New turbo project, need advise

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las
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by las »

Hi again folks.

I'm finally at it again but somewhat revised.

Over the last few years I have changed my mind many times, still have all the parts I mentioned earlier laying around, but something didn't feel right and I've gone a different rute.

The motor is for my Porsche 912 that currently have a very tired, leaking VW 1600 DP in it. This particular engine was one I had laying around on the floor in one of my garages for years with no protection and maybe even seeing some rain once when a wall was blown over by a storm.
I installed the thing a fired it up a few years back and have driven it very little in the past years, last year when installing a set of 40 IDF's I found a small bolt down one intake runner, fished it out and kept driving :-) The little bolt was very shiny and probably used to be bigger (had been rubbing the intake valve some time).

As stupid as I am I have started building the turbo setup on this old engine. Have already driven it, on boost with no gauge, stock fuel pump without boost reference, didn't bother to clean the intake pipes for alu dust and hopefully that's the reason it began to drive really rough. Hahaha I didn't even bother to put clamps on the silicone intake couplers (Cheap boost limiter!)
I do know the right way to do things, I really do! But sometimes, well I don't know why I don't.
Maybe it becomes some sort of challenge in my head, that I have to drive the damn thing filled with shavings in the intake just to see if it makes it. What can I say, already said it. Stupid....

A few months back I bought a tig welder for my projects and got started again. The plan was draw through like before but on the stock size engine.
I had recently somewhat restored my old Audi A6 1.8T and that gave me the idea to use the K03 turbo on the Porsche/VW.
The new plan is to build the thing, a working mock up and then pull the engine and rebuild it the right way.
After finishing the exhaust manifold I started wondering about intake manifold for the DCOE. But one thing bothered me! What if, due to the leaking valve, I had a spit back and all that premixed gas in the manifold went bang and lit the car on fire? The plan changed once again..... Blow Through.

The new plan is as follows:
Stock building width, first std 1600, then latter a 92 thick wall set with the MOFOCO heads I got.
SCAT ratio rockers which looks way better than the CB kit I did install on this junk engine. (But i forgot the ratio, think it's 1.25:1)
Oh I also bought a very nice SCAT stroker crank but would much rather have a stock 69mm CW welded original in it. I can't explain it and I even tried to sell myself the idea to use the SCAT one I did buy for this build. Somethings are not right upstairs :?
Weber 40 IDF on type 3 manifolds with CB hats on and their turbo emulsion tubes and modulator rings. The current jets are main 112 and air 200, can't remember idle but I have a few jets lying around when I start to tune it.
K03 stock Audi turbo. I bought a China one to start on and a used original for rebuilding.
Old style doghouse fan house I had to install to get room for the Webers, haven't had time to redo the thermostat and flapper system yet but will do so when it gets pulled out again.
Intake tubing is 2" and exhaust is 2.5" straight out from turbo. The future plan is to make a Helmholtz resonator to take away the lowest pitched noise.
Well I could go on and on forever but this is probably already way over the top.....

The next days I will add some pictures of the progress and hopefully give some inspiration to you guys and then I have a few questions.

Question 1, that I halfway found the answer to in the type 1 section: Does air get sucked/pushed in through the grill/vents in the hood or is there a vacuum above the grill? I kind of already knew the answer because stock the engine bay is closed from the underside of the car so air have to come in from the top.
But I would think the overside of the hood would be in vacuum since the air has a much longer route over the car than under and therefore acting like a wing. Any thoughts on this? Does air actually get's pushed in or is the vents just holes for the fan and carb to suck through.
I think it's kind of important to the way I plan to construct a visor to divert air to where I want it to in the engine bay.

I actually just deleted the second question, In the hope that you guys would like to dig a little deeper into the first one.....

Regards
Lars
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las
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by las »

Here's some pictures.

First a picture showing the general layout and the intake pipes and hat's after a good cleaning :D
enginebay.jpg
Second is the exhaust and modified oil pump, the loop in the exhaust was made to clear a Fram HP1 filter.
exhaust.jpg
Third is the oil pump with temp. sensor in the hot unfiltered oil stream and turbo oil after filtration.
oilpump.jpg
Last picture show the 2.5" "downpipe" with the lambda probe
downpipe.jpg
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las
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by las »

Just received some 2" straight silicone couplers, clamps, a new china forge bov and some other stuff and now it looks a lot better.

