LS4 / F40 swap - fieroguru (Page 155/197)
fieroguru MAY 25, 08:12 PM
Looks like I now have room for the oil drain and wastegate to coexist.





ericjon262 MAY 26, 02:39 AM
what are your plans for the downpipe? I take it your WG will dump into the downpipe? Looks like you have lots of room for an A2W intercooler above the transmission with the turbo down there.


quote
Originally posted by fieroguru:
The car has already been out of service for far too long...




tell me about it... my car has been driven about 20 miles in the past 9 years... most of that is my fault though... lol.

------------------
"I am not what you so glibly call to be a civilized man. I have broken with society for reasons which I alone am able to appreciate. I am therefore not subject to it's stupid laws, and I ask you to never allude to them in my presence again."

cognita semper

http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/119122.html

fieroguru MAY 26, 10:21 PM

quote
Originally posted by ericjon262:
what are your plans for the downpipe? I take it your WG will dump into the downpipe? Looks like you have lots of room for an A2W intercooler above the transmission with the turbo down there.



I am wanting to run a 3.5" off the turbo into a magnaflow race muffler. They come in 6 and 14" bodies, but I might need to chop down the 14" one. From there it will do a 180 and either reduce down to a 3" and enter the current magnaflow crossflow muffler, or stay 3.5 and Y into a single 2.5" magnaflow muffler on the DS and a 3" or 2.5" exhaust cutout on the PS. The wastegate will dump back into the downpipe, but probably after the 3.5" muffler. Here is a rough mockup of the 2nd option... I need to finish the cradle to know for sure where the rear uprights will interfere as well as making sure the exhaust decisions don't take up the space for the sway bar.


There room for an A2W on top of the transmission and would help transition the outlet to a better location to enter the throttle body, but for the intial install, I am just going to run hot air and E85. Not looking for much over 6-8 psi to start. Not really wanting to add the weight and complexity of the A2W setup at this time. This one "should" fit between the strut tower and engine.


Progress was slow today... broke the 1 3/4" die on my tubing bender (it didn't like DOM 1 3/4 .120 wall) and got called into work for about 4 hrs (so much for being on vacation).

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 05-27-2020).]

fieroguru MAY 27, 08:26 PM
Since the broken die on my tubing bender will delay progress on the cradle, which delays the mounts, which delays the hotside... I started working on other things that needed (or I wanted) to be done.

Installed the intake so I could carefully transfer my port patterns to the dorman intake for porting. With these in place, I let the die grinder with carbide burr wheel make plastic chips! The intake ports were narrower, not consistently spaced, and inside the ports there were portions of plastic protruding. All of which were addressed port by port.




I left the port width about 1/64 narrower on the intake vs. the heads. Most of the ports are similar to these. Still need to smooth these out some with some sand paper, but the general shape is about right.



Also spend some time smoothing the outside of the intake as well:


While I had the die grinder whirring away, I switched to the turbo side. The gasket fit to the manifold was just about perfect. No changes or porting needed.


The turbo needed some work. The bolt holes on the turbo side were a little sloppy, so I shifted the bolts and gasket to replicate the turbo hanging off the manifold. This left about 1/16" to be removed from the top. Since my manifold is non-divided and the turbo is divided, I narrowed the divider wall about 75% and rounded the leading edge some.


With a little trimming, the stock truck heat shield fits pretty well.


One of the goals for this stage of the project is to save where where I can to offset the weight added by the turbo.
Removing the DOD valley cover with all the solenoids will help shed about 5.3 lbs.



It is noteworthy, but not surprising that using the billet valley cover is 1 lb heavier than the LS3 valley cover.


Also, just the aluminum fuel rails w/o the crossover line or attachment brackets weights would add close to 1.5 lb. Add in the fittings and crossover tube and it could be up to 2+ lbs heavier. I think I will stick with the stock fuel rail.



However using the stock fuel rail will require some additional work. I learned something today... LS2, LS3 & LS4 all share the same bolt pattern for the fuel rails. LS1 and LS6 do not. The Dorman LS2 intake uses the LS1 and LS6 fuel rail mounting, so all 4 of the fuel rail mounting bosses are in the wrong spot. I think I will just cut them off entirely and use some aluminum bars off the intake mounting bosses to attach the stock LS4 fuel rail.

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 05-28-2020).]

fieroguru MAY 28, 06:52 PM
Started today doing a little more with the intake. I removed the unused bolt hole flanges on the rear of the intake and tapered the supports from the runners to the bolt bosses:



Then I went back to work on the heat shield for the turbo. I started with a 2.5" stainless donut (7.5" OD), cut it in half, trimmed the center back, put it in the press to flatten the center, lots of test fit, trim, test fit, trim, etc. Once I got one side looking good, moved to the other and repeated the process, but it was quicker since there were not any bolt holes and I had the other side to position the OD. Then weld in a spacer plate since the two halves were 1 1/8" to 1 5/8" apart. Some welding, hammering, grinding, etc... Several hours later we have this:




I still need to finish this last section...


