SMALL single turbo project, thoughts welcome! - Page 2

svxfiles · #16 11-06-2010, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by siceclipse

If I cant see it, it doesnt exist.

Dude!
What about Bigfoot!

And air?

ZephTheChef · #17 11-06-2010, 02:58 PM

Ok, literally going out to take pics right now. It's dirty and a mess, but I suppose that's the way "before" pics should be.

As an update project-wise. I went ahead and shelled out the money for a stage 1 ECU from LAN, because I decided to go ahead and play around with that for a while before I tear into it. I need to get familiar with EvoScan as well, and want to make sure I get it running right on the modified tune before I get into the 5-speed swap and Ethanol conversion. Pics within the hour.

Cam · #18 11-06-2010, 03:08 PM

Just a word of caution, if you have stock internals, I would expect low end failure in the near future. Adding boost to a 10:1 engine creates more problems than just knock. You need to be concerned about heat and expansion as well. Too much heat will cause many problems. You say you know what you are doing, and I trust that you do, but I figured I would give my .02 cents. Bearing failures are not uncommon with our engine (Subaru let the cranks and bearing go through the assembly line with .0002" clearance.) Thats not a type, 2 ten thousandths of an inch. You will seriously deteriorate the life of your engine.

Anyways, sounds like a fun project and I wish you luck. However, it may be time to buy a spare engine and slowly start doing a rebuild with some lower compression pistons.

Good luck with your build.

ZephTheChef · #19 11-06-2010, 03:24 PM

Ok, here ya go, in no particular order. And yes, the Plenum has been shaved and powdercoated black...looks good when it's clean, lol.

ZephTheChef · #20 11-06-2010, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cam

Just a word of caution, if you have stock internals, I would expect low end failure in the near future. Adding boost to a 10:1 engine creates more problems than just knock. You need to be concerned about heat and expansion as well. Too much heat will cause many problems. You say you know what you are doing, and I trust that you do, but I figured I would give my .02 cents. Bearing failures are not uncommon with our engine (Subaru let the cranks and bearing go through the assembly line with .0002" clearance.) Thats not a type, 2 ten thousandths of an inch. You will seriously deteriorate the life of your engine.

Anyways, sounds like a fun project and I wish you luck. However, it may be time to buy a spare engine and slowly start doing a rebuild with some lower compression pistons.

Good luck with your build.

I appreciate the input, that's exactly the kind of advice I'm looking for. To combat combustion heat, I will be throwing quite a bit of fuel at it. I have no qualms going rich to keep combustion temps down if need be. If you're talking about the cooling system in general, as opposed to just combustion temps, then I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

As far as bearing failure goes, I'm not really that concerned about it. The cylinder pressures you see from detonation are FAR higher than anything you'll see from normal combustion, even under boost and higher CRs. The burn rate during detonation can be up to 25x faster than normal, and will result in obscene cylinder pressures, and usually very premature (before TDC). This is what puts more stress on the bottom end. Even a little knock on an NA engine is harder on the engine than making twice the stock horsepower on a boosted engine with no knock. You don't have to agree with me, but I don't have to agree with you either

Like I said, I come from the world of 3000GTs/Stealths, which also pretty commonly see bearing failures...on that particular platform, even the 2-bolt bottom ends have been proven good to over 700HP at the wheels before risk of power-induced bearing failure...and there's now a fix for that, thanks to somebody pushing the issue and finding out where that point is. Insufficient oiling due to dented oil pans is far more often the cause on those cars. I appreciate the heads up, but in my experience more power does not lead to a significantly increased likelihood of bearing failure.

There's a threshold on pretty much every car that once you cross, it does become a big concern, but I'm more than happy to be the one to find out what that is the hard way. I'm not saying I won't run into a bearing issue, I'm just saying I'm not going to buy into the weak ringlands and temperamental bottom ends theory until I see it myself. Thanks for contributing, I'm interested to see how well the EG33 will hold up under my abuse, and that's kind of the point of this little project. Your concerns are my entertainment

sd2649 · #21 11-06-2010, 08:49 PM

Wait! Lan stage one? Thats not a super secret ecu tweak!?!?

