503 H.P from Autotechnique’s BA XR6 Turbo

In 2004 AUTOTECHNIQUE company principal, Mario Pancione chose to become the first official Cobra distributor in the country, with his involvement extending to sales, service, fitment and tuning of the unique Nizpro Cobra BA XR6 Turbo power upgrade kit range.

Once fully entrenched, Mario expanded his Cobra marketing activities with the purchase of a new XR6 Turbo ute, equipping it with a potent Stage 2 kit. Of course, with Autotechnique running one of the most advanced chassis dynos available; DynoLogic, it also allowed Mario to further develop the Cobra kits to suit his customer’s requirements.

Having witnessed the fine work undertaken by Mario and the boys at Autotechnique, we contacted him to discuss fuel testing on the Turbo ute, noting that it had recently been upgraded to include SCT Flash tuning software.

Once on the dyno and during the warm up runs, Mario’s XR6 turbo produced a strong 387 rear wheel horsepower while relying what he described as a ‘standard tune’. We felt the results were quite good given that in factory trim the XR6T produces around 235 rwhp on PULP fuel.

Following the base run, Mario spent some time discussing the benefits of the CAPA tuning software, prior to uploading a custom tune he had only just completed the evening before. A tune he intended using while competing in the April 9-10th Australian Motoring Expo in Albury. The result was a much stronger 438 rwhp – once again relying on Premium Unleaded. Obviously the SCT system works!

The fuel tank was almost empty by this stage, which provided us with an opportunity to pour in 20 litres of our Martini Grand Prix 700 Race fuel. It should be noted that GP700 is an approved unleaded fuel for all 2005 Australian Motoring Expo events; hence our testing was quite fortuitous.

Mario kicked the XR6T into gear to deliver a highly impressive 470 rwhp for a healthy power gain of 32 rwhp (or approximately 40 flywheel horsepower). Note that the additional power was achieved without any other changes!

Mario was incredibly pleased and surprised at the result, commenting that never before had he achieved increased power with a fuel change alone. Typically, the only way he had been able to take advantage of a fuel’s improved octane rating had been to play with the tune changing fuel, timing and boost tables. Not this time!

Enthused, Mario again reverted to his SCT tuning software, and following several minutes of concerted changes, he again put the XR6T through its paces, and this time it delivered an astonishing 503 rwhp! for an additional 33 horsepower.

Following the incredible gains achieved by combining SCT’s tuning software and our Martini Grand Prix 700 Racing Fuel, we took the ute out for a ‘leisurely’ drive (if anyone could call driving a 460 kilowatt beast leisurely) and we were both blown away by the massive power increase and the smooth power delivery.

Autotechnique is involved in many areas of tuning development, is a State representative for Harrop and Remus products, and is the Australian VCM Suite Gen3 tuning software distributor.