Department Of Boost
Alpha Geek
- Joined
- May 26, 2010
- Posts
- 8,809
- Reaction score
- 28
Cliff notes for stkjock:
Magazines suck and are nothing but advertising.
KB sucks because they are full of crap and sell under-performing (or non-performing) items for big money.
It ticks me off.
For the rest...
This crap drives me BONKERS! There is no testing anymore. Magazines are just full of ads and articles that are advertising masquerading as tech. And on top of that they are mostly full of shit. “Don’t read them” you say. You’re right, I shouldn’t. But my subscription for this mag is not expired yet, so I flip through them. I will not be re-newing. It also makes me mad that most of the public reads this stuff as gospel and then repeats it to other people which somewhere along the line turns into “fact”. At a minimum it is disingenuous, I see it as outright lies though.
This one in particular set me off, because I know it’s bullshit. And it’s written in a way that makes it sound like there is some data there, which there is not.
Kenne Bell came out with a “upgraded” IC for the GT500’s. In this article, which is a KB suckfest where they talk about this monster 10 billion dollar Mod motor that runs on methanol and makes 1700hp (at the crank). Cool achievement, neat setup, but really this has nothing to do with everyone but this particular guy. This technology/setup doesn’t translate to the street at all and unless you print your own money it doesn’t translate to the track either. So to my main issue, the IC claims.
Right off the bat KB starts to confuse things. It offers more “flow”. Yeah, maybe you can move more air though it. But that is a non existent problem. Moving air though the IC cores that are out there is not a problem at all at 1000-1200-1400hp and probably not a problem at 1800hp. They keep on pounding the “more flow” thing, but it’s useless. It’s smoke an mirrors. What it really needs is more water flow, but of course there is nothing done to improve that.
And they also start in on “more cooling”. That’s confusing in and of itself. More cooling? How does it provide more cooling? It probably has more cooling POTENTIAL because of the increased fin count, etc. But that is “more heat transfer” to the water, not more “cooling”. The GT500’s already have IC’s that work really well at transferring heat to the water. So well that they will vaporize the water in the IC at 16-17psi without a monster pump in play. The problem is not lack of heat transfer, it’s not enough water flow to remove that heat that was transferred. So great job KB, you made a IC that transfers more heat to the water. Too bad the stock IC already vaporizes water and it’s a useless ‘feature”. Yes, at some point more heat transfer is desirable, but until the water problem is solved it’s useless. They did not address the water problem in any way shape or form. The KB IC doesn’t flow one more once of water than the factory GT500 stuff, and maybe even possibly less.
Next they talk about what cfm the different cores will flow. The KB one, the 13’ GT500 one and the 07-12’ GT500 one. They say that the 07-12’ only flows 995cfm, the 13’ flows 1109cfm and their IC flows 1232cfm. I don’t discount that those are actual flow bench numbers. But a positive displacement blower is not a flow bench. A PD blower has “positive displacement”. It will push through stuff like IC cores. If not there is no way that people could make 1000+hp on any of those cores. Again with the smoke and mirrors. Yeah sure, the KB IC probably flows more air on a flow bench, but does it flow more air under a PD blower? It may, but it isn’t much and it doesn’t really matter (proven below with their data).
They talk about them taking enough data to choke a Cray supercomputer (yeah whatever) but they don’t give us ANY of it. I wonder why that is???? Maybe because that data doesn’t show any improvements? They claim to have pre and post IC temp numbers for all IC’s tested. That would be the holy grail of IC effectiveness proof. Why don’t we get those? It’s easy, there wasn’t enough of an improvement to justify a $1000 IC “upgrade”. So they left it out.
And now comes the “big” claim. The KB IC dropped the inlet air temps 332deg with water and 372deg with ice water. AMAZING!!!!! OMG!!!!! THAT’S INCREDIBLE!!!! Oh, wait. That can’t be right??? They throw that number out there like it is amazing, and if it was an IAT drop it would be amazing, but that is not a IAT drop. If it was the IAT’s would be a couple of hundred deg below zero. That number represents how much the IC was cooling the blower discharge air. And that still may sound impressive. But how much does the factory IC cool the discharge air? Good question, they don’t say (surprise).
