I finally dug out the 1600 TP I have siting around which will become my turbo play toy.
Im going to fit this to my Formula Vee for clubdays and the occasional hillclimb.
The engine is to remain stock apart from dry sump and ill just transfer most of the running gear from my F-Vee racing 1200 such as fan shrouds ignition and so-on.
Im building a barrel 'box for it with some close ratio straight cut gears i came across and a 3.8:1 L-bug diff.
The 3rd and 4th gears are quite close and very low. I would imagine they were in something like a sand rail or the like as 3rd is about 1.4 and 4th is 1. 2 something (from memory). Since the engine is stock and will only be revved fairly slowly, prolly around the 4500 to 5000 absolute maximum it will need a tall diff with those short 3rd and 4th gears to make any speed.
I reckon it should be lots of fun and make the right noises at the circuit! I have a Garret T2 turbo (Pulsar turbo ET) for it pulling thru an 45mm HIF SU off a Mini Metro turbo.
I had a tough 200 mm clutch built for it as well.
With a low boost setup I imagine it should see happily around 100 RWHP which should make a day behind the wheel pretty interesting! 480 kilos and a hundred horsepower ATW ought to go quite well and pull like a bull from low down with the little T2 on about 6 Lb boost for tyre frying fun and games.
I was doing a trial fitup of the flywheel and so-on and after bolting on the fly, there was a mile of radial play in the crank suggesting rooted bearings..........(I really hate that (sighs))
Closer inspection and frigging about revealed that the crank and bearings are prolly ok but the crancase is severely slogged out front and back....arrrgh! this things been given a flogging in its day.
I stripped the engine this arvo and the front and rear bearing housing are completely slogged out and the rear housing is badly cracked. Glad I didnt try to fire this thing up!
The bores, pistons, rings and other stuff are still in perfect condition indicating a relatively recent rebuild has been done to the engine. The crank is pristine and standard size journals.
So out to the old engine parts pile and hunt thru the rubbish and dragged out an old twin relief case i knew I had there.
Altho is been chucked around for many years, a few slightly bent studs and all the pistons are broken, the case appears to be ok with the correct cylinder spigot size so I whacked that onto the engine stand and stripped it.
Its a shame really as the crank and rods are in quite good order apart from some surface rust but the middle main bearing has seen water and the journal was too badly rusted to consider so I cant really use that crank and the bearings that belong to it which are in really good order. The case will have to be hot tanked and given a really good blow out after tho as its got that evil smelling old mix of oil and leaves, grass clippings, spiders, wasps and so-on in there!
So my cheap and nasty instant 1600 turbo engine is starting to rack up a bit of a bill now.
Ill have to find some bearings for the thing, give it a quick hone.
The lifter faces are pretty concave and the cam shows quite a bit of wear in the original engine but i should be able to ressurrect the cam out of the junk case as its in better order and the lifters are still pretty flat.
Anyway, kinda ruined my afternoon really but you get that.
More later once i get the engine screwed back together.
l8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
sounds much the same as my build up...thought i'd finally found a good turbo today (airesearch m10) off pulsar but the housing was cracked under the waste gate..oh well there's always tomorrow.
keep us informed on the progress.
That turbo is a Garret T2 if its watercooled or a To2 if its not. Stock clobber on E15et's.
Those little huffers will take an amazing amount of abuse and keep living.
Quite a lot of 'em crack between the exducer and the wastegate outlet but it doenst seem to matter.
Mine has a small crack there as well. Doesnt bother me in the slightest.
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
Sounds great tass.
I've heard people talk about "making sure the bottom end is strong if you want to turbo..."
Are either you or Stanley making any changes? What can be done to ensure this "stong bottom end"?
Is stock good enough assuming its not over reved or over boosted and what are the repercussions of not having a stong bottom end?
Cheers
Jeremy
......random gibberish for today.......
Ummm depends on, as you say, how many revs and how much boost you want to put at it really.
Revs wil kill the stock Kraut engine and at least, a counterweighted crank is the order of the day if the engine is to regularly see over 5 grand for any length of time and you want to keep the crank actually IN the cases!. Altho the stock rods are easily up to the job the addition of some decent ones would not go astray in a "tough" engine.
In a low rev/boost setup, tough or forged pistons are pointless as a boosted engine is actually kinder to pistons than an atmo engine at the same revs, provided the engine is not savagely and repeatedly detonated.
Im leaving the existing pistons in there as they are in pretty good shape and there will be plenty of piston to bore clearance after i run a hone thru them to de-glaze them.
