Lingenfelter Pulley upgrade LSA from 555hp to 630hp

[tjklein]

Depends on the prop for the 23. GPS mine has been as fast as 49, but with the prop I have now I can 46mph. 1589 compared to 2277 Acme.

Ryan's advice on gas is right on for the 555, but I will say my fuel per hour rate has always been better than he's stated for his. Not sure if it's the boats or what that's making such a difference. His advice on efficiency is dead on though.

Edited January 4, 2015 by tjklein

[Brian Young]

lingenfelter said somewhere on their website different injectors should be used with heavy use such as Marine use.....how easy is it to tune one of these after a pulley upgrade? The goal is to lower the RPMs of the motor with the pulley upgrade.

Over driving the SC will push more air into the engine. The more air, the more fuel is needed to keep the mixture correct in the combustion chamber. This is why they offer the new injectors.

I think the mod would be awesome, and you should absolutely do it......However, saving fuel is not likely, and even less likely to save money factoring in the mod cost. Also, engine mods would likely cost you money on resale.

[nyryan2001]

Hulk- I would tell you to get a full season with the 555 under your belt and I'd bet any of these concerns would go away. Between the utter satisfaction with the 555 power, the realization of the fortune you just dropped in it and loss of warranty, the flawless operation.... I'd wager you won't want to mess with your 555. You've got a rocket.

[Wayne]

lingenfelter said somewhere on their website different injectors should be used with heavy use such as Marine use.....how easy is it to tune one of these after a pulley upgrade? The goal is to lower the RPMs of the motor with the pulley upgrade.

If you have the production marine calibration and software, you would have to change the injector curves, possibly the transfer fuel (like an accelerator pump on a carburator). The issue with the higher boost is if the existing MAP sensor (or MAF, if equipped) can deal with the higher airflow/pressure. Then you may have to modify the load tables for the electronic throttle and make sure the engine torque model calculation is correct so it's delivering the correct fuel for a given load (the O2 sensors are really just for fine tuning on the fly, all the base maps need to be correct for it to be a safe calibration).

If any sensor or actuator (MAP, injectors, fuel pump, etc) need to be changed this adds to the calibration effort.

A question I would ask the calibrator you know, does he have access to the marine specific calibration for that engine? This could make a brake his ability to give you a calibration that is as robust as the original.

[The Hulk]

your right on with the more fuel...as that might be the norm with more hp. The thought however is the potential to shave off another 200-500 rmps. i'm not sure if thats possible or not only testing would tell. Based on the 555-630hp and roughly same with the torque thats abot a 12-15% gain on HP/TQ (lets assume 15%) the question is, "IF" rpms could be reduced by roughly 10-15% that might allow you to get up on plane with a more heavy loaded boat and keep under the 4k rpm threshold where nyryan mentioned the engine starts to really suck the juice. Since "lots of us" actually do fall when surfing and stop-go-stop-go surf sessions are the "norm" for the most of us it might be worth while. so while i highly doubt fuel savings from running at constant speed there "may" be savings when throttling up and getting the boat out of the water... however that actually averages out who the heck knows... i wouldn't be doing it to save gas....just for fun....

the main deal is to find out if the ECU can be programmed as mentioned above it probably would have to be calibrated with the boat on the water: not sure how many techs who can do it on a moving boat vs in a garage like a car on a dyno.

i looked through the pulley upgrade instructions: seems pretty basic and straight forward, obviously i would pay to have a real mechanic do it. but the ECU calibrator is like $650 in itself and again you would need to know what your doing. anyhow i'll hope to hear back tomorrow from lingenfelter.

who knows if the surf industry keeps up maybe they will start putting super diesel engines in these boats?

[The Hulk]

yea i'll probably take the advise and get a season out of it before messing around. Just tempting.... I know many probably think i'm crazy but in some respects...I am....

.I need to move the boat into a storage facility because it sits at work and i have to look at it all day long every day all winter...so i find myself looking to "play" with the boat.. since the lakes are ice..... currently having a custom towel tray built out of 1/8" aluminum since the standard one doesnt fit with the LSA engine....i'll post pics when the shop finishes.

after Wayne's insight the calibration may be the killer...

for the car side of the world most people said with this upgrade its a most spark-plugs + fule calibration.....however if you go up from 630hp kit to 650hp kit or 700+hp kits they get crazy expensive and require a lot more calibration. the reason the pulley upgrade has been extremely popular is according to some based on price and simplicity to do. but again the marine calibration would be far different for sure.

anyhow i'll discuss with them and post what their response is so at least we all know.

[nyryan2001]

What prop do you have on there now?

