Finally got a LC v2.0! (2 Viewers)

[IanB]

I got another big job knocked off my to-do list yesterday, and pulled off the intake manifold, cleaned it and the crossover pipe, and resealed everything with fresh OEM gaskets. I'd been seeing an oily buildup around the IM to head seals, so I assumed it would be disgusting in there, and that I may be losing air at those joints as well.

This involved removing the crossover pipe, removing the PS reservoir from the IM, along with the oil and trans dipsticks, throttle bracket, injector lines from the injectors and the injection pump, the fuel return rail and hose to the IP (don't lose the copper seals, there's one on top and bottom of the fuel return rail, use new when reassembling), some wiring to a sensor on the IM, boost reference to the boost compensator from the crossover pipe T, a wiring connector attached to the throttle bracket, and finally pulling the IM and injection lines out of there. It was a near full day job working at my pace, about 6 hrs start to finish.

Observation #1: about 2/3 of the IM bolts were loose! As in, no torque to break to loosen them, finger tight! So it makes sense I was seeing oil buildup, and it would make sense if I was seeing air escape there at higher boost as well.

Observation #2: it was much cleaner inside than I expected, no gunky buildup in the IM or crossover tube, a bit on the back face of the valves you could see down the runners, but not what I was expecting at all. This really cut down on how long I thought this job was going to take, I had planned on taking them somewhere to run them through a parts cleaner, but that was unnecessary.

Pro-tip: I ziptied the injector lines to keep them in the same spot/order as when installed, as you need to remove 3 of the clamps that keep them in order to get at the bolts for the IM, made it much easier to figure out where everything went back to when it came time to reassemble. The injector lines came out with, and stayed with the IM.

While I was in there I pulled the valve cover off and bent the flaps further closed to reduce the amount of oil that makes it into the vent hose from flinging off the valvetrain. No idea if this will help or not, but I can't see how it could hurt, there's still lots of gap for air to move freely through.

Results: butt dyno feels there could be a small increase in power and responsiveness, but it's small, and could be made up.

Now it's time to play with tuning!

 

[Lumpskie]

This makes me want to check my intake manifold bolts.

 

[IanB]

Tonight I finally dug into the injection pump, this was an exploratory mission with the intent of making sure everything came apart nicely, checking out what I'm dealing with for an aneroid pin as it was changed with a ground pin last summer when I had John @ ATEB (RIP the shop) perform a valve adjustment, set pump timing, and do the "power rod mod" tune. I brought it to him running 15psi and expected that to remain constant, and got it back pushing 22psi, and I've been running it that way for a year now, fingers crossed.

I had no problems getting the boost compensator cap off, and had marked the current setting (forward facing) with a white pain pen beforehand, once off I eyeballed it, and made blue and red paint pen marks for min and max cam lift respectively. This was tricky as the cam in relation to the aneroid pin is on the side of the cam closest to the engine block, not the front, so my markings are off 90 degrees from where the cam and pin interact, but I wanted to be able to make adjustments without removing the cap from the boost controller.

I did have problems getting the aneroid pin and diaphragm out of the pump however, they hit the intake manifold before making it out of the pump body. I tried to pull the pin right there and push the pin back down into the pump, but couldn't feel any difference when rotating the pin to indicate the bottom of the pin had been ground for easy reinsertion past the follower pin. At this point I panicked a bit, and hit the internet, confirmed via youtube videos that others had no issues pulling the pin out of the pump without hitting the manifold. I decided to mark the pin face that corresponded with the stock setting on the diaphragm, which I had also marked with white paint pen before moving anything, and remove the diaphragm from the aneroid, so off came the 10mm nut that held them together. There's a plate with a couple holes in it on top of the diaphragm that some bumps on the diaphragm fit into, and a large washer underneath the diaphragm that sits above the pin, I was careful to take note of this and keep everything together. With the diaphragm out of the way the pin came out with ease.

I compared it to the stock pin (as I'd saved this from when I had the tune done, I had them use another aneroid pin for the tuning), and they aren't identical before the grinding that was done on the ATEB pin, the fuel cut was at a different height, I didn't spend too much time on this and forgot to take pics as I still wasn't sure I was going to be able to get things back together. I confirmed the ATEB pin had been ground and where the grind was located, and was able to push down on the pin and get it past the follower, I just wasn't pushing hard enough, or in the right place I guess. I put it all back together, and made a small adjustment to the off-boost cam setting to provide more fuel off idle as I've found it a bit dead there, especially with the AC running.

Test drive went very well, I feel it is a bit peppier leaving a red light, and I didn't find there was any additional smoke haze behind me which is great! I'll probably play with this some more later.