Im not even going to bother setting up any boost ignition retard in this engine.Not enough boost to bother with it at 6psi and in order to get the engines to rev happily between 4500 and 5000rpm, i retard the ignition timing to around 28 to 30 degrees BTDC anyway.
The only thing Ill touch with a grinder is to slightly relieve any sharp edges in the combustion chambers to help prevent detonation.
The stock cases are not really up to the job in a hi-po engine that is expected to really rev and the cranks have a habit of slogging their way out and destroying the bearing bores.
If you really want to make the big numbers then probably a much tougher aluminium crankcase (say Scat) would be a good choice to minimise case flexing and so-on. They usually have beefed up bearing housings and better oiling galleries importants in a loosely built high rev engine.
However, on a low boost and low rev setup I am working on, there is little point in adding expensive high end clobber. The stock engine has low enough compression and the revs i will be asking from it will not be an issue.
Im aiming for relatively low boost pressures as well so the stock cases and the rest of the clobber should comfortably do the job.
Its a matter of choosing a setup and adding the bits you need to make that particular setup reliable.
In my case, its also a budget buildup. Nothing is new and in the unlikely event of the engine going bang down the straight then Ill not loose any sleep over it. In which case I'll go out to the junk pile and retrieve another old case and crank and clap it together again! This time paying closer attention to the revs I let it run to LOL!
Horses for courses of course of course!
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
these projects sound very interesting, would love to see some progress pics and how you set up all the plumbing etc.
Thanks Tass, very informative as per usual 🙂
Good luck with your set up.
I'm still to make any moves with that EFI / Turbo stuff I bought off here ages ago... a Type 4 came along and I started work on making that fit instead. Still trying to decide if I turbo that sucker (the T4) or the type 1, the T4 bottom end is probably up to a bit more boost (not that I'm planning a high boost setup) but from what I've read they have trouble keeping the heads on! But a bit more mucking around making the injector mounts, fuel rails, intake manifolds etc etc....
Keep us informed on how you get on, it should be a heap of fun in your Formula Vee!
CU
Jeremy
......random gibberish for today.......
I'm a relative newbie to turbo's but i've read just about everthing there is. Shoptalk forums forced induction thread is a great start. Thats where I was sold on the idea of the SU. I have since purchased a 1 3/4 SU from ebay. Turbomania is another good read not to mention the countless pages on the net about turbo charging.
Sorry to hijack TSV's thread but it might be interesting to see to different paths to the same goal. TSV has obviously had some experience in this area where as i'm a relative newbie.
As far as hardware, I ve had my 1500 case align bored, decked and 8mm case savers fitted and purchased 8mm chrome moly CB studs. Ive drilled and tapped it for full flow oil filter.
The (standard) crank has been checked and journals polished along with 8 dowelling. (all machine work was carried out by Crankshaft engineering Craig Brown and Dangerous Dave)
The crank and flywheel have been balanced and the flywheel has been lightened, for no other reason than I think it will rev quicker with the smaller turbo. I know driveability will suffer but it's not a dailly driver.
The case has been converted to doghouse cooling and I have a bigger oil pump.
The heads are standard with the addition of a three angle valve job and heavy duty valve springs.
I have a mild (Scat C25 equivelant) cam and lashed out on new lifters.
I've fitted a new fuel line front to rear but at this stage i'm running the standard fuel pump as i'm lead to believe they're good for 100hp+ and being draw thru it hasn't got boost to contend with. If not and it runs lean under boost i'll add an electric fuel pump and boost senstaive reg.
I started out thinking it was a "tight arse Tuesday" turbo and I could do it for a few hundred bucks. Hah Hah.....I guess there's a few things i've skimped on but I think I've spent money where it counts. I plan to run 7.5:1 CR and no more boost ever than single figures.
I'm also looking into water/alcohol injection.
Feel free to tell me if i'm full of shit...this is my first turbo not to mention engine ground up rebuild. Far cry from F-111's although they're aircooled aswell.
I'm in no great herry to finish it but wan't to do it right and make it look good when it's finished. You can check the progress in tech talk if your so inclined.
I'll be keeping an eye on TSV's build up to compare notes and see where i'm going wrong.
Cheers
Stanley
Stanley wrote:I'll be keeping an eye on TSV's build up to compare notes and see where i'm going wrong.
Cheers
Stanley
Hahaha bullshit dude, your not doing anything wrong at all!! Hijacking the thread??? bah, the more the merrier I say!
Id say your looking to the longer term with your engine than mine in which case such prevenmtative measures are well worthwhile.. After all, it has to power a road car that needs to be relied upon to get you home for probably quite some time.