In the morning I will extend the top of the heat shield to the manifold flange (leaving a cutout for the mounting bolts), finish the missing bottom half and slot the holes so I can slide then off by loosening the nuts.

Overall there is 3/16 to 1/4" air gap between the turbo and the heat shields. This should help keep most of the heat off the trunk as well as the wastegate.

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 05-28-2020).]

Trinten MAY 28, 10:02 PM
Looking slick. It's got to be so cool to have all the equipment to do stuff like this.

So, if I understand what I'm seeing, your shield is going to hold itself on by "clamping" against the cool-side of the turbo, and the bolts that are providing the resistance are pushing it away (providing the clamping force as well) from the hot side? Or are those bolts just there for mock up?
fieroguru MAY 29, 06:47 PM

quote
Originally posted by Trinten:

So, if I understand what I'm seeing, your shield is going to hold itself on by "clamping" against the cool-side of the turbo, and the bolts that are providing the resistance are pushing it away (providing the clamping force as well) from the hot side? Or are those bolts just there for mock up?



Actually, the only piece shown is the exhaust housing. The 4 bolts/studs were originally used with some spreader bars to hold the exhaust housing to the turbo center section. The heat shields use these same 4 bolts/studs to hold them in place without the head shields making contact with the exhaust housing (think of them like fenders over a tire).

Here is a picture showing the exhaust housing, spreader bar, and the studs/nuts that would normally hold the exhaust housing on the center section.


Here is a better picture of the lower heat shield being mounted.


Here is the finished shield. All that work and no one should ever see it when it is installed.



Tomorrow I will clean everything up, reassemble the turbo and test fit it and the manifold on the mock-up engine in the chassis (the compressor side is larger, so it will fit just fine, but the pics will be cool!).

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 05-29-2020).]

Trinten MAY 30, 05:00 PM
Ah yeah. That was a derp moment on my side. I was so busy staring at the shield and the bolts, that I didn't even realize it wasn't all together. Thank you for the clarification!
fieroguru MAY 30, 07:07 PM
Turbo is back together with the heat shields. Cut the stainless steel studs to the proper length and used stainless nuts for all attachments. Also installed the stainless elbow for the oil feed (planning to run hard stainless lines for all oil and vacuum & boost signal lines.




Installed one of the coil brackets to see how close everything will be. Originally I was thinking about routing the cold pipe up and over the bellhousing and under the coil packs, but that isn't looking to likely. I might turn it and go around the engine bay and under the shifter. Nothing in that area...




While I was playing with the coil brackets, I did get a little distracted and made them lighter. Originally, they were 2 lbs 1.5 oz. After I trimmed them down and replaced the sleeves, threaded rod, and nuts with aluminum versions, I got them down to 14.7 oz (reduction of 1 lb 2.8 oz).




The dorman intake, the truck 4 corner vent tube, and the LS3 valley cover are not playing nice with each other... The intake hits the truck vent tubes in a couple of spots and is too thick to fit between the intake and the LS3 valley cover. I have the ICT valley cover that is thinner I could try, but the tubes are still in the way of the intake.

I might be able to push this tube down enough to clear.


This tube hits the bottom triangle for the intake to head flange area. I have already tried to pry it more towards the center, but could likely go a little more.



The 84 lb/hr decapped flex fuel truck injectors, dorman intake, and the LS4 fuel rail went together for a test fit. Primarily wanted to see if the fuel rail crossover tube would clear the intake w/o injector spacers (which is does). It also allowed me to take some measurements for the brackets that will be needed to mount the fuel rail to the intake.

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 05-30-2020).]

fieroguru MAY 31, 04:07 PM
After quite a bit of massaging to the truck vent tube, a little trimming in non-critical spots on the dorman intake, and switching to the low profile valley cover, I was able to get everything to coexist.



Also finish welded the v-band for the wastegate to the manifold.


Then moved everything to the mock up engine in the chassis. While It was in there, I decided to play with some plumbing fittings and think about the routing on the cold side. Since I will be running E85 and low boost, I don't really need an intercooler at this point (yes, it would be beneficial, but I am taking the simple route first). Here is a pretty simple path the cold side could take and clear everything.

The more I looked at that, the more I liked rotating the compressor outlet and having the cold side exit along the trunk wall and wrap around the engine bay. This would keep it more "out of sight" especially if I paint it black. Here is the tube going up the trunk wall (I will need to rework my decklid support for this routing).


Vacation from work and the LLC is over after today, so progress will likely slow to the normal crawl pace it has been...

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 05-31-2020).]