Sabre Heads Kr1 Plus Newman Phase 2 Cams

[Phil S1]

Following on from this post:- http://www.midlandsl...00-hgf-diy-kr1/ and the porting I had done last year by Roger Fabry, a.k.a. kiwirog at Sabre Heads I have now decided to put phase 2 into operation, quite literally.

Last year I opted for Roger’s KR1 upgrade, which modifies a standard non-vvc ‘K’ series head with 2mm larger dia. inlet valves and a load of porting work. The car still maintained its driveability and now revs so much more freely since having it done but, at the back of my mind I always knew I would one day put some different cams in too. That day has now arrived. The other week I went back over to Wisbech to see Roger and picked up some of his Newman Phase 2 cams, vernier pulleys and an adjustable fuel pressure regulator, also referred to as a power boost valve. This combination is a tried and tested route; there are already a number of people on seloc who have had it done with great results:-

 

The Phase 2 cams are a similar profile to the Piper BP270, a fast road cam, so I’m hoping to gain a bit more performance and still maintain a good degree of its current driveability:-

 

 

The verniers that Roger supplies are a very reasonable price compared to others on the market and utilise 6 bolts to secure each pulley to the hub. Roger mentioned that he’d seen other makes, using fewer bolts, which had slipped in use:-

 

 

The adjustable fuel pressure regulator is needed to bring the air/fuel ratio back into line. The combination of the KR1 and the cams means the head will flow a lot more air and it reaches a point at higher revs where the ECU can’t provide enough fuel to maintain the correct mixture. I believe the OE regulator maintains a pressure of 3 bar and from other peoples experiences it seems that this needs to be raised to something like 3.2 bar. The other solution to this particular problem would be a programmable ECU but that’s another chunk of money and rolling road time, we’ll see how we go with the regulator for now:-

 

 

Prior to all this, a couple of years ago now, we had a MLOC rolling road day at Monster Motorsport in Loughborough and at that time my car gave a best figure of 126 BHP with max torque of 122 lb-ft. That was on a standard engine with standard panel filter, 48mm throttle body, a VVC plenum (more for looks than any performance gain), a Larini 4-2-1 through a standard cat and then a Larini Club Sport exhaust.

 

I haven’t had my car back on the rollers since fitting the KR1 so to remedy that situation I have now got it booked in at Area 52 for this coming Friday:- http://www.area52aut.../shop/index.php

The KR1 upgrade on its own should be good for an additional 15BHP so in theory, I should expect to see something in the region of 140BHP on Friday, albeit on a different rolling road to before.

 

Fitting the Newman Phase 2 cams and verniers should then maybe unleash another 15BHP and I’ll hopefully end up with something between 150 and 155BHP. Probably not too dissimilar to what a Sport160 actually puts out…..we shall see.

[Martin R]

Phil, nice. Can you do a few pics of fitting the FPR? I might have to put one on mine What do you have to time the phase 2 cams at?

[Phil S1]

Will do Martin, as regards the timing, I'm going to check with Roger but from what I've read I think it'll be something like 45-50 thou INLET and 40 thou EXHAUST.

[DeanB]

Phil that kit sounds great. Really well judged. I would love to do the same to mine when funds permit ( if Rog is still around twenty years from now!). Can't wait to see the RR results.

[olliecast]

Great work phil, should go welk after its fitted

[Phil S1]

Phil that kit sounds great. Really well judged. I would love to do the same to mine when funds permit ( if Rog is still around twenty years from now!). Can't wait to see the RR results.

I reckon if you place your order now Dean then Roger will probably be ready for you in around 20 years

 

Well I had a quick look at fitting locations for the AFPR and I think I'll do the same as 'flying banana' on seloc did with his. That is, mount it off the the boot divider using spacers and some long M6 bolts and not bother with the mounting plate that comes with the kit. I reckon the spacers need to be about 30mm long so just ordered some off ebay.

[smithpaulg]

Phil

 

I can send you a piccie of where mine is fitted?

 

Paul

[Phil S1]

Thanks for the offer of the piccie Paul, PM sent.

[Phil S1]

Well I went to Area 52 Autosport this morning to put my car on the rollers and see what Roger’s KR1 porting did for me. After a quick phone call to figure out which unit they were in I was merrily greeted by Jason and his team, plus a whole host of other vehicles, mostly Imprezas and other Japanese machinery, but also a Noble tucked away in the corner.

I had a lengthy discussion with Jason over a nice mug of coffee whilst the lads shuffled some of the aforementioned cars out the way and then we were ready to go. I showed him my previous graph from Monster Motorsport, that showed a max of 126.3BHP, told him what I have had done since by Roger and that I was hoping to now see something close to 140BHP. It seemed to raise a wry smile at the time especially since we had previously discussed that it’s not really about the max BHP but more about the shape of the graph and how the power is delivered.

It was at this point I got my camera out to get a few pictures of the car on the rollers only to find the batteries were flat! Don’t worry, I’ll remember to charge them and take some next time.

After getting set up and making sure everything was reading okay they started the first of the three power runs, I couldn’t see the screen from where I was standing but I could see the guy in the driving seat nodding his head in approval, so it was looking good.

