JPC whipple inlet results and comments.

[lito]

We installed one of these MONSTER inlets from JPC last week. There is a customer shop that ordered another that will install soon and we are going to tune, will update results of that too on a later date.

Car background:

-'07 Premium GT TR6060 3.73
-L&M engines built 298 stroker longblock. 9:1 CR.
-L&M engines custom cams, timed. (hot cam, only 9inHg of vac)
-Livernois stage 3 heads
-Whipple 2.3 with steeda drive, second to last biggest balancer pulley.
(why? with the biggest pulley it will make a 18psi peak @ 3700 and then drop to the exact same boost level as the smaller balancer pulley, car felt to weird as it pulled hard @3500-4000 and then flattened, with this pulley we made the same power and more proper power/torque curve)
-American Racing 1 3/4" headers and X modded for a complete 3", Magnaflow 3" catback.
-Fore hat, return, 60's EV6 flow matched injectors.
-95oct RON pump gas (equivalent to 91 (M+R)/2)

Car was originally tuned with a FRPP 3V TB, for this test we went back to the stock TB first to set up a baseline.

Our weather is quite stable so past results are usually very comparable along the whole year.

Old dyno with the FRPP 3V TB is with car on Borla system 1 5/8 and 2.5".

Dyno location, 3000ft high, SAE correction used.

Peak power with .75 lambda and around 20-22* and 122-124F IAT. Weather data: around 85F, 26.9inHg and 50-69% humidity.

Pictures of the car:

Results:

Compared to the stock TB we only gained about 1psi, 1.2 psi tops, declining on the upper side of the curve.

We expected a better curve on the upper part if the SC was actually running out of air. We talked about this with Dustin@whipple long time ago and we had high hopes on that by having a bigger inlet things would get better. Results do not match our hopes.

IATs did not varied too as a 2 degree variation can be completely discarded because it is the minimal resolution of it. If we see we are getting let's say 1psi more at the same final IAT there is an small gain made.

Attached are the PDF's of the dyno data, there are 4 files, 2 boost curves and 2 HPTQ curves, the files that say FRPP compare a stock inlet with a FRPP 3V TB with the JPC system (take into account that car had different headers back then) and the others a stock TB/inlet with the JPC system. Final 72LM run has about 1 degree and change more timing in it.

The bad:

The inlet piece is poorly designed, sorry but is what it is, at least the one that I received, I assume the other that came to the country will be the same, will see. Here are the issues:

1.- sealing of the inlet to the supercharger body is not flat, should have an o-ring as the original inlet. Using RTV complicates this a lot, specially when the middle threads are not used. Also holes does align properly, had to rework two of them so to they could align.

2. - threads of the throttle body are wider than the throttle body holes. 8mm thread against a 6mm stud that is needed for the TB. Why not thread the inlet with the proper thread for the TB screw in the first place????

3.- throttle body area is too close to the supercharger (having lots of space) and we had to trim the supercharger so the tps connector would fit, a lot. Even left the red locking clip out so to not have to grind the SC casing anymore.

4.- inlet vaccum ports are too close in between, having space to use a bigger plate, stock pcv or evap connectors can´t be used together as they won't fit. We finally switched to breathers and ditched the catch can because of this, we plugged one of the connections.

5.- inlet did not had the internal curved plates to round the corners (I can't say if this would or not help at all) just noting for comparison.

Looks like the final piece was not R&D properly or these faults would have been solved before. As provided, the piece could not be installed in the SC and TB to the inlet even less. I understand and we are used on final customization of "custom" parts but improper sizing, spacing and threading do not fall into that category for us.

Open to questions and observations.

 

[outofcontrolreb]

Pretty Cool looking. But definitely needs some work in my opinion if it need all that just to get it to work.

 

[rayS197]

Nice info. Whats your thoughts on the Steeda kit?

 

[white_lightning]

Just to confirm im understanding the graphs correcty.


Baseline was 590hp and 575tq
Add JPC inlet = 641hp and 607tq
Adding FRPP TB to JPC Inlet = 667hp and 610tq

Thanks.

