Still no turbo!

Yeah, I'm sure you're all as unshocked as I am at that little revelation. Insurance claim procedure will start on Monday, but then my next problem has to be finding another HX40 with a 17cm T4 twin-scroll housing (preferably 6 blade or 7 blade) that's in good condition. That little combination is not easy to find by any means.

Very little done on the car today except picked up the wastegate dump pipes which have been cut and welded and should work pretty well. I'm gonna have to heatwrap the oil cooler lines as a precaution, but other than that I should be good to go.

Also test-fitted the bumper today and it looks like I've got plenty of room for the intercooler. Now how the bumper is going to attach to the car because the front crash beam is not going back on is a whole different matter!

Welding hopefully tomorrow of radiator brackets, front braces and a few seams at the front.

Front end starting to shape up nicely. Got a front centre brace welded in place tonight to strengthen everything up at the front. Should give more support, and fits perfectly just behind the radiator fans.

Made a list of everything that I've got left to do. If I've missed anything, let me know:

Mechanical:
Install extra exhaust manifold flange
Install turbo (physically, plus feed & drain lines)
Finish downpipe
Heatwrap downpipe, exhaust and oil cooler lines
Fit intercooler & adjust piping
Fit new wastegate diaphragms & springs
Fabricate upper bumper support
Fabricate intake
Change brake master cylinder for Evo VI GSR cylinder
Install exhaust valve controller handle
Do something with the bonnet!
Get dry sock for intake for very wet days/typhoons (optional)

Electrical:
Wire up wideband (plus narrowband simulation tapping in)
Wire up knock counter
Wire up fan controller and water temperature gauge
Solder fuel pump rewire
Relocate battery
Wire & plumb in boost controller
Rear passenger side window regulator
Rewire CAS connector

Extra:
Full oil change (plus change transfer case drain plug/washer)
Prime oil line to turbo before starting
Confirm initial startup settings for MAP sensor on ECMLink
Set TPS according to ECMLink values

After initial startup:
Check fuel system for leaks in engine bay and near fuel pump lines
Set idle fuel pressure
Confirm temperatures within limits and all fans are working
Confirm nothing on fire/melting in engine bay(!)
Tune idle/part throttle/full throttle AFRs and timing

It's a decent sized list, but not many of the items are huge things to do.

The replacement turbo has been ordered and will be getting put together from Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm going for the even more powerful 6-blade HX40 with a .84 a/r, twin-scroll T-4 housing. Round about equivalent to the 16cm Holset housing, it should give me at least 1.4bar by 3,900-4,000rpm. While my current setup will be run it it efficiently the 6-blade variant gives me space to grow in the future if I decide I wanna make even more power.

A few pics of what's going on inside the car. Going for something a little different with the mounting of the boost controller & power meter, so gave it to my buddy to do a little magic on. Here's what he's done so far (with more to come)

soldave said:

The replacement turbo has been ordered and will be getting put together from Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm going for the even more powerful 6-blade HX40 with a .84 a/r, twin-scroll T-4 housing. Round about equivalent to the 16cm Holset housing, it should give me at least 1.4bar by 3,900-4,000rpm. While my current setup will be run it it efficiently the 6-blade variant gives me space to grow in the future if I decide I wanna make even more power.

Click to expand...

Hey Dave, build is looking good but I think your A/R to CM conversion is off
Stealth 316 - Turbo Upgrade Guide
6 cm2 = 0.41 A/R
7 cm2 = 0.49 A/R
8 cm2 = 0.57 A/R
9 cm2 = 0.65 A/R
10 cm2 = 0.73 A/R
11 cm2 = 0.81 A/R
12 cm2 = 0.89 A/R

I couldent find the 16cm2 to AR size.

but if this changes what your looking for contact me asap

hey that place looks familiar! are you near the sunabe sea wall by any chance?

black_gst said:

Hey Dave, build is looking good but I think your A/R to CM conversion is off
Stealth 316 - Turbo Upgrade Guide
6 cm2 = 0.41 A/R
7 cm2 = 0.49 A/R
8 cm2 = 0.57 A/R
9 cm2 = 0.65 A/R
10 cm2 = 0.73 A/R
11 cm2 = 0.81 A/R
12 cm2 = 0.89 A/R

I couldent find the 16cm2 to AR size.

but if this changes what your looking for contact me asap

Click to expand...

