Funny Performance

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 09:13

Hey guys, well i've had the MR a little while now, i've done 2500 miles, i've started to drive her hard.

I have a few problems with the performance. The car has the TTE Exhaust fitted by Mr T.

Now the car shoots to 60, gets to about 90 ok then the performance just drops right off, i think my old 1.4 got to 110 faster.

My mate bought an MR2 from the same dealer with the same spec at the same time as me, now his TTE exhaust is a LOT quieter, is this lack of performance anything to do with the exhaust, could there be some kind of back pressure leak?

I drive the car with Super or Optimax at all times.

The car is only 1 month old roughly.

Darth Paul · July 9, 2003, 09:19

IIRC the car is not designed to run on Super.

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 09:30

I recall the manual just said to make sure you run on 95octane or above. I can't recall what super is, but I think Optimax is 98.

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 09:33

Quote from: "phil4"I recall the manual just said to make sure you run on 95octane or above. I can't recall what super is, but I think Optimax is 98.

Super (from BP anyway) is 97 IIRC

Slacey · July 9, 2003, 09:40

It is strange, I have the TTE and run my car on all sorts, from Supermarket fuel to Optimax, and have never had any issues. Oh, and never had any power loss at 100mph upwards either.

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 10:07

I have struggled and failed to stop myself from asking... Why do you need to be accellerating hard at 90mph? You do know that the maximum speed limit on our roads in 70mph don't you? Are you talking about track days?

--H--

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 10:16

I discounted track days as use different wheels for that so didn't think it'd be fair to ask for advice.

The current wheels though have gone to Holland and Germany with me, hence the milage clocking up, hence the need for speed.

Yes i am well aware of speed limits, don't need lecturing on this lol.

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 10:17

Quote from: "Slacey"It is strange, I have the TTE and run my car on all sorts, from Supermarket fuel to Optimax, and have never had any issues. Oh, and never had any power loss at 100mph upwards either.

I was thinking there may have been some fitting issues?

GSB · July 9, 2003, 10:56

Quote from: "Hardcore"I have struggled and failed to stop myself from asking... Why do you need to be accellerating hard at 90mph? You do know that the maximum speed limit on our roads in 70mph don't you? Are you talking about track days?

Surely its not a question of need, rather than getting what you've paid for. I paid for a car that'll do 130mph, If mine bottled out at 90mph I'd be a bit peeved too, and I'd certainly be wondering what else was wrong with it. Sounds like a case for the dealership to me...

As for the 70mph limit, its an arbitrary figure set by politicians before most cars could even do 70mph. Just becasue its written in law doesn't make it right, and just becasue someone chooses to go a bit faster than the limit when conditions allow, doesn't make him morally destitute. The limit varies from country to country in Europe, so who are we to say that our antiquated 70mph limit (set as a temporary measure back in 1965!) is right? The Germans dont bother with limits on some roads, while the Americans post ridiculously low limits.

As we all know speeding in this country has become a big money spinner, but its not speeding that is the main problem, its bad driving. If the politicians really wanted to stop the carnage on our roads they'd do it at source, and devise a driving test more suitable for todays driving conditions, with regular re-testing. Did you know you have to be re-tested very 3 years to drive a forklift? But you can jump into a fast car aged 17 if you can prove you dont cross your arms on roundabouts, or at age 70 safe in the knowledge that your skills are up to date because you passed your test just prior to the 2nd world war...

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 11:07

Quote from: "GSB"Surely its not a question of need, rather than getting what you've paid for. I paid for a car that'll do 130mph, If mine bottled out at 90mph I'd be a bit peeved too, and I'd certainly be wondering what else was wrong with it. Sounds like a case for the dealership to me...

Agreed. I'm not quite sure what I'd say when taking it back in though! "Yeah... Um, well it stops pulling at 90mph and takes forever to get to 110mph."

s:wink: :wink: s:wink:

Quote from: "GSB"As for the 70mph limit, its an arbitrary figure set by politicians before most cars could even do 70mph. Just becasue its written in law doesn't make it right

Agreed.

Quote from: "GSB"and just becasue someone chooses to go a bit faster than the limit when conditions allow, doesn't make him morally destitute.

Fair enough I suppose, but if you had someone close to you killed by a speeding motorist you might not be so forgiving.

Quote from: "GSB"The limit varies from country to country in Europe, so who are we to say that our antiquated 70mph limit (set as a temporary measure back in 1965!) is right? The Germans dont bother with limits on some roads, while the Americans post ridiculously low limits.

Agreed, our motorway limits are too low, IMO, but sadly I think it unlikely that it will ever change, although if Italy can do it then why not us?

Quote from: "GSB"As we all know speeding in this country has become a big money spinner, but its not speeding that is the main problem, its bad driving. If the politicians really wanted to stop the carnage on our roads they'd do it at source, and devise a driving test more suitable for todays driving conditions, with regular re-testing. Did you know you have to be re-tested very 3 years to drive a forklift? But you can jump into a fast car aged 17 if you can prove you dont cross your arms on roundabouts, or at age 70 safe in the knowledge that your skills are up to date because you passed your test just prior to the 2nd world war...

Agreed. I'd gladly take a re-test every 5 or 10 years as long as it meant there were less dangerous drivers on the road. I could see the government bringing in mandatory re-testing then charging us all £100 for the test though!

--H--

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 11:10

Well if they can't test it over here then they will have to take it to a test track or do something becuase having bought a £18700 SPORTS car and hearing that every1 elses pulls well at 90 i is al little disturbed lol.

Think GSB got the idea of my post like.