Cam · #22 11-06-2010, 11:39 PM

Fair enough. Can't wait to see this come together

ZephTheChef · #23 11-07-2010, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sd2649

Wait! Lan stage one? Thats not a super secret ecu tweak!?!?

LAN's stage 1 was not going to be my primary fuel management

but I went ahead and picked one up because the stock map is atrociously lean and would limit me a great deal in tuning. I had originally planned on building the adapter myself and writing my own roms, but I decided to give credit where credit is due and support the pioneer of ECU tuning on this platform. I think there will be a lot I can learn from the stage 1 maps, and that they'll be a much better base map to tune from than the stock maps.

I'm actually going to be working on roughing in the physical parts of the fuel system a bit later today if I have time, so I might post up some teaser pics. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it...I don't really need to wait on the ECU stuff to arrive to go ahead and set up the fuel system/do the E85 conversion. I'm confident the car will run fine with my cheapo fuel management method, so perhaps I'll ignore my other project for the day and go ahead and do just that.

TomsSVX · #24 11-07-2010, 02:10 PM

budget builds are built for failure. Do it right or don't bother doing it at all IMHO.

Good luck but there are a ton of things being overlooked from what I have read thus far

Tom

sd2649 · #25 11-07-2010, 03:43 PM

With all do respect, doing it right can be accomplished by tweaking things and staying on a budget. This kind of build excites the the heck out of me, I think that this engine is overlooked because noone tries to modify it without replacing everything in the engine bay. More people would appreciate the engine if they could slap on some easier horsepower. Of course, that wouldnt help anyone trying to sell the engine work out of their shop, so it is up to the rest of us to make it happen while dodging the rocks flying through the air.

TomsSVX · #26 11-07-2010, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sd2649

With all do respect, doing it right can be accomplished by tweaking things and staying on a budget. This kind of build excites the the heck out of me, I think that this engine is overlooked because noone tries to modify it without replacing everything in the engine bay. More people would appreciate the engine if they could slap on some easier horsepower. Of course, that wouldnt help anyone trying to sell the engine work out of their shop, so it is up to the rest of us to make it happen while dodging the rocks flying through the air.

I am not selling anything anymore. I don't even own an SVX anymore.

I did budget builds, I did big budget builds, and everything in between.

The car is going on 20 years old. There is $3000 worth of work to be done just to make it roadworthy for the most part. Planning a $500 turbo build on a car that is off the road for issues is foolish. So far, there is no plan for an oil cooler. No plan for a decent engine management system (crucial for any build). No plan for an exhaust system which can cost $500 in just components, no plan for a new clutch for the 5mt swap thats not done yet... No plan for a cooling system upgrade or even maint. No timing belt consideration... Hell an oil change can throw this build off budget.

Gotta do long term thinking, and quite frankly $500 is not gonna get this off the ground

Tom

sd2649 · #27 11-07-2010, 04:20 PM

Argh! Shield your heads! Lol

Sorry, I didnt know you specifically did builds for svxs for cash, I wasnt jabbing at anyone or you. I was just trying to point out the general attitude on this forum concerning people doing things differently to the svx. You see, a $500 budget is about what a $2000 car deserves.... I am not dissing the svx, heck, I recently spent $2300 or so to rebuild my babys tranny. It was only for love of this car, still, shes worth less than that to the rest of the world. Please bring on the cheap builds, It'll get some people who dont frequent this site excited, I know I am.