 

[BruceH]

That's a blistering review. Hopefully the manufacturer is listening because you just did the r&d for them. The part about not locating the tb inlet far enough out is especially troublesome as it shows there wasn't even a proper mockup done. If a mockup wasn't done then it wasn't even tested on a vehicle.

 

[Cobra SS]

have you tried contacting JPC? mine works great and made some very nice power gains

 

[psfracer]

667 rwhp 610 rwtq is not too bad when you consider it was only at 15 psi.

On my 2.3 whipple with the ST intake I was only at 604 rwhp @ 18 psi, but I also had stock heads, stock cams, and 281 cid, not 298.

What was the hp difference from the stock setup to this one? I gained huge numbers when I went from a stock throttle body to a blackdiamond mono blade throttle body and CAI. With the stock throttle body (on my car) once you were over 13 psi, it really didn't matter how fast you spun the blower, there was really no power difference. But, with the larger throttle body the 2.3 blower really responded till 18 psi, where (if I remember the math right) that was about the maximum blower speed you would want with the 2.3

This was my setup back in 2008:

 

[lito]

Nice info. Whats your thoughts on the Steeda kit?

We have about half a dozen customers with them, kits work perfect, our only belt issue was related to one rubbing a saleen hood, a small trim did the job.

Just to confirm im understanding the graphs correcty.


Baseline was 590hp and 575tq
Add JPC inlet = 641hp and 607tq
Adding FRPP TB to JPC Inlet = 667hp and 610tq

Thanks.

Baseline is with stock TB.
641 is with FRPP 3V TB on stock whipple inlet and 1 5/8 borla LTs we did some time ago.
FRPP 3V TB won't bolt on JPC inlet without mod as spacing is different.

That's a blistering review. Hopefully the manufacturer is listening because you just did the r&d for them. The part about not locating the tb inlet far enough out is especially troublesome as it shows there wasn't even a proper mockup done. If a mockup wasn't done then it wasn't even tested on a vehicle.

It looks like it was never actually tested on the car, maybe they did a prototype on it and after they got their first final part they did not even tested it anywhere.

have you tried contacting JPC? mine works great and made some very nice power gains

No, part is installed and delivered on the customer car, I am over 2000miles away and returns, exchanges and whatever are not possible for me. Too late to make it right, we did it ourselves. I am getting used on getting screwed by being so far away even when I always explain my situation to sellers and ask to inspect everything twice.

667 rwhp 610 rwtq is not too bad when you consider it was only at 15 psi.

On my 2.3 whipple with the ST intake I was only at 604 rwhp @ 18 psi, but I also had stock heads, stock cams, and 281 cid, not 298.

What was the hp difference from the stock setup to this one? I gained huge numbers when I went from a stock throttle body to a blackdiamond mono blade throttle body and CAI. With the stock throttle body (on my car) once you were over 13 psi, it really didn't matter how fast you spun the blower, there was really no power difference. But, with the larger throttle body the 2.3 blower really responded till 18 psi, where (if I remember the math right) that was about the maximum blower speed you would want with the 2.3

This was my setup back in 2008:

We are still not maxing the blower rpm wise as we still have a bigger balancer pulley for the steeda kit at hand that IIRC would put it around the 18000 limit or a little over it @6500.

We tested the car with the bigger balancer pulley and had a boost curve we dislike even more as it peaked about the 18psi and then dropped to the exact same levels as we see with the current smaller balancer pulley, car felt strange as this produced a huge torque peak and it will slide aftwerwards, a smaller pulley worked and felt better.

We expected to have a flatter curve as we switched to the bigger inlet as Dustin@whipple told me once. This was not the case. I have a feeling that maybe a better designed inlet would had help more, some fluid dynamics expert would tell if this is pure BS but I tend to think that the square corners do not help at all, Adam's one had at least a chamfered one.

Gains are a lot less than expected, results of JPC/LM and stock/FRPP TB are too close to make this swap actually worthy. At least that is what it looks like for us.

