March 2011 Fastrack

[NATW]

I have a copy of ETKA too. My version shows different information than Dave's, this is circa 2001 version. It seems that VAG is confused about the horsepower also.

Nat Wentworth
ITB Volvo 142

[Gary L]

I bring this up because of what appears to be a disconnect in the one Bentley-derived kW vs HP figure that Stephen presented a page or two back. I noted it at the time in a responsive post, but just in case anyone missed it... 89.4 kW is not 110 SAE net HP, it's 120, give or take a few tenths.

Aw, crap! Stephen's post says 84.9, not 89.4. Geez - dyslexia is obviously setting in.

However, comma... even 84.9 doesn't result in 110, it converts to 114. Good gawd.

[lateapex911]

I have a copy of ETKA too. My version shows different information than Dave's, this is circa 2001 version. It seems that VAG is confused about the horsepower also.

Nat Wentworth
ITB Volvo 142

Is that the 2010 equivalent of a 'sneaker network" screen grab Nat?

[lateapex911]

.

I can also tell you that any ad-hoc member who isn't on-line and 'up to speed' with issues, discussions and viewpoints can waste HOURS of con-call time hashing, rehashing and generally stalling topics because they were simply not informed.

.

X2.The ITAC has a forum, yet for some reason certain guys wouldn't bother checking all month. Some contentious letter would have 30 posts associated, from may be 4 of the 7 guys. And one guy on the con call would inevitably say, "Hey guys, give me a second to absorb and review this", then would ask questions that were answered in post 3 or 4. ARRRRRG!
Only 30 letters to go!

Some of you remember Texan IT poster George Roffe who served on the ITAC. Man, I remember how his eyes were opened when we finally convinced him to attend the ARRCs.

Gotta see the world if you want to understand it....

[JeffYoung]

Our internal board is unfortunately getting less use, not more.

[lateapex911]

Our internal board is unfortunately getting less use, not more.

Somebody needs to whip some ass, or heads should roll.
It's the best way...everything is recorded for future use. Most of your work is done before a con call.

I think having guys on committees who aren't active and keeping up aren't 'neutral', they are negatives. A non vote is better than a dumb, or wrong or misinformed vote.

[jhooten]

Still no action on my engine mount request. Maybe this month.

It was brought up at the CRB town hall at the convention. I can assure you the CRB is still debating the issue.

[StephenB]

Hey guys,

I posted the numbers from the bently. That's all I can do other than to write in for a correction but I will let John fight for that. Been there, done that. Accepted the outcome right or worng in my opinion doesn't matter, rules are rules.

Thanks for the time and the debate. I hope that for the whole (not just this car or class) we can learn from whatever the outcome is. I think one thing is clear... we need to start documenting decisions so we don't keep changing the reasons. Members want transperancy and consistancy. It looks like an ITAC private forum exists and could be utilized for this purpose to archive particular classes and cars.

Stephen

[Knestis]

Somebody needs to whip some ass, or heads should roll.
It's the best way...everything is recorded for future use. Most of your work is done before a con call.

I think having guys on committees who aren't active and keeping up aren't 'neutral', they are negatives. A non vote is better than a dumb, or wrong or misinformed vote.

Absolutely. All members must participate. Participation is defined as being on the calls, being PREPARED for the calls, reviewing information, and using the web board for ongoing communication. There is NO way that all of the committee's work can get done in one evening each month. No way.

And the back-channel BS - like, uh, oh I can't think of any good examples right now - is the single worst influence on effective governance. Maybe in a tie with "not keeping records" but it's right at the top of the list.

It sounds like official communication channels have improved and the conduit for member requests to the ad hoc then back to the CRB seems to have been cleaned up. There was a time when I was amazed at how bad it was but it's good to see the improvements.

K

[Rabbit05]

Stephen,
I would be happy to "pick up the torch and run with it". A letter of support from you and Raymond would be great !

I am , however,unclear on how I would get the correct information to the people that makes these decisions.

Jeff ,
Would you be able to steer me in the right direction on this ? I have to imagine the board will want some sort of hard evidence for me to prove the car has been given a weight using the wrong HP numbers. Perhaps I could fax/email/snail mail copies of my manual data to the CRB..ITAC , or you could share the info from your new Audi manual with said board memebers.

And if Greg is correct, and I am sure that he is, that the factory Manual is "end all, be all" in determining HP and car info according to the rules. Then, really the Audi HP issue should be .....well a non-issue. And the car should be rerun through the process using the correct HP numbers. Additionally, the ETKA numbers that have been brought up as a HP source have proved to be unreliable. There have been two different HP numbers, using the ETKA, for the same motor have shown up on this thread .

