Originally Posted by
Danoby
I have read that I can expect a minimum of a 30 HP gain switching to vortecs. My current heads need valve seals pretty bad. It smokes on start up. And when it's fully warmed up - and I mean after driving for at least 15 minutes - I start getting a knock signal under load to the point where the ECM pulls out timing causing a significant power loss. I suspect the oil is getting past the seals enough to contaminate combustion. I am pretty sure being a car engine that it's equipped with flat tops, putting SCR at about 9.8:1 which is pretty high with pump gas. The vortecs would increase SCR further to about 10:1, but that should be okay with it's superior chamber design. You see, the vortecs would solve a few different problems I am having plus I would see a nice power increase.
I am now realizing all the headaches I will endure, like tuning and EGR. I am fine with the mechanical aspect or doing the work, but I am not familiar with tuning an engine electronically, and I am not sure what I would do about the EGR. I guess I would either find a way to make it work, which is a headache, or forget about it, eliminate the system, and deactivate that part of the programming.
I am not sure what to do here. There are lots of things to consider. I guess what I need to know is approximately how many hours would it take for me to learn how to program? How many hours would it take to learn how to program and burn a chip and then execute the process? How much would it cost to have someone else do it for me? In fact, I probably need a new tune already, so regardless of if I do the head swap or not, I need some programming done, just perhaps not as extensive. I guess I would need to log some data somehow and then send it to someone so they could burn me a chip? I had talked to Brian Harris at TBI Chips, but I am a bit wary of using a chip from him based on things I have read. He was very informative about how to upgrade TBI engines though.