I have one more car coming with this intake, will add those results to this discussion too once it happens.

I would love that whipple would sell the 2.9L for the 3V cars.

 

[lito]

I received a PM from eric@JPC to resolve the issues, is too late for us as part has been modded to make it work and car delivered, will contact the owner of the other inlet to see what they want to do.

 

[Justin@JPC]

Hi Guys.

We have had a few issues with the evolution of the Whipple inlets, but they have since been rectified. We originally fabricated our first batch of inlets in house and have since turned to Moroso to mass produce them for us, but in doing so had some issues/growing pains with the design, due to the fact that we are having these made remotely.

We have found that the TB mounting location was shifted ever so slightly towards the supercharger which has caused the issue Lito is describing, also, for some reason, there were 3 units produced with 8mm TB holes instead of 6mm like factory, which also contributes to the issue Lito is having. On our initial re-run of the mass produced inlets we did not have this issue, so when a new order of three inlets came in we did not realize this, one of which Lito received. The tps connector on our in house design was close, but not hitting. We have also noticed that there is a slight variance in the machining process from different manufactures Throttle Bodies that can affect this clearance. When the new inlets arrived this clearance was not checked, we are human and it could not be seen by the naked eye. We had a back log of inlet orders and customers patiently waiting, so we were in a hurry to get these out the door, and assumed the product was identical to our initial design. Ultimately, It's no excuse; we should have checked them and has been resolved on our current inlet.

The vacuum accessory ports we also realized, for some reason, were made to close in proximity to each other, which is unnecessary, and this has since been resolved and re-designed. You "can" get the fittings in, but I agree they are way to close for comfort. Our current run of inlets incorporates a new side plate with more room.

As far as the blower to inlet mating surface not being flat, we have checked the few that we have here with a straight edge and they are flat. I have attached some pics, so I'm not sure why the surface on yours was not flat. We also now include a gasket to go between the blower and inlet. An O-ring groove would be ideal, but not in the cards at this point, for numerous reasons. We still recommend a small amount of sealer on either side of the gasket just to prevent any possible leaks.

We have to remember, these inlets are fabricated from thin sheet aluminum, and so a lot of heat during the welding process occurs. They are bolted to a jig when being welded to reduce the amount of distortion that is normally associated with Tig welding. They are not CNC machined form a hunk of billet aluminum, which can maintain tighter tolerances. We try our best to guarantee that the surfaces are perfectly flat.

We did some in house testing with sheet metal deflectors inside the inlet to smooth out the corners and did not notice any increase in hp or boost. It adds more work/cost to the inlets and reduces the overall plenum area, which is what we are trying to accomplish with the fabricated inlet.

When doing product testing we strive to do same day testing with no other changes, to attempt to quantify hp/tq/psi gains. I know sometimes due to the installation time or parts availability, that this is not always practical. Every car or combo can expect different results based off their specific combination, but it sounds like the car that was used for testing had a couple things changed at one time and testing done on different days, so it would be hard to justify gains/losses, which Lito acknowledged. We have noticed boost drop when changing to a larger diameter header/exhaust and I’m sure this applies to the vehicle used in this test.

This inlet package is for the person who has essentially reached the limitations of his/her combo using the 2.3L. After you have purchased every bolt on out there and have the supercharger pullied to the max, that’s when the inlet should provide the best results. Anytime we have opened up the inlet area of a screw/positive displacement type supercharger, we have seen an increase. Whether it is just a TB, or larger mass air housing, or a larger inlet pipe, we have always seen a gain, as there is less restriction and there is more area for the supercharger to draw air in.

In closing, our phones and e-mail are always open and we prefer if a customer has any issues with the design/installation of our products, to please contact us directly to give us a chance to rectify them. We do have a new inlet with the new changes incorporated that we can/will send you to resolve this. We always stand behind our products and services, and this instance is no different. I apologize that these were released with any flaws; we have and will take care of them/you.

