White Dog Racing Intake Parts

A box full of White Dog Racing intake parts for the Audi B5 S4/RS4 has arrived for flow testing on the PTS flowbench.  The parts, shown below, consist of a few variations of the intake bi-pipes and a set of turbocharger to intercooler hardpipes.

Picture of White Dog Racing intake parts
White Dog Racing intake parts

The intake bi-pipes cover the 54mm and 60mm tube diameters, flowing to a stock throttle body.  Within the two 54mm size pipes there are two variants, one with the MAP sensor in the stock location and one with the sensor offset.

The IC inlet pipes are intended for use with the Silly Rabbit Motorsport SMIC’s with the larger RS4 size piping.

Results:

After adding the APR bipipe and RS4 bipipe into the mix I began setting things up for testing.

Bipipe Lineup
Bipipe Lineup

One thing I noticed right away was how much lighter the White Dog Racing bipipes felt in comparison to the APR bipipe.  I set each product on a postal scale to get an idea of the relative weights.

  • APR: 5lb 9 oz
  • WDR-60: 2lb 9oz
  • WDR-54: 2lb 7oz

Those weights are approximate as I needed to balance the products on the scale, and I did not bother to remove the MAP sensor, DV hoses, or WMI nozzles/line from the APR bipipe, but the general trend is clear, the APR bipipe weighs about twice what the White Dog Racing products weigh.

bipipe_lineup

I also made a comparison of the inlet diameters:

bipipe_intakes

In sequence from smallest diameter to largest:

apr_bipipe_inletWhite Dog Racing 54mm BipipeWhite Dog Racing 60mm Bipipers4_bipipe_inlet

Then it was on to the flow bench:

White Dog Racing 54mm Bipipe on Flowbench
White Dog Racing 54mm Bipipe on Flowbench

 

A comparison of the results is shown below:

White Dog Racing Bipipe Flow Testing
White Dog Racing Bipipe Flow Testing

 

Some comments on these results.

  1.  The White Dog Racing bipipes performed surprising well given the use of the stock S4 throttle body.  The larger RS4 components only flowed slightly more than the WDR products.
  2. I am especially impressed by the 54mm WDR product.  Enlarged aftermarket parts often pose a challenge to fit into the S4 engine compartment.  It’s likely that minimal accommodations would need to be made with this pipe yet the airflow increase over stock components is substantial.
  3. The similar results measured from the RS4 components and 60mm WDR bipipe has led me to further consider the benefit of the RS4 throttle body.  These results appear to show that the stock TB is not much of a limitation on airflow with these size bipipes.  If that is the case then the effort to have an RS4 size throttle body attached to S4 intake manifold, like the SRM product that I have on hand, may not be worth it.
  4. The difference in airflow between the two WDR-54 size bipipes was minimal so I averaged the two measurements to present a single value.
  5. The stock bipipes were not measured at the same time as the other bipipes.  Due to potential differences in test conditions, ie equipment setup, bench calibration, atmospherics, it is possible and likely that the stock bipipes would have performed differently had they been available.  Comparing the RS4 and APR bipipes to the results recorded a few years ago when the stock pipes were tested showed those two products with a calculated airflow 7-10 CFM greater than what was recorded/measured today.  Thus it is likely that the stock bipipe datapoint slightly overstates the airflow under today’s test conditions, I estimate by 5 CFM, but it should be close enough for a general comparison.
  6. The relatively lower airflow through the APR bipipe meant that I was able to measure it at 28″ of H2O, whereas the other products were measured at slightly lower depressions.  The reason for this is that the internal plate on the flow bench is spec’d to approximately 600 CFM and the other bipipes tested were able to reach that limit.  In order to standardize the results all measurements were adjusted to a 28″ H2O depression.  This adjustment was minor – the RS4 bipipe was flowed up to 24″ and the WDR bipipes flowed to 26″.

Below is the percentage increase in airflow that is gained from using the alternative bipipes.

White Dog Racing Flow Increase

In terms of airflow performance White Dog Racing has debuted an impressive product that gives a solid alternative to the hard to find RS4 components and a substantial improvement over stock parts.

