Turbo Project Complete. Humps And Bumps

[Stevenmverrill]

Figured I share my last 8 weeks with you all. Any one researching or mid project please ask away and I hop I can help. Or, any one been there done that please productively criticize away. Or, all replies are welcome.

I woke up one day and wanted a turbo.

Spent some time going between 'on 3', ebay, and a full blown diy. I loved everything about the on 3 kit including price other then the fact it's a kit. (Hine sight is 20:20 but, at least my car is 1 off)

So I was most intrigued with an eBay kit that included, stainless turbine Plumbing, Turbo, wastegate, and oil suply for 600$. It seamed like a deal! It Was most certainly eBay sketchy, and a complete risk. But, that's a lot of things/ fabrication time saved for 600$.

So the happy day of unboxing came and was short-lived. I had the car ready to go and first things first was to mock up the turbine Plumbing. It started with the passenger header/turbo flange not clearing the alternator and accessory bracket. No big deal, just got to move some accessory routing. So, moving on to the driver header. Well the collector was pointing at my steering rack and K member. Hum... that's out of my fabrication abilities or desire. Moving on to the crossover piping. Well none of that would work unless maybe I put a 6" lift on the car... lol.

No big deal back to the first step. The passenger header and turbo flange. I figured step one of turboing a car was to mount the turbo. With the accessorie bracket out of the way I put on a header and a turbo! Well, unless I wanted 1/2 the compressor sticking out of my hood that would not work either.

After opting out of suicide, I figured between the amount of pipes/flanges in the kit combined with already having BBK stainless headers I could make it work. The most viable option was to use the eBay driver header and rework the collector/flange. Use the BBK short header from the driver on the passenger side, and chop up the eBay crossover pipe until it worked.

A long story and weeks later I got everything tack welded and mocked up with some stainless rods. Having never worked with stainless and renting a shop to a fabricator it was barter time. 100$ off his rent and 8 runs later that hurdle was jumped.

The way I did it, it fits the turbo under the hood, let me keep the accessories original, and only had to trim the accessory brackets, pertaining to the obsolete smog pump and AC compressor.

Next was oil. So the 'T' adapter oil supply and fittings from the eBay kit we're all metric, and on no Planet would fit to a small block Ford. Also in routing the fancy stainless braided oil supply line, I heard a cracking sound after asking for a moderate Bend. Investigated that and found there must have been some sort of Chinese glass, plastic impregnated straw inside the stainless braiding...

All of that trashed, a trip to the hydraulic line fabrication store, and Home Depot. I had the oil pressure sending unit T. Off to a proper supply line, ending in a metric flare fitting to go on the regulated oil supply fitting to the turbo. ~70$ later and I had a turbo suply line.

The return was not too bad. I drilled a 1/2" whole in my oil pan, a 5/8 barb fitting, and welded it to my oil pan on the side of the front sump. I know this it rubish but I'm not pulling that motor until I split the crank, and at that time will obviously add a proper barb or a.n. receiver to the oil pan to be. As for metal shavings? I Grease the drill bit and used caution, and then rubbed an old speaker from the tap to the drain plug while draining the oil. If I missed and who gaf.. it's a sbf. (.01$/12)

Sorry don't feel like typing this whole thing at once so for tonight this is it, and I'll add all the pic's I got that are relevant until this point and pick up where I left off tomorrow.

Thanks,

 

[Stevenmverrill]

Pics

 

[RangerJoe]

What does the motor consist of and how do you plan on doing the tuning? Can't wait to see how this turns out.

Joe

 

[Stevenmverrill]

Tuning myself with 1/4 horse, tuner pro, and the beautiful intelligent people that share marketable knowledge all over the internet for me to read and learn.

The car is all together and a blast! Just got sick of typing for the night after figuring out how long winded this post is going to be. I'll probably finish the post tomorrow.

It's a bone stock original 5.0 ho. Thinking soon to be built 289.

 

[FastDriver]

Wow... If you've gotten that turbo up and running in 8 weeks, . Welcome to the site. Nice dog and lady, too!

Looking forward to hearing/seeing more.

