Turbo Build Article Part 6
What’s going on my car? It’s in the middle of a huge custom turbo build.
Over the past few months I’ve been attending car shows and races with my car blub teammates as well as many of my other friends, and each and every time I am asked the same question. “What’s going on with your car and why isn’t it here?” Well, for the two or three of you who out there have actually been reading my articles, you know that I’m in the middle of a huge full custom turbo build.
People are always surprised that a turbo build has kept my car away from me since December 2006. Unfortunately, uh… or should I say fortunately it isn’t a Honda or Nissan with tons of aftermarket support and thousands of performance parts just sitting on the shelves at your local tuner shop. Just about everything is custom made and all this custom fabrication takes time. Besides, I’m in no rush and have never been one to blend into the crowd.
Then I get the question of why I don’t go out and look for sponsors to help with the build. First of all, no company wants to sponsor a Saturn even though there are a lot of overlooked hard core Saturn tuners out there doing amazing things with these light weight plastic cars. Just take a look at www.sixthsphere.com to see some these awesome builds. It’s a shame that all the hard work and custom fabrication that these people put into their cars just goes unappreciated and overlooked my the media.
Secondly, I’ve been around for a very long time, have attended and raced in countless shows and competitions, and have amasses a total of 28 trophies so far. I have more than proven that my car and I would make for great advertising and would expect any serious company to make an offer to me. In the past I have had companies make promises to me but never deliver so I don’t bother with it anymore. I even have a “No free advertisement” rule in my car club that states if you didn’t get something for free or cheap from a company, don’t run their stickers.
Every now and then you do find an honest company that is truly helpful, and one such company that recently offered me a full sponsorship even though I was looking to purchase and pay full price for their products is www.KillerGlass.com. Tim was gracious enough to offer the sponsorship without me even asking for it. This sponsorship is greatly appreciated and!!! Sandy at www.SebringTuning.com is another great example of a wonderful sponsor. Always there to help me out with anything exhaust related. You will be able to see their work on my car at the upcoming NOPI show at the Home Depot Center on June 30th and July 1st. No my car won’t be complete yet but I’m towing it in anyway.
Ian and Eric from www.fsrmotorsports.com have been extremely busy with my car and have made a lot of progress since my last turbo build article. Here they are now to provide you with an update of the build.
It’s been a while since we’ve done an update on Q’s project car. Things have moved along quite well over the past couple months. We are knocking things off the list one at a time and slowly getting down to the nitty gritty.
Currently, the car has the race motor in it. We put together a fully build, sleeved, ported and cam’d race motor that should be able to withstand tremendous amounts of boost and do so reliably. We have an arrangement with Golden Eagle to do custom FSR spec LLO blocks for us, and our results have been outstanding so far. They are by far the strongest and most reliable blocks available and have provisions to both help cooling and heat dissipation. We also paid close attention to the flow of oil throughout the motor and massaged certain aspects of it in order to build maximum oil pressure and maintain it at a high RPM.
After the motor was dropped in, we bolt on the turbo manifold. Mike from www.alphatuning.com helped us with a fantastic welding job on the turbo manifold and then finished it up by adding in a wastegate port for the Tial 38mm wastegate. The fully TIG welded stainless turbo manifold with its organic bends and curves looks pretty striking in the engine bay, and hangs the turbo beneath a twisted arrangement of pipes and a true four intro one merge collector. The T3 flange ensures that we have the ability to use a vast array of different turbochargers.
We are starting with a relatively small ball bearing GT unit from Garret. It is similar to a 28RS, but we used slightly different wheels in order to maintain some more top end flow. The idea is to use small physical wheels that are lightweight and low inertia, while having high flow characteristics in order to keep up with the built motor. Tuning will play a big part in the powerband, and we expect it to pull well past 7500 RPM. We have adjustable cam gears as well as full control of the engine via an Electromotive Tec3r which gives us a strong advantage tuning wise.
One of the last things that we need to do is wire up the Tec3r. Electromotive has been a player in the engine management field for a long time. Their latest Tec3r system has the added functionality of an even larger map, wideband input, and much better datalogging than similarly priced units from AEM, SDS, and Haltec. The greatest advantage is their ignition; one plug, two coil packs, no problems. The stock ignition on the LLO is easily its weakest link when it comes to making power. Not only can you not adjust timing without a bunch of rigging or other parts, but also you don’t get consistent spark energy or timing. Timing drift is such a huge issue when trying to precisely tune a car; factory systems simply have a hard time maintaining accuracy at the speed that these engines wind up. Q was very helpful and obtained an entire second engine harness, which we will use to build a custom engine harness for this Tec3r. This will allow us to pull his stock harness aside and not cut into it, while maintaining the functionality of his factory tach, speedo, fuel gauge etc.
Next up is the fuel system. We have a Walboro 255 high pressure pump to install. The stock lines should be sufficient for the power levels he will be pushing initially. That will run to braided nylon racelight hose with Aeroquip black lightweight aluminum fittings in to an Aeromotive adjustable fuel pressure regulator. From there, we will run the black nylon hose into a Golden Eagle vacuum manifold. We have modified it in order to be a fuel distribution block. Thisline, or a fuel pressure gauge port if necessary that can be easily added on later. Each port will be distributed to another custom -6an racelight hose to each fuel injector; having such large hose run to each injector will ensure that it sees cooler fuel temperatures and more accurate spray patterns than smaller hose or being on a common rail. The return will exit out of the bottom of the fuel pressure regulator.
We also finished up the intake manifold. That was a long project. It’s a custom piece from the flange to the throttle body. We used 6061 aluminum, and started with a CNC cut flange. The runners are carefully matched in length, and the plenum ensures equal distribution of air to each cylinder. The injectors are mounted on the bottom of the intake manifold for a few reasons. First, because it is a show car, it makes for a very clean look on the top. Secondly, to get the injector distance (from the bottom of the valve seat) and angle correct, it simply wouldn’t fit on top. The delivery pipe for the plenum drops right into the center top of the manifold, and wraps around the top and drops down next to it to connect to the throttle body. It will require that we trim some of the underside of the hood support. The throttle body is a completely re-worked 3” custom piece that utilizes v-bands and both ends of reliability. While it isn’t a cheap way to go, it’s the best way to go.
Lastly, we made a custom bracket for mounting the a/c compressor, which clears the turbo manifold and the radiator. We had to push the radiator forward, which meant even more custom work on the radiator. We had to “notch” the radiator end tanks in order to clear the headlight rods. It seems that the front of this car is an endless supply of parts running into each other, but it is turning out well because we are taking the time necessary to do things properly.
Stay tuned for more pictures next time as we’ll have the fuel system, vacuum system, wiring, and gauges all complete!
To see more of the car please visit Q’s profile page at www.SpeedSyndicate.net and click on the “turbo build gallery”. As usual I need you to let me know what you want to see in this magazine. Send all your suggestions to q@speedsyndicate.net I’m also on MySpace and Mixi so I’m pretty easy to find.
See you all at the NOPI show although I’ll be trying to divide my time between this and the Anime Expo (www.anime-expo.org) that is going on during the same weekend.
Q
Article released by Dimi on 27.08.2008 21:12:46