My plan for a tune is to dial the boost back to 18psi (still a lot for the stock turbo I realize, but I think I've got something in the works for that anyways), from there I'll pull the pin again and paint it up with some paint, and hook a bicycle pump up to the boost compensator and pump it up to 20psi a couple times, pull the pin again and see where it's riding, and make shim/starwheel adjustments from there so I know I'm using the part of the pin I want to be, and see if the truck drives any differently. I don't plan on making any main fuel screw adjustments at this time, there's no hills here for tuning, I'd need to put it on the dyno to tune max fuel.

This would be a lot cooler if I'd taken some pics, next time I promise.

 

[Lumpskie]

Hey Ian,

That was an informative post. Is ATEB out of business? Also, I had the same issue as you. I have to loosen the nut above the diaphragm to get my aneroid out past the manifold. Mine is also finicky to replace.

So, why are you messing with your tune? Are you just worried that you're running too much boost? Also, do you have any links to how people tune pump timing? You helped me get my boost compensator done, but I never looked at timing!

 

[IanB]

Hey Ian,

That was an informative post. Is ATEB out of business? Also, I had the same issue as you. I have to loosen the nut above the diaphragm to get my aneroid out past the manifold. Mine is also finicky to replace.

So, why are you messing with your tune? Are you just worried that you're running too much boost? Also, do you have any links to how people tune pump timing? You helped me get my boost compensator done, but I never looked at timing!

Glad to hear I'm not the only one whose aneroid pin/diaphragm doesn't just pull straight out, but it's a bit of a PITA for making these adjustments.

ATEB did shut down a little more than a year ago, landlord didn't renew the lease or something and John & Philip have moved on.

I'm looking to bring my boost down to 18psi as I don't need problems, and it was my intent all along to get my hands dirty and make this tune my own. I've been reading and learning for a long time now, it's time to get some practice. I've always felt the low end could use some work, but the up top stuff seems to work very well, EGT's were in check coming back through the mountains last summer, with way more power to pull up the hills than on the way to the coast before the tune.

Setting pump timing involves specialty tools that I don't have, so I took the opportunity to have it done along with my valve adjustment when I was out west last summer.

 

[Lumpskie]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one whose aneroid pin/diaphragm doesn't just pull straight out, but it's a bit of a PITA for making these adjustments.

ATEB did shut down a little more than a year ago, landlord didn't renew the lease or something and John & Philip have moved on.

I'm looking to bring my boost down to 18psi as I don't need problems, and it was my intent all along to get my hands dirty and make this tune my own. I've been reading and learning for a long time now, it's time to get some practice. I've always felt the low end could use some work, but the up top stuff seems to work very well, EGT's were in check coming back through the mountains last summer, with way more power to pull up the hills than on the way to the coast before the tune.

Setting pump timing involves specialty tools that I don't have, so I took the opportunity to have it done along with my valve adjustment when I was out west last summer.

You had me a specialty tools. Do you know if there are any tuners familiar with 1HDT out east?

 

[IanB]

You had me a specialty tools. Do you know if there are any tuners familiar with 1HDT out east?

Can't help you there, it's a fairly newly available platform in the US, the only guys that I've seen mucking with these in the US have been out West.

 

[Lumpskie]

Can't help you there, it's a fairly newly available platform in the US, the only guys that I've seen mucking with these in the US have been out West.

I thought that might be the case... well, it was worth a try!

 

[IanB]

I had a chance to play with the off-boost cam settings a bit more today, and it's now set to the deepest setting, providing the most fuel off idle without reshimming the aneroid pin to have it sit deeper in the pump as a starting point. Results are subjective, and not a huge change, but it seems to have more snort from a redlight, with less bog before boost builds, much nicer for driving in town, and no increase in visible smoke.

In the pic you can see my marks on the cam setting, the white mark started out to the far left (front facing relative to the truck), so about half way, and it's now at full deepest setting.

I was hoping to dig back into the pump today and paint up the pin to see where I'm riding with the current boost compensator settings, I may still get to that after supper, we'll see. In the meantime I snapped a pic of my stock pin...I was hoping it would be the same as the ATEB "power rod mod" ground pin so I could quickly swap back and forth, but it looks like it would require shimming things differently, basically setting the whole thing up again from scratch so I doubt I'll get too deep into that this fall.

 

[IanB]

I've been continuing to play with the boost compensator settings, and have backed the star wheel all the way down, but the follower pin is only just getting into the part of the profile that was ground deeper, leaving me scratching my head a bit. The truck does move out better with the changes, power in the midrange is improved and it's much nicer to drive in traffic with less lag and better acceleration, smoke is still good with just a puff if you floor it and clears quickly as boost comes on.

