550M BHP readings | FerrariChat

550M BHP readings

Discussion in '456/550/575' started by dell550, Aug 28, 2007.

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  1. dell550

    dell550 Karting
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    #1 dell550, Aug 28, 2007
    I was at a small car show this weekend and stumbled across a portable rolling road that had been set up. Upon speaking to the operators they said that they had run many Ferrari and Maserati cars including F40/F50 so I decided to let them run my 1998 550M. I was keen to see how much difference a full Tubi set up (including cat by-pass) and sports filters would be over standard.

    Imagine my surprise when they said it struggled to make an indicated 405 BHP at the flywheel with a wheel figure of 340 BHP.The car is running well and pulling hard in all the gears all the way to the redline and had just seen off a Porsche and TVR on the way to the show. Upon questioning the calibration/accuracy of the rollers I was told in no uncertain terms that the rollers were good and that my car did in fact feel somewhat "flat".
    At first I was happy to believe that the rollers were wrong and that was that but as the operators kept on telling people that my F-car was down on power I decided to try another car (2001 550 with Larini rear boxes otherwise bog standard) that was sitting back at my workshop.
    Having retrieved the other 550 from the workshop they proceeded to power test it and came up with 394 flywheel BHP and 335 od wheel horsepower but with slightly better torque. This just goes to show that you cannot always trust a rolling road as far as the readings are concerned.Later in the day a Vauxhall Monaro that had been dynoed @ 450 flywheel bhp made only 330 flywheel and 260 wheel BHP on the rollers.The rollers are owned and run by a well known and respectable tuning company and seemed unable to cope with big torquey engines-- readings on smaller engined cars seemed more accurate and in keeping with expectations.

    Has anybody on here had their 550 rolling roaded and if so what were the readings ?

    By the way , on the run home the dynos basic conclusions were born out in that the standardish car would pull half a length on the tubi car when accelerating fromm 2000rpm in fourth gear but if up in the revs then the tubi car would eke out a couple of lengths by the time we got to 150 odd MPH. The main difference was the noise with the tubi car drowning out the Larini car to the point that it would make me miss gearshifts!! Side by side at 7000 plus RPM,s made my weekend and I am still smiling now .!!

    I had always believed that my car had a little more than a standard one because of the aforementioned exhaust and filters but I felt really let down by the rollers readings so I have decided to approach the company that rolling roaded the 599GTB for Evo magazine recently as they said it matched the factory figures so their rollers must be accurate/better calibrated ?!!Are any other F-Car owners interested in getting together and booking the dyno for the day between us. It would be interesting to compare different spec cars and to see if any of the power enhancing mods do anything or are we being fooled by the noise
     
  2. 68rcodemustang

    68rcodemustang Formula Junior

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    #2 68rcodemustang, Aug 28, 2007
    There are certain settings that all dynos have that can make the same car output a (sometimes high or low) different number. I am sure someone else will chime in here to list the different settings.

    What are the odds of 2 different cars being "flat" on the same dyno?
     
  3. dell550

    dell550 Karting
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    #3 dell550, Aug 28, 2007
    Thats just my point-with the second car chiming in with similar readings it just shows that the rollers were not accurate and the operators were willing to just try and flannel away the results rather than admit they were wrong .I found out today that they told a friend of mine that hardly any Ferrari gets near its quoted power on their rollers but they would be willing to sort mine via reprogramming the ecu,s for 'only' £2000 or so.

    I am aware that there are calibration numbers you can enter when setting up that will affect the end result as I once had a run in with an engine dyno guy who basically played with the numbers to get his engine to show what he needed but thats a whole other story !!!

    Basically the equipment is only as good as the guys operating it
     
  4. mk e

    mk e F1 World Champ

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    #4 mk e, Aug 28, 2007
    what brand dyno was it?

    What gear was the run in?

    Can you post a graph?

    For starters, the only number that mean anything are the rear wheel numbers. That is what the machine is measureing, any claims at the crank are an estimate....I always get nervous when rear wheel dyno operators start quoting crank hp....

    Normally, when a machine is out of cal, all the reading will be wrong, so I'm surprise the low power cars were making good numbers and the high power cars were low. Knowing the brand and model dyno may help explain that though if you have that information.

    edit:

    I just did the math, the 412 is about where a 550 should be for rwhp....in think your dyno guy read the rwhp, called it crank hp, than took off 18% for driveline losses and called it rwhp. I don't thin the guy had a clue what he was doing. We had a guy with a supercharged 308 make gobs more hp on the dyno that he should have too....it made at the at the rear wheel almost exactly what was expected at the crank, and the crank number was crazy high.

