The Project Pad

Yeah that's some nice work on the header!

on my stinking phone!

Thanks for all the postings guys! Ok today I had time to get the front intercooler support mocked up and welded. I had to trim the bumper to get everything fitting nicely. Since this is going to be in the weather I wanted everything T-304 stainless to include the nuts and bolts. Here is some pics of the cross support which still needs some work to attach the intercooler. The first pic shows the stock cross member for comparison.

Ok so today I spent a lot of time trying to fit the large intercooler under my cross member support and unfortunately I found out that the intercooler is too large for my current design so I had to cut up my cross member to make more head room and even still I am having fitment issues. I may have to cut the bumper up a bit to get it to fit due to It's rather large shape. The 3.5' wide core can support 730 BHP. I may have to scrap the straight across design all together and make a support that goes in front or behind the IC.

Fantastic work, really enjoying the progress pics!

WOMBAT wrote:Fantastic work, really enjoying the progress pics!

thanks a lot for the comments

It has been a couple of days since I had time to work on the car. Got a little time today and I think I have the cross member and additional supports for the IC done and welded up today. I will need to do some bumper trimming, just so happens that there is some damage right where I need to trim so it worked out well. I had some extra 2X1 steel that I welded in place to make more room for the IC. Just remember that when you weld stainless to raw steel you have to use 309L to prevent weld failure.

On the car from the side

Ok revision #3. I think I finally got the intercooler cross member done. I had to make a larger support so the flex would be minimized. I also welded a brace in the back for extra strength. I think this took longer to make than the headers I made. I probably removed the brace probably 25 times trying different combinations for fitment compliance. The next step is to get the bumper to fit nicely.

I will have to fiberglass a hump on the bottom of the bumper to get the clearance I am looking for. It seems I take one step forward only to have three additional steps. I know that in the end it will be more than worth all the hard work

Here is the support on the car. The other support was too flimsy and the way I have the intercooler slanted slightly I ran the risk of the intercooler kissing the harmonic damper. I still have to install some rubber washers to give some vibration resistance.
I am pleased with how solid the arms are and it should prove stable enough for anything on the road. It also looks much better even though you wont see any of this once the bumper is installed

Ah, today I finally got my turbo in after more than a month of waiting. I will be running a GTX3076R with an A/R .60 it should meet my target HP goal of 600 BHP, 450 WHP. With the turbo I was able to finally weld up the T-3 flange. I waited because I wanted to be absolutely sure of down pipe clearance that I will be fabricating. The billet wheel sure looks the business. I can't wait to get her back on the road!! I still have to pull the head and replace the exhaust valves that I also received today. I went with some stainless steel ferrera Inconel exhaust valves that will do the job nicely.

Here are a couple of shots from the drivers side. I will be cutting through the side wall for the cold air intake that will be located behind the bumper

Cross member has been painted ready for install, I have been running around a lot lately but not much is getting done. Still moving forward ever so slowly. Tomorrow I will attempt to get all the oil lines and coolant lines taken care of. I still have to purchase an oil restrictor for the Garrett turbo charger. A .040 should do the trick

Well done, really looking forward to seeing the fitment with the bumper

Also, cool idea with the intake... going thru the fender. Looking forward to more on that too.

PRY4SNO wrote:Well done, really looking forward to seeing the fitment with the bumper

Also, cool idea with the intake... going thru the fender. Looking forward to more on that too.

Thank you man. A lot of work and its constantly solving one problem after another but that was expected or should I say should be expected with building any thing custom

The past couple of days has been sourcing parts for the turbo like the an fittings for the oil and coolant supply. I have everything that I need I hope, so now that I am just waiting on parts its time to move on to the head. While building the motor the valves were fine but later I found out that the sodium filled exhaust valves are rather prone to break under load, wish I knew this before I put everything back together.