I do have some washers/shims that I don't remember seeing/hearing others comment on, they sit on the hole the aneroid pin goes into, the pin fits through them perfectly, and I suspect they are limiting the travel of the pin down into the pump body. I'm going to try removing one and seeing what happens, might be that I have to wind the starwheel back up a bit once this restriction is removed, we'll see.

In other news, I ordered a Gturbo Grunter Extreme and took advantage of their 10% special and the near par exchange rate, so that's pretty exciting! Looks like it should be here Wednesday by end of day, no idea when I'll get around to installing it though.

 

[Lumpskie]

You running the stock spring or a stiffer one? If it is a stiffer one, that might explain why you aren't seeing full travel with the wheel all the way down. You lowered your boost almost 10psi right?

 

[Burbot]

Gorgeous truck. Does yours have a cover for your fair lead?so that the winch is totally hidden. Master 12 volt in Winterpeg. Will do the heated seat thing. Did a stereo install on 24v bj and did a super job also wired in 12v outlet in face panel I made.

 

[Burbot]

I see your bumper now more clearly. Not what I thought it was. Looks great. That's a great drive hope all well in the fire ares

 

[IanB]

You running the stock spring or a stiffer one? If it is a stiffer one, that might explain why you aren't seeing full travel with the wheel all the way down. You lowered your boost almost 10psi right?

I can only make assumptions, but I believe the boost compensator spring to be the stock one. So far I've only lowered boost 2psi (from 22 to 20psi), once I get the boost compensator calibrated for 20psi I plan to lower it down to 18psi where it will stay till I get the Gturbo installed.

 

[Lumpskie]

I can only make assumptions, but I believe the boost compensator spring to be the stock one. So far I've only lowered boost 2psi (from 22 to 20psi), once I get the boost compensator calibrated for 20psi I plan to lower it down to 18psi where it will stay till I get the Gturbo installed.

Hmmm... it's odd that you're not seeing full movement with only a 2psi reduction. How far down the profile does the pin get?

 

[IanB]

Hmmm... it's odd that you're not seeing full movement with only a 2psi reduction. How far down the profile does the pin get?

I keep meaning to take a pic of the pin markings in the paint, but so far I keep forgetting. I'm not getting to full fueling on the pin profile though. With the star wheel cranked all the way down, getting full pin travel shouldn't be an issue, so I'm pretty sure these shims are limiting travel. More testing to follow.

 

[IanB]

Dug into the pump again this afternoon, no more room to adjust on the starwheel, and the difference from winding it down from starting point has been noticeable, but minimal. Decided to remove the smaller of the 2 spacers that were sitting on top of the bore the aneroid pin goes down into...turns out my guess was right, they were definitely limiting the downward travel of the aneroid pin!

BIG difference in power under boost with that spacer removed! More smoke, but much better acceleration, 100km/h to 130km/h (passing acceleration) is vastly better, way less need to have your momentum up when attempting a pass. From a dig up to about 120km/h I'm seeing 1050F EGT's on a hot summer afternoon, previously it would hit about 950F, we have no hills here so this is about the only way I have of loading it up and testing.

It's probably more fuel than I want/need, so I'll be slowly turning the star wheel back up until I'm happy with it.

Pics show the pin travel with the starwheel backed right down, with the spacer removed the pin is travelling almost to the deepest part of the grind, and a couple shots of the spacers I'm talking about.

 

[IanB]

So this showed up today...

My takeaway from the Gturbo alternative thread is that nobody makes a good alternative to the Gturbo. Buy once, cry once. Got it on their August sale price, AUS $ is near par with ours currently, the time was right. This sweet keychain helped take some of the sting out of it as well. I don't think I've ever seen a green bladed Gturbo before either. Pretty fancy looking hardware! Shipping was fast too. Graeme is a wealth of knowledge, and despite being very busy was able to answer a bunch of technical questions for me.

Not sure when I'll get around to installing this. The new power from the pump tweaks is still new, I'd like to get it fine tuned, enjoy it and track some data at this level before moving on. Spring is likely. My car is up for sale, so the truck will be doing DD duty for the winter. Time to earn it's keep.

Does anyone know what the wastegate spring is set at on a Grunter Extreme?

Would people recommend replacing the gaskets/seals in the 2-piece exhaust manifold at the time of install? Or is that a "no problem = leave it" thing?

 

[AussieHJCruza]

Dayum...I'll have to buy another one to get that keychain!

From memory, the wastegate on the GTX is about 18 psi.

 

[Lumpskie]

Wow, that thing is BEAUTIFUL. It reminds me of the old CBRD BBK turbos for Evos. I can't wait to see what you think when it's installed! What boost level are you planning on running?