Thanks, JB

 

[Cobra SS]

That's a blistering review. Hopefully the manufacturer is listening because you just did the r&d for them. The part about not locating the tb inlet far enough out is especially troublesome as it shows there wasn't even a proper mockup done. If a mockup wasn't done then it wasn't even tested on a vehicle.

mock was up made, tested and running great
http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53603

 

[BruceH]

mock was up made, tested and running great
http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53603

Justin pretty much explained it. Did the r&d then subbed the work out and didn't check parts prior to selling them.

It happens.

 

[Back@itagain]

We have about half a dozen customers with them, kits work perfect, our only belt issue was related to one rubbing a saleen hood, a small trim did the job.

If I can add my $.02. I am not thrilled with the kit. If you look at the walls of the machined groves on the pulley you will see they are not flat. This could reduce contact surface negating or diminishing the whole "10 rib" claim. The kit also comes with the Steeda under drive pulley which bolts to the lower blower pulley which inturn reduces the speed of your water pump on an application intended to increase horse power and be driven on the street. Unfortunately you cant just put a V10 water pump pulley on it because there is not enough clearance between one of the support brackets that holds the mounting plate in place and the water pump pulley.

 

[Fullboogie]

Excellent review and good response from the vendor. I have no dog in this fight, but I like to see this kind of communication.

 

[white05gt]

JPC's customer service is hard to beat, very impressed with my experiences with them.

 

[maniax racing]

let me start by saying its few and far between that anything aftermarket new and fresh seems to need some tweaking more often than not. I see Justin has made every effort to make this right. what I dont understand is your generic comment about you use to being screwed over, I know for a fact that is not Justin's style or MO.............. I have dealt with him for a LONG time and he by far goes above and beyond for his customers. I understand the inlet has some issues but also know that a LARGE well known manufactuer produces this and has made the proper adjustments. Pick a phone up, call him he will be happy to help. It alswo seems that you made other changes than just bolting on the larger inlet............

 

[lito]

let me start by saying its few and far between that anything aftermarket new and fresh seems to need some tweaking more often than not. I see Justin has made every effort to make this right. what I dont understand is your generic comment about you use to being screwed over, I know for a fact that is not Justin's style or MO.............. I have dealt with him for a LONG time and he by far goes above and beyond for his customers. I understand the inlet has some issues but also know that a LARGE well known manufactuer produces this and has made the proper adjustments. Pick a phone up, call him he will be happy to help. It alswo seems that you made other changes than just bolting on the larger inlet............

First, this was not a complain thread, is just a review of the mod, what we've got and how it worked, I am trying to make it as tech as possible and making comparisons with the tools I have. The part we got was poorly executed, not in one point but in many. We had the supercharger off and the tools to mod it and finalize the install and did it.

Second, as it has somehow became a complain thread, I am glad that Justin know the issues now and is working on them, this will help other customers but me. For me, its too late, four weeks passed between being ordered and shipped. Special consideration was asked because we were overseas on checking everything "was complete and right" in two different emails, we can't ship stuff back, there was only one time to make things right and this one failed.

I have no beef against Justin, Tommy or JPC, I was really mad the day I was installing this specially because this is no cheap stuff and it sucks to receive something this bad (and this is no "tweaking stuff", this part as I received it was never bolted and would never bolt into an SC or the TB to it), but that is it.

If the things go wrong I am the one having to give face to my customer so I got it done. Justin is making it right for others, case closed.

Screwed? many more times than I wished for, wrong parts shipped, not properly packed, defective stuff. And at the end I had to suck it because I am were I am.

 

[Justin@JPC]

Hi Lito, totally understand your frustration, keep in mind we are a speed/install shop 1st and parts manufacture second, so I truly understand how aggravating it is to receive a "bolt on" part and then have to spend hrs modifying it to make it fit. It happens on a DAILY basis at our shop, as we have 30 jobs in progress on any given day. We come up with an idea for a part that seems to be in demand, fabricate it, and then turn to the bigger manufactures to produce it for us. In this process, sometimes things get skewed.

