Builds Family haulin' (2 Viewers)

[Hojack]

We need to get this planned in the Cascade Cruiser forum.

 

[boots4]

Trip report continued:

Thanks Kyle for adding those pics and the names of the spots. It was down that canyon on the three forks river camping spot that my family did the up river exploring and then we basically floated back to the camping spot. If was fun and the water felt great.

With Kyle's rig having issues he decided to head home. Good thing and bad thing because climbing up the west side of Steen's Mountain is no joke and his truck issues probably would have gotten worse but bad because for me this ended up being my favorite part of the trip. Some parts of this trip were neat to experience but I don't have the need to go back. Steen's on the other hand I'd definitely want to go back to. I stopped several times on the way up to take in the view and get some great pictures. Here's one starting to show the dynamics as we were climbing.

Much cooler up here than on the floor. Snow was still hanging around. The road was pretty well maintained but we only came across a couple of other vehicles on the road, not much traffic.

Got out and took a look around at some of the different higher altitude flowers. Here's one.

Once up on top there are a couple of view points to stop at to get out and look around. You can see Alvord Desert out in the background.

At the next ridge south and at the highest parking spot we took an little hike further out. There is a zigzag trail down but we decided to stay up high and head back to the truck for some snacks.

Of all places I ended up meeting up with an old buddy out on the ridge who I hadn't seen in almost 10 years. He came down from Portland too and was camping with his family out on Steen's and said they come here often. I can definitely see why, wonderful views up on top and comfortable summer weather. After lunch and meeting back up with Ken and Clint we started heading north on the ridge to look at finding a camping spot. Starting to descend we saw this glacial carved valley and got out to enjoy more views. This is known as gun barrel ridge.

We ended up finding a spot in one of the campgrounds along the way that had a little lake. My son's being water bugs had to get in. Yes, that white stuff in the back ground is snow still on the ground.

Enjoying the sunset and it's beautiful colors.

There was a rain band on the horizon just marching it's way across.

The next day we headed down the mountain to find a dry lake bed Ken knew of that had ancient hieroglyphs. This day ended up being a bit brutal. It was about 60 miles of just two lane track out in the middle of nowhere. It ended up getting pretty rocky and slowed us down for a while.

After a long day and passing through the last gate before making it to the lake bed after a couple of detours Clint shut the gate behind me, came up to me and said: "I've got good new and bad news. The good news is that your trailer is still attached to your truck, the bad news is that it looks like you broke a leaf spring." That trail was a beating so I'm happy the trailer at least made it this far. We got creative with some ratchet straps and got me out on the lake bed. From there the family got camp set up and I went to work on the trailer. On trips like this I bring my Ready welder just in case so I busted that out and got to work. I even remembered to bring a welding helmet this time. As you all know welding on spring steal isn't ideal but with the main leaf being the one that broke I had no other choice since I was not going to leave it. Using a chunk of metal I keep in the spares box I patched it together and at least got it rolling again.

That night we enjoyed the last campfire (burned the rest of the wood I was carrying), did a little shooting and saw an amazing amount of stars after things got dark. In the morning we packed up, explored the rocks to look for hieroglyphs and headed out to find a highway to start our return home.

After another 10-15 miles we hit a highway and started back. So far my trailer fix was holding. We stopped in some town to fill up and at the station the leaf broke again. I found some shade, unloaded the trailer, flipped it over and patched it again. There were some rough asphalt roads on the way back but I made it home with the trailer in one piece. Ken and Clint followed for most of the trip back in case something broke again. As of now I still need to fix it and I'll upgrade to some springs that are a little beefier and eventually work on a cap I can latch down to seal out some of the dust. The truck really didn't have any issues. On some of the washboard stretches I found that vibration loosening my rear diff cover bolts. Found that at a stop and tightened them up. Then I just kept checking and tightening when needed after washboard sections. The long inclines on the paved roads did cause me to turn off the AC and slow down during the uphill pulls to keep engine temps in check but on the flats the AC was a dream out in the desert. This is my motivation to change out to a mechanical fan to pull more air but I recently picked up some turbo blankets to help control under hood temps per @Jason Andrews suggestion/experience. We'll see how those do/help.

It was an awesome trip to see some places of Oregon I've never been to and probably few others have been to, and hang out with good friends to enjoy this experience. The best thing was that my family came along and have some neat memories which was one of the goals of building this rig as a family hauler.

 

[boots4]

Made a really short video of two parts of the trip.

Southeastern Oregon Summer 2019

 

[CreeperSleeper]

I love that area and would love to go back!

 

[Hojack]

That lake you stopped at was Fish Lake

What an excellent trip report!

 

[boots4]

Yup, that's the one. We took that trail going to the left of the lower smaller circle but didn't find a suitable place to camp so we came back and grabbed a spot right by that trail for the night. We hiked around the lake and several of the spots on the right side of the lake were all under water. The mosquito's were bad on that side.