Edited January 4, 2015 by nyryan2001

[shawndoggy]

Hulk I love your enthusiasm! But if you want a 60 mph boat you'd be better off saving the money on the engine upgrade and find yourself a cheap used Baja or other go-fast boat. Wakeboats are tractors not race cars and try as you might there will always be faster, less expensive boats out there. Why throw your warranty away to be the one guy on the water with an experimental boat? As anyone who has had a boat break on the water can tell you, reliability is worth way more than an extra 5 mph on the top end. Nothing is worse than losing a day on the water because your boat craps out.

[Wayne]

Hulk, something else to remember is there is no free lunch. If you have to move 7000 pounds it's going to take the same amount of energy to do the work no matter how it's done (remember that thing called physics). Even though you are lowering the RPM the load (boat mass and water resistance) will be the same for a given activity (like surfing at 11-12 MPH). It's going to take the same amount of power regardless of how it's done.

To produce more power at a lower RPM you have to burn more fuel/air. Cranking up the boost will give you more power at a lower RPM but the air mass at that lower RPM may be the same as this magic 4000 RPM threshold. This is where the calibration comes in. Who ever did the production cal for this engine in a marine application may be protecting something at a specific speed/load threshold. You can throw more fuel in as a bandaid to keep your exhaust temps in check (usually to protect cats but we rarely do this in the OEM world now as there are better stratigies available).

[The Hulk]

What prop do you have on there now?

15x14.25

[nyryan2001]

You do have some room to improve there. You can swing a much meaner prop, more pitch, you have the hp/tq to do it!

While a 16x16 would be perfect.... OJ actually listens to their customers and is doing work in these larger props and they are available now. With the 450s creeping into the smaller boats... They are great candidates also for these bigger props.

14.75x16.25 is already avail.... And a 14.75 x17 I think?!?

[The Hulk]

just emailed and asked when they might get a 16x16 and price.

is there a formula you are using to calculate diameter vs pitch?

[nyryan2001]

Yep, I'm waiting on a 16x16ish from them now. But mine needs to be with a 1.25" hub. Ensure if you do 16" dia you maintain at least 1" clearance between the tip of the prop and the hull.

Inherently dia=pitch is most efficient. On wakeboats you want max dia to limit prop slip with heavy loads with as much pitch as you can manage with your hp/tq to be able still spin above 5300rpms.

With your setup you'd likely spin 5000rpms+ Before you hit 5mph. Keep us updated on your quest!

[The Hulk]

Lingenfelter replied: they got out of the marine business 10yrs ago: the upgrade kit is available and pretty straight forward they said....however i would have to find someone to calibrate. they do not have anyway to do it in-house thus why they got out of the business.

i'll wait to hear back from a friend of a friend who use to work there and see if he has any insight on who might be able to calibrate but not looking good.

[Nitrousbird]

Contact these guys: http://www.obd2allinone.com/mefituning.asp

I'm not sure what MEFI version is in your boat; it is going to be MEFI 5 or newer. If they can't help you, you are probably screwed.

[The Hulk]

Interesting: i could use the wifi from the phone while driving the boat and have them program possibly. i'll contact them thanks for the link!

[Brett B]

Anyone done a pulley upgrade on the LSA engine to get a huge boost in hp and torque? There may even be fuel savings with the engine not having to work so hard. Given what I've seen the surf boats are totally underpowered for the weight many are throwing in them .

You won't be burning any less fuel with a pulley upgrade, that's for sure! As far as the engine "not working so hard", it may be true that you can prop down to run a little less RPM, but you will be running more boost with the pulley upgrade, so you will be consuming much more fuel overall. That's why an upgrade kit also includes larger injectors and an ECU tune, as without those two things the engine will run very lean with the additional boost even at low RPM since its a positive displacement supercharger.

Most aftermarket automotive tuning is done on a chassis dyno. You can't just upload some maps and tune the engine at idle, you have to put the engine under a realistic load to ensure proper AFR, timing, knock sensor calibration, etc. For a boat you would have to either tune it on an engine dyno (which requires the engine to come out) or tune it out on the lake to create a load. So you will probably be paying a tuner to ride around in the boat, and it will likely take many hours to get anything like a reliable tune since this isn't a common application with existing maps that only need minor tweaks. Depending on how much of the map needs to be created from scratch just getting a reliable warm and cold startup can take a few tries. So figure probably 4-8 hours of just tuning labor for a good tuner to do a thorough job. Keep in mind that with the additional power your speed control gains will probably be off, so now the boat may surge (overshoot) when trying to maintain stable wakeboarding speeds.