Youve covered most bases with your engine and i believe you have done your homework well.
See, mine is an el-cheapo toy that will live in a 480 kilo (with me in it) open wheeler and the worst thing to happen if it lunches itself is the pain in my sides from laughing and the fact i might have to tow it back to the pits sometime!!!!:P!
You wont ever need a boost sensing FPR tho. Thats only necessary when you are blowing thru your carb.Nice thing with SU's is they they will tolerate quite high fuel pressures.
Su's (along with CD175 Strombergs, Jap Hitachi SU copies and so-on) are an elegantly simple constant depression carbs that work simply fantastically on a turbo setup. In fact they work fantastically on ANY setup really.
I firmly believe that this kind of carb is often dismissed and/or overlooked simply because they dont appear to have enough parts in them. If theyre not complicated, then how can they work well is how some dudes see them? Bah! Bullshit baffles brains!
Id suggest you start with just 2 needles. a BCA and a BAC (Ive forgotten which is the more agressive needle)
You can get these new from Fabre-Midel in Lakemba in Sydney (if they are still there)
Those were the only needles I ever ran on my pull thru turbo setups.
I ended up using the less agressive of the two and modified it to suit myself. It lay somewhere inbetween the two. I measured the needle thickness with verniers avery couple of mm or so shaped it by grabbing the needle in a battery drill and sanding it down with wet'n dry!
You might also like to experimewnt with heavier springs and play with the oil weight in the damper tube to prevent any gasping on sudden throttle.
However, you will soon learn to hate this setup in the cold.
An ordinary carb has an accellerator pump to give the engine a gob-ful of fuel to get it fired up from cold. Always a handy item in a boxer engine, SU's dont and rely on a pretty basic system of pulling the fuel discharge nozzle down, allowing more fuel, to assist cold running.
However, they wont assist an initial cold start. What with all that length of pipe for the fuel to trave thru before it gets where its needed............youll find out!
Dont let that put you off tho. Its an inconvenience more than an outright pain in the arse but the engine will take plenty of attempts to get it to fire up and acxtually keep running when cold.
Youll view your starter motor and your battery as new and different friends!
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
Hey Stanley, thanks for your input. I've got a copy of Turbo mania, and to be honest its a collection of disjointed magazine articles advertising CB performance stuff. There is some information in it, but I've flicked though a copy of Forced Induction by A. Graham Bell and that was a much better book. I've also heard good things about Corkey Bells book, Maximum Boost.
I reckon there is little that beats the experience of actually doing it, and talking to those like yourself and Tass that are doing it.
Thanks guys, keep us informed, it great to have these sorts of threads (I've been checking in on your thread regularly to Stanely- great work 👍
CU
Jeremy
......random gibberish for today.......
Your right about SU's. A mate had tripple SU's on a holden 6. To say they were a bitch to keep in tune together is an under statement, however when we got them sorted it was like a rocket. The internet has made the world a smaller place there's countless websites on the SU carb and how to tune it. Everyone has different views but all seem to agree its a great carb for the draw thru. It even looks ok when it's polished up.
Your setup in a vee would be be a hoot
Cheers.
Stanley wrote:Your right about SU's. A mate had tripple SU's on a holden 6. To say they were a bitch to keep in tune together is an under statement............
I hear this same thing time and again and I can never understand it really. Ive found them to be ridiculously simple to set up and never found them to require much tuning later on.
This has always been the case with my SU's on the turbo setups, both pull and blow thru.
My M8 had an e39 engine in his Charger and it originally had a 625 Carter 4bbl thing on it and altho it went really well, it was an absolute bastard of a thinng to drive around town.
Anybody familiar with theese beasts of things will know what im talking about. Those six pack Chargers make a bitchy XU-1 seem like a V8 limousine in comparison. But, my god do those hemi six paks do the business!
I talked him into fitting 45mm side float SU's which we picked up for 30 bucks each from a pommie car wrecker in Sydney.
We attached them to a short, valanced triple SU manifold from Lynx.
I set up the linkages to open the butterflys together off the car and only connected the cold run linkage to the centre carb. A bonus of using a valanced manifold and I belive,an un-valanced manifold is the root cause of a lot of adverse SU publicity.
I set the mixtrure trimmmers to midway in its travel on all three carbs and cranked it into life.
It took about 10 minutes with the aid of a pencil (as a height guage) to adjust the mixture trimmers and balance the butterflys and the carbs were pretty much NEVER touched after that.
Remeber this engine was running over 10:1 compression, massively ported and valved heads with a wilder cam than the E39 Chargers had stock and this thing crackled away at 1200rpm.