A quick lesson in compressing air:
Compressing air makes heat, period. More compression equals more heat. It’s physics and is as flexible as the speed of light………which means it’s not, it’s a constant. Under perfect laboratory conditions with 100% adiabatic efficiency compressing air makes 9.89deg/psi. But blowers, turbo’s, etc are not 100% adiabatic efficient. A screw blower is about 12deg/psi. And that is assuming that the blower is not being over spun. So here is the math on this.
31 psi at 12deg/psi = 372deg
Ambient air temp = 75deg
Total blower discharge temp = 447deg
That is of course assuming that the blower is 100% efficient at 31psi, and a lot of other factors (like the intake manifold and blower case being ambient, which is impossible on a running motor). So lets round that 447deg temp up to 475deg (it’s probably higher). So their 372deg drop should net them a 103deg IAT. Pretty good right? Yeah, a 100deg IAT at WOT with 31psi would be fantastic. But what would it have been with the factory IC? They don’t say. I wonder why that is? If they dropped the IAT more than a couple of deg they would be screaming it from the rooftops (I know I would).
I’ve seen IAT’s on GT500’s on the dyno making north of 25psi that were in the 80-90deg range not using ice water. It is easy to keep things cool on the dyno. The runs are short (about 4sec), there is cool down time in between them, the water doesn’t heat soak, etc. KB having a 100deg IAT is not impressive at all. Especially since the motor runs on methanol. Methanol YANKS heat out of the heads and intake manifold, which will help IAT’s a lot.
Also keep in mind that this testing was done on a dyno with an unlimited supply of cool dyno water presumably with a good pump (or even water out of “the hose”) and good size lines (they ran it with ice water too). In a car, even one with an ice chest, it is a different problem all together. I will bet dollars to doughnuts that in a real car, even one with an ice chest the KB IC doesn’t perform any better than the factory one.
Then they say it was worth 22hp. Wow! Who doesn’t want 22hp?!?!? Oh, wait a minute. This is a 1,739hp motor. 22hp is 1.2% of that. 1.2%, really? You can’t even make two runs on a dyno back to back that are within 1.2%. Let alone pull a intake manifold, swap IC’s, put it all back together and run it within 1.2%. What a crock.
And if the airflow though the core was such a big problem like they make it out to be, why did it only pick up 1.2% with their high zoot IC core? Their core flows 10% more than the 13’ GT500 core and a whopping 20% more than the 07-12’ GT500 core. Shouldn’t their core make a LOT more power if it was down to “flow”?
And one of my favorite bits:
“Using ambient water through the core, the Bigun intercooler upgrade was worth 22hp over the ’13-’14 core, so the power gains were right in line with the temperature and flow”.
Huh? What? How were the power gains in line with the temperature? We were never told what temperature improvement the KB IC had over the stock one? How can something be in line with data that we were not supplied? And how were the power gains in line with the extra flow? A 1.2% gain because of temperature and flow? Huh? If there were gains (and I stress were) how does their core that flows 10% more and has an unknown temp decrease (I suspect none) only make 1.2% more power? 10% more flow and a mystery temp decrease should net more than a 1.2% increase in power right?
In summery:
The “data” in this “test” is goblygook, or just plain flat out lies. It is marketing doublespeak. KB is at fault for plowing this drivel out, and the magazine is even more at fault for printing it verbatim. There is nothing approaching “journalism” here. People spend good money on this stuff expecting results, and they won’t get any. Snake Oil Salesman is a term that comes to mind. Bullshit is another. It’s one thing for companies to sell those little swirl things that go in the intake tube for $10 that are supposed to increase power. Only the idiots think they work. And they are only $10. This is a completely different matter. A big company like KB is effectively selling the same thing as those swirl things, but under the guise of real testing and real results, for BIG money. $1000 is big money!
This trend of “fuzzy marketing” has been getting me worse. Don’t even get me started on the HAI (hot air intakes) that are being sold to S550 guys under the guise of a performance improvement. When in reality they hurt performance. If I had hair to tear out, I would.