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 11:16

I got the idea, I just got clouded for a moment by the thought of someone who was worried that his performance up to 110mph wasn't good enough for this country.

My apologies, I hope there isn't a big problem with your car. I couldn't tell you how mine pulls at 90mph I'm afraid but I'd imagine it should still be pulling reasonabley well and only get breathless at about 110mph.

--H--

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 11:39

Its cool mate, its early in the morning anyway isn't it lol.

Anonymous · July 9, 2003, 12:45

<admin hat on>
Can we keep this on-topic, and debate the the pros and cons of our speeding laws in another topic please?

</admin hat off>

GSB · July 9, 2003, 12:53

Dont worry about taking it into a dealer and saying it stops pulling at 90mph. regardless of the speed, its still a fault that requires investigating. If they want to they can test it on a rolling road, thats their perogitive though, as all you care about is having a car that performs as they said it should perform when they sold it to you. An example of this would be a guy I know who took a TVR back to the dealer because it wouldnt hit 160mph after they had serviced it. They took it in, fixed it and handed it back. No questions asked... After all, what you do with your car is your business, and not the service managers!

Anonymous · July 10, 2003, 08:43

I forgot to mention, fuel consumption is DREADFUL, i;m lucky if i get 200 miles to a tank and also there is a "whistling" noise that seems to get louder as the revs rise.

Any ideas?

James.

Anonymous · July 10, 2003, 08:49

200miles... wow, do you drive constantly readlining it or something? I seem to get 350miles or so out of a tank, and that's with a mix of "spirited" driving, and just normal plod at about 3000rpm.

As for the whistling, I don't get any of that.

All in all, it's sounding more and more like there's something wrong with your engine.

Anonymous · July 10, 2003, 09:32

No not constantly redline, i drive quickly as all my driving is country lanes but most of the time traffic to heavy to drive that hard lol

Not liking the sound of this....... s:oops: :oops: s:oops:

Anonymous · July 10, 2003, 18:21

Quotealso there is a "whistling" noise that seems to get louder as the revs rise.

I get that to..... oh wait a minute, i'm supposed to. s:roll: :roll: s:roll:

I think your pre cats may be at fault. This throws your O2 sensors to think your running lean and adds more fuel that you don't really need and it's causing your high fuel consumption and loss of power.This is where i'd look first anyway,as it is a possibilty.If there ok let us know and we'll throw other possible causes at you.

Anonymous · July 10, 2003, 23:05

Yeah, its deffo Overfueling, the TTE exhaust "pops" all the time especially when de-cellorating.

I thought this is normal, what you think?

Peter Laborne · July 10, 2003, 23:13

Quote from: "phil4"I recall the manual just said to make sure you run on 95octane or above. I can't recall what super is, but I think Optimax is 98.

Super unleaded Supermarket fuel = 95 (though they claim it is either 96 or 97 and you will probably see it arriving in Q8 or Texaco tankers)
Proper Super unleaded (eg BP, Texaco, Q8 etc) = 97
Shell Optimax = 98 (IIRC it is nearly 99)

Japanese Super Unleaded is 104 IIRC and that is what our engine was designed using.

I have heard of someone who always used a 50/50 mixture of super unleaded and avaition fuel (which is around 140 and costs a few pennies per litre).

Slacey · July 11, 2003, 07:56

Quote from: "Peter Laborne"I have heard of someone who always used a 50/50 mixture of super unleaded and avaition fuel (which is around 140 and costs a few pennies per litre).

Sounds both interesting and lethal! s:shock: :shock: s:shock:

Anonymous · July 11, 2003, 08:49

QuoteYeah, its deffo Overfueling, the TTE exhaust "pops" all the time especially when de-cellorating.

I thought this is normal, what you think?

Yes thats quite normal.

zud · July 11, 2003, 09:16

Quote from: "bigun007"Now the car shoots to 60, gets to about 90 ok then the performance just drops right off, i think my old 1.4 got to 110 faster.

Purely for research purposes, someone with a car very much like mine (but not me officer) tried dropping to 4th at 80mph and flooring it on the A3 the other day. Apparently, the car accelerated faster between 90 and 100 than it had between 80 and 90! s:D

s:D He didn't try the 100 to 110 bit as risking 3 points is OK, in the name of resaerch, but not a ban! s:wink: :wink: s:wink:

Anonymous · July 11, 2003, 09:29

Quote from: "Peter Laborne"Super unleaded Supermarket fuel = 95 (though they claim it is either 96 or 97 and you will probably see it arriving in Q8 or Texaco tankers)

Sorry, but Trading Standards wouldn't allow something being sold as Super Unleaded, and meeting a certain BS standard, to not be.

You are right that all supermarket fuels are fundamentally from the same sources, although they tend not to contain the additives that branded fuels do. These are only added at the tanker depot, long after the refinery and distribution network stages.

Quote from: "Peter Laborne"Japanese Super Unleaded is 104 IIRC and that is what our engine was designed using.

Rubbish; an engine can be tuned to run on anything, although with higher octane fuel more power can be gained from that tuning. As a JDM spec Roadster here is expecting to run on higher octane fuel, the ECU will adjust timing (and therefore run with less power) to protect from detonation, but a Euro-spec Roadster is expecting to run on our fuel. The US also run the same engine, but on much lower octane fuels than we do, and the engine doesn't detonate...

QuoteI have heard of someone who always used a 50/50 mixture of super unleaded and avaition fuel (which is around 140 and costs a few pennies per litre).

Although unless he's tuned his engine to suit, he's wasting his time; the stock ECU (in any normal road car) will only take advantage of this up to a point, beyond which it runs out of mapping to do so.

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Funny Performance

Darth Paul