If you do find a good tuner, the drivetrain breakage with that much extra power and torque is what I would be most concerned with. I have no idea what the power rating is for the V-drive attached to the LSA engine, but I'm pretty sure you will be exceeding it after this upgrade. Having a transmission puke its guts into the bilge would be a great way to ruin a summer. I'm guessing the prop shaft would go first, but maybe even consider a transmission shield to contain the shrapnel in case of a catastrophic transmission failure. Maybe I’m just a pessimist, but I’ve seen flying drivetrain shrapnel put some impressive holes through steel, I'd hate to see what it does to fiberglass. Not to mention the vicinity to the fuel tank and lines.

http://www.jegs.com/p/Deist-Safety/Deist-Safety-Transmission-Blanket/1325362/10002/-1

Many of these challenges are the same things you would face when trying to upgrade a CTS-V, the difference is they are commonly done in the automotive world and are well understood. I've not seen somebody do this in a wakeboat yet, and it's always very very expensive to be the first one.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Brett B

[boardjnky4]

Street tuning is pretty common with cars (which would be the equivalent of a lake-tune), as-is eTuning whereby an experienced tuner (ie, someone that tunes LSX motors often) can review a log, tweak a map and send an update via frequent emails.

With something like a pulley upgrade, tuning shouldn't be that hard. A few hours at most. Heck, Lingenfelter obviously has all of the maps, they would just have to take those parameters and put them into a different software. No telling if they'll actually do that, but it's possible. Either way, any competent LSX tuner should be able to tweak a map for a pulley upgrade for a couple hundred bucks.

[Brett B]

Oh, so the load that a wakeboat sees during operation is exactly the same as a car, and therefore "Lingenfelter obviously has all the maps" since there isn't any difference between the two? Interesting advice...

When was the last time you saw a car run at full power output and full boost, held at 4K rpm by an external load, without any change in RPM or deloading for 60 minutes continuously? Because that is the load profile a sacked out wakeboat sees, and as a "competent tuner" I can assure you that is nothing like an automotive application where a couple street pulls down some back road would suffice.

[boardjnky4]

Oh, so the load that a wakeboat sees during operation is exactly the same as a car, and therefore "Lingenfelter obviously has all the maps" since there isn't any difference between the two? Interesting advice...

When was the last time you saw a car run at full power output and full boost, held at 4K rpm by an external load, without any change in RPM or deloading for 60 minutes continuously? Because that is the load profile a sacked out wakeboat sees, and as a "competent tuner" I can assure you that is nothing like an automotive application where a couple street pulls down some back road would suffice.

OK, well then I stand corrected

[The Hulk]

hey guys, sorry was on vacation last week, took a Disney Cruise with woman and little one, Awesome time! cant say enough bout it.

Lingenfelter Pully Upgrade seems to have died, Calibrating seems to be the hold up, and would best require pulling the engine to put in an dyno, doing via on the water is difficult situation not as easily as a car. As mentioned above the loads are MUCH higher on the boat for longer periods of time vs the car which is very temporary loads that go down quickly etc. From what they said that is also the reason the Marine version of the LSA is not peaked for performance as is the versions in the cars. So currently they are TUNED DOWN with some respects (at least im told)

Also i checked under the boat i only have 1.25" clearance with the current prop although i just checked and my current prop is smaller than i thought: i just read it, and it appears to be a 14.5 x 14.25......., so there will be NO gain as i cant go to a 16" or larger prop as required according to nyryan to maximize the current 555hp let alone going up to 630hp

The most i could do is upgrade to a 15x15" prop and still keep the 1" clearance, although i'm not sure how much an extra .50" prop size and extra .25 pitch would help and would it be worth the cost of the prop?

Any thoughts on the 1.25" haul clearance vs 1" clearance? going from a 14.5x14.25 up to a 15x15 and would there be a significant difference with a loaded boat: (Bu = 23 lsv + stock ballast + twin 550s in rear lockers + 1k lbs front bag on front seats)

[boardjnky4]

You should DEFINITELY be running a 15" prop... Most people are running 15x12. The Acme 2419 or the 2315.

[The Hulk]

nyrryan suggest that prop diameter = pitch is most efficient

so wouldn't a 15x15 be better vs the 15x12 since we have the HP with the LSA? he was suggesting that a 16x16 would be ideal to maximize the engine if i can only go 15 i would assume 15x15 to be the best i can do with 1" clearance.

i understand diameter + Pitch, but what will the difference in CUP translate to? both 2419 + 2315 are 15" diameter with 12" pitch, but their cups are .075" vs.105"

any insight to cup size? i didn't realize the 3rd variable of "cup"

[shawndoggy]

Yeah run 15" for sure. You can probably get away with the 15x14.25, which I believe is the "tallest" 15 prop acme currently makes. Or call OJ and see what they have in the works.

[The Hulk]

is anyone running 15" props on the 23 lsv ? that would only give me actually only 7/8" clearance after a closer check.

Acme has a

15 "x 14.25"

15" x 15.75"

i would assume with the LSA the 15" x 15.75" would be best unless i can get a custom 15 x 15?