Traction and torque

[Petrus]

Conrod/big end life, gearbox reliability are as was observed more tórque related rather than power. Same thing traction.

Living in the mountainous heartland of andalucía, the road conditions, traction is ... different than up north.

Because of the summer heat the tarmac needs to be hárd so it does not flow downhill.
This means it is also longer lived but it still wears meaning smoother worn, harder surface.

In autumn the rainwater deposits the slick karst soil on the roads as do agricultural vehicles for the olive harvest and ploughing.

Enter the current rainey days and we have slick coated smooth worn hard tarmac on twisty B-roads.

The family daily is nearly 2 tons, 140 hp at 4k rpm with max torque at 1800 rpm. The thing needs a véry light foot to not break traction. If you don´t take extra care, wheel spin happens.
Also took out the MR2. It obviously has the exact same traction available but it has less torque and less mass to push thus breaks the traction way later. Wheel spin only happens if you make it happen. Unless you have a lead foot ofcourse.

Now I get to the ham question:
How is that with you turbo guys? Does more torque at low revs force you to pussyfoot about under less favourable conditions? How does it compare to the n.a. car?

[shnazzle]

Yes. Quite frankly.
When we had the blasted turbo, we had it specifically mapped so that it doesn't wallop on the power and boost but instead gradually brings it in and limits it in lower gears. Not to everybody's taste but certainly made it a lot more driveable in less than optimal scenarios.
So, up to 5psi until 3rd gear or 3.5k rpm I believe. You could come out of a corner and accelerate and it would gradually bring on boost to 5psi and at 3.5k blow up to 10psi quickly. It wasn't an on/off, it was gradual boost control.

Others want that "shove in the back" so just have full 10psi on tap at all times, but then you have to be careful in slippery conditions.

I remember the back end twitching on a straight line at full chat because the road was a bit damp and torque was too much. LSD did its job.

Compared to N/A, the former setup was comparable. You did have more power on tap of course, but not monstrous amounts, so you could drive it much like N/A. When switched to full mental mode in the ECU, different story. Not like N/A at all. And frankly I didn't like it at all. Unbalanced.

In my car, fully stock, you could just mash your foot down any time. It does nothing. Quite relaxed and comforting really knowing that you have to go on REALLY daft to make it break out.
But now, even with just 200cell cat and tuned manifold I definitely have to watch out more in the wet. Very careful on corners with throttle and ease on the brakes.

[Petrus]

Thanks.
All logical.

Sounds fun but tricky to have it light up on the torque curve in a straight line.

Mine hangs more on the throttle with the deduct/bell mount/Twin Air breathing in and straight through breathing out and I find that móre relaxing. It does not break out unless you want to and then it does so directly and gradually.
When I got the car it was November like now and pretty much identical conditions. Wet and mud coated. Worse quality but winter rubber with better profile is not that much of a traction difference either.
The car indeed needed way more of a dollop to break traction but that also meant it was not as easy to measure out. The loss of traction felt more sudden and more total.
Not thát much of a difference though with the key thing being no unintentional loss of traction.

All in rather fun to observe the torque, traction, driveability under suboptimal conditions.

[Nvy]

So basically 1zz/2zz + Rotrex would be our best bet for all round performer. My only concern with going that route would be 2zz headers and exhaust because Id need full custom solution, dont want to route it beneath the cross member. And the 4k quids for the rotrex, that would be some expensive affair

[househead]

And the 4k quids for the rotrex, that would be some expensive affair

What is that number based on / what does it include?

I've seen them for £1600 brand new.

Example...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-ROTREX-SUPER-CHARGER-C30-C30-74-SC-SUPERCHARGER-HONDA-ARIEL-ATOM-LOTUS/123738963791?hash=item1ccf6abf4f:g:xwMAAOSwtM9cXJ3F

[Nvy]

And the 4k quids for the rotrex, that would be some expensive affair

What is that number based on / what does it include?

I've seen them for £1600 brand new.

Example...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-ROTREX-SUPER-CHARGER-C30-C30-74-SC-SUPERCHARGER-HONDA-ARIEL-ATOM-LOTUS/123738963791?hash=item1ccf6abf4f:g:xwMAAOSwtM9cXJ3F

I was looking at se7en site. Didnt research on it.

[thetyrant]

Only driven mine twice so far since turbo install but even at 5psi i found i need to be very careful with the right foot on damp/greasy winter roads!  the extra power/torque coupled with Federal RSR semi slick is not good for making progress in these conditions but im aware of it so drive accordingly, im used to fairly powerful (250-400hp) rwd cars so i know to go steady once temps drop.
  Difficulty is at moment im mapping it so i need to do full throttle pulls to get it all setup, i just need to pick the road carefully!.

One thing i will say its now i can break rear traction on demand on slippy roads i find it in some ways safer than the stock car, which is very planted and can take full throttle in most cases without an issue so you get lazy and when it does let go though there isnt enough power to actually control the slide unless very slippy,  with the turbo you can just gracefully control the angle as long as your quick on inputs

Tyres are the critical aspect in all this and running a semislick or even ad08 on slippy roads is never going to be good, having the right tyre for the job is the key, ive just swapped my BMW 130i daily driver onto winter wheels which have michelins Alpins on there, the difference from the Michelin PS4 on my summer wheels even on just damp/greasy roads is huge, that car is a 3litre 6pot n/a petrol and peak torque is 230ftlbs from 2k rpm upwards and powers onto 270hp so it work tyres fairly hard for an N/a motor, kind of feels turbo due to power delivery but the MR2 is now faster 30-80mph due to much less weight!

[Petrus]

So basically 1zz/2zz + Rotrex would be our best bet for all round performer.

For one these two have rather different engine characteristics and secondly it is still a lot of extra torque low down for wet roads.
Same thing a TRD compressor: basically the same curve as stock, just higher, more torque, thus the effect of tuned inlet/200 cell Schnazzle mentions compounded.
Depends on what you want, call best all round ;-)

[Petrus]

Thanks Tyrant for the experience based explanation.

One thing i will say its now i can break rear traction on demand on slippy roads i find it in some ways safer than the stock car, which is very planted and can take full throttle in most cases without an issue so you get lazy and when it does let go though there isnt enough power to actually control the slide unless very slippy,

Better worded than my intent to explain the stock car.

[shnazzle]

One thing I very much miss from my piggyback and Hurricane intake is the immediacy of the throttle. 
Having said that, I could probably get that immediacy back with the piggyback and just advancing timing a bit. Not for more power, but for throttle response. 

It does, as you say, seem to take more to break it out now but that makes it less controlled. The response to my throttle is now slower than it was.
Only a fraction of a second though.