 

[Stevenmverrill]

Back at it,

Starting with a prequel to the above. With the weather getting cold and salt soon to be on the roads I gave the car a bath, a coat of wax and sentenced it a winter apart in the garage.

Put it on 4 stands pulled the exhaust, intake, hoses, some wiring, fan, ext... every thing in the way. First thing to cove was the 42lbs ev6 injectors. Then came the fuel pump but the car was facing the wrong way and it was too cold to have the garage open. So that comes later.

Now following the above post:

With the backwards header on the driver side I had to move the oil filter. Did not think relocating hoses would be clean or reliable. I looked around the junk yard for an oil filter elbow. From having a few 4.0 rangers I was hoping that elbow would work. It did not, and after pulling a few teeth I gave ford racing 90$ for a stupid aluminum elbow. It did work but I have to use an fl400 oil filter (got that info here thanks)

Next step was turbine plumbing.
I got a 100$ 2.5" Universal aluminum/ silicone/ band clamp ebay kit, also added 2 1' sectionso of 2.5" straight silicone. 2 3.5" - 2.5" elbows (throttle body and compressor) got a 60$ 3×8×12" 2.5" intercooler and did a side mount like a lot of the vw's run. Having such a big a:r turbo and only running 10psi tops I figured the wight and complexity of a front mount would be beyond the point of diminishing returns for a car I want to take corners in.

I found a 2.5" blade maf housing at the junk yard. I cut it out of an air box to some ford fusion or something like that.

I got an adjustable eBay blow off valve with a flange for 50$. It was rated for 30psI but fortunately had dual springs so I just pulled one of the springs and got the adjustment all the way out.

After a few days, a 30 pack, some frustration, and installing/pulling band clamps 100 times I got it mocked up. (Tip use hose clamps for mocking up)

Time to work... be back later,

 

[General karthief]

I can see her thoughts sitting on that couch:
'I can't wear any of this crap! I got no shoes to match.'

 

[Stevenmverrill]

I can see her thoughts sitting on that couch:
'I can't wear any of this crap! I got no shoes to match, and why am i so itchy?'

Fify lol. in all seriousness she was happy to be a part of it and we watch a chick flick that night.

 

[Stevenmverrill]

Let's see if I can't finish this,

So I ordered a plastic intake manifold at the start of this. It was taking forever to show up so I went to the junk yard for a temporary set up. Actually I did some home improvement work in my brothers house sent him to the junk yard, and actually got paid to get an intake manifold. He needed my services, and I didn't have time because race car. I rambled a bit on that because I think bartering/frugal spending is a key part in budget projects like this. Anything you can do to save time or money when appropriate.

Next was down pipe and oxygen sensors.
I figured, to the point was good enough for me. A 3.5" elbow cut down, welded to a band clamp, a hole in the hood, and a bung for a wide band would do the trick. As for the eec's oxygen sensors they are pre turbo in the cross over pipe and passenger header because the eBay kit already had them. I have not had trouble yet but now know the oxygen sensors should not be pre Turbo. So some day I will change my tune to a single oxygen sensor, and plug the holes. Until then, they appear to be working as they should.

So first start up day came!
With the un known maf, and more then double the fuel injector I knew what was coming. But, all though stupid Rich (to the point of looking like a tuned diesel) It immediately fired up. I felt like a teenage girl backstage at a Justin Bieber concert!

Now comes a low point in my life.
I was set on mechanically limiting air flow to the maf to control air:fuel, and got a msd btm to control timing. Was certain I could do analog tuning without a device. Yes the internet ill advised it in every corner I read but, computers are intimidating, and it's just an old sbf... I mean you can tune one up with jets, mixture screws, and tinkering with a vacuum advance.... how hard could it be with a computer helping you? To make a long story short the 1/4 horse chip was ordered, tuner pro installed, and I was at Google/YouTube school while waiting for the shipment.

