1dirtyZ's Conversion by 1dirtyZ

5 minute(s) of a 304 minute read

been slowly chugging along with this thing ,,,
after a fair bit of messing around with routing and getting clearances right , I managed to finally get the pipes to fit decently .

I then had them painted hi temp black and wrapped where they get close to important stuff like brake lines or my butt:



as you can see I had to split each side into two sections so I can fit it through the k-member and make servicing them easier. I also added a flex coupler ( the bellows kind) to account for any movement or misalignment .

and now that we have that part done , we move further upstream towards the waste gates and their placement and plumbing . the plan is to have them come off the cast ss elbows and have them facing each other on opposites sides of the engine compartment. so I mocked where the holes should be drilled and got me a cast ss elbow and started trimming to fit in preparation to weld it :



so I now have both sides almost ready to weld , I just need to drill the hole in each of the elbows and then do dome sort of dump for the waste gate exhaust.

after that its basically minor stuff, I should start plumbing the coolant lines to the turbos , mount the intercooler , relocate the transmission cooler to the fender, and make the charge pipes to and from the cooler as well as a few odds and ends here and there.

9-28-2016

been slowly chugging along with this thing

I first off managed to finish the waste gate install on the elbows, started with making the hole first using the plasma torch :



and after a few minutes with a carbide bit :



and after a few more grinds and welds we got to this :





I then slapped everything back on ( turbos exhaust piping , and elbows) to see how it looked and I'm happy to say it looks good
the waste gates are in line with each other and facing each other , which gives the enginebay some symmetry :







after that I started messing with how to route the coolant lines to the turbos and made up a new lower radiator hose/ tube made of stainless. the tube also has bungs for the coolantlines to and from the turbos:



I still need to get it sandblasted then powder coated.


then it was time to remove the nose to see how to make the new intercooler fit :



shiny intercooler out of the box:



said intercooler placed into position :



I still need to bend and fab a couple of brackets to hold it from the sides then weld them to the existing core support. I then have to weld and aluminum elbow to the outlet of the intercooler ( or just clamp a silicone elbow on there instead and see if it fits) then start fabricating the charge pipes from the turbo to the intercooler and from the intercooler to the intake.

I also managed to install the balancer , ps pump and new lines , a new set of header gaskets , and rear travel limiters ( so the diff doesn't droop too much and rip the exhaustout of its hangars.)

another thing i'll have to work on is the transmission cooler mount on the passenger side fender, and fabbing a set of waste gate down tubes .

so now the turbo hard work is mostly done ( I still need to get a set of turbo flange gaskets in ), I can start with the other little stuff like charge pipes , sensors, solenoids and wiring . I also need to stab in the drive shaft after a swap the u joint , after that I can put the car on the ground and test fire it .

later down the road I plan on installing a meth system on the thing to help keep things cooler.