RPG Shop Sometime in 2011
Redhawk Performance Group
DSD Thread
Note: Any spoken line without a name in front can be considered a random employee at RPG, and not one of the main characters.
[Small talk with truck driver]
Trucker: “So, whatdaya got in here today?”
“It’s the 2011 Saratoga D model.”
Trucker: “Sarawhata?”
“SARATOGA!”
Trucker: “Ok, what is it then?”
“A 4 seater coupe with an AHS Space Frame and Fiberglass bod-”
Trucker: “Fiberglass, like the corvette?”
“Precicely!”
[Talk amongst RPG crew at the warehouse]
“Some smallblocks”
“Some… which ones?”
“Some, uh, nos 1964 windsor blocks…”
“We sent over our 283ci small block? What for?”
“I think he said tunning for NASCAR”
“Um, ok. Was this part of a trade?”
“I dunno, maybe we’ll get something back?”
[At the loaded truck]
“yea, ok, so with this Saratoga… We tuning it or what?”
“Yeah, it was sent over to tuning when we sent over the windsors.”
“Any specifications on what needed tuning?”
“Nope, just sent it over when we sent them our small blocks.”
“So, DSD never actually specified what they wanted with the D model…”
“The Saratoga?”
“Yes, the Saratoga. It’s the D model.”
“‘D’ for dick.” snicker
“More like dickface!” laughter
Oliver: “Ok, cut the crap.”
“You know, for being a fiberglass body, this thing is sorta light!”
“Whataya mean?”
“The shipping weight states its 2919 lbs.”
“That’s lighter than a Corvette!”
“But this is smaller than a Corvette too!”
Brett: “Alrigh, Let’s open the truck to see what we’ve actually got.”
[car rolls out of the truck]
DSD Saratoga D Model
“Oh, my gawsh! What is this thing!”
“It’s a spider.”
“No it’s a bug.”
“It’s an uglyass bug!”
Some laughter
Oliver: “Hey, cut the crap!”
“Yeah, so what does it have for an engine then?”
Smith: “Looks like it should have a V8.”
Brett: “With your logic, Smith, everything should have a V8!”
Smith: “Hey!”
“Look: dual exhaust tips, but not a true duel exhaust system!”
[hood pops]
Everyone: “Oh…”
slight pause as everyone takes in the odity of a turbo charged inline 6
“Well that’s something you don’t see everyday!”
“Bet they stole it off a beamer!”
some laughter
Oliver: reluctantly “Alright, I’ve had enough. Stop ripping on the car and Get to work.”
The RPG crew works their way back into the shop
Mike: “Well, they did their homework with the chassis. The space frame looks well sorted. And all the welds are crisp and clean.”
Oliver: “Start her up!”
[engine spins to life]
Smith: “Well, it’s a little louder than I expected.”
“What, you think all non-V8s are quiet as a mouse?”
“I think you’re loosing your hearing, Smith.”
“How small is it then?”
Smith: “About 4.0L or 244ci”
“That’s not small for an I6, it’s actually quite big!”
“Small, our original small block V8 was larger than that!”
“Correction, the later variants were larger than it, our first two were actually smaller.”
“Ok, smartass”
Brett: “Guys, are you working on it, or trash talking it…”
The mood settles down as the RPG crew finally gets to work inspecting the car and making plans.
DSD Saratoga D Model
“Well this thing should be relatively sporty, since it has that fiberglass body.”
Smith: “Not if the engine is limiting it.”
Brett: “What’s up Smith?”
Smith: “I think the engine is tuned for fuel economy.”
Brett: “Well, do you want to dyno it then, or what?”
Smith: “Well, Yeah I do! Why was that even a question?”
Stock DSD Saratoga D Model
[engine is warmed up, fan placed in front of car, and they let it rip]
Smith: “Welp, this is dissapointing! It’s only making 250hp, and that’s at the redline, 5900 rpm! On top of that, the AF Mixture is dead lean at 15.0”
Brett: “Wow, so what else is wrong?”
Smith: “The Timing is waaayyyy far advanced as well!”
“So what do you think it gets for fuel economy?”
Brett: “The paperwork says it should get 28 Mpg mixed.”
Mike: “All that, just to get 28 mpgs?”