I may be wrong about all of this (the data) and just seeing red. If so, someone please correct me.
Rant over
Magazines suck and are nothing but advertising.
KB sucks because they are full of crap and sell under-performing (or non-performing) items for big money.
It ticks me off.
For the rest...
This crap drives me BONKERS! There is no testing anymore. Magazines are just full of ads and articles that are advertising masquerading as tech. And on top of that they are mostly full of shit. “Don’t read them” you say. You’re right, I shouldn’t. But my subscription for this mag is not expired yet, so I flip through them. I will not be re-newing. It also makes me mad that most of the public reads this stuff as gospel and then repeats it to other people which somewhere along the line turns into “fact”. At a minimum it is disingenuous, I see it as outright lies though.
This one in particular set me off, because I know it’s bullshit. And it’s written in a way that makes it sound like there is some data there, which there is not.
Kenne Bell came out with a “upgraded” IC for the GT500’s. In this article, which is a KB suckfest where they talk about this monster 10 billion dollar Mod motor that runs on methanol and makes 1700hp (at the crank). Cool achievement, neat setup, but really this has nothing to do with everyone but this particular guy. This technology/setup doesn’t translate to the street at all and unless you print your own money it doesn’t translate to the track either. So to my main issue, the IC claims.
Right off the bat KB starts to confuse things. It offers more “flow”. Yeah, maybe you can move more air though it. But that is a non existent problem. Moving air though the IC cores that are out there is not a problem at all at 1000-1200-1400hp and probably not a problem at 1800hp. They keep on pounding the “more flow” thing, but it’s useless. It’s smoke an mirrors. What it really needs is more water flow, but of course there is nothing done to improve that.
And they also start in on “more cooling”. That’s confusing in and of itself. More cooling? How does it provide more cooling? It probably has more cooling POTENTIAL because of the increased fin count, etc. But that is “more heat transfer” to the water, not more “cooling”. The GT500’s already have IC’s that work really well at transferring heat to the water. So well that they will vaporize the water in the IC at 16-17psi without a monster pump in play. The problem is not lack of heat transfer, it’s not enough water flow to remove that heat that was transferred. So great job KB, you made a IC that transfers more heat to the water. Too bad the stock IC already vaporizes water and it’s a useless ‘feature”. Yes, at some point more heat transfer is desirable, but until the water problem is solved it’s useless. They did not address the water problem in any way shape or form. The KB IC doesn’t flow one more once of water than the factory GT500 stuff, and maybe even possibly less.
Next they talk about what cfm the different cores will flow. The KB one, the 13’ GT500 one and the 07-12’ GT500 one. They say that the 07-12’ only flows 995cfm, the 13’ flows 1109cfm and their IC flows 1232cfm. I don’t discount that those are actual flow bench numbers. But a positive displacement blower is not a flow bench. A PD blower has “positive displacement”. It will push through stuff like IC cores. If not there is no way that people could make 1000+hp on any of those cores. Again with the smoke and mirrors. Yeah sure, the KB IC probably flows more air on a flow bench, but does it flow more air under a PD blower? It may, but it isn’t much and it doesn’t really matter (proven below with their data).
They talk about them taking enough data to choke a Cray supercomputer (yeah whatever) but they don’t give us ANY of it. I wonder why that is???? Maybe because that data doesn’t show any improvements? They claim to have pre and post IC temp numbers for all IC’s tested. That would be the holy grail of IC effectiveness proof. Why don’t we get those? It’s easy, there wasn’t enough of an improvement to justify a $1000 IC “upgrade”. So they left it out.
And now comes the “big” claim. The KB IC dropped the inlet air temps 332deg with water and 372deg with ice water. AMAZING!!!!! OMG!!!!! THAT’S INCREDIBLE!!!! Oh, wait. That can’t be right??? They throw that number out there like it is amazing, and if it was an IAT drop it would be amazing, but that is not a IAT drop. If it was the IAT’s would be a couple of hundred deg below zero. That number represents how much the IC was cooling the blower discharge air. And that still may sound impressive. But how much does the factory IC cool the discharge air? Good question, they don’t say (surprise).
