Bolt on turbo kit (4 Viewers)

[CHDAZ80]

Damn, that blanket looks like it flew off of the space shuttle during re-entry! Bell housing clamp: CHECK, Turbo downpipe clamp: TRIPLE CHECKED! Thx for sharing so we all live to drive another day!

 

[bwakeling]

Anyone doing a low compression gasket in preparation for more boost down the road? Having troubles sourcing oem head bolts locally so thinking if I have to go ARP and a cometic do I go for a thicker mls?

 

[Willy beamin]

How much boost you planning on? Sounds fun
I went .040 mlx to bring it back to standard after the head work

 

[Corbet]

I went with ARP studs and a 0.066” Cometic after having a total of 0.027 taken off the deck and head. I tried to match factory compression. No plans to increase boost over factory fuel map limitations.

 

[scottryana]

Really no need to reduce compression, it is already 9:1

 

[gonzopancho]

@Corbet which ARP head studs did you go with?

 

[Willy beamin]

@Corbet which ARP head studs did you go with?

I went with the ARP supra head stud kit -I spoke with ARP and Summit which both confirmed that was good

 

[Corbet]

Same ^

 

[NLXTACY]

Sorry folks, I left very early last Saturday and traveled to Southern Oregon and then to Etna in Siskiyou County which sits half way between Medford and Redding. I had no wifi nor cell coverage, storms kicked our butts in both directions. I just got back and I'm trying desperately to respond to all the calls, texts, emails and orders so bear with me. For now I wanted to talk about the truck and how it behaved on the 1500 round trip this past week...

The truck was freaking amazing. So absolutely happy with how it performed. I would be totally enamored if I didn't just leave well enough alone and decide to make some adjustments to the downpipe while I was showing my cousin all of the handiwork. He had tons of questions and I thought it would be better to show him. So I did. And I regretted it almost immediately. I was using the SAME Clampco V-band clamp I've been using since day one. Always was fine until, well...it wasn't. The nut galled the thread on the t-bolt and stripped the hell out of it. Now I was in a jam because I didn't have a spare, doh!

We wound up cutting off 1" of the galled thread and then used a die to clean up the rest. Then the standoff side was now too long so we cut off about 3/8" of the clamp's stand-off just so we could actually get the nut on. This forced us to stay the night in Petaluma. In the morning I hit up the local big rig exhaust shop which was IDEAL for helping with turbo issues. These guys know their turbo s***!

I got a lesson in v-bands, flanges, gaskets, turbos, clamping, gaskets, v-band tape, etc etc. Needless to say I learned plenty and I will be adding some of those ideals into future developments. Anyway they had what I needed and within about 15mins we were on the road again North.

Being able to charge past everyone in the fast lane UP EVERY INCLINE is just so much fun. Its not a fair comparison since it has been very cold out all week but engine temps never got about 194º and it didn't matter how hard I pushed it.

One of the things I don't really get into discussing is gas mileage. Its going to be different for everyone's particular driving style. I will say though that on flat ground, averaging 60-80mph, I would routinely hit 305 miles with the fuel light on. Fill-ups were generally 20, maybe 21 gallons. That puts me solidly at 15mpg. If I'm really hard on the truck doing long climbs then I would be filling up around 270/280 miles. My SC, on a freaking GREAT day with a tail wind, gets 220 miles a tank.

I am now at 180,550 miles and 2200 of it since adding the turbo.

 

[NLXTACY]

So I'm trying to catch up with emails and I seem to have gotten more "where the **** is my turbo order" emails than I usually do. I guess that is to be expected when I actually take a vacation and gone for a week

For all of you in Group C that were expecting your kits three weeks ago, hopefully you all got the notice about the J-pipes rework and I know I posted it here but I'll repeat it: The J-pipes were reworked due to an error my little brother found. Those were all supposed to be done BEFORE I left for vacation but that didn't happen. I was gone all last week and where I was there was no work that was going on. So tomorrow morning I will be finding out what is going on with the J-pipes so that I can send out those kits. I have everything else for those orders ready to go, I just need the J-pipes.

Everyone in Group D, I haven't reached out to you yet but I have everything ready for you EXCEPT the J-pipes (which should be ready) and the next batch of turbos from BW. I will call in the morning for an update there but I *should* be seeing the next batch within the next week or two based on my previous inquiries. Once I have that info I will send out the notices.

Everyone in Group E, same J-pipe/turbo issue but I am missing just a few little odds and ends in order to complete those. Nothing else serious, just stuff I've been lazy on because I knew I had time.

As to the CARB certification final testing; I was contacted last Monday that they had a slot open for me and and would be ready by last Friday BUT unfortunately I had to turn down that slot because I had already left on my trip. The planets had not aligned. I will know more about the next time slot tomorrow.

 

[NLXTACY]

HUGE shoutout to Ryan (@OTRAMM) for using up his valuable time for my shenanigans. He did a video of the turbo install on a customer's truck.

 

[haulin auss]

...
Everyone in Group D, I haven't reached out to you yet but I have everything ready for you EXCEPT the J-pipes (which should be ready) and the next batch of turbos from BW. I will call in the morning for an update there but I *should* be seeing the next batch within the next week or two based on my previous inquiries. Once I have that info I will send out the notices.

Everyone in Group E, same J-pipe/turbo issue but I am missing just a few little odds and ends in order to complete those. Nothing else serious, just stuff I've been lazy on because I knew I had time.
...