Today was spent disassembling the motor for head removal, it wasn't terrible difficult just time consuming, a lot of little things to remove and not a lot of space to do it in. I was able to remove the head and get the valves lapped and changed out and reinstalled today. I need a new MLS head gasket before the head can go back on which I should be able to have tomorrow if all goes well.

the head is off, I wish those pistons could stay looking like they did when they went in.

They can stay that clean, just run e85

Looks nice man!

Hank

Hank wrote:They can stay that clean, just run e85

Looks nice man!

Hank

Hank nice of you to chime in.. I actually had a rather eye opening talk with Marc today at EFI about my HP goals and I was rather surprised to find out that I can only go about 315 WHP safely, which sucks the protein pipe! I have to go with Meth injection to get into the higher hp range. That is about another $1000, I swear this car is like our national debt it just keeps burning holes in my pockets and I haven't even got it tuned yet.

No way, I have personally tuned both a 20vt and an STI on that turbo in SLC and made 390whp on the 20vt and 385whp on the STI. For 500whp, meth or e85 is needed.

I did see that you had the .70 exhaust housing on there... use the .82 ceramic coated housing. It will make a big difference in power.

Whoa, this build just got much cooler (since I last saw it on MG).

I wonder if you'd have done better strength-wise if you would have just notched your stainless tube? Not talking about the material dimensions or strengths here, but the weld strength of the current setup vs. the notched tube. We'll never know, but I just found it an interesting thought.

What pipe was Marc smokin' on when he told you that? A 20vt (especially with pistons and rods) is good for far more than 315 whp... that depends on what fuel you are running of course. 91 octane, maybe that is true? Now I see that you have altitude to factor in too, but that is just a low number. Sucks if that is true!

loxxrider wrote:Whoa, this build just got much cooler (since I last saw it on MG).

I wonder if you'd have done better strength-wise if you would have just notched your stainless tube? Not talking about the material dimensions or strengths here, but the weld strength of the current setup vs. the notched tube. We'll never know, but I just found it an interesting thought.

What pipe was Marc smokin' on when he told you that? A 20vt (especially with pistons and rods) is good for far more than 315 whp... that depends on what fuel you are running of course. 91 octane, maybe that is true? Now I see that you have altitude to factor in too, but that is just a low number. Sucks if that is true!

Yeah my thoughts exactly. I was thinking 315 whp is way too low even at this altitude and 91 octane but I know Marc has a vast array of experience to draw from so his counsel is kept close to the heart. Detonation would be the culprit, their is a lot of back pressure created by the small exit from the turbine exducer and creates really high temps in the combustion chambers. He did say you can get more HP just you have to run a good meth system then my goal of 450 whp is obtainable

As far as the stainless tube, I did notch the tube at first but it just became too flimsy even if reinforced that's why I chose to go with the square tubing.

So a 135whp jump by just adding meth... Interesting...

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First of all, I prefer to quote lowest reading dyno numbers. People swing from the dynojet nut so much that I get all kinds of shit when I do tunes on my dyno with people expecting 30% inflated numbers. it gets tiring having that conversation.

Second, 91 octane is swill when it comes to fuel selection.

Will you do better than 315whp on straight 91 pump with no det? Yes, almost certainly. I just prefer to set you up for worst possible numbers so you are happy when the final result is done, rather than the other way around!

The .60 exhaust housing will choke that turbo for sure but like Marc said, you'll most likely make more power. but just go in with no expectations. Also, try to focus on how the car preforms in real life. In my 4k around 300whp felt just damn amazing. I also plan on running my 30r with .63 housing so I'll be limiting boost to 20ish psi. I swear, I am NOT going to blow this motor :-)

chaloux wrote:The .60 exhaust housing will choke that turbo for sure but like Marc said, you'll most likely make more power. but just go in with no expectations. Also, try to focus on how the car preforms in real life. In my 4k around 300whp felt just damn amazing. I also plan on running my 30r with .63 housing so I'll be limiting boost to 20ish psi. I swear, I am NOT going to blow this motor :-)

Yup, youll be surging with a .63, youll have to keep boost down..