Smith: “Yep.”
Jess: “What has the wold come to?”
Mike: “You know, I bet Patriot Motor Force would get 1,200hp out of this thing.”
Smith: “They wouldn’t even touch it, it’s not a V8!”
Oliver: “Well, we’re not worrying about what Patriot could do, we’re worried about what RPG could do… So what can we do?”
Smith: “Get rid of the crap, and make power!”
John: “And make it turn on a dime!”
Oliver: “Sounds good guys, so let’s Get To Work!”
[Later on, after tearing into the car]
Jess: “Welp, here’s an interesting design choice.” Looking at the transmission
“What’s that?”
Jess: “The transmission dummy.”
“Well, no duh! It’s the transmission, but what’s the problem with it?”
Jess: “It’s a super close, and I mean super close, ratio transmission.”
Brett: “So, we’re gonna need to craft a new one?”
Jess: “Or use one of our own. Jeff, got any gear-sets in the back?”
Jeff: “What ones you want?”
Jess: “How about an even spaced set?”
Jeff: “Speeds?”
Jess: “Five!”
Jeff: “I know…” awkwardly beckons Jess to follow
[speed-walks right up to a perfect set in the middle of a shelf filled with unmarked gears, synchros, and trans cases.]
Jeff: “Here ya are.”
Jess: “Thanks Buddy!”
Stock
Brett: “Alright, what do you want to do about visuals then?”
Oliver: “Simple. Recolor in a darker blue, code BZ7 should do nicely. Get rid of the chrome, except the grill outline. And get rid of that funky middle set of headlights.”
Brett: “Ok, about the vents on the side. I feel like they need to be re-positioned.”
Oliver: “Ehh, they need to be re-positioned slightly, we should put a side marker light above them.”
Brett: “Ok, I was also thinking we need to alter the wing slightly, and tone down the chrome around the tail lights.”
Oliver: “A good call.” Walks over to Smith “Now, Smith, what are we doing with the engine?”
Smith: “Well, short of putting a LS7 in it, we should definately try for at least 350hp with this engine… Less if you don’t want excessive turbo kick.”
Oliver: “Sounds good, and we might just find a V8 to stuff in later.”
Smith: “Really!?!?” Almost starts dancing to an unheard tune
Oliver: “John, where are ya?”
John: “Over here, hey check out the sweet new mount I made! It makes the camber and toe much easier to adjust on that car of yours!”
Oliver: “You’re crafting suspension mounts for my daily car?”
John: “Yep, thought you’d like to see how to improve it.”
Oliver: “Well, you need to get to work with the Saratoga now.”
John: “The Sarawhat?”
Oliver: “SARATOGA. Car just came in to be tuned.”
John: “Sweet!” Jumps over his workbench to check out the Saratoga
Oliver: Hollering after him “See what you can do before we rebuild the engine.”
[Later in the week]
Oliver: “How’s the Saratoga been going?”
Brett: “Oh, it’s been going alright. We took the car around the ATT a few times before we took it apart. Best time was a 2:21.32. Then John got ahold of it. With the stock engine it went around the track in 2:20.83, mainly by reducing camber and putting in better springs and shocks.”
Oliver: “That’s good. How’s the engine going?”
Brett: “Smith’s had that thing blue-printed and built three more already! He seems overly excited, did you tell him we were putting a V8 in the thing?”
Oliver: “I may have. It wasn’t the original plan, but the I6 proved ‘hard to work with’ due to ‘design flaws’.”
Brett: “And those were Smith’s words?”
Oliver: “Precicely.”
Brett: “Well, what’s your plan with the V8 now?”
Oliver: “The Stage 3 build.”
Brett: “So… Does that also include a drift build?”
Oliver: “No.”
Brett rolls his eyes sarcastically.
Brett: “You never give me any fun do you?”
Oliver: “Maybe nextime…”
They share a Chuckle
[UPDATE]
Brett: “So, what’s Smith planning for the inline 6?”
Oliver: “Hm, let’s see his notes. He has to make two versions with a significant difference in performance.”
Both walk up to the main office where Oliver has the notes Smith submitted for approval.
Oliver: “Here they are.”