PM sent. Have been looking around and found all sorts of different conversions for Holset housing size vs a/r sizes.

1slo1g said:

hey that place looks familiar! are you near the sunabe sea wall by any chance?

Click to expand...

I'm not, but my buddy is where I'm working on the car! I live right behind Lester in Chatan

Thats awesome I live down on Kinser work on Kadena. just missing my car at home!

Sweet! It's a small world.

So what do you drive over here?

black_gst said:

Hey Dave, build is looking good but I think your A/R to CM conversion is off
Stealth 316 - Turbo Upgrade Guide
6 cm2 = 0.41 A/R
7 cm2 = 0.49 A/R
8 cm2 = 0.57 A/R
9 cm2 = 0.65 A/R
10 cm2 = 0.73 A/R
11 cm2 = 0.81 A/R
12 cm2 = 0.89 A/R

I couldent find the 16cm2 to AR size.

but if this changes what your looking for contact me asap

Click to expand...

conversions are always going to be off based on how turbine scroll is constructed and how each turbine wheel has different flow tech involved. Best way IMO is to compare them side by side and get a good guess going on. If you compare the holset sized housings in "their" rating you can see some vast differences.

the .84 garret is almost physically the same size in diameter, and inlet size as a 16cm housing. So our best guess is the .84 is closest. Only time will tell I guess.

black_gst said:

Hey Dave, build is looking good but I think your A/R to CM conversion is off
Stealth 316 - Turbo Upgrade Guide
6 cm2 = 0.41 A/R
7 cm2 = 0.49 A/R
8 cm2 = 0.57 A/R
9 cm2 = 0.65 A/R
10 cm2 = 0.73 A/R
11 cm2 = 0.81 A/R
12 cm2 = 0.89 A/R

I couldent find the 16cm2 to AR size.

but if this changes what your looking for contact me asap

Click to expand...

The post above me kinda already says this, but this conversion is COMPLETELY useless. These are for the mitsuibishi designed volutes. You can't even use these for factory evo 8-10 turbine housings because they are a newer, different design volute than the older mitsubishi turbine housings. Anyways, point I'm trying to make is the two are completely unrelated, any size inlet can be used to make any ratio A/R, it all just depends on the volute design. Holset did not copy mitsubishi when making the HX series turbine housings, so there is almost a 0% chance this conversion table would work. Theres also the possibility that it would be accurate for one size (say 10 cm2 = 0.73 A/R) but not the same for any other size.

ahh I had a mark II tourerv V then a rusty freeze plug crapped the bed. the wife drives a NA MR2 and i now drive a 500$ camry

Now this is what I'm talking about! My 2nd turbo is getting built as I type.

more pics for you!

Your car reminds me of something

[YOUTUBE]s0Dlhkx5DO0[/YOUTUBE]

It's alive! Only just though, and what a mission it was to get it there. What I thought would be just an hour today ended up being 12 hours of constant work without any breaks on it. The battery got connected up relatively easily and without major incident, and that was where the simplicity ended.

When that was wired in I was able to connect the battery and see if everything did. My boost controller, fan controller and wideband did, but they stayed on when I pulled the key out! Realised I'd tapped into the wrong wire under the dash so had to redo that, and then a few other bits of wiring.

Got the oil line re-cut and welded and got that fitted up after much messing about. Problem is that the drain line comes dangerously close to the manifold. While it's not gonna be a big issue at idle or doddering around, I probably wouldn't want to do any full power runs in it when exhaust temps inside the exhaust manifold are 1600F or so. The flanges are aluminium too which have melting points of 1200F. They should be ok but I might need to extend one of the lines so I've very little rubber line close to the manifold.