 

[Jason Andrews]

Looks like you're making good progress! Sweet trip report.

I feel like you should have gotten a larger drop in EGT after the intercooler install. Another couple places that I've found are worth spending a little time on are the cold side tubing from the turbos to intercooler and even a little from intercooler to intake. While I haven't put heat tape on my 3" piece of interstage cold pipe between my turbos, I did find the exposed tube from the little turbo to the intercooler were pretty hot after high load/long periods of heat soak. It was definitely raising my IAT and effectively making EGT and engine temps a little hotter as well.

I just used cheap DEI heat reflective tape to wrap the aluminum tube to the intercooler. Since your exhaust manifold is close I bet it sheds quite a bit of heat into those cold pipes to the intercooler. Maybe give them a feel next time she's all warmed up to see how hot they feel? I still need to lava wrap my down pipe which I'm sure will help as well. None of these things by themselves were noticeable, but the overall difference is most definitely notable.

How many CFM does your electrical fan pull? I switched from a dual low profile that was 3,000 to a dual that pull 4,600 a year ago or so. Made a big difference. Especially after I did all the extra heat containment measures. Intercoolers and large 40k tranny coolers really block the amount of air flow that makes it through the engine bay.

 

[boots4]

Yeah, I was hoping for a little more drop in temp from the intercooler upgrade too. You know the deal though, running bigger tires, a bunch of fuel, bigger injectors, and the AC condenser in front of it so those all add up. I haven't tried the reflective tape on the intake tubes yet. That could hide some of my ugly welds as a benefit. Any issue with that sticking after those tubes heat up from the inside? Two turbos pushing boost get that air temp pretty warm.

I've stuffed a 16" and a 14" Maradyne fan onto my bigger radiator. Combined is 4200+ cfm rated. Again no/light loads is controlled, add a family in the truck, run the AC and pull a loaded trailer and things warm up, especially when I want to run 70 mph up the grades. I truly think getting the intake to pull in outside air will make a big difference but all of these other heat management items should only make it that much better.

 

[Jason Andrews]

Definitely true and I don't even have an AC condenser in mine. Yeah, the 'cool tape' seems to do a good job at deflecting heat and should help keep the charged air from heating up even more on the way to the intercooler. I haven't had any problems with it unsticking and coming off due to heat as long as there is a good overlap.

Oh yea, pulling fresh air instead of heat soaked air box and filter is a game changer. It took me years to figure out a solution all while I was running 6bt turbos that obviously didn't help. I did test runs and could see how much it changed my EGT by pulling my air filter and connecting the turbo to my snorkel in the fender and then putting the filter at the top of the snorkel. Do you have a plan on how you're going to do it?

 

[esh]

Good times. Sorry about that long rough route over Hart (I liked it, hehe).

I'm planning to route find from the back of Alvord SE toward Trout Crk Mtns over a long 4th weekend. I think I have the CC original web master going in his HZJ77.

 

[boots4]

Oh yea, pulling fresh air instead of heat soaked air box and filter is a game changer... Do you have a plan on how you're going to do it?

I've done several staring session on it with no mental success on how to move forward with doing a whole bunch of surgery. The best I've come up with involves cutting into my fender well to build a box and running the intake up through the hood. It would be nice to run some kind of pre-filter top on it but don't to restrict airflow. If I oversize the pre-filter top that should give me room.


Here's some more stuff to update I did last year sometime

After the turbo drain pipe redo I still had oil turbo issues. I decided to try out a new center cartridge on my small turbo. I picked up a whole unit instead of rebuilding again. This way it was balanced and all set to spec. At this point I was throwing some more money at it to try and find the problem.

Old on top with the 19T conversion wheel. New center section on the bottom with a factory 19T wheel. With this change I have completely changed out my small turbo to a TD04HL - 19T.

Old on the left, New on the right.

My aftermarket conversion 11 blade compressor wheel was showing some wear on the leading blade edges (left). I decided to go with the 6 blade factory style wheel (right) to see how that would change my spool dynamic. For a comparison I want to say I remember it improving spool up just a little bit. It's been a while since I made this change and I've made other changes too. On a side note you can see on the conversion wheel on the exducer side that the fins extend over the recessed area on the backing plate (16T) where on the factory wheel (19T) it's up to the edge of the recess. That's because the backing plate on the factory 19T side has a larger recess than the 16T recess. I should be able to flow just a little more air with the factory 19T wheel. I do seem to build a carry more boost lately but there are other factors involved in that too.

After this it seemed to help with juiciness but a little bit was still making it into the intake system. I finally started taking a look more at my crankcase breather set up and that change made the difference. I'll update on that next.

 

[brokenparts]

 

[Hojack]

What do you think is the cause for the wear on your turbo impeller veins? Wobble in the housing, overspeeding, heat? In centrifugal pumps we see cavitation where the vapor pressure inside the pump housing allows water molecules to implode. Cavitation causes the same damage as what your showing on your turbo veins.

