Rolling Road days are one of my favourite car-based events to attend and I will have to explain why. You get to hear your car at maximum power literally meters away from you in succession. You also get a print out of your BHP and Torque in a power graph format that shows the shape of the curve and where you actually make your power. You also get an idea of your cars AFR (Air to Fuel Ratio) to make sure that it is feeding itself correctly along the way. It is a great way of checking that your car is running how it is supposed to, and if not, it usually provides hints to what may be the issue. All of this is done in a safe and controlled environment.
Adding to this – the most important part of a rolling road day is to ensure that you have nice bunch forum members turning up to be greeted by a welcoming and friendly host! Well I think we can all agree that everyone had a great time and that our particular hosts on the day – Monster Mototsport (AKA Scooby Works). They were brilliant – friendly staff who knew what they were doing, a properly enclosed and cooled Dyno Dynamics rolling road with tea and coffee on tap whenever we needed it! I must admit, from a personal opinion their rolling road set up has to be the most professional that I have seen to date.
The day itself went well with only a couple of very minor hiccups (namely the Focus ST traction control having issues with not turning itself off, but a quick phone call to a specialist fixed that) and it was also a very lovely sunny day in Loughborough. As we are by nature a friendly community we had an extra guy jump on board with us called George who also took photo’s for us. He warmed up the day nicely at around 9.30am running his Mitsubishi Evolution IX MR FQ-360 that had been fettled with already – it sounded amazing and it made nice power. Not as much as he had hoped for, but he had something to work on and when you own a modified car, you always have something that needs doing!
Next up we ran a selection of cars – Graham’s Honda Integra Type R JDM ’98 Spec which again sounded amazing, Happypaul’s Dirty Diesel Ford Escort (or Scrote as he calls it) TD which produced 104.9 bhp & 180ft lbs torque from the twist and turn of a few things, which is impressive as standard they provide 88bhp & 130ft lbs torque, and my Honda Integra Type R UKDM with a B18c4 bottom end which sounded brilliant – I was grinning once I’d gotten over the slight eardrum bursting moment each time it changed cam profile and went into Vtec.
We then had Percy’s C2 1.6 VTS with it’s mini Vtec (VVTI?) that had some fuelling issues so although it feels as quick as it ever did, with a re-tune of his already remapped C2 he should see a more impressive figures (I would say 135/140bhp peak next time Percy?). Lou was also down on power with his Ford Fiesta Si 1.6 16v as his exhaust was having serious issues and was effectively strangling the car. Op’s Ford Fiesta ST150 proved to run well, only being around 1% down on OEM power! Richard’s Honda Civic Type R FN2 ran at a 5/6% power loss achieving around 188bhp. We have later found out that this was due to a restricted air filter element – The joys have a K&N have given him his power back but we shall see when his car is ran again on the same Dyno! Finally Mole had an interesting run with his DreamScience mapped Ford Focus ST. Standard they are standard 222bhp and 236 lb ft – his was 231bhp and 330 lb ft but his top end power was missing due to the intercooler being strangled and suffering from ECU tune down from high ACT’s – More power to come from this one then, and he knows exactly what he needs to do next!
Overall I think everyone enjoyed the day immensely with many of us already hatching plans on what to do next with our cars before the next Fsi Rolling Road day! I can also say for near certainty that we will be going back to Monster Motorsport for another dyno day as the service they provided for us was near impeccable. Thank you to everyone for attending and here’s to the next one!
Sources: Fsi Results thread: http://www.fiesta-si.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22530
Rolling Road: http://www.monstermotorsport.com/dyno-page.shtml
Thank god my si is off the road to be worked on lol