4AGE Silver top engine mods

[4000GT]

The search function is not really helping me here... just a couple of questions:

What are the low hanging fruit areas in the silver top which give a little more power or useful rpm range? I am more familiar modding turbo's. What are the more popular products out there? What kind of gains are people seeing?

[Grrrrrrr!]

From my own research into this i would suggest:

1) Exhaust, blacktop 4-2 manifold (fairly cheap and bolts on) and then get a decent 2-1 section made (the standard silvertop one is apparently pretty restrictive where it goes over the crossmember.. may as well do the rest of the system while you are there (Assuming its not road driven then a straight pipe with a decent muffler won't cost a lot)

2) Aftermarket ECU, get it tuned for whatever fuel you plan to run the car on (racegas?).. also allows you to ditch the AFM (Assuming you go for a MAP system) and plumb in a nice cold air intake, plus you'll need it for....

3) Cams... Plenty of options from Kelford, Toda and others.. but cant go too wild until you have #2 above

A lot of basic maintainence stuff too.. Get your injectors cleaned, how old are those spark plugs and leads etc.

There not a lot of cheap power to be had really, Redmist threw a substantial amount of $$$ at trying to find extra flow from 20v heads and from a tired and slighty inebriated memory comes recollection that he didn't find a hell of a lot.
The biggest easy power gain is to drop a 4azge in with turbo bolted to it. depands if this fits in with your intentions really tho.
Maybe look at getting the handling sorted then drop a 4agte in later?

[AceSniper]

^^ #1 #2 #3
also if its a early silvertop get a tear-drop intake manafold from a facelift silvertop

use a trd .8 gasket or skim the head aiming for 11:1 (pending on fuel your going to use)

an oil cooler could be a good investment (seen thermostat controled adaptors in a f/s area)

[Logan]

good info. for arugments sake, What if he wanted to take it further the NA way and stay in 1600cc class?

[4000GT]

good info. for arugments sake, What if he wanted to take it further the NA way and stay in 1600cc class?

Get Nicks black top head off him

[Grrrrrrr!]

Logan: my honest answer, ditch the 20v 4age and get something b16 powered if you want o be competitive in 1600 class racing for (relatively)cheap.

Option Two:
full on engine rebuild (block fully checked out, align bored) with aftermarket rods,pistons, fully balanced with light flywheel, competition clutch, full race cams, head flowed by someone that knows what they are doing, compression up around 13:1 (or more) spin it to 10k rpm+ (might wanna throw a billet crank at it, but hey whats another few thousand dollars), run it on real racegas ($5/ltr VP racegas type stuff), close ratio gearset (Quaife do one for the 6spd box,sounds bloody nice 4.8 diff ratio and 6 very close ratios. price is a minor problem tho), throw a dry sump kit, electric water pump and underdrive pulley for the altenator and PS (or lose them altogether if possible). oh, by this stage you'll be needing to take another look at the intake and exhaust.

By this point you will be very broke, and be on very good terms with lots of people that know far more than i about building race motors


Option three.. find out if Lynn Rodgers has a daughter and marry her and treat her real well

[RedMist]

There not a lot of cheap power to be had really, Redmist threw a substantial amount of $$$ at trying to find extra flow from 20v heads and from a tired and slighty inebriated memory comes recollection that he didn't find a hell of a lot.

Actually bugger all money. But I had access to a flow bench for exactly that amount of cash... the issue isnt the fact the head is bad.. its not... its just very hard to get any more flow or better velocity out of either the silvertop or blacktop. We had problems with the port dividers in the blacktop and a small pressure spike just before the port choke, but nothing serious. The tear shaped manifold made a hell of a difference, saying that we didnt flow it with the TB's attached.
If you could modify the manifold to match the downward trend of the port in the head IE elevate the outboard end of the manifold by about 10 degrees you would get some serious flow gains.
Considering all the changes that occured with the blacktop (detailed in the faq section) and the fact that my blacktop put out 132 at the wheels and my silvertops 123 and 125 I believe that some of those changes actually lost HP. The bigger ports, open combustion chamber and port dividers were changes that I'm not happy with. ie I like the silvertop head better. Saying that the smallport 16 valve pisses on the silvertop.