    I think his dyno guy did the opposite of what yours did. I like to stick to dynojet dynos and SAE correct hp. You can go to and dyno anywhere in the world and repeat the reading within a couple %. Find a dynojet and re-run the car then you'll have a result you can trust.
     
  5. Lloyd

    Lloyd F1 Rookie

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    #5 Lloyd, Aug 28, 2007
    It makes you wonder if they just rigged the test to sell a chip which once installed could actually result in less power, but by correctly running the test would reveal a figure much higher than the rigged test on the older chip. Did they actually try to sell you a chip?
     
  6. dell550

    dell550 Karting
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    #6 dell550, Aug 29, 2007
    In discussing the accuracy of the rollers with the operator he was adamant that they were accurate He went on to say that many of the Ferrari and Maserati cars they have run came up short of specification then dropped into the conversation that it could be sorted by re-mapping the car , which they could do at a cost of only £2000 sterling.

    I have located a company at Silverstone race track who regularly rolling road 360 and 430 challenge cars for Ferrari UK and I will be arranging a dyno day with them subject to costings.

    I have got the dyno printouts in the car and will try and post th3em later on today.
     
  7. MarkCollins

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    #7 MarkCollins, Aug 29, 2007
    Dell sounds dubious, almost as if they want your money :) I'm having my BMW mapped as we speak and the guy has said he can do little for the 575 or any Ferrari for that matter just through a remap, maybe another 10BHP so how these people expect to make the gains they claim I cannot see!


    I had my 550 done at a RR a couple of Years ago along with many other cars and some that had recently been dyno'd confirmed the rollers were reasonably accurate

    You can see the reports both at Wheel and calculated flywheel at http://www.collinsclan.co.uk/Pages/Cars/phrr111204/index.html.

    The Car was standard except for Tubi rear pipes and whilst the result is a bit lower than the factory claim we felt it was probably about right given that when the factory dyno an engine it will probably not be running Alternator, AC Compressor etc etc
     
  8. MarkCollins

    MarkCollins F1 Rookie
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    #8 MarkCollins, Aug 29, 2007
  9. JazzyO

    JazzyO F1 World Champ

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    #9 JazzyO, Aug 29, 2007
  10. checkmate

    checkmate Rookie

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    #10 checkmate, Aug 29, 2007
    As I recall:
    In the 550 and 575, 20% of the horsepower comes from the hood scoop's ram induction?

    Sitting in a warm room- without that induction- any dyno result on a static car would seem to me to be a waste of time and money...and 20% off in terms of mapping actual engine perfomance.
     
  11. MarkCollins

    MarkCollins F1 Rookie
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    #11 MarkCollins, Aug 29, 2007

    Certainly they changed the angle of the fans etc when mine was on the RR to get more cold air in but I'd be surprised if there's much ram induction looking at the route of the intake pipes under the bonnet
     
  12. mk e

    mk e F1 World Champ

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    #12 mk e, Aug 29, 2007
    3%-5% is probably a much closer estimate.....unless you are going 400-500 mpg :)

    go find a dynojet and get a real result, there are a dozen in england

    http://www.dynojet.com/dyno_centers/automotive/index.aspx
     
  13. Derek Wade

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    #13 Derek Wade, Aug 30, 2007
    Supersprint (www.supersprint.it) has several full before/after dyno's across all brand types. I was surprised that their test of the 575 Superamerica showed a "before" 495 hp vs. 540 claimed by FNA; where most of their other "before" tests (across all brands) showed at or slightly above manufacturers estimates). Maybe the 550/575 don't quite make the 480/515/540 model-dependent estimates. Just food for thought/Any comments?
     
  14. mk e

    mk e F1 World Champ

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    #14 mk e, Aug 30, 2007
    Looking at the graph it all comes clear I think......the 575 is peaking 1000 rpm early, I remember a thread about a 360 or 430 doing the same thing on a 2 wheel dyno. Ferrari's got the computer programmed to pull the power back when traction is lost, and the traction control is never fully off...it knows the front wheels aren't turning. Hence the 20% power gain when the car is in motion being attributed to the ram air.
    find a 4 wheel dyno.
     
  15. Carbonrider

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    #15 Carbonrider, Sep 8, 2007
    I dynoed my 575 on a roto-dyno and it showed 450bhp at the wheel. Roto-dyno cannot estimate flywheel power but with about 20% drive train loss (as confirmed by Mark and Evo findings), it was calculated to have 550bhp at the flywheel.
     

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