custom turbo help (1 Viewer)

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Dusty

Dusty

Joined
Oct 7, 2004
Threads
100
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2,589
would like to do custom turbo very soon. never done one before. my knowledge is academic from reading "maximum boost" and "import tuner" Anyone know the a/r ratio (cold and hot sides) of the t4 turbo used on the safari intercooler? what turbo is used for AVO? what about MAF? if you were to use one of the t3/t4 hybrids on ebay ($200 new) which a/r ratio to use

Any reliabilty problems forseen to extending the current oe 2 piece exhaust manifold back up 130 degrees to the turbo? (so turbo in same location as the safari and MAF turbos) do you think if I bolt this extension piece to the current 2 piece manifold it will hold of or will the extension need to be welded to the current manifold?

need links to yomamas safari pics/instructions as i cant get at yomama.net

need pics of intercooling ducting besides the cool photoman pics

anything wrong with using 2' mufler pipe for intercooler ducting-i like it cause i can weld it without couplers? i have access to some 2' aluminum

anyone know where I can get cheap couplers?

i am considering using threaded pipe elbows as weld els. will cut off threads of corse. have read of people using these.

wont use egt, booste guage, watercooling, engine management for now to hold back cost. will use cheap LED a/f ratio. will use cheap BOV. will use remote wastegate

please help and be critical if needed
 
Dusty, send me an email and I can send you yomamas files as I downloaded all of them from him

Dusty said:
need links to yomamas safari pics/instructions as i cant get at yomama.net
Click to expand...

I'd do a search here under "turbo" and you should hit a lot of the custom ducting that LX_Treme has pics of as well as others. Also search the 100-series as they had a good thread with pics of custom 80-series turbo there too. But generally you'll be lead by the specific arrangement you end up with once you've got your turbo in place, if you're keeping the stock air cleaner box, and anything else that might be in the way like your fender well :D
Dusty said:
need pics of intercooling ducting besides the cool photoman pics
Click to expand...

Steel pipe for ducting = bad. There's pretty much no way you'd ever be able to be certain there won't be some condensate in the tubing. Steel will rust, rust will flake off, enter engine. Muy mal. Use aluminum, it's not that expensive. You can easily buy the mandrel bent sections in your particular bend (eg, U-bend, 90-deg elbow, 45-deg elbow, etc) and straight length sections on eBay or from any number of turbo suppliers online.
Dusty said:
anything wrong with using 2' mufler pipe for intercooler ducting-i like it cause i can weld it without couplers? i have access to some 2' aluminum
Click to expand...

probably on eBay if you're cheap but you can just go to www.turbohoses.com or the like and get them anytime...
Dusty said:
anyone know where I can get cheap couplers?
Click to expand...


I'll be critical here and say you shouldn't hook up a turbo unless you have a way to measure its boost and the egts AT A MINIMUM. Basically you'll have no idea if and how the turbo is even working if you don't know it's producing boost and how much. You could hook it up and have it not producing any boost at all but actually just creating a bunch of exhaust gas backpressure, jacking your EGT up to the level you melt a piston. Or you could be creating so much boost the minute you floor it, you go up to 20 psi or higher and pop the head off. You can find both gauges on eBay for less than $50 a shot and you might have to pop for a new EGT probe but it should be done just so you have an idea what's going on.
Dusty said:
wont use egt, booste guage, watercooling, engine management for now to hold back cost. will use cheap LED a/f ratio. will use cheap BOV. will use remote wastegate

please help and be critical if needed
Click to expand...

You'll probably need to do a new exhaust to fully realize the benefits of the turbo but again, without EGT readings you won't know if it's restrictive or not.
 
thanks mike, you are always helpfull. I was thinking of just adjusting the wastegate and using a BOV to make sure I didn't overboost but looking at ebay I can see boost guages arn't all that expensive and neither are egts--I will go that way.

I hadn't thought of the condensation thing....duh. how about aluminum tube from home depot?

i've been searching for days and see lots of pics of turbo'd engine bays but not from the front
 
x2 on the boost gauge and pyro.
My turbo is fitted to a diesel but the basics are the same. Wouldn't do a turbo without them.
 
Hey Dusty,

You might want to run some type of timing retarding device. I would suggest at minimum a used MSD timing retard control. I would also calculate the max injector duty cycle at boost and stay at no more than 80% for the injectors. What intercooler are you considering? An external wastegate is a good idea.

Look into Ray Hall turbocharging web site for picking you compressor maps on the turbo. It is a good starting point. You might want to think about how you want the boost to develop through the rpm band.