-John

[JeffYoung]

I will of course share what I find in the manual (I paid $25 to have it shipped over night, got a shipping notice and still no manual -- better be here tomorrow) with you and the committee.

I'm also going to do a write up on the Audi hp on our internal board this a.m.

However, this is not cut and dried. Greg is write that the manufacturer's manual is the end all be all for tech compliance, but we do not have any such internal procedure (that I am aware of) for determining stock hp.

We've had situations before were stock hp was wrong, or difficult to determine (the RX8 comes to mind).

In my view, we look at all of the evidence and make a call. We've got the manual and the EKTA evidence, and the difference in these numbers makes a big difference in the "Real world."

I'd really like to know why the number seems to have changed from the manual to EKTA. The change seems supported by a few strands of evidence that suggests the later KX motors got more power.

[Eagle7]

Our internal board is unfortunately getting less use, not more.

And this is where the ITAC seems not to have gone far enough in documenting procedures. You should not be allowed to vote a confidence level in any evidence unless it has been recorded in "the file", and you've had some time to review it. You should not be voting on evidence that you have not reviewed. And if members make a habit of not coming prepared, they should be asked (told?) to resign. Josh, sounds like you've got some housekeeping to do.

[JeffYoung]

Marty, it's not that cut and dried.

And most ITAC members are prepared for calls.

But it's impossible to be fully educated on every car and issue that comes up for a vote, and to have read every scrap of information on it. Sometimes we have to rely on others to do the homework for us. That part of the system I think works well.

Based on what happened here, I think the guys who looked at the Audi issue (I did not) found the exact same stuff we are finding now and went with the 120 hp. That's certainly a plausible conclusion to reach.

Because this is a controversial issue, I'm on my own time looking deeper into it. Any change to this car wil be difficult to make given how much attention it has received, but I do want to make sure we are as right as we can be.

Right now, I see a range of numbers coming from Audi with no real way to tell which one is correct.

And before we see people saying this is a problem with the process, sure, it is, but it is a minor one. For most (not all) cars, stock hp is pretty well documented.

[Dave Zaslow]

I have a copy of ETKA too. My version shows different information than Dave's, this is circa 2001 version. It seems that VAG is confused about the horsepower also.

Nat Wentworth
ITB Volvo 142

Nat,

I went back to an older E*K* and found your numbers. Both versions agree on 88KW. The conversion to HP is what is confusing. See the attached. It appears that 118 US HP and 120 Metric HP are close.

DZ

[Greg Amy]

I'd really like to know why the number seems to have changed from the manual to EKTA.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record:

- The Bentley is VWoA's factory specifications manual for all cars imported into the United States. Period. It's what you get when you go to the dealer and ask for official manufacturer documentation.

- The ETKA is a parts manual. Period. Further, all copies presented here - including the ones I have myself - are illegal, pirated copies from Russia*. You cannot go to a VWoA dealer (or anywhere else) and buy a copy of the ETKA, it is copyrighted material and only available to dealers. Further, the source of that data is suspect and is only in the ETKA to be used for reference for finding the correct parts based on engine code.

- While there is legitimate debate in regard to how horsepower was measured and converted for USA consumption (I especially like Gary's implied suggestion that the differences are possibly due to conversion errors from kW/PS/hp and DIN/SAE) if you select anything but the factory's expressly-published numbers in the factory's shop manual, you are seriously bastardizing "the process" with POOMA. You do that and you might as well throw your process out the window, as it would illustrate that it's nothing but a thin veneer being used as cover for "whatever the hell the smoke-filled room wants to do".

In the end, you always reserve the right to adjust based on "what you know", but right now all you "know" is what the factory manual says; that differs strongly from "what we - and its competitors - want it to be". This decision, right here, will become the touchstone moving forward on how serious you are about this "process"...

GA

* If, for example, I can come up with a Russian-pirated DVD photocopy of the Mazda microfiche (that I bought from "some guy on eBay") that shows the 1.8L Miata to have 133hp throughout its full range of production, will you increase the baseline weight of the car in ITA? Just askin'...

[Rabbit05]

Jeff,
I again commend you for spending personal time and MONEY to look into this matter.

For arguemant sake.....If I get torn down i tech and they ask for my car information..do i say.... go to the ETKA web site. OR do I hand them my Audi manual ?

By using the ETKA as a reference, to me this means the offical factory book is irrelevent.