I wanted to make a boost pressure pickup in each of the carb hats, one in the right cover for fuel pumps and one in the left cover for the boost gauge.
After messing with different banjo bolts, old garrett turbos fitting and what have you, I decided to make it as simple as possible. Drill and tap a 6mm hole on each side and then thread some pieces of 6mm copper brake line, at least for the mock up. Maybe I'll make them in SS, brass or alu later on.
takeofR.jpg
The tubing I used for the intake where the "shiny" version and I found it to be to "fancy" in lack of a better word, posh, cheap I don't know what you would call it.
But I actually intended to have it polished at first! When I changed my mind I first tried sandblasting it but it left the surface to flat and dull in my opinion.
Then I thought about hitting it with the needle hammer and I really liked the way it turned out. It has some of that old school cast factory finish look I think I strive for. After "hitting" it I lightly sanded it over, I also think it will age really well with all the dimbles contrasting with the sanded shinny surface.
There are perhaps a few places I need to go over again, but for now I'm happy.
needlefinish.jpg
The new diverter valve doesn't look right and I think I'll replace it with the original Forge I just put in the Audi, it's a duller finish. Tried the old stock Bosch earlier but couldn't get it to work. Yesterday I found out it wouldn't hold vacuum and to make matters worse I pluged it and the distributor to the ported vacuum of one weber barrel.
bov.jpg
Luckily these weber have a mercury take of on each barrel and after cutting the tip from each of the needles I can now use them for manifold vacuum. More on that later.
I tried to hook the diverter/bov to just one barrel with the lighest spring in it and it fluctuated open/closed all the time at idle! But quite fun to watch when you only pick up vacuum from one cylinder and it of course only produces vacuum once for every two revolutions.
Well the conclusion is I need a stiffer spring and pickup from all four barrels merged.
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las
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

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Okay got a little further today.
Made a vacumpipe from 6mm copper tube with two 5mm copper outlets soldered on. I'll post a picture tomorrow.
Routed the boost line to the gauge.
Now I need to boost reference the pump and the pump is out already.
I did run into an issue, the pump rod in the engine has a rather pointy round tip, another I had around a cone shape, with a much wider flatter contact patch.
I would think the bigger, flatter rod would be the best! But what are your views on the matter?

The pump will be referenced and put on for now. But I have what I think is a great idea.... I'm building a dual mechanical pump!
Unfortunately I can't claim to have come up with the idea, it was something I saw some years ago looking for Porsche parts. Apparently old 60' 911 used a dual mech. pump at some point, those are very expensive and wouldn't fit so I plan on making my own. And I love the idea......
Besides that I really enjoy the oldschool approach to an old car's tech.
But two pumps will of course put more strain on the pump drive and rod and that's why I would really like your input on this.
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las
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by las »

Vacuum rail. Works perfect and the vacuum have been equalized from what I can tell. The bov/diverter still stays open but only slight and no pulsating like before.
vacuum1.jpg
Still needs a stiffer spring if I'm not routing it back to the intake, in which case I think it would actually be beneficial to have it open at idle.
vacuum2.jpg
I also got the gauge up and running and took the car for a little test drive.
My last test drive was without a gauge and the car definitely felt faster and the clutch was slipping a bit, have to say though it is bad! Today same scenario but hardly any boost at all, maybe 0.05 bar and still clutch slip. Apparently I didn't make any boost worth talking about last time either.
05boost.jpg
Back to the garage and tightening the CB performance carb hats and unplug the wastegate. Now I had boost, and even though the clutch slipped I took it up to 0.5 bar before I let off the pedal. Much better!
Wastegate line back on and now I only saw like 0.1bar boost, it must be set a bit on the loose side and / or the carb hats are leaking bad. The supplied "rubber" gaskets from CB Perf. are more like hard plastic and I think that's where I start looking for the low boost.
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madmike
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by madmike »

What wastegate? maybe it's gone bad? :lol: , same results I had
try silicone sealer on them the Hats :wink:
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las
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by las »

Yes silicone would do the trick but jetting would be a pain..... I think I'll start looking for some rubber things! Maybe an old tire tube could be cut to size.