My only issue with EGT sensors is by the time you notice the temp is too high, some damage is likely done. Diesels engines are designed with forged pistons and other goodies. Forges pistons can take alot more abuse than cast pistons. I am not sure of the pistons are in the 1fz-fe. Your typical diesel works at much higher cylinder pressures than a gas motor. Diesel can take alot more preignition. You have more time to lower the egt with a diesel than a gas engine.

For piping Al from Home Depot is fine as is copper.

Using the existing manifold? Just don't know. Cast iron is miserable to weld from what I hear. I don't recall the stock manifold material. I you do use the manifold, I would consider cutting in expansion channels between each cylinder depending on the thickness of the stock exhaust flange. This would help avoid cracks at the Y's of the manifolds by thermal expansion.

I would love to see a "cheap" turbo for the 4.5, but this is a very expensive motor to learn turbocharging on... I would also suggest dyno tuning time with real time wide band Air/fuel mixture readout. I have a hard time seeing this system being done for less than $3500 to 4000 dollars currently. Good luck!:beer:

Where is SUMOTOY? He should have some thoughts on the topic.
 
I will be starting soon. have been reading turbo maps and I believe a 60 trim t04e compressor is the ticket. I'm still a little stuck on what turbine to use-I've read much but still dont get it as well as compressors--there arn't convenient maps for turbines like there are for compressors. Im thinking a higher a/r ratio t3 (so a t3/t4 hybrid) or a pure t0e4 (of what a/r ratio?) will work. Also I have been hanging out at homemadeturbo.com all day and these guys all using welded aluminized exhaust tubing so im going this way for sure. Even this tube aint real cheep (ive calculated $300 in tube and cheep couplers) again--im going to try and bolt a fabed extension to the current oe manifold to avoid removing the manifold.

need more help with turbo selection
 
The stock cruiser manifold is a high silicon unit, the material should hold up well to the heat. 2 studs per outlet may give a little trouble...?

The pistons are cast.. they use a very thick ring land. If your fuel is dialed, the tops will take it.

P1010039_2.JPG
 
I'm looking to do a turbo on the Taco for something different. Looking around I found that Turbonetics has a turbo manifold for the 80.

TOYOTA
Land Cruiser, 93'-99' (1FZFE) 4.5L 24V T4 30524

Dusty,
It calls out for a T4 to confirm your research. I saw your posts on HMT:beer:
 
I stuffed a Buick GN turbo/intercooled motor into 2 RX-7's and used 2.5" mild steel mandrel bent over the axle exhaust tubing. Drove it about 25K miles with this setup and never any problems with it. The piping gets so hot you don't need to worry about moisture/corrosion etc. and I live 1 block from the beach in SF where it is foggy and stuff corrodes fast.

You can pick up good quality intercoolers on eBay for around $200-300 new to use. They will support 600rwhp+. I would use at least 2.5" intercooler piping. The 2" will work but 2.5" is better. Use whatever diameter the throttlebody is. Cleaning up the stock TB of any ridges/casting imperfections is free HP.

A Buick GN Garret hybrid turbo has a .63 A/R turbine and would probably work well and spool fast. The GN engine is a relatively low revving motor (5400rpm factory redline) and this turbo spools up quickly with 3.8 liters and is good for about 400hp before running out of steam. On http://www.turbobuick.com or turbobuicks.com you can pick up a stock used one in good working condition for about $150-200 all day long as people are always upgrading to larger units. Make sure you get the wastegate and downpipe elbow. Pick up a stock downpipe if you can and only use the top piece to connect to the downpipe elbow (2 1/4") and then weld on some 3" pipe downstream from there. It will flow great!

Mcmaster.com sells stainless steel pipe tubing/elbows for pretty cheap in very thick guage. If you have a TIG welder you can use these to make up some quality manifolds that will work. You probably will need to have a custom flange to mate to the head made. It won't be the prettiest manifold but it will work great.

At the minimum you should get an EGT guage (with probe) and boost/vacuum guage. The digital a/f ratio guages don't tell you squat as they use a signal from the stock O2 sensor and it is a narrow band style that reacts slowly and isn't accurate enuf.
You can get both guages for about $110 from http://www.westach.com/. They make agricultural and aircraft guages that are high quality and work well.

A rising rate fuel pressure regulator should also be plumbed in. I would drop in a Walbro 340 (255lph) fuel pump in the stock tank as well. They are only $89 new and can support 600hp+. Calculate if the stock injectors will get maxed out. You should preferably have them below 90% peak flow at your desired HP range.

I would look into Megasquirt aftermarket fuel management which is cheap and can dial in your fuel/timing tables. If you try to use the stock tuning in the stock computer you will be playing Russian roulette. UniChip or Autronic may be others to research as well for a budget setup.

Go a spark plug range colder as well. Turbos need this.

Doing a turbo system on the cheap side not taking in all factors will bite you in ass by grenading your engine. Alcohol or methanol injection with or without a mixture of water is a great detonation suppressor.