That car was used as a daily driver and shopping trolley and ther only attention we ever spent on the carbs was to check carb balance after a couple of days after initial fitting. It was a waste of time anyway.
neway, just my experiences with them thats all.
i love any kind of CD carb.
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
Your right...it took a bit of time to realise that all 3 carbs were different in slight ways. We had the same lynx manifold I think.
ahhh kay
I stripped the ones we had, cleaned 'em, replaced the fuel hose from the float chamber to the discharge nozzle and put some new needles in and away they went!
jeez that was an animal of an engine!!!!!!!!!!
L8tr M8
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
Got the crank and evertyhing in y'day....off to put the case halves together today.
I reckon ur going to beat me to it. Ive got to take the case halves I have down to work yet and give them a good pressure blasting.
I gotta then get some standard bearings before i bolt the halves back together.
Cant hurry these things LOL.
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
can u take pics of the setup amd the making while u go tas?? still got that SU and turbo at home to make the turbo setup pics tell a thousand words if you know what im saying!!
cheers
rhys
it aint just cool its aircool'd
Sure M8
I still havent cleaned the case guts just yet so theres not a lot to see but ill certainly keep a brief on what i get up to.
remember, with this setup, im taking a slightly different road in the turbo manifold department as the turbo itself is remotely mounted to the engine/gearbox crossmember and the zorts will be just piped up to the turbo inlet!
This was i can use a standard set of F-Vee extractors I have laying around, merge them and run the reulting collector to the turbo.
The carb is an HIF SU which is attached dirtectly to the front of the turbo via a simple adapter.
Itll all be pretty agricultural but simplicity and cost restraint is the order of the day here!
More shortly.
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
sweet as mate look forward to seeing it all be great to see it in the making!
cheers
rhys
it aint just cool its aircool'd
Things are sent to try us.
I simply cannot remove one of the relief valve plugs...........gawwwd i hate that.
I dont have an impact driver either do I................
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
TSV,
Try your cordless drill in reverse with the clutch set loose and progressively tighten it up. The thousand little taps that get firmer often does the trick, my 14.4v drill is awesome at doing this. Needs to have a decent clutch though, not a 25 buck xu1 type! I use a higher end B & D with the removable chuck so I can set it all up and then click the drill on.
Air powered rattle gun is good for this too ( at the risk of being called a butcher when I am a psych nurse 🤪🤪🤪)
Rattle on dude! I enjoy your writings!
kkk
This disclaimer does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of either myself, my company, my friends, or my dog: don't quote me on that; don't quote me on anything; this disclaimer is subject to change without notice; text is slightly enlarged to show detail; resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental; dry clean only; do not bend, fold, or mutilate; anchovies or jalapenos added to this disclaimer upon request; your mileage may vary; no substitutions are allowed; for a limited time only while supplies last; offer void where prohibited; this disclaimer is provided "as is" without any warranties expressed or implied
KKK
Heheheh one step ahed dude. i tried that! My drill was not up to the job tho.
In the end i got it out using a slightly more murderous method....ye olde hammer and pin punch! Couple of whacks and it loosened.
Im not too keen on using that particular case now as the oil galleries have been watered and there is a lot of corrosion built up in there and I might have a hell time removing all that white grainy crap that has blocked a few oil galleries without removing most of the external oil gallery bungs and doing a proper job.
So, plan B, I dug out another engine, a single relief case but this thing has been sitting on its backside for hell only knows and was badly corroded.
A couple of the case studs were prety badly corroded in and i had to chisel that one apart. It too has seen plenty of work and the bearing tunnels are a bit too sad to consider. Anyway, i buggered it hammering it apart!
The crank is rooted as well. Its run a bearing and this has taken out that journal.
So, dig out another engine, this ones in perfect condition and in fact the bores have been closed and bored some time in the recent history of the engine. Everything was still oily and no water. Sadly tho, its also run a big end and the crank is buggered along with that rod. Oh well.
At least i have a case that is nice and clean inside and not slogged out.
The next thing might be fun as the case halves have been faced and the main bearing tunnels have been oversized .040 (1mm)
This means I gotta find 1mm oversize (outside) and STD pin size bearings. Might be a challenge that. Gotta make a few calls.
Anybody come across that much?
I can always go back to the other case but................
The only crank I want to use is in perfect condition bearing wise, looks like new really and mics up well and still on standard size but has some damage to the flywheel dowel pin holes. It appears that the flywheel has loosened some time in its life and damaged the holes a bit.
Ican either turn the flywheel and re-drill the dowel holes or mebbe just leave the existing dowles there and drill another set between them.
There isnt that much damage to the holes as the pins still sit in there quite tight but they have been pulled right out and elongated the outer extreme of the dowel hole. Prolly only damaged the last 1mm or so.
I imagine the flywheel that belonged to the engine must have been well and truly rooted.
This engine will have quite a bit of grunt and will cop it transmission wise so its prolly the only decent bit of performance oriented work Ill do to the thing!!!
Whats the general consensus here? Leave the existing dowels in and drill inbetween and add 4 more or just spin the fly and redrill the 4 dowels??
Ordinarily I would not waste my time but this crank is the only good one i have and i want to keep a lid on costs of this thing. Its only a crapper hence Im not bothering with grinding a crank.
Nothing is a easy as it seems!
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
Yeah dude , fix that crank ass by redrilling and face it flat too.
westi wrote:That's mad Alan.
oversize dowels x 8, done this before and it worked a treat m8
kkk
This disclaimer does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of either myself, my company, my friends, or my dog: don't quote me on that; don't quote me on anything; this disclaimer is subject to change without notice; text is slightly enlarged to show detail; resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental; dry clean only; do not bend, fold, or mutilate; anchovies or jalapenos added to this disclaimer upon request; your mileage may vary; no substitutions are allowed; for a limited time only while supplies last; offer void where prohibited; this disclaimer is provided "as is" without any warranties expressed or implied
Excellent gentlemen I shall get that done.
Id say there was a flywheel washer fitted when this fly loosened which has protected the crank end. There is no witness marks suggesting any galling and so-on on the crank stub. It looks like new apart from the sslightly slogged dowel holes.
Surprising really as this thing ran with a loose fly long enough to actuall pull the dowels right out of the crank. The elongation to the holes only extends barely a millimeter down suggesting to me that the dowels worked their way almost out of the crank before the damage got done.
Shit happens yer?
More later.
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
Hey TSV...your nissan turbo...will you be fitting a carbon seal or will you be just running a large oil outlet like i've heard you can do.
Cheers S
Dunno M8
If it becomes a drama and sucks oil I might just run it blow thru insted. Ive got all the stuff handy.
Ill have to get a definitive answer as to whether the To2 will suck oil or not.
L8tr
*
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
Just a quick update.
I tool the crank and fly up to a M8's workshop and drilled them for 8 dowels.
While we were there we chucked the fly into the lathe and turned it down....anbd down....and down LMAO. Plenty light now i gotta say!
Re-assembled the crank with new bearings but faild to notice that the cam drive gear was damaged.
Pull the sucker apart again, strip another crank, rob the gear, clean it up, heat it up and drop it all back on, yay!
While I was rummaging thru a box of old F-Vee bits I scored a long time ago, lo and behold, a brand new Cofap cam still in its box and a set of machined lifters!
Cewl, theyre in as well.
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
Cool, dontcha love old boxes of stuff!
tassupervee wrote:Just a quick update.
I tool the crank and fly up to a M8's workshop and drilled them for 8 dowels.
While we were there we chucked the fly into the lathe and turned it down....anbd down....and down LMAO. Plenty light now i gotta say!
Re-assembled the crank with new bearings but faild to notice that the cam drive gear was damaged.
Pull the sucker apart again, strip another crank, rob the gear, clean it up, heat it up and drop it all back on, yay!
While I was rummaging thru a box of old F-Vee bits I scored a long time ago, lo and behold, a brand new Cofap cam still in its box and a set of machined lifters!
Cewl, theyre in as well.
L8tr
E
This disclaimer does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of either myself, my company, my friends, or my dog: don't quote me on that; don't quote me on anything; this disclaimer is subject to change without notice; text is slightly enlarged to show detail; resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental; dry clean only; do not bend, fold, or mutilate; anchovies or jalapenos added to this disclaimer upon request; your mileage may vary; no substitutions are allowed; for a limited time only while supplies last; offer void where prohibited; this disclaimer is provided "as is" without any warranties expressed or implied
Yer, this got me intrigued and rummaging further i found a freshly ground and balanced crank fitted with new bearings, cam and dizzy gears!
Not only that, i found 2 sets of balanced (end to end) 1200 rods, a set of new rings and big end bearings!!
Somebody had spent a lot of time preparing these rods and this crank!!
On further searching, i found a set of prepared 1200 heads with new guides already done witrh 3 angle valve jobs (no valves tho)! I got dozens of them I know of tho!
My lucky day!!!!! heheheheheheheheheh hows that?!!!!
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