[Smith’s chicken-scratch writing]
Stage 1: 300hp
remedy bottom-end design flaws
Steel Ibeam conrods
resulting dimentions are +.010 bore, -.040 stroke.
same displace.
raise redline 7000, less cam around 44 - more durable
keep vvt on intake only
Bigger turbo (55-60mm), 8psi boost, less ar ratio (.85 orso)
keep mp efi, make single - tpc not needed - cheaper
performance air filter
14.7 fuel mix, 48 degrees ignition
use our efi system - run on 91ron
smaller exhaust 3" better bends, reverse flow muffler cuz its too lou8d!
Oliver: “I think smith just hates the sound of an I6. That exhaust would have been fine, but as usual, I’ll put our tuned mufflers on.”
Brett: “Yeah, he dislikes anything that’s not a V8, but at least his work is good.”
[More of Smith’s chicken-scratch writing]
Stage 2: 365hp
Same bottom-end, w/ Lighweight Forged pistons instead, domed for compression
comp, increase from 8 to around 8.5:1
Performance cam, around 50
Head shaved, port and polish
same turbos, higher ar (0.90ish?) 11psi boost
better wastegate & plumbing
14.2 fuel mix, 54 degrees timing
our efi again - 91 ron
Note: 6900 rpm limit. anything more is wasted rpms
3.25" exhaust, rest same as before.
Note: Both versions can be run on higher octane gas and only boost increased for huge gains.
Note2: stage 1 has deficiencies if running more than 11psi. (Can run 11psi on 91ron gas)
At this point Brett had left, having to tend to something else
Oliver takes a look at the second sheet of paper containing the V8 specs
[Smith’s writing, neater and crisper.]
RPG Modern OHV LS7-based V8
Stage 3:
CLS V8 7.0L - 485hp rated
4.126" bore, 4.00" stroke
Forged crank, IBeam steel, LF Pistons
9.6 comp, muscle cam, custom RPG heads
N/A MP-EFI single w/perf filter
14.0 fuel mix, 56 deg. timing 7200rpm redline, on 91ron
Custom Tubular headers, dual exhaust 2.75" 3-way cat, RPG Baffled to Reverse Flow mufflers high quality exhaust for a TRUE MUSCLE V8 SOUND!
Engine 2153 dyno'd 455 ft-lbs @4000, 506 hp @ 6600
CLS V8 7.0L - 555hp rated
Bullet-proof bottom end
cuz not like many will order it anyway
11.1 comp, slightly more aggressive cam, head port and polish
N/A MP-EFI TPC, perf filter
13.2 fuel mix, 59 deg, ignition, 7400rpm redline
Custom long tube headers, dual exhaust 3" High flow cat, RPG mufflers
Note: Must use unleaded 95
Engine XR1284 dyno'd 500ft-lbs @4500, 589hp @6800
[END UPDATE]
[Finishing up Production Prototype Blueprints of the RPG-Tuned Saratoga]
RPG Appearance Package on the DSD Saratoga
Oliver: “Alright, this thing is coming together great! Smith, how’s the engines looking?”
Smith: “Fantastic! See, I knew we needed to put a V8 in the thing! It’s practically pointless to do without!”
Oliver: “Nice Work.” Said slightly dismissively toward Smith’s unstoppable wall of energy
Oliver: “Brett, how’s the handling?”
Brett: “As good as ever with John’s tuning hand.”
Oliver: “Excellent! How well does it do at ATT?”
Brett: “Quite Well, especially with only a -1.10 degrees of camber up front and -1.00 degrees in back”
Oliver: “Good, but what are the numbers?”
John: “With only the -1.10 front camber and -1.00 in back, this car can do ATT in 2:16.77 with just Stage 1 Tuning! And it still feels somewhat comfortable!”
Brett: “That’s good, we don’t want Smith wrecking his back driving this.”
John: “With Smith’s engine work, Stage 2 gets down to a 2:14.29, and with Stage 3 tuning on just the easy V8-”
Smith: “It is not ‘easy’! That V8 has over 450hp!”
John: “Ok, ok, the 450hp V8-”
Smith: “And to be precise, it’s rated at 485hp! But I assure you it may make even more!”
John: “Ok, with the Four-hundred and eighty five horse power veee eight, it does ATT in 2:11.77.”