The turbo is brand new, but it is a china one! Maybe the damn thing has a way to soft spring inside. I do have one or two original KKK actuators around somewhere.
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buguy
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by buguy »

I'm interested to see how that China turbo works for you. I'm thinking about grabbing one myself.
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las
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by las »

It actually looks really good for the money, I think I paid around 90 euro for it. And that it's far less than a original rebuild cartridge of ebay (germany)

The shaft play out of the box was like that of a rebuild original cartridge I bought, let's see over time.
One thing I did notice was the wastegate valve seemed like a lower quality compared to an original, but again it could hold out just fine.
It came really well packaged and had dust caps all over and gaskets. It even has KKK stamped into the compressor house like oe, I like it so far.
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buguy
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by buguy »

Nice. I hope to get one without a wastegate and get an equally Chinese external wastegate.
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las
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by las »

I wanted one without internal wastegate when I first started the project some years ago, it was a big thing for me to have a tiny extra exhaust coming out the back like the big turbo Porsche's (935 and the likes).
But after having rebuild my 1.8T Audi I was impressed with this little turbo and thought I'd give it a go. At first I actually liked the idea of turbo lag, very authentic early 930 :-) But honestly I would rather have instant power these days over -nothing-nothing-wait-BANG....

As I have seen for myself, priorities change over time and having instant torque became more important than the external wastegate for me at the time.
But I have to admit that I have made plans to route a small pipe (just at the start) inside the 2.5" inch downpipe covering the wastegate outlet to give me that extra small wastegate exhaust look (and function) I like. But it has to be more than just looks for me, if I fabricate something like that it must have a valid reason for being there.
My first thought for the downpipe was to have a very small straight through muffler (8-10 inches) and a helmholtz resonator, and I think that's where I'm heading. Then I could make my separate routing for the wastegate and have my cake and eat it too :-)

You could also just lock the wastegate and then put in an external one. I don't think that's a route I would personally go, but it would work out just as well.
I haven't researched the different possibilities for finding a similar turbo without internal wastegate, but there's another important thing to consider as well, at least that's what I think. The possibility to change it for a quality piece somewhere along the line. And with this little turbo you can get an original rebuild cartridge for a fair amount as opposed to having rebuild a junk China turbo of unknown origin.
madmike
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by madmike »

I've had good luck with them E-bay turbo's ,they are so cheap I just swap them out every cpl years :wink: no lag for me anymore when u get the combo right :lol:
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buguy
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by buguy »

Yeah I don't care much about having the extra pipe for looks, but an external gate would make clocking the turbo easier and less cluter/mass right there at the turbo. No deck lid there for me, so my stuff is always hanging out. An external gate for me would be down low at the collector. Might clean up my set up. But if I have to run an internal gate it's not the end of the world.
I also really like your pipe work Las. Looks well done and the layout and welds look great.
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las
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by las »

Madmike, your absolutely right. Here in DK a factory new K03 is around 2000$ and this ebay one a little over 100$, complete nuts..... If this thing last 2-3 years, I don't drive this car that much, how many years should the original hold up to beat it!

Buguy, No the wastegate pipe should not just be there for the looks, but if one could get it to look good and have it do a good job then it's a win/win.
Does clocking the turbo means rotating it, I had to weld a little extra tap to the bracket of the actuator to accept it's new position.
And thanks a lot for the compliment, I have never learned to tig weld and have never tried it before I bought this ebay tig so it was quite a steep learning curve :-)
I have given the layout a lot of attention and often when I do these thing I can use hours just to "overthink" the situation. When I get a little further down the road the engine compartment will be pretty stuffed, but hopefully look awesome.
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buguy
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Re: New turbo project, need advise

Post by buguy »

Yes rotating it.
I really need to learn to tig weld too. We have one at work and there are a couple guys there that will teach me. Just need to decide on exactly what I want before I do any more building. Your welds don't reflect that you are new at it. That's inspiring!
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