After the 3 runs were complete we had a new MAX of 143.6BHP, an increase of 17.3BHP from previously and 25BHP over the book figure of 118BHP. I have to say, I’m well pleased with that, I look to have a good 10lb-ft of extra torque throughout the rev range too! The AFR is okay at present, generally between 12.3 and 12.8 with a brief blip to 13.0 at 4250rpm, that may well change once the new cams are in.

So Roger’s reputation remains well and truly in tact, in fact he’s excelled himself and at his current listed price of £740 for the KR1 I’d say it’s an absolute bargain.

 

I’ve scanned in the graphs from both today and previously below, I might try and plot them out on a common graph at some point to overlay them:-

 

Standard Head

 

Sabre Heads KR1 Head

 

 

 

A big thank you to Jason and everyone at Area 52 Autosport for the warm welcome, see you all again on the 28^th for phase 2, with my cams and verniers fitted

[Martin R]

Nice gains Phil

[@ndy]

Impresive gains, Looking forward to see the results with the cams fitted

[kayj_prod]

That's really interesting. I'd like to do something a little more with mine, but struggle to justify it. £740ish isn't such a bad amount if I can avoid doing any other work on her this year... hmm...

[Phil S1]

Yes, as I've already said, I was well pleased with that figure. I had hoped for something approaching 140BHP but that is firmly above it!

Just to confirm Keith, the figure of £740 is for all the good work that Roger does to your head, you still have to factor in all the other sundries like gaskets and head bolts and labour of course if you get someone to do it all for you. Nonetheless, you can spend best part of a £1000 on a 4-2-1 manifold and exhaust system and maybe gain 8 BHP (as I seemed to do with my Larini system) or spend a similar amount for a KR1, fit it yourself and gain twice as much

 

I've fitted the AFPR today and at Martin's request I've taken loads of photos so I'll post them up shortly.

[olliecast]

Well done phil

[Phil S1]

Okay, so here's the fitment of the adjustable fuel pressure regulator (AFPR) or Power Boost Valve.

First off, I'd picked up some M6 x 50mm button head bolts, nuts and washers from my local and very helpful fastener company. I used 2 of these bolts to mount the AFPR, in conjunction with the 30mm long nylon spacers I'd got off Ebay and some spreader washers. I also made use of supplied mounting bracket by cutting the end off and using that as a spreader plate too. In the end I had to cut 5mm off the the 2 nylon spacers to ensure sufficient thread length protruded through the nyloc nuts.

 

The existing FPR is located on the end of the fuel rail, near one of the injectors, it's the black disc-like object that the pipes are connected to in this photo:-

 

To make access easier I decided to separate the intake plenum from the inlet and by disconnecting some of the various hoses was then able to push the plenum over towards the passenger side of the engine bay. Now you can see the existing FPR and it's retaining clip more clearly:-

 

There are a couple of tangs on the retaining clip that need to be bent up a little to enable the clip to then be rotated anticlockwise and off.

Once off, it looks like this. Alongside is the new adaptor that has to fit in it's place:-

 

There were 2 O-rings on the old FPR that initially had remained in the fuel rail body so I retrieved them:-

 

I then smeared a small amount of grease on the O-rings in the new adaptor and then fitted that in place, re-using the retaining clip and making sure the 2 tabs were bent down sufficient to stop it from coming undone again:-

 

I then had a look at where to locate the new AFPR and opted to use the same location as I'd seen used on seloc:-

 

Using my new spreader plate as a template I marked and drilled 2 holes 7mm dia:-

 

Before fitting the AFPR itself, there were still some pipes to sort out. The old fuel return pipe is now redundant and needs to be removed. (The new adaptor blocks this pipe off). You can see the old return pipe in this photo (the pipe with the blue writing and brown securing clip):-

 

Once that pipe's removed it looks like this:-

 

It was then a matter of fitting the new AFPR and connecting up the new fuel pipes. In the next photo, the fuel feed comes from the new adaptor and feeds horizontally into the AFPR (at around the 4 o'clock position). The fuel then returns from underneath the AFPR, joining onto the existing fuel return pipe. (Make sure all the new hose clips are secure):-

 

Although the new adaptor blanks off the old fuel return I decided to be extra sure by making a secondary blank, just in case one of those O-rings decided to give up, the last thing we need is a fuel leak. Fortunately my wife knits and I was able to procure a suitably large knitting needle for my purposes :-

 

I cut off most of the needle to leave about an inch to insert into a spare length of fuel tube and then clamped it all in place, could be prettier I guess but it does the job:-

 

It was then just a matter of refitting the plenum with a new gasket and connecting a length of the new vacuum hose from the plenum to the AFPR:-

 

And that's about it, fired it up to make sure there were no leaks....job done!

 

One last one where you can just about see one of the spacers and spreader washers securing the AFPR to the boot divider:-

 

So that's it now till next weekend, when all being well, I'll have Brian on board to help me out with the fitting and timing of the new cams, followed by a trip back to Area 52 the following Tuesday.