Got that fitted up though and the car filled with oil. Did the same with coolant, after dealing with a coolant leak and realising the radiator is sealed with no drain (my bad... forgot to request that!). And then it came time to test it again. I wanted to test the fuelling to make sure there weren't any leaks after changing to the new FPR. Activated the fuel pump and the pressure gauge went up to 46psi monentarily, and then dropped to 10psi and stayed there. Strange. Tried again and only 10psi again. Checked voltage to the pump which was fine and the pump was definitely working. Changed back to stock fuel pressure regulator and no change. Tried firing up the car and it would sometimes try to cough or start for a split second but would then die again. After an hour or so I pulled the Walbro out as I'd assumed it was bad. Had a look and it turns out when I put in the Walbro in I hadn't transferred over the plastic spacer that goes in before the o-ring on top of the pump itself. We replaced the stock Evo III one with a much better Evo VIII 3-level o-ring and put it all back in.

Tested the fuel pump again and had fuel spurting all over from a couple of leaks near the FPR. Took a while and new hose but sorted those out too. And then I turned the key finally and it started up.

For the first time in almost 4 months it was idling. It has thrown up a CEL which I need to work on diagnosing, but will look at that tomorrow after work. I think it's something to do with the speed density setup I'm trying to get working. We also have an exhaust leak at the turbo-downpipe v-band, and we broke an older v-band clamp further down in the exhaust, but those can be sorted out quickly enough.

So a hell of a long day, but finally a bit of progress

awsome build! everything looks great cant wait to see what power it makes!

Love it

Me too. The poor idle was caused mainly by the v-bands not being tightened properly. Once we'd tightened them down it sounded a lot better and meaner (see "less like a tractor"!). Unfortunately we did break one old v-band so now have a huge exhaust leak once again! Someone did comment that the turbo vibrated a little when it was running rough, and that it might not be good for the manifold. Do you guys think I should try to make some turbo-engine bracket up?

Also got an issue with the fan controller. Two of the buttons didn't seem to be working (I know, serves me right for buying used), and it wasn't recording the temp right. On the plus side it was saying the coolant was way hotter than it was, and so the fans were kicking in early. Better than not at all!

I also nearly managed to electrocute myself and blow up the car in one foul swoop. Had braided fuel return line and was doing some rerouting to troubleshoot back from a FPR on the firewall to the stock one on the end of the fuel rail. Buddy said "see if you can get your hands in there and pull it through. Stuck my arm under intake manifold to pull it though. Braided hose pulled through and right onto the starter motor. Cue huge sparks and me not being able to feel my left hand for about 10 minutes. Sparks coming from a fuel line is not really what you want. Not fun!

great build, Also a huge for bringing my favorite evo to life.

200hp at idle... you know you're making real power when you can do that!

A little more work done on the Evo tonight. Did some more playing around with the ECU and got rid of a nagging check engine light from first startup. Tough to confirm, as I've got an unclamped v-band upstream of my wideband O2 sensor, but idle AFRs seem to be bang on at stoich.

Even more promising is my cooling system. Put in my Purple Ice (to increase coolant surface tension) and bled the coolant system tonight. Found that even with the fans unplugged so they wouldn't come on the car was keeping cool at idle. Temps were going up to 80C and then as soon as the thermostat opened they were dropping back down to mid 70s. That's a hugely encouraging sign that the cooling system I've got in place is going to work pretty well. We tried revving the car and warming it up and couldn't get the temperatures to rise above the low 80s. So all good stuff.

All I need now is a replacement 3" v-band for the one that broke and the car will be good to move again. Typically, I don't think they are available on the whole island, so I'll have to get one sent from China or the States.

looking good Dave!

Thanks. Am glad the 2nd turbo came in. Still no sign of that first one after 4 months, and the insurance claim has now been in progress over 5 weeks, so am still about $750 down.

Will be very interested to see how the .84 Garrett housing on the backside of the turbo reacts as far as spool and top end are concerned. Have got the feeling it's gonna boost a fair bit sooner than I was expecting.

soldave said:

Thanks. Am glad the 2nd turbo came in. Still no sign of that first one after 4 months, and the insurance claim has now been in progress over 5 weeks, so am still about $750 down.

Will be very interested to see how the .84 Garrett housing on the backside of the turbo reacts as far as spool and top end are concerned. Have got the feeling it's gonna boost a fair bit sooner than I was expecting.

Click to expand...

Thats too bad about that other turbo, I cant stand dishonest people.
My guess is that it would spool up by 4k. You will find out soon enough though