Tuning the car:
After knowing enough Essentials, I started tuning. I can not put in to text how frustrating and difficult this is with extremely limited computer skills, and no info on your maf sensor. Sorry side track; my maf set up is and 06 mustang blade maf in a 64mm tube, with a pice of plastic glued to it to increase its range. (Pmas otw now)

I started the maf curve way to scientifically attempting to quantify the tube size and air blockage in a easily transferable fashion.(ie:1/2 size = 1/2 air) What I found out is air works in crazy ways. Mostly speaking to the maf blocker.

My tuning brakethrough came when I decreased the transfer points on the maf curve and just started guessing and login the results with adaptive turned off. Also having better ambient temperature than 5° help to.

The tuning part is ongoing and I guess that will never really end. The details of the tuning would get extremely extremely extremely long-winded. For now the car drives as it should and I actually used my snow covered drive way as a dyno to get some different load points/rpm. The speed of tuning after using this method was greatly improved. Of course just driving the car would have been ideal but, I'm not driving a rust free 95 on salt covered roads.

I'll add pics now individually with a little bit of text.

Thanks for reading,

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

How much boost are you running? Excellent budget turbo story, I hope it stays reliable for you as you beat on it when the weather warms up.

 

[Stevenmverrill]

7-10 psi I have only made that on 3 different wot. Pulls and it felt amazing. My timing is still set extremely safe so once I get that up a bit I may back out a bit on boost just to keep the crank in the block, until next winter hopefully.

 

[Stevenmverrill]

Dump pipe. Flux core mig. Putting miled steel on to a stainless band clamp receiver.

 

[Stevenmverrill]

An abandoned intake Plumbing idea.

 

[FastDriver]

Awesome, Steven! I love the way you think about economizing your time, money, and just jumping in and getting it done!

I don't even bother with MAF, personally. They're supposed to be easier to keep tuned when conditions change, but since it's all at my fingertips anyways, I like Speed Density tuning. Never really could figure out MAF transfer functions, but I can look at a wideband and the cell I'm in and know whether I need to add or take away VE to reach my target. Of course, I'm running a completely different system that's "stand-alone" from the EEC. I have played with a '95's EEC on a turbo car before, though. Messing with SD so much makes me wonder if it would be as easy on an 87-88 EEC. The other thing I never really understood was how the stock computer understands that the intake is boosted.

I wonder something about your setup, though. That intercooler seems awfully small/restrictive. turbo 5.0s flow a lot more than VW's. I think they typically rate heat exchangers by how much HP they'll support, which equates to their mass rate of flow. If your intercooler doesn't support enough flow, you may see a pretty substantial drop in boost pressure from before the IC vs. after the IC. Also, it may not be very efficient at dropping temps, though that's a relatively moot point, because anything beats nothing. Still, if it's cutting off flow significantly, it may actually be hurting you.

 

[Stevenmverrill]

So my plastic intake I was waiting on was a discontinued part. Got refunded on that obviously, Pulled it apart shortly after this photo. I thought I could make myself an intake.

 

[Stevenmverrill]

Awesome, Steven! I love the way you think about economizing your time, money, and just jumping in and getting it done!

I don't even bother with MAF, personally. They're supposed to be easier to keep tuned when conditions change, but since it's all at my fingertips anyways, I like Speed Density tuning. Never really could figure out MAF transfer functions, but I can look at a wideband and the cell I'm in and know whether I need to add or take away VE to reach my target. Of course, I'm running a completely different system that's "stand-alone" from the EEC. I have played with a '95's EEC on a turbo car before, though. Messing with SD so much makes me wonder if it would be as easy on an 87-88 EEC. The other thing I never really understood was how the stock computer understands that the intake is boosted.

I wonder something about your setup, though. That intercooler seems awfully small/restrictive. turbo 5.0s flow a lot more than VW's. I think they typically rate heat exchangers by how much HP they'll support, which equates to their mass rate of flow. If your intercooler doesn't support enough flow, you may see a pretty substantial drop in boost pressure from before the IC vs. after the IC. Also, it may not be very efficient at dropping temps, though that's a relatively moot point, because anything beats nothing. Still, if it's cutting off flow significantly, it may actually be hurting you.

Thanks for the kind words and concerns.

