My Apten Experience

[p3pete]

Well, I finally achieved my goal of a 500/500 car. I will have to wait until the spring when our track reopens to see if I can achieve my other goal: an 11 second timeslip.

Anyway, to the point of my post…. I know it has been a hot topic with quite a bit of varying opinions, but I thought I’d share my experience…

Two friends (also board members here) and I drove up from Memphis to St. Louis Thursday night. Friday morning bright and early we showed up at Apten performance to get the ported blower, pulleys installed and flash tune on the dyno.

My previous dyno about two months ago was at Hypertech here in Memphis. It yielded 416rwhp 389rwtqe SAE. Performance mods at the time included: Bassani mid-lengths, cat’ed X, catback, Steeda CAI, NGK [email protected]. Stock pulley and QUD2 program.

Matched up pretty well with the baseline run at Apten: 414rwhp 392rwtqe SAE. Same mods. Add the ported blower, 2.76 pulley and Brian’s flash tune and we walked out of there with 504rwhp and 501rwtqe SAE. (We did regap the plugs to .035)

Comments on the customer experience: Brian and the rest of the Apten gang treated us very well. Happily answered my questions and made sure I was getting what I came for. Totally professional shop from start to finish. Simply could not have been a better experience.

Here’s the before/after dyno and the dyno with AFR.

 

[03DOHC]

That's awesome dude. :thumbsup:

 

[SNCBOOM]

dang that's an awesome gain :rockon:

 

[Juiced-03]

Enough of these damn Apten posts ok!!! Geeez I can almost taste the 500rwhp LOL!!

 

[SVTdubs]

why did you regap the plugs? to prevent spark blow out?

also, why does the a/f go up after 6000 to over 12.0? sorry for the ?'s just trying to learn because I have the same set up except my plugs are at .040

 

[ntechnic]

Awesome, I'm getting one myself real soon! Your dyno looks like pulley slip there up at 5,700. Do you have extra idlers?

 

[jlsnsw]

Awesome numbers.
You should definately be in the 11's.
Congrats!!!!!

 

[grnenvy]

Nice

 

[kpinco]

Aswesome results!! We should have our numbers Friday!

 

[broke7]

Nice #'s I am yanking mine t-morow and sending it in here soon. Glad to hear they did you good.

Still on the hunt for the first 500 SAE car on stock exhaust manifolds. If this apten does what I think it will, hopefully I will make 500.

 

[kpinco]

broke7: That's what I'm hoping for!!

 

[sambandit]

Man, those are great results! KB like flat torque curve! All this good news, my dyno will be anti-climatic when I get it done!

 

[trey193]

Congrats on breaking 500/500 easily!!!:beer: Nice Combo!:thumbsup:

 

[p3pete]

dubs and ntechnic - great eye for detail!

We regapped the plugs to prevent blow-out. I'm told anywhere from .033 to .038 should be about right for 14-15lbs of boost which is where we expected to be (gotta get an aftermarket gauge). I was running .040 at stock boost.

The AFR comes up a little at the end because the MAF is pegged at 5.0 volts. Brian added some fuel from the top to tone that spike down a bit - should be completely safe,

Interesting story about the idlers. Yes, we did have belt slip up top. I bought all the idlers I needed, but like a dumba$$ I left the bracket to attach the auxillary idler at home in Memphis. So, we had to run around and find a shorter belt and hope for the best (thanks Brian). Didn't affect the tune (or the numbers too badly). As soon as we got home we put the extra idler on there...

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I'm like a kid in a candy store. Just can't wait for the track to open back up....
Cheers,
Pete
:beer:

 

[trey193]

SO what belt did you end up using for the pulls??

 

[p3pete]

Gates 740 - which I'm told (though I didn't measure) is really 74 5/8's. It put the tensioner near the top of travel so it was pretty tight. We also slathered that sucker with belt dressing....

When we got home and put the idler on, I threw the stock belt on and the tensioner is dead in the middle of travel...

 

[hwystr]

So what was the out the door cost for porting, pulley, tune ? Did they port your own blower or swap? I'm considering the same roadtrip in the spring.

 

[amwalker]

broke 7 on an aptenized car...holy crap

 

[APTEN]

We had a great time meeting you guys, and I'm glad to see you are happy with the results!

The SAE power was 504RWHP, but actual that day was 520RWHP/518RWTQ. If you look at the top of the curve with the belt slip there may be another 5+ HP to be had with idlers

The porting is $549, the dyno tune w/EEC Flash is $350. The install fee is negotiable depending on how much help the owner(s) give!

Brian

 

[DPS]

It' just a matter of time for me Brian. I will bring my old cloths and help all that I can when the time comes. Just need to save a few more pennies. We just got our first snow here in Indy so it will be a little while before I get it out of the garage. Nice numbers p3petem, Congrats. I would like to try mine with a 3.00 pully. What do you think Brian?

:beer: