Mutt The Race Truck

[SuperBuickGuy]

This is mine (well, not exactly but close ehough) Guy Fawks

and an explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_mask

[DanStokes]

Didn't work on Mutt yesterday as I did a temporary installation of a boost gage on Truck. I think the turbo is pooping out as it runs great most of the time but when the engine is fully warm and especially if it's really heat soaked (like waiting at the ATM) it acts like an N/A Diesel - pretty poor acceleration. With the gage hooked up I'll be able to tell if the turbo is binding up when warm. A quick ride last night showed 20PSI with the engine lukewarm but I'll get it fully warm today and see what I get.

Hope to get back on Mutt today.

Dan

[DanStokes]

Here's the promised pics as the new turbo goes on:

Here's the wastegate adaptor and a view of the oil drainback hose. The adaptor is an Ebay thing. Note the slight swipe of high temp RTV on the gaskets.



And a couple shots of the turbo bolted in place.






The second shot has the oil supply line and the drainback hose connected though you can't see the drain in this pic. I'm currently making a bracket to support the turbo and exhaust so hopefully that will be tomorrow's pics.

Dan

[DanStokes]

Back on the exhaust:

I shortened the exhaust pipe 3" and it fits back just like it belongs there. Note that the turbo/exhaust brace is now in place too. A bit here and a bit there. The next step is to plumb the wastegate into the exhaust pipe - might as well dump the whole deal out the fender. I have a plan but I need to order a 90* elbow.

I ran out of argon and had to weld the pipe back together with blend shielding gas and SS wire. It worked OK but not as good. Off to the welding store tomorrow. I had a chance to exercise my grinding skills.




Another bit of excitement. I had my bath towels (useful for drying cars, etc.) up on a shelf and at least 6'-8' from where I was working. I smelled something and started looking around where I was working but saw nothing. I expanded my search and somehow the entire pile of towels was on fire! That will wake you right up. My CO2 fire extinguisher earned its keep. SO glad I have that close at hand. No significant damage to the shop but I no longer have any towels. I'll encourage ME to get new ones for the house so the old ones will trickle down to the shop. And I'll relocate the towel storage area.

Dan

[DanStokes]

And with the wastegate exhaust plumbed. It's kinda ugly but ought to work just fine. It took some messing with but now everything goes out the RF fender just like it ought to. Dave G - Lennie would roll in his grave if he saw my welds but he's beyond caring.

(Just noticed a spare turbo base gasket on the cam cover - have to put that back in stock.)




Dan

[DanStokes]

Started intercooler plumbing. I had everything under the hood but with the new turbo sitting out from the engine the intercooler would not fit very well. It was pretty cramped before but now was simply not going to work. So here's the solution in progress.

First I had to get the water hoses out of the engine bay so they can connect to the intercooler in its new location. In order to drill out the former location of the cutout thru the firewall I had to invent a new center for the hole saw to work with. I screwed a piece of wood scrap in behind the oval and established a spot for the center - worked great.



A bit of hole sawing later:

That pipe closest to the engine actually lines up pretty well with the innermost hole though it looks pretty far off here. I'll need to repaint that fenderwell now that it's in the line of sight.



And the new location of the intercooler. It's higher than I expected but that's OK. Obviously I have brackets to build tomorrow though the pine has a nice ambience.



The outermost pipe lines up really well but the inner one will need a double 45* as the intercooler has fairly wide set openings. Aluminum tube and necessary fittings are on the way from Silicone Intake Systems. You can see that there's plenty of hose to hook up the ice water.

Dan

[DanStokes]

Started replacing the pine stand with steel. Here's the right side bracket perhaps where it goes. The roll bar end is bolted to a modified Jegs helmet hook. They're pretty stout and fit the tubing really well so it seems like a good solution. At the other end of the angle is a 90* bracket that was there from the days when Mutt was an S-10 - no idea what it was for.

The reason I said "perhaps where it goes" is because I'll need to do a double 90* to get the intercooler tube to the other inlet and to do that I may have to move the whole deal toward the back of the truck a few inches. When my tubing and silicone connectors get here I'll mock it up and see what fits where then finish the mounts. I already have a tube running from the dash to the firewall to hold up the left side of the intercooler but again I'll need to see how far back it needs to be before I finalize the mounts.



Dan

[SuperBuickGuy]

wood you look at that

[silver_bullet]

[DanStokes]

And now mounted. The intercooler has to come back out to replace the temporary tubing with the aluminum stuff that's on the way so I didn't push the hoses in place yet but you can see where they go.

The same pic as in the last post except the mount is moved back about 1 1/2" or so. And the wooden blocks are gone.



And the left side. This is a bit harder to follow but I ran a tube from the firewall to the dash roll bar tube then built off of that to meet the intercooler mounting bolt. Then (because I'm me) I gusseted the snot out of it.





Now I've started reconnecting all the stuff under the hood and will add the aluminum tubing from the intercooler to the engine bits when it gets here, probably Tuesday.

Dan

[DanStokes]

Moving along. The aluminum tubing arrived several days ahead of schedule (I'm OK with that) so I was able to start putting the system together.


This shot shows the air inlet back in place. I had to cut back the tube that goes down under the front fender to the air filter which draws cool air from underneath (at least that's my theory......). In this pic you can also see the boost controller in place near the front of the engine - it takes boost pressure from the intake and sends it to the wastegate. All this is new to me as the previous turbo had an internal wastegate. More to learn.




And the aluminum tubing in place and ready (I think) to do it's job. I even added the Silicone Intake Systems decal which is good for 20 HP minimum. I sealed the firewall penetration with Permatex high temp RTV which I had not seen before in grey (you can see bits of the old red stuff here and there). I'll insulate the cool side (tube from the intercooler to the intake) to keep the exhaust heat from warming it back up.



Dan

[DanStokes]

A bit more:

I installed a new MSD 6AL box on the Volvo then got back on Mutt. Today I worked on sorting the electrical that I disturbed when I tore stuff apart to install the new turbo. With the intercooler gone from under the hood I was able to clean up this area a bit.

Here I used one of my favorite tricks to make a little stand mount for the inline fuse holder (I always fuse big power lines off the battery or in this case the terminal lug). That's a piece of 2X2" aluminum square tube with the ends cut at an angle so I have access to tighten bolts or whatever hold down fasteners seem appropriate. Then I mount the item to be retained on top using whatever fasteners seem best. This is a system I've used frequently and it always works nicely. In the Camaro I made pedal extensions using this method and I've used it in other situations. I like it!


Dan

[DanStokes]

Today's tasks:

Tim at Tim's Turbos (always my turbo guy) likes to see exhaust manifold pressure and boost pressure so he can determine if the turbo is sized well for the job. A bit of back pressure across the turbo is OK but too much is - too much. I can't pull up the ideal pressure ratio off the top of my head but at this point the main thing is to have the instrumantation. I had cobbled in a cheapo boost gage for that purpose last year but this year I added the Auber electronic gage for boost and today I repurposed the analog dash gage for the exhaust manifold pressure.

Some may remember that I switched to a non-EGR exhaust manifold on this iteration and therefore lost my port for sampling manifold pressure. It's a fairly easy fix but I didn't want to drill the manifold until things were pretty much in place so I knew what would allow access. And so, today's project:

Drilled the manifold. Evidently this is some kind of German cast iron as the bit did NOT want to go thru it but I prevailed. I used the ol' grease on the drill bit trick - it's an old one but it still works. Note the grindings in the grease.



And then I tapped it with an 1/8 NPT tap. Again, the grease trick caught pretty much all the cuttings.



And finally, everything in place.



Dan

[DanStokes]

And another minor task. Everything in/on the dash has to be marked. What with swapping the function of the gages and adding the Auber boost gage it was time to be re-markable (see what I did there??).

I hope this shows OK as it didn't look too good on my computer screen. I still have to remark the old analog boost gage but haven't printed the label yet.



Dan

[DanStokes]

A bit of Auber Instruments info:

I've used Auber digital gages here and there for years. The ones I've used in the past were for temp and basically are a linearized readout for a Type K thermocouple. This one is for boost pressure but the readouts are universal so I have 3 of the same readouts in Mutt.

I plugged in the boost gage and had a reading of EEEE . This is not useful info! Anyhow, it turns out that the readouts comes set up for type K thermocouples and has to be reconfigured if you have any other sensor. I tried to follow the setup instructions provided but somehow it still didn't work. I eventually called the Auber tech guy and he walked me thru it. It turns out that I misunderstood what selection to make for the pressure sensor. I fixed that and now have a lovely 00.0 on the readout. I'll have to get the engine under load to see if it reads as I expect.

It's a nice piece but I had to spool up my learning curve.

Dan