Well, this is definitely a difficult issue and has been around morethen a few
times. Wonder why? From where I stand it is because theproblem is not correctly
labeled. Usually this comes up like turbocars and boost control. I believe that
this issue is much bigger thanjust that and I will try to brake it into the two
different one, soit might be easier to deal with them one at a time.1. Boost
control through the electronic gadgets ---> Here is the onethat was
mentioned above as one of the big problems, but in this casethis one is much
bigger than a turbo charged cars. Let see what isout there.1.1. You can control
boost with some aftermarket controller(there are too many to list them here)
that is plugged with the stockcomputer control. The good thing about those is
that they all requiresome extra gadgets to be plugged around your engine so
they can bepoliced relatively easy.1.2. The other type is the one that controls
the boost throughthe stock (or whatever is in there) computer unit (let's call
it ECUfrom now on). Well, there are good and bad things about this one.1.2.1.
The fact stated up there that most of the newer carshave electronic boost
control is simply not true. In general thereare two main types of electronic
boost controllers. One of them arebased on the actual manifold pressure
(usually cars that are equippedwith the MAP sensor - examples MR2 Turbo, Supra
TT, and so on). Thoseare the cars that usually have some kind of the boost
activated fuelcuts, so disabling any of those is illegal according to the
rules.You can still gain some advantage if you raise the boost closer tothe
fuel cut level, but most of the allowed mods will bring the carthere anyway, so
I don't believe that this is a big problem.1.2.2. The other type of the
electronic boost controllers arebased on the mass of the air that enters the
engine. Those are thecars that are equipped with the MAS sensor (typical
examples areDSMs, EVO, and I believe WRX and STi). The problem here is
thatcomputer in reality never really knows what kind of boost is presentinside
the engine. Usually, boost level is calculated from the amountof air and
temperature. This is not that accurate to set any boostlimiting devices around
that so luckily they don't use it. What theydo is for certain RPM ranges they
would open up boost controlsolenoids and attempt to lower the boost from
whatever level it was,down as much as the system will allow. In reality, that
is notsignificant enough and on the engines that have improved flow (intakeand
exhaust), makes very little difference. Boost creep that happensis larger than
those units can handle in most cases I am familiarwith. And this is active only
for short RPM range, so overall itdoesn't have a large effect.Another way that
I have seen it happen is that manufacturertries to add excessive amount of fuel
at the higher RPMs. This kindof works fine on the stock cars, but once in
Street Prepared, thiscan be removed due to legal mods that can be used.But, on
the other hand this is a big issue for the Stockclass cars. And to make it even
larger, it is not just a turbo carissue any more. The fact is that nobody can
argue that E36 M3wouldn't gain a few ponies from the right chip (fuel and
timingchanges mostly). Same would go for the EVO for example which can
bebrought to 300 HP with easy after tweaking the fuel and timing mapson the
otherwise stock car. This issue should be addressed under thecomputer
modifications and as far as I know (after a lot ofdiscussions have taken a lot
of time) there is no working solutionfor this. It actually looks like that this
issue is not possible tocontrol at all (to name just a few: too many official
revisions forthe codes, inability to read to codes in the impound even if we
wouldknow the correct codes, and so on). I think it is very important notto mix
this issue with boost levels!2. Boost control through the mechanical gadgets
---> This is a verydifficult issue and obviously has no easy answer. The
main problem isthat some of the legal mods affect the boost levels, so in some
casesit is legal to
increase your boost. Most us here are using K&N airfilters and they could
give you one or even two pounds of an extraboost ones you remove your
restrictive paper based filter element andan air box.The good thing here is
that it is much easier to police thosemechanical gadgets and most of the
illegal activity is visible toanyone. Ones you change a wastegate or do some
porting inside theturbo is as easy to spot as ported heads or stroked
engine.The bad thing here is that those legal modifications increase theboost
too and once you are faced with a competitor that has beatenyou 0.001 second
and is on the way to wear jacket that was almostyours, we run into different
kind of a problem(s). Even if the jacketwas so far that you couldn't even see
it with binoculars, you get aquestion mark in your head. Was that boost level
achieved through thelegal mods or you have a cheater ahead of you? But, on the
otherhand, wouldn't you ask the same question if you where beaten in yourZO6 by
the guy that has the same kind of car (even the color is thesame)? I believe I
know the answer to this one for me, and I hopethat you know yours as well!.
:)So, what to do here? I am definitely against something like 2 extrapounds for
all to make it fair. That would make things even harder topolice and in reality
makes no sense to me.One of the ways is to make all of the turbo equipped
vehiclecompetitors would have to have a unified controller which can beeasily
checked and can not be mocked. Road race guys used to havesuch a device, but I
believe that it will be too much for everyone toadd such a device on the car at
their own expenses. That would alsolead to the set boost levels per car, or per
the whole category (Iguess for Stock and Street Prepared).On of the interesting
ideas is to have unlimited boost for all. Thenclass each of those cars to the
new (if needed) appropriate classes.The fact here is that in the case of 2G
DSMs (guess what I am drivingfor an extra bonus?), boost controller or not, you
are limited toaround 275 HP. The turbo that is in those cars is just that small
andit can't run any higher. I do believe that every turbo car has such alimit,
and if assumed that limit will be achieved, car should beclassed to the class
where those numbers make sense.Or just leave it as is and if car happens to be
too fast, move it tothe higher class!Just don't use Mark Dadio as a base in
those cars!! :)Happy boosting!!Fedja
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