Like I mentioned, our initial run was fine so there was no thought to triple check the inlets that went out as we trusted that they were correct, as were our previous inlets that we installed in house, human error. You mentioned it was 4 weeks between ordering and receiving and we were anxious to get the parts out the door to your customer. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to provide customers with parts as soon as possible, and this time we sacrificed quality. A few weeks ago we had a header box with 2 lefts in it that got shipped to a customer as well, it wasn't packaged in house, but we still had to take care of it, and unfortunately it reflects on JPC, not the company who packaged it. People make mistakes, we try to limit them the best we can.

What we do after the mistakes is how you judge a company. The bottom line is, it cost you extra time, more than anticipated to modify the inlet to make it fit. You commented that, it's done and gone and cannot be made right. If you or your customer had contacted me via e-mail or phone and said "look man this thing fit like shit and here are the issues, we had to spend extra time$ to make it fit" I could have helped to rectify it somehow, someway, and even sent you some free parts to compensate you for your time. Instead, I read about it on the internet. Not how I would have handled it, but that's me. I understand it a “product review” but damn…J

If I made a post about every product we install that we had to grind on, weld on, drill out, cut, then BELIEVE me, the general public wouldn't buy anything aftermarket.

For instance, recently we had a set of BBK long tube headers and matching BBK h-pipe on a 91 fox body that the h-pipe wouldn't bolt to the headers, the spacing was off and we spend hrs to cut modify the h-pipe/exhaust to even bolt it up. The headers ran into a few things as well. I was like, "seriously, a car that has been around for 20 yrs, completely stock, and these parts won't bolt up?" I couldn't charge the customer the extra labor, as we sold him the parts and made a measly $40, so I had to eat it. I'm right there with you man....

We expected to have a flatter curve as we switched to the bigger inlet as Dustin@whipple told me once. This was not the case. I have a feeling that maybe a better designed inlet would had help more, some fluid dynamics expert would tell if this is pure BS but I tend to think that the square corners do not help at all, Adam's one had at least a chamfered one.

Gains are a lot less than expected; results of JPC/LM and stock/FRPP TB are too close to make this swap actually worthy. At least that is what it looks like for us.

I know what you were looking for, its the same thing we expected as we did this project, a boost curve that starts at 18 and finishes at 18psi, but we have seen the same thing you have, the boost always drops off as rpms increases. You would think you would see some boost increase up top because of the added airflow, but we have noticed the same. I attribute this to possibly “minor” belt slip, as well as engine efficiency up top, as the engine moves more air, the boost decreases. To me, it means your engine is moving air and not backing it up in the inlet track. Regardless the engine will gain hp, because of the added airflow, which it seems your test car did.

Another thing we have seen is the inlet kit REALLY helps in the higher rpm range as that is where it seems to shine. I noticed on your dyno graphs that the engine had not peaked yet and the pull was stopped at 7000 rpms? Any particular reason why? I noticed the engine was fully built and had stage 3 heads, radical large duration camshafts, 1 ¾ headers and 3” exhaust. To me, that screams turn high rpms, so why not turn the rpm? That is where the stock inlet/pipe really creates a restriction and large gains can be had from our package.

I am still open to make things right and I apologize that you had a bad experience with one of our products. We will make it right somehow for you and your customer.

Thanks, JB

 

[maniax racing]

i understand your frustration. Not looking to argue with you, as an outsider it came across as a harsh direct slam to JPC. Like I stated call him and communicate. I am beyond confident he would make you and your customer happy.

 

[lito]

Thanks Justin, sincerely I just copy pasted what I already wrote on the notebook I keep on the shop table. Sorry it came harsh but just were my observations of the moment.

We chose not to spun it higher than 7000 as we do not trust this 3V valve train much over 7k and there is way too much money into this engine (apart from base cost, putting a whole longblock here cost a fortune) so we want to keep everything as safe as possible.

Talked with the other shop that has the other inlet uninstalled still and they will communicate with you about it any day now.