The later cars in question I believe are the 4000 quattros..which would/should be a different spec line all together.

-John

[JeffYoung]

I understand that the 4000s had a different downpipe, etc. on the KX motor and made more power as a result.

We use the factory manual to ensure you have factory parts on the car, etc.

No one, despite what Greg has said, has ever set in stone how we determine factory hp.

Some cars for this era have numbers from the factory that are not consistent. Mine is one. You see 133, you see 138, and you see 148 -- all from the factory.

This problem has subsided some as factory hp documentation has gotten better and more accurate.

I think the correct approach here is to look at all of the data and try to figure out which one is correct. EKTA is a part of that. There is a reason why the number in EKTA -- an Audi document -- is different. Maybe it is a mistake, I don't know, but we need to know the answer.

Blindly relying on anyhing, especially for cars of this era, is asking for trouble.

[JeffYoung]

I'm not sure how looking at various conflicting information from the factory and trying to decide which is correct is "bastardizing" the process.

I lean strongly towards relying on the factory manual but I want to know WHY some online information suggests the 86 and 87 KX motors in the Coupe were at 120 hp and why EKTA seems to confirm that.

Blindly relying on at times incorrect and inconsistent data from the factories - which in the 70s and 80s could be all over the place -- seems far more problematic to me.

[QUOTE=Greg Amy;318777]
- While there is legitimate debate in regard to how horsepower was measured and converted for USA consumption (I especially like Gary's implied suggestion that the differences are possibly due to conversion errors from kW/PS/hp and DIN/SAE) if you select anything but the factory's expressly-published numbers in the factory's shop manual, you are seriously bastardizing "the process" with POOMA. You do that and you might as well throw your process out the window, as it would illustrate that it's nothing but a thin veneer being used as cover for "whatever the hell the smoke-filled room wants to do".

QUOTE]

[Greg Amy]

I'm not sure how looking at various conflicting information from the factory and trying to decide which is correct is "bastardizing" the process.

Because the only "conflicting" information comes from:

- The Internet/Wikipedia. Unless the source of that information is verifiable, it's useless. For each number you come up with "on the Internet" I can find one that nullifies it (e.g., http://www.audiworld.com/model/coupe-gt/85-coupe.shtml. Is AudiWorld.com more "official" than Wikipedia?)

- The ETKA. It's a parts manual, not a service manual, and every copy you have access to is pirated, unofficially-obtained information. If you could go to the dealer and buy an official copy, then you'd have a legitimate source of "conflicting" information, but you can't so you don't.

You have only one single source of official, factory-supplied information. And it says 110hp SAE.

Hey, if you want to do it at 120hp, you're the ITAC, feel free; you can do whatever you want in that room. But if you do that, and you lean on the above sources for your baseline information, you leave yourself vulnerable to similar sources when someone else comes up with yet another request that they want, with information that's in direct contrast with the factory-supplied official specifications.

Understand this debate, in my mind, is about more than just the Audi Coupe GT in ITB...

GA

[JeffYoung]

Hypothetical.

The factory quoted hp is wrong (happens, trust me). We don't have any IT builds and dyno data to use your version of "what we know."

So we just class the car incorrectly based on erroneous factory information?

No, we don't.

Because of the incomplete and sometimes inconsistent information on factory hp from this era, we look at it all and make a call. I will certainly lean heavily on the factory manual, but when evaluating the stock hp of cars from the 70s and 80s, stopping there when it is clearly inaccurate is a mistake.

And yes, of course this is a bigger issue than the Audi in ITB.

Because the only "conflicting" information comes from:

- The Internet/Wikipedia. Unless the source of that information is verifiable, it's useless. For each number you come up with "on the Internet" I can find one that nullifies it (e.g., http://www.audiworld.com/model/coupe-gt/85-coupe.shtml. Is AudiWorld.com more "official" than Wikipedia?)

- The ETKA. It's a parts manual, not a service manual, and every copy you have access to is pirated, unofficially-obtained information. If you could go to the dealer and buy an official copy, then you'd have a legitimate source of "conflicting" information, but you can't so you don't.

You have only one single source of official, factory-supplied information. And it says 110hp SAE.

Hey, if you want to do it at 120hp, you're the ITAC, feel free; you can do whatever you want in that room. But if you do that, and you lean on the above sources for your baseline information, you leave yourself vulnerable to similar sources when someone else comes up with yet another request that they want, with information that's in direct contrast with the factory-supplied official specifications.

Understand this debate, in my mind, is about more than just the Audi Coupe GT in ITB...

GA