Hi again, been another minute since an update but its all starting to come together now. I have done an awful job of keeping up to date with photos, but heres a few snaps that I remembered to take.
With the manifold Ash made previously we had a few more jobs on it left. Mainly cleaning up the ports and mounting the individual EGT & lambda sensors.
Space certainly becomes a bit tight when running two sensors per cylinder. I would of loved both sensor ports being on top of the runners for serviceability, but space constraints between the head and turbo/exhaust meant that putting the sensors above and below was the best course of action.
Running Donmega KType Thermocouples for the EGT's and NTK LZA09 for Lambda sensors. Lambda ports are Vibrant Heat Sink bungs. The design of the bungs promote some heat dissipation compared to typical weld in bungs and only exposes the very end of the sensor into the exhaust stream. All an attempt to keep the sensors alive as much as possible, considering the heat that will be pumping out the cylinders. Also mounted a port for exhaust pressure on the manifold and downpipe so I can track back pressure pre- / post-turbo.
In other news I mounted a new set of slimline Setrab oil coolers in front of the radiator, one for the oil and other for powersteering. Completely forgot to take any photos of it and finished, so here's one of me deciding how I was going to mount it. Use your imagination to have two of these floating in front of the rad with a 5'' gap between them. I'll grab a photo next time I've got the intercooler off.
Anyway, the main take away from that is that the coolers are spaced so there is still a gap for airflow to get to the radiator. Have seen it plenty of times where Supra's overheat in summer traffic when front end is stacked with 5''+ intercooler, AC Rad, Oil Cooler, Powersteering cooler and the poor viscous fan just can't pull enough cool airflow through all the cores. So the spacing of the oil/power steering cooler will help promote flow to the radiator at idle.
Done I thought, then I remember as I'm 8HP now, I'm gonna need a transmission cooler. I didn't want to compromise flow to the radiator, and I have no room under the headlights cause some idiot decided to run 4'' intercooler pipes on one side and a 5'' air intake on the other. After much debating, I decided the transmission cooler had to go to the back of the car, but again no room.
PHR to the rescue again with this lovely 60litre fuel tank.
Bolts into factory mounts, uses my existing PHR triple hanger, and gives enough room away from the exhaust to mount a gearbox cooler on the RH side of the car. Perfect! Not a bad compromise, only having to give up 10litres of fuel compared to factory 70 litre tank (jdm).
Also has a much bigger reservoir pot inside, win win.
As I had to remove the PHR hanger, I decided to bench test the pumps as it has been a few years of them sitting in fuel not being used. It's a bit crude but lets me do a pressure sweep from 3bar to 7 bar pressure and confirm if there's any issues. Glad I did as one of the pumps that I've had for the better part of 6 years was leaking with any amount of pressure going through it. Also found a few smaller leaks from the feed lines.
So a new 485 and some new feed lines and she's rock solid and leak free even at crazy high pressures.
Back in its home and looking good. Also, a fan of the bolt in top hanger cover, no more beating the factory plastic one with a hammer.
Also got my 12 ID1050X's cleaned and flowed, anodized the top caps black and fitted some new E85 specific o rings. Pressurized the fuel system, no leaks happy days.
Next arrival was this custom 4'' exhaust backbox. I wanted to keep the 4'' system as quiet as physically possible using only one backbox, rather than multiple boxes throughout the system. Mainly for simplicity, and keeping the weight of the exhaust as low as possible, whilst mounting the heavy bit behind the rear axle. Although the pipe is 4'', its surrounded by another 4'' of baffle, so total diameter is 8'' by 550mm length. It's filled with a "race" baffled system, which is used to keep rotary cars quiet on track days. Have used a 7'' version of this on a customer car and it was wonderful, so went a bit bigger on mine to see if it fits and if its any quieter.
With the new back box ready to go, Ash got to work on the rest of the exhaust system.
As my firewall and underside of the car isnt completely factory anymore, there was less room than normal to fit a 4'' system so Ash had to get a bit creative with some bends to get around everything. She's a tight fit but it turned out great.
Although I will recirc this wastegate tube, leaving it to atmosphere for the first dyno session to hear how it sounds and allows for easier diagnostic of the electronic gate in case thats required. Need to pull the manifold off when doing the head porting, so will get recirc done at the same time when we can build the manifold on the bench as there is no space to do much with it installed on the car.
Had to shave a bit of the rear bumper to get the backbox in there fully, but cant really tell from the outside so not a big deal. Back box will sit a bit higher soon, just waiting on some laser cut mounts to come through so we can mount back box securely, but looks promising even with some cable ties holding the rear of the exhaust up.
Few things going on in this photo.
1) Testing clearance to intercooler pipes with wheel at near max compression whilst on full lock. Its tight, a bit too tight. Especially with the front wheel arch fitted, so have adjusted the pipe slightly to get a few more mm of clearance, so shouldn't be a problem now unless I decide to go offroading.
2) Replaced the Turbosmart Raceport BOV with the Turbosmart EM Raceport BOV, which is basically the same other than it has an electronically controlled solenoid ontop of the diapgram which allows the ECU to allow the BOV to function as normal, or for it to open and create a boost leak. Figured this will come in handy during my launch control strategy to get the turbo speed a bit higher with a leak whilst staging.
Also got this cool nitrous solenoid from Wizards of Nos that is a bit of different take on your typical nitrous solenoid. I was looking for a solenoid that I could control progressively so I can feed the nitrous into the engine progressively rather than as one big hit all at once. Although you can use a more traditional solenoid for this, typically you cant run super high frequencies for very long through them without failure. This system essentially has an adjustable nozzle/jet, so you can flow next to nothing then step it up to max flow as and when it suits whatever you are trying to do. Looking forward to playing with this.
Michael Yazgic @ 0x33