Real Time Torque and Power system TQP900

The last 14 years I have made 7 different turbo configurations for the Ford Kent X-flow 1600cc engine. I have stainless steel welded 4 different manifolds and downpipes. The engine was built for max power and very high boost as it has low compression forged pistons and water injection to control the combustion. All the work to experience the limits and optimization for different purposes of the small engine.

Some work was focused on max power and other in widest torque range. Latest with the MK4 manifold for simplicity 😊. The best manifold was MK3. The first Dyno test of this car was in 1996 and since then on many Dyno tests.

For high boost engines there is a different in the power curve from Dyno to Road. See Dyno vs. Road HP and nm section.

5 years back I decided to develop an in car real time Power and Torque system to see and log real data on the strip or road.

The first was TQP 900. The idea was to measure the torque in the Cardan Yoke and wireless send the data to a fixed unit that converted to analog. The energy to the rotating unit should come from the fixed unit. On the rotating unit was 60 taps for the fixed unit to measure for every 6 deg of a cardan rotation. The data speed was 400kbps with 12 bit data. Torque was updated every 80uS with 0.1 nm resolution.

The energy was transmitted at 4MHz to the rotation unit and data send back on the 4MHz.

The TQP 900 was calibrated to full scale 718 nm (3. gear 1:1.26 represent 570nm on engine) and max 7.5000 RPM

The system was bench calibrated and verified on dyno. It was very reliable up to 6.000+ RPM. The system also has auto zero calibration.

A Dashboard Control Unit was developed to indicate Real Time Power, Torque and RPM. It can be set to hold a Peak Torque and RPM on a run in 3. or 4 gear or hold a Peak Power and RPM in a run.

Later should come an iPhone APP based on BT. Though instead I developed a more compact version TQP 800.

Data log from those systems has given me so much detailed information in the optimization of the turbo system.

The system measures the power output from the gearbox and calc back to the engine, though there is some few percent loss in the gearbox. The loss in the rear axle is measured to 8 percent. This means the engine output power might be a little higher than measured. I have calibrated for 2 percent loss in 3. gear.