More Rica results...

Enrico asked for some more info on the Rica chip tuning... here's my reply.

The first page shows before and after changing out the boost controller. After the first visit, the car was under performing due to an OEM boost control solenoid failure. This lead to the curve dated 12.10.2004 and is essentially the power with 0.7 bar.

Once the boost control solenoid was changed out (with a new OEM unit), the curve labelled 21.10.2004 was produced. The second page shows just the 2nd curve.

You'll notice that the torque and power ramp up significantly later than Maserati claim. This could just be my car, but I doubt it since my car is low mileage and everything's been well looked after.

The third page shows dyno results for my post 3200 GT turbos, but I'm positive that it's performing way below what it should be, due to the suspected blocked up catalysts. Hopefully, later this year I'll place an order for a new exhaust front section and finally get to the bottom of this. My reason for suspecting this is, just after I fitted the new turbos I got a dyno test done which showed 306 hp with only 0.7 bar (unfortunately I didn't get a copy of this one). So I know the potential is there for some increased performance with the 3200 GT turbos. At present, I'm getting 328 hp with a little over 1.2 bar and I'm a bit down on torque. Some of this can be explained by the fact that the car is running slightly rich, but I'm positive there's a restriction in the exhaust side.

I'm also currently running a Turbosmart E-Boost 2 electronic boost controller to control the inlet pressure. Another reason why I think there's something odd going on, which again may point to a restriction in the exhaust side, is that I can't get the boost pressure to spike. Despite ramping up the gain on the controller to near full, the boost pressure just won't overshoot the set pressure. I don't believe the turbos are so large that they can't spike the pressure, so I can only think that somewhere there's a restriction.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. I'd be really interested to hear if anyone else has tried playing with a boost controller and whether they manage to get the boost pressure to spike OK.