 

[boots4]

The leading edge of the compressor wheel in a turbo is open to air so it'd most likely be something in the air stream. Since the small turbo compressor intake is fed by the big turbo it either passed through the big turbo compressor or came from the big turbo's compressor. Haven't noticed any wear on the big turbo compressor so I'm not quite sure. Normally I'd chalk it up to a hole in an air filter letting dirty air through.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Most often wear on the leading edge of compressor inducer wheel blades is due to insufficient filtration.

Keep it up Mike. Hoping to start my compound setup here soon.

 

[boots4]

I'd seen this style of valve cover breather before but after @Hojack set one up on his rig with positive results I figured it was time to give it a try. He got an amazing deal on his and I was not able to secure that same deal so I ended up sourcing it locally. Of course the trick for me was that I had to modify it due to how I'm running my head studs but after getting measurements I made my mods.

Test fitting to see if the new holes will clear the top of the studs.

Used my freeze plug and JBweld trick that I used on my other valve covers. Here's the underside of the breather cover. You can see the little drain hole on the left side cover that returns the separated oil back to the valve train area.

Top side of it sealed and painted.

Here is the breather cap that helps separate the oil from venting.

There is a guide collar that aligns it one way. That way didn't point the tube where I needed it so I removed that to get the tube pointed where it works for me.

There are special bolts that have the right spacing that I did not track down. I tried several different ways to take up the space so the bolt would seal but also push down on the valve covers with enough force to get the lower gasket to seal as well. I tried stacking different material, layering washers and o-rings and finally settled on a solid spacer sandwiched with o-rings. I still get a little weeping so I'll probably pick up those special bolts at some point. Here was one of my experiments with using the original valve cover bolts.

After adding this valve cover breather setup I finally stopped getting oil in my air intake. It was always a little worse when I drove more spirited. I figure that pushing my 60 psi boost numbers is pushing some pressure around the piston rings and pressurizing the crankcase too much for the factory breather to handle and that caused some drain oil to back up in the turbos causing oil to get by the seals. I also studied the advantage of a little bit of vacuum on the crankcase. I have half of that project completed and will use the exhaust flow to do that. I have a check valve welded to my exhaust tubing after my muffler and really just need to get some tubing long enough to connect to the breather tube. The flow of exhaust passing that check valve will cause a venturi effect and create some vacuum. I don't want too much vacuum because I don't want it to suck out my engine oil so that's the reason to route it to the back of the exhaust. Right now I have both vents exiting where the factory exited on the driver side of the engine. I hardly see any venting from the factory tube at idle anymore but a good flow from this new vent I installed. My oil catch can I have installed on my factory line doesn't collect nearly as much oil either.

 

[Jason Andrews]

I've done several staring session on it with no mental success on how to move forward with doing a whole bunch of surgery. The best I've come up with involves cutting into my fender well to build a box and running the intake up through the hood. It would be nice to run some kind of pre-filter top on it but don't to restrict airflow. If I oversize the pre-filter top that should give me room.

Been there. Here is how I've been running mine for about 5 years. Only took me about 5 years or so to figure it out. A BHAF up top covered with a stainless steel pot/bin. Drilled 3 holes in it and zip tie down to a hose clamp on the snorkel. Not the prettiest, but it gets the job done and with no other concerns.

 

[brokenparts]

Been there. Here is how I've been running mine for about 5 years. Only took me about 5 years or so to figure it out. A BHAF up top covered with a stainless steel pot/bin. Drilled 3 holes in it and zip tie down to a hose clamp on the snorkel. Not the prettiest, but it gets the job done and with no other concerns.View attachment 2442852View attachment 2442854

not to mention I have a perfect image or “blueprint” really to move forward.... duh.

on a serious note... what about pulling air from the cab?

 

[boots4]

@Jason Andrews Thanks for the idea. Your truck looks great! Looks like you've leveled up in your "massage the fender" skills to get those huge tires under there. I'm sure it wasn't easy.

 

[boots4]

on a serious note... what about pulling air from the cab?

Haha, I have visions of being oxygen depraved when I pull high boost numbers up a long climb and those turbos sucking out all my air. For me, there would still be the trick of routing to get a large tube through the firewall. I guess if I were running my AC I could really get cold air intake.

More details on my current thoughts: To build a box around my air filter where it currently sits to seal it up from underhood air. To get enough room to put a box around the filter I'd cut the fender well and extend the box down into that area. I've done some flex testing to see how far the tire goes into the well and it looks like I've got a little room to play with in bringing the top of the well down a couple inches. I'd then route the intake to that sealed box through the hood with a prefilter thingy exposed on top of the hood. I wanted to try and see if I could route the intake to the base of the windshield as that will be positive air flow but I've got windshield wiper stuff in the way that I still need. Then there is another thought of sinking something into the fender so it doesn't stick too far out to get pulled off on the tight trails we have in our area and route the intake through the fender. That might give it more of that Mad Max vibe.