Guess starting with speed density vrs maf. IMHO the army of overpaid engineers know better than you and I ever could. That said my ( don't own it anymore) 11 3.5l twin turbo oem f150 had no maf to be found. Only a map, and I'd say that probably stands true with any modern-day OEM forced induction, all the while modern-day natural aspiration Vehicles run a maf. easily drawn conclusion there.

In my case I would love a 900$ megasquirt computer with a map sensor. It just makes more sense. But with 250$ having full control of my eec I'll settle for now.

However...!!!!!! You bring up a great point that a 87 ecu would probably be better fit.

Map computer:
Kg/hr is your calculated. VE is your variable.

Maf computer:
Manifold pressure is your calculated. Airflow is your variable.

Guess you end up with the same feline carcass skinless, with various pros and cons.

To explain how the maf computer sees boost, well it doesn't. It makes a VE # in the same way speed density makes a kg/hr #. Fortunately the computer will calculate 200% ve. So in the maf computer you have to rescale anything important to 200% ve, and to think though the tuning in your head you have to assume a boost psi for a ve%.

On your intercooler concerns I think you're spot on. When thinking through trying to convince myself two and a half inch Plumbing was adequate. I found a good write-up that basically summarized keeping air flow below the speed of sound is good. Apparently somewhere just before the speed of sound the air will get pretty turbulent and start causing flow problems. The flow of 5-600 HP in my case is the limit. To be honest I never gave it a thought but you are completely right. The intercooler is breaking the air flow into tiny little channels that very well could be supersonic. Maybe worth experimenting with a straight pipe while my timing numbers are still extremely safe.

however, again as you mentioned; a cooler air charge is a cooler air charge.

Would have to experiment to determine but, I can probably figure out pretty easily if that little baby intercooler is hurting me, and I'll report that soon.

 

[Stevenmverrill]

Here it is a few days ago. My painter friend got drunk in the garage with me last weekend so he dressed up the intake cover and I made zip tie plug wire holders

 

[FastDriver]

I'm not entirely sure I follow your explanation of SD vs. MAF tuning, specifically why kg/hr (air mass) is calculated in one, but not the other. Don't MAF cars also have map sensors? Why would they have to calculate that? Anyways, I'll have to go back over that again after I get my Stats homework done, but this is my VE table. As you can see, the x-axis is RPM, and the y-axis (load) is boost, or more accurately manifold absolute pressure (air pressure) whether boost or vacuum.

My computer uses a 3-bar map sensor in the intake manifold. The input numbers represent VE (volumetric efficiency), which I'm sure you've been reading all about.

Don't read too much into VEs at all, because I just consider them to be ballpark figures. All the inputs on displacement, fuel injector size, fuel pressure, injector opening times, external temperature and pressure, etc.. would all have to be exactly on the dot for them to actually be accurate VEs, and even then

This is not my actual current tune, so don't bother reading into the VEs for that reason, also.

 

[FastDriver]

Here it is a few days ago. My painter friend got drunk in the garage with me last weekend so he dressed up the intake cover and I made zip tie plug wire holders

Hell yeah! lookin good!

 

[Stevenmverrill]

I'm not entirely sure I follow your explanation of SD vs. MAF tuning, specifically why kg/hr (air mass) is calculated in one, but not the other. Don't MAF cars also have map sensors? Why would they have to calculate that? Anyways, I'll have to go back over that again after I get my Stats homework done, but this is my VE table. As you can see, the x-axis is RPM, and the y-axis (load) is boost, or more accurately manifold absolute pressure (air pressure) whether boost or vacuum.

My computer uses a 3-bar map sensor in the intake manifold. The input numbers represent VE (volumetric efficiency), which I'm sure you've been reading all about.

Don't read too much into VEs at all, because I just consider them to be ballpark figures. All the inputs on displacement, fuel injector size, fuel pressure, injector opening times, external temperature and pressure, etc.. would all have to be exactly on the dot for them to actually be accurate VEs, and even then

This is not my actual current tune, so don't bother reading into the VEs for that reason, also.

No map sensor with maf. I'm saying the way you can tune and manipulate results with ve. Is the same as me manipulating intake air with the maf transfer.