Expect major torque increases and about the same fuel economy. More HP will be nice as well.

Here is the Safari Turbo kit. Makes the truck into a high 13 second 1/4 machine!
http://www.airpowersystems.com.au/safari/turbo/1fzfe_80/1fzfe_int_turbo.html
 
thanks man
I'm going to use 2.25 od" tube as that is what the safari uses and today i got a great deal on 10 new 2.25" ID tube couplers off ebay for only $53. Have you seen what silicone tube cost?!!So far it looks like JC whitney has the cheapest alumized tube. I have calculated that I can build the piping with 10 180' mandrel bends plus a couple strait pieces. This tube will cost aprox $200.

Finding the right turbo is still a struggle as I have no experience. The import crowd have lots to offer if you want to turbo your 2.0L motor but havn’t been much help with this 4.5L truck motor. I have read dozens of turbo compressor maps. The good choices that I can see from the maps areT04b series, garrett 60-1, garrett t61, 64, or 66. mitsubishi td05h-16g small, mitsubishi td06h-20g, The higher trim (57, 61) T04e series. The t3 compressors will get way inefficient with the 4.5l even at only 5psi-the t3 is to0 small. I believe the T3/T4 hybrid turbos may work for this motor. These hybrids use the small t3 turbine (they come in sizes ranging from small to large “stage 1” to “stage 5”) and the larger t4 compressor (called s,v,or h “trim” for t04b) and (40,46,50,54,57,and 60 trim for the t04e). I believe the ticket may be to use a large t3 turbine which would spool easier with a larger t4 compressor (maps show it should be 57, or 60 trim with the t04e, or any of the t04b compressors). My biggest hang up is weather to use a strait t4 or use the t3/t4 combo.
 
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I believe the GN turbo is a T3/T4 hybrid Garret turbo. .60 is cast into the compressor housing. They are 3 bolt units and the wastegate puck is in the downpipe controlled by the WG actuator.

I also have an AirResearch T04B 3 bolt turbo I don't want if you want me to measure the compressor wheel I can. I believe the turbine wheel is a stock size GN with .63 A/R and it is rated at 500hp.

Generally if you want more top end charge get a larger A/R turbine housing... it will spool slower. If you want faster spool the smaller A/R will do it; however will feel a bit soft up top. As the 4.5 liter Toyota engine doesn't rev that high anyway the smaller A/R may be the way to go. You can always just buy turbine housing that are machined to match the turbine wheel diameter.

There have been a lot of gains made in technology in turbos the last few years. Many of the used turbos you are looking at are from the mid 80's/early 90's. While they will work they won't be optimal. You can get turbos now that spool as fast.... and can make 100hp+ more.

Many aspects need to be chosen when selecting a turbo. Gearing, convertor stall speed, compression, powerband, weight, displacement etc.

http://www.gnttype.org can be a good resource as well.

Maybe you could make it a twin turbo setup in parallel. A little more plumbing....

Hit the technical drop down box and I'm sure you can learn a bit more about turbo'ing anything.
http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/techpage.html

If you want to learn from a guy who has turbo'd just about everything then speak with Jose. www.Forced Inductions.com
AKA "Turbo Slut"
(256)658-5798
 
By the way Dusty, since I am in the middle of rebuilding my APS system and have been trying to source the specs on the original T4-E they used, I was offered a brand new one from APS for the low price of "$1,812.18USD plus $115USD for freight via DHL". Calling on Turbonetics now....:hillbilly
 
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Limit Engineering in AZ (they have a good name in the turbo rebuild world)
Turbonetics in CA
Precision Turbo & Engine in IN
and others are a good place to have a turbo rebuilt.

You can have your existing turbo rebuilt with bigger wheels, new centersection (bearings etc), balanced/blueprinted with warranty for $300-500. New turbos range from $700-1100. There is no need for a ball bearing setup unless you are racing.

Dusty- if you buy a manifold for the 1FZ PM me and see if they will do a volume discount. I'm interested in doing this to my FZJ80 when I buy one. I'm looking now.

The limiting factor to a 400hp+ setup would be how much power the stock transmission and torque convertor can handle.
 
Buy a used Buick GN turbo then for $150-200. Instant spool and will pull to 5500rpm with a larger exhaust housing (.82 A/R). Precision Turbo and other vendors sell exhaust housings bored out to stock turbine wheel side for about $150.

If it doesn't work to your liking resell it and go buy yourself a new one from Turbonetics.

In the how to make your own header link: "This header was constructed from 1 1/4 schedule 40 NSP weld els and tubing. The els are available from most industrial plumbing and gas fitting shops and are very inexpensive."

weld els are very INEXPENSIVE
 
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