Smith: “And I bet the optional 555hp version will chop a full second off that time, because it’s a VEEE EIGHT!” He said with excitement, as if it was the first time he had ever heard a V8 engine Growl
The 555hp variant of Smith’s LS7-based V8
Brett: "Alright, I think we got this covered, so Oliver, care to take it for a spin?
Oliver: “I already did, thank you, but I recommend you try our latest tune out on it.”
Brett: “What? Did you build a Stage 4?”
Oliver: “No, not that far, but a custom tune of the Stage 3, using Smith’s optional 555hp engine.”
Brett: With some Skeptism “All right, I’ll suit up to try it.”
[The Final Test Run]
[Brett is suited up in the car, engine idling]
Oliver: “Are you ready?”
Brett: “Are you going to tell me what you changed yet, because it feels awfully loose!”
Oliver: “No, just try not to burn through too many sets of tires.”
[And he takes off, spinning through gear 3]
John: “He’s not going to want to return that thing after this”
Oliver: “No, but hey, he does have just 3 sets of tires to burn, so he’ll have to stop eventually.”
John: “Well, at least he’s happy.”
Oliver: “As happy as a driver can be when they’re given a Drift Car!”
[A little time later}
Smith: “Oliver, we got our Windsor V8 back!”
Oliver: “We did?”
Smith: “Yeah, you should check out how much DSD was able to get out of it!”
Oliver: “Ok, get it set up on the dyno then.”
[In The Dyno Room]
Oliver: “Hmm, I don’t recall there being any direct injection casting in the block…”
Smith: “Yeah, check this out! They retrofitted the block with DI somehow, and bored and stroked it out to 333ci!”
Oliver: “Yes, I see that. You think they would be going for all out power though, with the twin turbo setup.”
Smith: “Well, do you want to run it, and see how much power they tore out of it!”
Oliver: “Sure!”
[Engine gets turned on, then they run it up to the 6 grand redline.]
Smith: Disappointed “Wow”
Oliver: “Only 300hp? There must be more to the story.”
Smith: “Only 300, what were they thinking?”
Oliver: “Hold on, did DSD send a letter with the engine?”
Smith: “Um, maybe…?”
Oliver walks back to the office to find a discarded letter from DSD
Well we did our best with the old Windsor and have decided to pay for the rights to use your design.
We have however made some changes to suit the Griffen that will be it’s new home.
So we decided to use the stock OHV cast heads and block. Luckily there was a little bit of playing room as far as bore/stroke goes so naturally we went with the highest possible at 5452cc, we also 3/4 filled the block with engine grout to give a little more strength and the main caps are now a 6 bolt affair.
We filled the block with our own forged crankshaft with Mahle Rods and Pistons with a static compression of 9.6:1.
Then turning our attention to the heads we first raised the exhaust ports cleaned up the sharp turn radius for the exhaust valve and fitted a lightweight valve. On the intake side the intake manifold was match ported to the cylinder heads, a much larger valve was installed and we added length to the intake port (we had to weld up the old ports and start from scratch. We also modified the manifold to be a dry system with no coolant running through the manifold, also unique to the DSD version is an electric water pump. The ecu is a Holley unit and spark is now provided by a MSD crank wheel trigger coil on plug ignition system.
The camshaft is an off the shelf DSD unit (part no. 28528DSDC) and No fancy VVT was used. The only way that we could make this engine reliable and economical was to use turbocharging with units as always supplied by Precision Turbo’s. The turbo’s are tiny with large A/r ratios a small intercooler and very modest boost pressure. With the use of turbo’s DSD finally decided to invest in DI technology and the mighty Windsor is the first to benefit. What this means is an engine that develops economical effortless power while only requiring 91Oct fuel and in total we raised power by 81HP and torque by a staggering 132NM of torque while using 100% less fuel total power is 300Hp/517Nm
We will be sending some units your way.
Oliver: Chuckles “Of course, the engineers at DSD know exactly what they’re doing!”
Smith comes in
Smith: “So, what does it say? Why did they return an engine with only 300hp?”
Oliver “Smith, look at how efficient they made it! It’s marvelous! They made the old Windsor architecture relevant in the day and age of fuel economy!”
Smith: “So…”
Oliver: “Just hold you thoughts, and marvel at the accomplishment.”
