Performance testing the Ridge

[Raplon]

Indeed, very well presented and informative post. I enjoyed reading it as well.

[Fastmax32168]

Well I decided I would try another test. One thing I had noticed when I installed the catback was that the catalytic converter outlet was only 2 1/8".
I wanted to make certain that the Cat itself was not providing a restriction and preventing the piping after it from really doing any good. So I fabbed up a test pipe out of some old collectors I had and Installed a straight through 2.5" pipe in place of the cat. If this resulted in any kind of substantial success then I figured a high flow cat installed in place of the factory unit would be a worthwhile upgrade. I had already noticed that the factory piping in front of the cat was 2.5" and discovered upon removal that the inlet of the cat was also 2.5". So I had good hopes for success here. Once again however dissapointment ruled the day.
This in conjuction with the Gibson resulted in the slowest times yet, even slower than it was bone stock on regular gas as a matter of fact. I made two runs that were nearly identical and figured that was enough. 0-60 times were 8.34 and 8.36, the 1/4 times were nearly identical at 16.54 and 16.56 both at 86.7 MPH. IAT was about 5 degrees higher than in my previous testing but the results were disastrous enough to know that isnt going to make much difference. Basically replacing the factory cat resulted in the loss of .3 to .4 in the 1/4.
So either the cat participates in the exhaust tuning or the computer cannot compensate for the additional airflow. Until something becomes available to allow me to plug my laptop in and do some tuning on the Ridges computer I think I am pretty much done, there just isnt enough to gain to worry about. I am going to put it back to stock and go back to playing with my 400 HP Corvettes. Much more satisfying.

[Otter68]

I missed this the 1st time around. Killer post - thanks for taking the time to submit it. And great follow-up.

[qiphlow]

this is all very informative and also not very surprising. the ridgeline wasn't meant to be a race truck, after all.

but it's nice to know that your flogging of the ridgeline has kept me from spending about a thousand bucks on "performance" upgrades and for that i thank you!

[gpiskur]

Great post. Looks like the only "performance" mod I'll be doing in the drop in K&N filter.

[MoosePond]

great job, thanks for taking the time to do the tests and sharing your results . . . confirms what I've been thinking for years, modern vehicles are way too complicated and electronically sophisticated to benefit much (if at all) from the type of bolt-on performance options available to us "old-timers" who were hot-rodding in the 50s, 60s & 70s before emissions, EFI, etc. (the last of those I did was putting a pair of side-draft Webers and lighter flywheel & pressure plate on my '81 RX-7)

I did run one tank of 93 octane and found the fuel economy notched up a bit - plan to do a "test" when I go to St. Louis in August and run 87 one way and 93 the other and see what the difference in mpg is on a 1,000+ mile run each way. Not totally scientific as I plan to take different routes in each direction but I'll keep my speeds as constant as possible (typically, limit +5).

[Bacpacr]

Thanks so much. I just dropped a K&N filter in the Ridge yesterday(to early to tell) and was pondering a different muffler to increase the flow. Like you, I still wanted it quiet in the cabin.You just saved me time and money with your research of different confiqurations. I second the nomination of post of the month!

[Fastmax32168]

Originally Posted by MoosePond

great job, thanks for taking the time to do the tests and sharing your results . . . confirms what I've been thinking for years, modern vehicles are way too complicated and electronically sophisticated to benefit much (if at all) from the type of bolt-on performance options available to us "old-timers" who were hot-rodding in the 50s, 60s & 70s before emissions, EFI, etc.

I appreciate all of the appreciation... Can you say that???
Just to be clear though, I am fairly positive that the reason not much is coming from any of what I did is the inability to do any tuning on the motor, not from the fact that the motor is built so perfectly from Honda that it is unable to make any more HP. To give a frame of reference, after doing a slew of airflow improving mods on one of my vettes it went from a stock 260 to a modified 273 RWHP. A similarly dissapointing situation to what we see with my testing of the Ridge. However after Dyno tuning it with the new mods the motor leaped to 328 RWHP and pinned my eyeballs to the back of their sockets. That is a huge HP jump from just tuning. I believe this to be the same case with the Ridge. You can look at the situation with the air filter removal to see this. Removing the filter made a substantial difference with the stock exhaust, however once I added the Gibson removing it made no difference at all. What is probably happening there is that the combination of the two airflow improving mods is leaning out the A/F ratio beyond the point of power improvement, so no further improvement is seen. There is the one size fits all tuning available from JET, but I would really like to see software available that allowed you to go in and tune the computer on your own This would be the ultimate solution to getting the type of improvements I was hoping for with these mods.
In uh...old timer talk....this tuning would be the equivalant of putting an advance curve kit in your distributor and bigger jets in your Holley 4 bbl to compensate for those new headers and duals you just put on. It is just that rather than requiring wrenching it all happens with the stroke of a few keys.
Roy

[MoosePond]

Originally Posted by Fastmax32168

To give a frame of reference, after doing a slew of airflow improving mods on one of my vettes it went from a stock 260 to a modified 273 RWHP. A similarly dissapointing situation to what we see with my testing of the Ridge. However after Dyno tuning it with the new mods the motor leaped to 328 RWHP and pinned my eyeballs to the back of their sockets.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about! When i bought my '64 Plymouth Fury it was a stock 383. However, a friend had just bought the car the Ramchargers campaigned the year before, complete with a fresh 426 Hemi so, of course, he swapped out the motor. Sold the old one to me (had 10 races on it) and a local hemi ace was able to "de-tune" it enough to make it streetable (lowered the compression ratio, re-jetted the dual Holleys, new cam & headers, etc.). End result? 440 RWHP on the chassis dyno. Coupled with a fiberglass front end and trunk lid, "junior" TractionMasters, CureRide shocks and M/T directional tread "slicks" it won me a lot of races (and cold, hard cash) at the Saturday night drags out on Ridge Road east of Wichita, KS, before I "retired" to enter the Army on 6/6/66.

[MikeT]

Originally Posted by MoosePond

....it won me a lot of races (and cold, hard cash) at the Saturday night drags out on Ridge Road east of Wichita, KS, before I "retired" to enter the Army on 6/6/66.

And to think I wasn't even born yet