Ahh yeah! Getting real excited over here

 

[woodsman 44]

JUST DID 600 MILES: MY REPORT
On Wed my wife and I headed out to Vegas to attend the SEMA show. We returned a few hours ago. This was 600 miles round trip with plenty of grades to test the turbo on including Cajon Pass and Halloran Summit.


The night before leaving I figured it would be a good idea to wrap the downpipe in heat wrap since the downpipe blanket I'm having made wasn't ready yet. No big deal wrapping it and the AC hard line. The only thing not covered is the junction from turbo to downpipe and the wastegate itself. Once wrapped I had my little brother reinstall everything back since he's done it a few dozen times now.


The morning we left my brother mentioned that he couldn't get the mounting clamp on because the wrap was too thick. He picked a bad time to tell me because we needed to leave. I gave it literally a 1/2 second of thought and decided to try running it without the little bracket that hard mounts the downpipe to the truck's bellhousing. This proved to be a stupid decision.

The entire trip there the truck was only turned off long enough to get gas. Not enough time to completely cool down for a complete heat cycle. Zero issues the whole way to Vegas and the truck and turbo is just amazingly bad ass and couldn't be happier.


While in Vegas there was a total of 8 heat cycles. This is where the result of my bad decision started to rear its ugly head. My wife and I met with with Dan Kunz, Kurt Williams, Bryson Tsujimoto and a handful of others where we all got stupid (fireballs may have been involved). Anyway some of the folks wanted to check out the turbo truck so off we went to the parking lot.

Truck started up fine, questions were answered, it was time to get to the hotel. But...I did notice an exhaust smell. It was slight but it was there. I thought maybe the welded CAT sprung a hole with all the movement. Figured I'd check it out when everything cooled down. Forgot about the issue this morning until we were on our way home. Went up Halloran Summit and the truck was happiest pulling 82mph up the summit. It could easily go faster that just seemed the sweet spot. It was pulling hard and engine temps hit 198.

Once we got to the top and basically coasted down the other side, we could both start smelling it. Something was melting and a definite smell of exhaust. But truck was driving fine although I could start hearing that typical exhaust leak noise. We pulled over at Baker, scored some MAD GREEK and let the truck cool down for a bit. After lunch I popped the hood and saw what I hoped I wouldn’t see.

Since there was no downpipes mounting clamp there was nothing to the pipe rigidly mounted to the bell housing. This meant the weight, and movement, of the downpipes would be shared between the exhaust mounts and the V-band clamp at the turbo. It was the heat cycles that exposed the flaw of my 1/2 second decision. The connection is thin stainless steel to thick cast iron. These could have different expansion and contraction rates. Also different to the V-band clamp. Well, the heat cycles exposed the REASON for the clamp. The heat cycling allowed the downpipe to shift downward JUST enough to expose a small slit of exhaust gas coming out of the turbo.

The result: The hood liner disintegrated at the leak site. The F6 Woven wrap melted that was protecting the main engine harness. Its melting point is 482º. If I hadn’t had wrapped it, it would have destroyed the harness. All of the other cables, hoses, etc were protected with the supplied heats leaving so I’m really happy all that was included.

Luckily that is all that happened but it could have been a lot worse. The key is USE ALL OF THE PARTS I SUPPLY! Don’t be lazy. I got lazy and it could have been bad. But its more about my bruised pride. Now I could have just hid all of this and kept it to myself but I want the transparency. Its good to know what could happen with certain decisions and why.

In a few days I will have the downpipe blanket sent to me to be tested and adjusted. I will recommend either the blanket or ceramic coating (or even both). Some may prefer wrapping and that’s kinda ok too.

View attachment 2128563View attachment 2128564View attachment 2128565

Whoa!...glad nothing caught fire

Pic of Joey going down freeway...

 

[Wompom]

Glad to hear it went well and group D may be here in the coming weeks.
Any lead time on downpipe blankets?
Wondering if there's any chance of getting one sent with my group D turbo?
Looking forward to the install and blasting up passes on i90.

 

[NLXTACY]

Any lead time on downpipe blankets?

I'll this week.

Wondering if there's any chance of getting one sent with my group D turbo?

Seems likely

 

[Heckraiser]

Man that video really makes me wish I had shop space and a spare motor to mount stuff up out of the truck.

I'm not sure which group I'm in (probably group Z, since I'm full of annoying requests)

 

[OutlawMike]

HUGE shoutout to Ryan (@OTRAMM) for using up his valuable time for my shenanigans. He did a video of the turbo install on a customer's truck.

Watched the entire video. Even more impressed now with your attention to detail and design skills. Looking forward to the install as soon as you get the CARB Cert. Thanks for doing this Joey.

 

[spyduh]

Well, an option is to drop the cluster's oil pressure gauge for an analog pressure switch with dial. But I'm not 100% sure the ECU is NOT using that info somehow.

Did you verify if the ECU uses the OEM pressure gauge data? I want to drop the OEM gauge and install an aftermarket Pressure Switch to monitor the actual pressure.

 

[sbman]

Did you verify if the ECU uses the OEM pressure gauge data? I want to drop the OEM gauge and install an aftermarket Pressure Switch to monitor the actual pressure.

Looking at the EWD for both 96 FZJ 80 as well as 97 LX450, the oil pressure sender is not wired up to the ECU. It is wired directly to the combination meter. I can't see how the ECU could make use of the signal without being wired up to it. It shouldn't be a problem to drop the OEM sender, the gauge in the cluster just won't have a reading.

 

[cruisermatt]

The Toyota ECU could care less if every rod was hanging out of the bottom of the pan, let alone a little oil presure