TomsSVX · #28 11-07-2010, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sd2649

Argh! Shield your heads! Lol

Sorry, I didnt know you specifically did builds for svxs for cash, I wasnt jabbing at anyone or you. I was just trying to point out the general attitude on this forum concerning people doing things differently to the svx. You see, a $500 budget is about what a $2000 car deserves.... I am not dissing the svx, heck, I recently spent $2300 or so to rebuild my babys tranny. It was only for love of this car, still, shes worth less than that to the rest of the world. Please bring on the cheap builds, It'll get some people who dont frequent this site excited, I know I am.

The OP asked for thoughts... I stated mine. Not trying to be a pessimist but speaking from experience... You get what you pay for.

Tom

Myxalplyx · #29 11-07-2010, 04:51 PM

I can not wait to see the results of this. This is exactly the same attitude I took when playing with my Outback sport. People said the same thing. Just turbo'd it to 5psi and ran with 60-70 shot of nitrous all darn day....for 53k miles. Soooo much fun. Simply took the turbo kit off because something in me felt like it was going to go at anytime. When the engine was torn apart, the garage mech said it looked almost good as new.

So...go for it. I'm totally excited about this. One suggestion! See if you can get a cheap EGT gauge or something to monitor your exhaust gas temperature. Other than that.......I'll be watching.

And like sd2649 said, it'll bring out the people who don't frequent these forums.

Gawd, these forums are in dire need of something refreshing.

ZephTheChef · #30 11-07-2010, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomsSVX

I am not selling anything anymore. I don't even own an SVX anymore.

I did budget builds, I did big budget builds, and everything in between.

The car is going on 20 years old. There is $3000 worth of work to be done just to make it roadworthy for the most part. Planning a $500 turbo build on a car that is off the road for issues is foolish. So far, there is no plan for an oil cooler. No plan for a decent engine management system (crucial for any build). No plan for an exhaust system which can cost $500 in just components, no plan for a new clutch for the 5mt swap thats not done yet... No plan for a cooling system upgrade or even maint. No timing belt consideration... Hell an oil change can throw this build off budget.

Gotta do long term thinking, and quite frankly $500 is not gonna get this off the ground

Tom

Tom, you've been around these cars for a long time. I respect your opinion and input. Let me clarify that I've been VERY guilty of leaving out details that I considered obvious. The thing that I'm getting the most criticism about is the budget. Allow me to clarify what I have and haven't considered in that budget.

A whole lot of the reason this build is possible, on the budget that I'm working with, is that I have a TON of parts just laying around already from other projects. I've had a dozen or so 3000GTs and Stealths, and many others I've worked on for friends...lots of turbo related parts have piled up over the years. I have oil coolers galore, and I had considered that a given with this project, which is why I didn't mention it. I have intercoolers laying around, I have lots of leftover exhaust-fab materials, I have everything I need for the fuel system already in my possession, as leftovers from other projects. I have spare EGT and wideband gauges and sensors just sitting around doing nothing, etc. In other words, the $500 budget is basically for the things I do not already have, and it's just for the turbo-related stuff.

I'm not counting the clutch, driveshaft extension that I'll no doubt need, or other miscellaneous service I'll be doing in the process. I re-iterate, I do know what I'm doing and have put a lot of thought into this build that I haven't necessarily discussed here. All the same, I'm appreciative that you brought it up. As far as engine management goes, as I said, I've ordered a stage1 from LAN, with the older-style board. I've already written ROMs for this project, and will be comparing them to the tunes he has used to see if I'm at least on the right path. I have quite a bit of experience tuning forced induction cars, and a little experience with direct ECU tuning. With access to the fuel and timing maps, anything goes.

I don't have it ALL figured out, and that's what this thread is really for. For me to organize my thoughts as I go along, and seek input from the more experienced SVXers such as yourself. Truth be told I'm nowhere near far enough into this project to know what it's going to cost, and I'm willing to go severely over budget to get it done "right". I put that word in quotes because my standard of doing it right may not be up to par with some others. All I'm concerned with is: will it work, and hold up for at least a few years? Because within that time-frame, I'm bored and re-doing it anyway.