Bolt on turbo kit (7 Viewers)

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NLXTACY said:
not at all. It’s very clear what happened. I took a trip without putting on a supporting bracket. It was dumb on my part. But I’m detailing it in all it’s glory as a warning to others to NOT skip steps during the install.
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Only thing to do is reattach bracket; drive back to SEMA; have a few drinks and talk story, drive home, stop for lunch, and report back.
 
NLXTACY said:
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.

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Thanks for the report! Your a stand up dude posting all the trials and tribulations. Now if I could just get some time off to finish putting it all together!
 
subzali said:
sbman, my experience with hills like I-70 through Colorado (6%-7% grade at 8000-10000 feet) at +/- 6 psi is that the drama won't be between 2nd and 3rd gear, but between 3rd gear and overdrive. Depending on the exact speed, overdrive can't quite hold it, so it drops to 3rd, which can easily hold it. So sometimes I just turn O/D off and cruise up the hill at lowish boost, or sometimes I try to play overdrive with the torque converter unlocked and see if I can hold the speed. That works a little better at say 70-75 than 60-65, just in a slightly better torque range.

If I were to leave it up to the cruise control it would jump back and forth between drive and overdrive.
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Having just done Golden -> Vail -> Golden in an unblown LX450, I can attest that the truck is constantly 2nd -> 3rd -> 2nd -> 3rd except for the downhill parts.

If had to drive it daily, I’d have a turbo in it yesterday.
 
Some of the damage from the my lack of following my own instructions. The downpipe was able to move quite a bit since it didn’t have the supporting clamp in place. It melted one side of the brand new EGR modulator cap. It dumped a lot of heat onto the wastegate (which is already hot) and it started scorching the wrap at the spot where exhaust was leaking. Lesson learned.

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It was great getting to see this in person Joey! Super tidy :cool:
 
Hot! I’ve seen my EGT’s as high as 2000.
im questioning the sensor though. My alarm goes off at 1600, but will show an open fault too intermittently. I haven’t had time to look at it.
Im curious what those numbers are, if mine are factual, that’s a lot of heat.
 
jjdeneen918 said:
Hot! I’ve seen my EGT’s as high as 2000.
im questioning the sensor though. My alarm goes off at 1600, but will show an open fault too intermittently. I haven’t had time to look at it.
Im curious what those numbers are, if mine are factual, that’s a lot of heat.
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first question is where did you mount the sensor?

I recall temps being about 500-550° out of the exhaust manifold and getting to about 450ish at the CAT. With the turbo under load 1500° wouldn’t shock me but 2000? Dunno. Never able to measure that to know.
 
Why sensationalize something that you don't even know is a problem in a thread dedicated to someone who both helps the community and makes a living doing it?

"Hot!" and then you really have no idea if it is hot. You don't know if your sensor is working and you don't give any location for the sensor.

I can tell you without even looking at your setup there is something wrong. An EGT of 2000f an inch from the turbo would mean melted pistons.

jjdeneen918 said:
Hot! I’ve seen my EGT’s as high as 2000.
im questioning the sensor though. My alarm goes off at 1600, but will show an open fault too intermittently. I haven’t had time to look at it.
Im curious what those numbers are, if mine are factual, that’s a lot of heat.
Click to expand...
 
^^^^ Totally get your stance Ryan, but some guys are new to turbos, so IDK what @jjdeneen918 exp level is with turbos / process equip like this / metallurgy in general.

Alot of guys get that warnimg “pyrometer is king” (and that’s true) - but like we know, probes are like real estate - location, location, location.

And yes, 2K* would be a catastrophic event.

I don’t have / haven’t read Joey’s instructions or the latitude he has for subb’ed in components - but @jjdeneen918 - I’d look into this alot faster than the way you talk.
Again, not owning yet I‘m not deep in the kit, but if tou have an AFR going, where are you?

Are you at a stoich on the burn, or are you lean?

Honestly, how stout did you build out your fuel delivery, taking nothing for granted?

I bet you have a meter/probe/location issue - From memory steel is glowing pale yellow @ 2K*.
Again, memory ~1600-1800* already has you in the red to oranges of metal, depending on composition/alloy.

HTH.
 
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