiveness of the dual intake manifolds above. The fluid dynamics seem sound but if it really worked as well some say then all the turbo freaks would be using it..

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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by The Dark Side of Will »

draven wrote:Does anyone have "any" information about the effectiveness and utilization of the dual plenum turbo designs, such as these below?

The theory is that the conical portion of the intake equalizes the intake charge across all runners in a boosted scenario. As long as the area of the open portion / slit between the cone and the primary plenum is slightly larger than the throttle body opening, no loss in air velocity should occur.

Or is this even needed at lower boost levels, i.e. 10-20psi

I've also read that this was done by Audi in lemans so that they could run as lean as possible due to fuel conservation limits..

The current modded plenum design on my 3.4 DOHC lends itself to this design..
Plena like this are built to equalize air distribution to all cylinders, as you said.
In a manifold with unequal air distribution, the control system can not run the engine overall any leaner than the leanest cylinder (the one that's getting the most air). If the engine overall shows 12:1, you could have a cylinder at 11:1 and a cylinder at 13:1. When one cylinder is running leaner than the others, that cylinder limits how lean the engine can run.

I think it's not more widely used because it's harder to fabricate and takes up more space.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by crzyone »

I know it's not ideal but if you run egt probes on all cylinders you could tune individual fuel flow rates to each cylinder to balance it out. Doesn't make for a well balanced engine though. The RB26 manifold is known to run #6 cylinder lean. All the air is forced to the back of the manifold and #6 gets more air than #1. A common trick for tuners is to add more fuel to #6 to band-aid the poor manifold design.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by Aaron »

Being that, for some reason, we're talking 3.4 turbos, I don't believe there is a 3.4 DOHC ECU that can adjust individual fuel trim at high RPM. First off, most swaps run the 9396 91-93 MPFI injection, where it fires either one bank, or all 6, at the same time (Depending on how it was wired by the swapper, factory fires by banks, I know several swaps combine the two banks). My swap uses the 94-95 SFI injection, but from what I've heard north of 4,000rpm it batch fires the injectors anyway. I'm not sure if the 96-97 OBD2 computer runs SFI to redline, but I don't think there's any DOHC swaps using this computer, though obviously the 3800 guys are.

So adjusting the trim on one fuel injector is a viable option, but only on computers that individually fire their injectors all the time.

Which makes this manifold the most practical way of equalizing air/fuel to every cylinder for me (If it works, and even then it wouldn't be exact of course). If the manifold does what it is supposed to though, it'd be better than what I've got now. It'd be slightly difficult to maintain runner length, I really don't want to cut that down any on my car. My turbo already comes on pretty late, and I'd like to keep the stock off-boost performance I have now.

Before I did this I'd put my independent throttle bodies on though. I likely won't ever do either one, I've pretty much lost interest in my car :(
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by draven »

I've got the 97 dohc ecu on the lq1 which was also put on the l67 series II I believe, which runs SFI, to what rpm I have no idea yet. I have a Haltech E6X, it can do semi sequential through the wasted spark,and E11v2, full sequential supposedly through the wasted spark or through coil on plugs, sitting on the shelf. Just need a long flying harness for the e11v2 - not cheap.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by Shaun41178(2) »

Math, measurements and fabrication would have to be precise for this to work properly. For me I don't think its worth it all the effort. Plus there is no way to prove if this will work as built on a dohc 3.4 turbo Fiero. How would you go about measuring ita effectiveness?
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by Aaron »

The only way would be 6 independent widebands.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by draven »

Shaun41178(2) wrote:Math, measurements and fabrication would have to be precise for this to work properly. For me I don't think its worth it all the effort. Plus there is no way to prove if this will work as built on a dohc 3.4 turbo Fiero. How would you go about measuring ita effectiveness?
precisely, been pondering that one for a few days... other than having 6 A/F sensors bunged up.. not much to do or say other than "hey look at my cool "Audi'ish" intake manifold..

On another note, has anyone noticed the factory crimps in the DOHC fuel rail? Are they there to clear the factory casting bosses for the upper manifold bolts or are they there to restrict flow by a specific amount to certain cylinders? cylinder 1 receiving the least amount of fuel.
Last edited by draven on Sat Feb 01, 2014 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by ericjon262 »

This car used a similar setup, supposedly the AFR's were very close between each cylinder

http://www.prologger.com/projectcar.asp

on another note, isn't that damn sexy, supercharged, twin turbo, co2 intercooled inline 6...
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by Aaron »

That is a really sexy build. I'm not sure the purpose of the blower, but still a nice build.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by ericjon262 »

non positive displacement pumps in series do magical things...
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by Aaron »

It doesn't do anything. The turbochargers are more efficient, and can easily keep up with demand. I guess its "purpose" is low end. But centrifugal blowers don't exactly shine in that area, being their boost curves linearly follow RPM. I'd guess it helps, and certainly helps spool the superior system faster, but I don't think it's worth it.

Do purpose built drag cars have any problem getting off the line? I've watched thousands of turbo cars launch. I've also launched my turbo car once or twice. And my turbo car is probably harder than most, my engine isn't a torque monster. Stock it doesn't start coming on until 3500, and the turbo was chosen for that rev range, together the system doesn't come alive until 4500rpm. I still have no problem getting full boost off the line.

So, the other reason could be for daily driving. That I'll agree to, it'd be nice to have some boost at 2,000, but would the 2psi you'd get be worth the 20lb weight penalty and IAT increase? Not to mention, that engine makes it clear it's made for drags. And with today's technology, turbocharging systems don't have the problems mine does. The BMW 335i will make 450hp on the stock turbos, and still make full boost off idle.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by draven »

back on topic........

Very interesting data I found in these two threads.

this one takes relatively thorough approach to designing a dual plenum intake, from research, to cad, to implementation in CFD software, and finally a full CNC'd manifold... BUT no final results.

http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/top ... old+%2Bcfd

Here's a similar plenum on an MR2 3SGTE with far less analysis and design. A before and after dyno plot was taken and although peak hp and tq showed minor gains, total area under the curve was increased a noticeable amount:

http://www.mr2oc.com/showthread.php?t=403005

The key with regards to maintaining steady state fluid dynamic flow across pressure ratios seems to be baffles within the slit opening between the two plenums as finally realized and cnc'd in the first thread.
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Re: Dual Plenums for turbos

Post by The Dark Side of Will »

Aaron wrote:My swap uses the 94-95 SFI injection, but from what I've heard north of 4,000rpm it batch fires the injectors anyway.
This is a common misconception... What actually happens is that the injector on time becomes longer than the intake valve duration, so the injector spends some amout of time spraying the back of a closed intake valve, and fuel puddles on the back the valve just like it does with batch fire... But the ECM keeps triggering the injectors sequentially all the way to redline.
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