Maybe look at getting the handling sorted then drop a 4agte in later?

The best piece of advice I have read on this board in a long time. Handling before power... best money to be spent on track or street. And best HP for buck.... I hate them... hairdryers.

[RedMist]

Logan: my honest answer, ditch the 20v 4age and get something b16 powered if you want o be competitive in 1600 class racing for (relatively)cheap.

agreed, damn good engine with stupid valve area... but hey the do things bloody well... BACKWARDS.

Option three.. find out if Lynn Rodgers has a daughter and marry her and treat her real well

Hope she likes flowers... and I have been reading Byron, Keats, just for her... or I wonder if Lynn likes Byron.

Option four.... try something reallllly interesting... A v6 1600, I have one here in development if you want a look. Anyone say screamer?

[Grrrrrrr!]

So it would be worthwhile getting a small wedge fabricated for between the TBs and the head to give it all a nice straight run into the inlet ports and maybe filling in the bottom of the TBs after the butterfly with jb weld to slightly taper the whole affair?

I think i have a spare prefacelift manifold here somewhere.....
Die Grinder... check
precision cutting tools.. hacksaw.
Firewall clearance enhancer (sledgehammer)... check

Houston, we are go for launch!

[Logan]

Yea B16 would be an option, but at this stage i refuse to go to the dark side and will stick with my RWD action.
BTW my stock standard blacktop, on 98 with open trumpets and and ae86 exhaust manifold and bigger exhaust made 130hp at the wheels on the dyno. All factory computer etc and took quite a few runs just to get the best setup. Was very interesting because if the timing isnt set right they only put out about 90hp at wheels, then as you get close it puts down about 115 but has the huge holes in the torque curve and power cuver like jumping 90-50hp in 500 rpm then back up to100..but once sorted its a sweet torque curve.

[sergei]

What sort of timing you were running?

[Logan]

I have no idea, its off the scale (didnt jump the pins and set it). We just kept advancing it untill it started making less power. Interesting enough, with the headphones could only hear a little bit of det down low rpm's even with the dizzy as far as it can go, up top was fine, but only made 110ish hp if i recal correctly, unfortunatly all the dyno runs *dissappeared* (aka someone forgot to hit save* from the computer so ive only got the print out of the last run to tell the story.

[4000GT]

Link LEM is going in before the weekend Will finally see if it makes more power on a standalone ECU

[RedMist]

I made 132 at the wheels on the PAD dynapac in my blacktop. Its only mods were the Link LEM3, Large K and N and custom exhaust.

178bhp (my 16 valve) is one hell of a difference. Its amazing what only 45hp can do.

[4000GT]

I made 132 at the wheels on the PAD dynapac in my blacktop. Its only mods were the Link LEM3, Large K and N and custom exhaust.

178bhp (my 16 valve) is one hell of a difference. Its amazing what only 45hp can do.

Did you use the factory or Link igniter?

[RedMist]

Used an early 00's Link ignitor, which all had issues with the board flexing, I changed it for a mitsi one in the 20 valve and a dual channel link one in the 16 valve (wasted spark). I havent had issues with the newer Link ignitors.

[4000GT]

Used an early 00's Link ignitor, which all had issues with the board flexing, I changed it for a mitsi one in the 20 valve and a dual channel link one in the 16 valve (wasted spark). I havent had issues with the newer Link ignitors.

Ok cool. Just had it on the dyno and it made 117WHP. About 10WHP more than the stock setup.

[RedMist]

My silvertops (two of them) in the same chassis, with the same basic mods made 123 and 125bhp at the wheels. Both silvertops ran single channel Mistubishi ignitors.