A quick lesson in compressing air:
Compressing air makes heat, period. More compression equals more heat. It’s physics and is as flexible as the speed of light………which means it’s not, it’s a constant. Under perfect laboratory conditions with 100% adiabatic efficiency compressing air makes 9.89deg/psi. But blowers, turbo’s, etc are not 100% adiabatic efficient. A screw blower is about 12deg/psi. And that is assuming that the blower is not being over spun. So here is the math on this.
31 psi at 12deg/psi = 372deg
Ambient air temp = 75deg
Total blower discharge temp = 447deg
That is of course assuming that the blower is 100% efficient at 31psi, and a lot of other factors (like the intake manifold and blower case being ambient, which is impossible on a running motor). So lets round that 447deg temp up to 475deg (it’s probably higher). So their 372deg drop should net them a 103deg IAT. Pretty good right? Yeah, a 100deg IAT at WOT with 31psi would be fantastic. But what would it have been with the factory IC? They don’t say. I wonder why that is? If they dropped the IAT more than a couple of deg they would be screaming it from the rooftops (I know I would).
I’ve seen IAT’s on GT500’s on the dyno making north of 25psi that were in the 80-90deg range not using ice water. It is easy to keep things cool on the dyno. The runs are short (about 4sec), there is cool down time in between them, the water doesn’t heat soak, etc. KB having a 100deg IAT is not impressive at all. Especially since the motor runs on methanol. Methanol YANKS heat out of the heads and intake manifold, which will help IAT’s a lot.
Also keep in mind that this testing was done on a dyno with an unlimited supply of cool dyno water presumably with a good pump (or even water out of “the hose”) and good size lines (they ran it with ice water too). In a car, even one with an ice chest, it is a different problem all together. I will bet dollars to doughnuts that in a real car, even one with an ice chest the KB IC doesn’t perform any better than the factory one.
Then they say it was worth 22hp. Wow! Who doesn’t want 22hp?!?!? Oh, wait a minute. This is a 1,739hp motor. 22hp is 1.2% of that. 1.2%, really? You can’t even make two runs on a dyno back to back that are within 1.2%. Let alone pull a intake manifold, swap IC’s, put it all back together and run it within 1.2%. What a crock.
And if the airflow though the core was such a big problem like they make it out to be, why did it only pick up 1.2% with their high zoot IC core? Their core flows 10% more than the 13’ GT500 core and a whopping 20% more than the 07-12’ GT500 core. Shouldn’t their core make a LOT more power if it was down to “flow”?
And one of my favorite bits:
“Using ambient water through the core, the Bigun intercooler upgrade was worth 22hp over the ’13-’14 core, so the power gains were right in line with the temperature and flow”.
Huh? What? How were the power gains in line with the temperature? We were never told what temperature improvement the KB IC had over the stock one? How can something be in line with data that we were not supplied? And how were the power gains in line with the extra flow? A 1.2% gain because of temperature and flow? Huh? If there were gains (and I stress were) how does their core that flows 10% more and has an unknown temp decrease (I suspect none) only make 1.2% more power? 10% more flow and a mystery temp decrease should net more than a 1.2% increase in power right?
In summery:
The “data” in this “test” is goblygook, or just plain flat out lies. It is marketing doublespeak. KB is at fault for plowing this drivel out, and the magazine is even more at fault for printing it verbatim. There is nothing approaching “journalism” here. People spend good money on this stuff expecting results, and they won’t get any. Snake Oil Salesman is a term that comes to mind. Bullshit is another. It’s one thing for companies to sell those little swirl things that go in the intake tube for $10 that are supposed to increase power. Only the idiots think they work. And they are only $10. This is a completely different matter. A big company like KB is effectively selling the same thing as those swirl things, but under the guise of real testing and real results, for BIG money. $1000 is big money!
This trend of “fuzzy marketing” has been getting me worse. Don’t even get me started on the HAI (hot air intakes) that are being sold to S550 guys under the guise of a performance improvement. When in reality they hurt performance. If I had hair to tear out, I would.
I may be wrong about all of this (the data) and just seeing red. If so, someone please correct me.
Rant over
Last edited:
