Increasing Torque

[king_panther]

I can't think if this has been covered before.

Just curious, whilst most mods out there are aimed at increasing HP/kW for more power, are there any mods directly aimed at improving torque ?

This is not just strictly related to our engines, but kind of across the board too.
So how do you go about mod-wise to increasing torque ?

Pardon me if I sound dumb... but well... you all know me by now

 

[mookers]

Increase displacement... and slap a turbo on it? Oh, wait...

 

[Dr_Josh001]

Giday Brad,

With increased HP you will always have an increase in torque. It's a difficult question to answer because I'm unsure how basic you want us to explain. I would say to get high boost at low rpm, install a bigger intercooler, larger front pipes+3" ex and an aftermarket boost controller/piggyback ECU for quick turbo spool.

Hope that was ok.
Josh

 

[king_panther]

Thanks for the info Josh.

Not sure how my question came across. I'm just known for asking what sound like stupid questions hehe...

Most people I'm guessing want to increase power for out & out power & that's what most mods are aiming for. Maximum HP/kW. The increase in torque comes along with that, but their main aim is upping the power output.

Was just wondering if there's specific mods & roads to go down if one wants to aim at improving torque as a priority over HP.

Kind of like modding a diesel maybe? The more torque the merrier. You're not really wanting to max up the HP in a diesel as their main aim is fuel efficiency & they already have good torque. But if you want to improve on that....

 

[mookers]

My previous post notwithstanding, don't SAAB and Volvo use low-blow turbos to give their engines a nice chunky bit of torque? Are there some sort of design parameters for a turbo installation that optimises for torque?

I guess this is pretty much the same as what Brad is asking, though.

 

[Kenneth]

HP is calculated from torque. The calculation is (Torque x Engine speed) / 5,252.

Because of this, to improve HP you generally have to improve torque at the top end of the RPM range.

To improve torque you have to burn more air and fuel. This is done either by increasing displacement or improving engine efficiency (which is what forced induction does).

The simplest way on a VR-4 is to increase boost. You can do this any number of ways, but the way I prefer is a full exhaust and big intercooler.

 

[Guest]

Stroke it..

 

[king_panther]

Stroke it..

OK done.

But now what do I do with the engine ? :tongue_smilie:

Thanks for the tips peoples...

 

[Guest]

But did you stroke it to the east, and stroke it to the west and stroke it to the woman that you love the best?

 

[king_panther]

But did you stroke it to the east, and stroke it to the west and stroke it to the woman that you love the best?

I put the best foot in ... I put the best foot out .... I put the best foot in & I shook it all about.
I then did the hokey-pokey & I turned around....

.... isn't that what it's all about ?

 

[Guest]

This is getting weird.

 

[jonesyVR4]

Back on topic

1 thing we used to do on the turbo foresters was start with a 3" turbo back exhaust, then just at the last join around the rear diff area go down to 2.5 or 2.75" pipe.
This would increase mid range torque quite a bit
Id assume it would be a similar outcome for the VR4 aswell

The added bonus with this is it tends to stop the drone & also is a little quieter

Cheers
Mark

 

[cyber_scriber]

Brad.

This article (entitled, "Turbo'd for Torque"), should be relevant:

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/A_111106/article.html

It suggests that increasing torque will improve day to day driveability and economy.

 

[smohekey]

Unfortunately, the vr4 is already tuned largely how they describe. You could put SMALLER turbos on and lower the power range though..

 

[godzilla]

Back on topic

1 thing we used to do on the turbo foresters was start with a 3" turbo back exhaust, then just at the last join around the rear diff area go down to 2.5 or 2.75" pipe.
This would increase mid range torque quite a bit
Id assume it would be a similar outcome for the VR4 aswell

The added bonus with this is it tends to stop the drone & also is a little quieter

Cheers
Mark

Usually its the other way around, what some exhaust builders do on turbo'd cars is run certain dia pipe off the exhaust housing, lets say 2.25-2.5" then run that for a couple of hundred mil then expand the pipe to 3" from then on. What this does is creates a vacuum of sorts as when the gasses leaving the small dia tube hit the larger tube they increase velocity and subsaquently that draws the gasses behind it out faster.

The thing with turbo'd cars is they want to breathe, be it the inlet side or the exhaust side. The free'er flowing the system the faster the engine can get the air in then out thus increasing torque/hp

 

[bradc]

At the last Auckland Dyno most of the cars had an exhaust and an intercooler as well as boost control. With these mods the cars were going up from about 206kw/363nm to about 220kw/440nm so quite a large increase in torque.

 

[king_panther]

At the last Auckland Dyno most of the cars had an exhaust and an intercooler as well as boost control. With these mods the cars were going up from about 206kw/363nm to about 220kw/440nm so quite a large increase in torque.

Wow indeed.

I wonder what the pre-facelift autos were pushing out as they are 191kw not 206kw. Can't imagine it being that much of a difference.

 

[bradc]

About 13kw difference at the wheels and about 20nm less torque. Just do boost + exhaust (incl downpipes and 3" cat) and intercooler and your car will be a ton better at 3000 to 5000rpm

 

[jonesyVR4]

Usually its the other way around, what some exhaust builders do on turbo'd cars is run certain dia pipe off the exhaust housing, lets say 2.25-2.5" then run that for a couple of hundred mil then expand the pipe to 3" from then on. What this does is creates a vacuum of sorts as when the gasses leaving the small dia tube hit the larger tube they increase velocity and subsaquently that draws the gasses behind it out faster.

The thing with turbo'd cars is they want to breathe, be it the inlet side or the exhaust side. The free'er flowing the system the faster the engine can get the air in then out thus increasing torque/hp

I agree with what you've said totally as far as free flowing, but take a look at this

Also changing the rear tail pipe section from 3" to 2.5" helps torque, using 2.5" rear mufflers greatly help mid range with gains on WRX/STI set ups. Pressure at the turbo is not effected with this and helps to keep gas speed up for better power."

Taken from here

http://www.msengineering.com.au/exhaustsystems.html

Quite an interesting read

 

[jet150]

Dude have you looked into cams or a larger throttle body?

That will help.