TTE550’s Installed

Today the second TTE550 was hooked up and the engine put back into the car.

engine_in_tte550I’m finding a suggestion to install the axles while the engine is a couple of inches above the mounts, and the transmission brackets a few inches above the tranny mounts, to be a good one.  Turning the wheel fully left or right depending upon the side being worked, allows the axle to go in, and with the engine hanging from the hoist there’s enough freeplay to push it slightly if needed.  This sped up the process of reinstalling the engine substantially.

One TTE550 Installed (Almost)

Today I began installing the TTE550 turbochargers onto the engine.  Step number one was to check the wastegate preload to confirm the 0.55 bar that I was told they were set to prior to delivery.  The setup shown below is what I use for checking the preload.

Picture of Wastegate preload check setup
Wastegate preload check

The yellow hose runs from an air compressor tank, through a pressure regulator (that I purchased for performing leak down checks on the engine cylinders), and then via an AN Y to a pair of hoses that connect to the wastegate canisters.  As the regulator is slowly opened I monitor for movement from the wastegate arms, and when movement is seen I’ll check the pressure.  This is repeated a few times to get confidence that each wastegate is beginning to open at the same pressure.

As it turned out the preload was set to only 5 psi.  With intentions of running around 24-25 psi out to 7000 rpm I was not confident that would be enough preload on the wastegates.  I increased the preload on both wastegates to 8 psi.

An issue I expected to encounter was with the wastegate canister interfering with the turbo inlet pipe.

Picture of Inlet and wastegate interference
Inlet and wastegate interference

TTE adds a pair of rings around the wastegate canister that is concave in between the fasteners.  At the mid-point between the bolts the ring is about flush with the lip around the wastegate canister so that it isn’t any wider than the wastegate canister by itelf.  But where the bolts are located it is taller, and as luck would have it that was where the inlet pipe came closest to the wastegate canister.

I loosened the bolts and rotated the rings slightly and gained some clearance, but there was still some contact between the two parts.  As I’ve had to do in the past, I took a set of pliers and bent the wastegate bracket down slightly to gain some additional clearance.  This produced enough of a gap that I felt good about the setup.

Clearance gained
Clearance gained

Of course by slightly altering the location of the canister I became concerned that I might have also affected the amount of preload on the wastegate, thereby possibly causing the wastegates to open at slightly different pressures.  So I hooked the wastegates back up to the preload checker and confirmed that the tweaking had not altered the preload in any meaningful way.

I use a silicone coupler to attach the turbo inlet pipe to the turbocharger compressor intake.  Something I wanted to make sure not to do was disturb the airflow going into the compressor by creating a gap between the edge of the coupler and the outer lip of the compressor inlet.

TTE goes to some effort to port the inlet from what a standard BorgWarner RS4 K04 looks like, as shown by the comparison photographs below:

Turbocharger compressor inlet lip comparison
Inlet lip comparison
Inlet lip comparison - close up
Inlet lip comparison – close up

And the TTE lip is measurably thinner than that of the standard K04.

BorgWarner RS4 K04 Inlet Lip Thickness
BorgWarner RS4 K04 Inlet Lip Thickness
TTE 550 Inlet Lip Thickness
TTE 550 Inlet Lip Thickness

To ensure that I was not creating more turbulence than will occur anyhow I was careful about where I placed the clamp that holds the silicone coupler to the compressor inlet.

Silicone coupler attached to compressor inlet
Silicone coupler attached to compressor inlet

The intent being to minimize the gap between the silicone and inlet.

Another lesson from the last turbocharger swap is not to trust the crush washers.  With the FT21’s I ended up with a washer on the oil supply side to the turbocharger dripping oil, leading to an unplanned engine pull to fix the drip.

To address that possibility I am attaching a gasket forming material to each side of the crush washers that are used on the oil supply, coolant supply, and coolant return banjo bolts.

Sealant
Sealant

My hope is that this extra step will all but eliminate the chance of a leak from these lines.

Audi B5 S4 Information and Testing