My Major Project PrtII - Single turbo Conversion

jackaleks · January 05, 2010, 11:03:02 PM

awesome write-up

i\'ve been fantasizing about eventually going with an HX30/35 so it\'ll be cool to see how you get on with this.

leeroy_25 · January 06, 2010, 10:02:08 AM

Hey Buddy, An HX30/35 on a rotary will be too small! It would spool up like no bodies business but I think it would run out of steam too quick. Lots of posts on the subject if you google it or search RX7club! You will be surprised how big a turbo the rotary can handle! and stil have god response. Anyway we will see!

od404 · January 06, 2010, 10:39:56 AM

Alright mate, sorry for the delay, if you email me at:

stephen dot garrett at gmail dot com I will pass your questions and info to the applications group at CTT (Holset).

leeroy_25 · January 08, 2010, 09:26:32 PM

Just as a little aside.
My veilside rims were starting to get a bit fousty and nasty between the spokes where some of the chrome plating was lifting so I thought it was time to give them a spurce up!
Annoyingly I didn\'t take a picture before I started but trust they were not pretty!
Basically I had to carefully sand down the flaking chrome and oxidizaion between each spoke by hand! Then mask the face of each spoke and the rim and spray between the spokes with a bright silver and lacquered over the top. I was going to use chrome effect paint but as they are rough cast between the spokes and not shiny normally the plain silver works fine! It took 2 days and some very sore fingers!

Here we go:

Shiny and new!! Now I can\'t use the car until the weather picks up and they stop salting the roads!

m1tch · January 09, 2010, 10:37:24 AM

This is a pretty cool thread

I have heard of Holset turbos, they are usually bolted to large drag engines as they are ment for trucks lol

Quick question on the turbo - was the turbo from a diesel engine or a petrol engine? I only ask as a diesel turbo can\'t take the heat from a petrol engine, especially a rotary!

I will look forward to when you bolt the turbo on! looks awesome

im guessing you are going to repaint it?

leeroy_25 · January 10, 2010, 07:56:41 PM

Just a quick reply for you mitch.. Holset only make turbos for diesel application as far as I am aware and this unit came of some thing like a 7 litre dodge truck!
heat was something that crossed my mind and got mentioned a few times in my early research but seems these units can handle it okay? Guess we will see in due course!

m1tch · January 10, 2010, 08:03:18 PM

Quote from: leeroy_25;664579Just a quick reply for you mitch.. Holset only make turbos for diesel application as far as I am aware and this unit came of some thing like a 7 litre dodge truck!
heat was something that crossed my mind and got mentioned a few times in my early research but seems these units can handle it okay? Guess we will see in due course!

Yeah, just be careful as when I was looking round for larger turbos I was told that if I bought a diesel turbo I would need to get the rear wheel replaced with something that could cope with the heat.

Does the turbo need a rebuild at all?

Just pulled this off an australian 4WD turbo diesel forum:

EGT at idle should be approximately 150c

EGT at cruising between 315c and 365c Normal running between 260 to 482c. Max EGT\'s 600c Above 370c the engine gets wasteful with the fuel, due to load demands. Below 315c and you lose efficiency (Power and Torque)

The rotary kicks out an EGT of about 1000C on full chat, which is why I am running journal bearing in my turbo as ball bearings can\'t cope for long at high heat, so it looks like the maximum EGT of these diesels will be about 60% of a rotary on full chat, so diesel turbos don\'t need to have materials that can cope with the higher temps - not good for you!

JBerg · January 10, 2010, 08:30:48 PM

wow, nice work!

Where did you get those omp lines made up? They look swish!

Thanks

Jon

m1tch · January 10, 2010, 08:40:31 PM

Quote from: JBerg;664586wow, nice work!

Where did you get those omp lines made up? They look swish!

Thanks

Jon

I know JM garage are working on some braided OMP lines at the moment, but I would rather that they are clear so that you can check the oil flow!

leeroy_25 · January 10, 2010, 08:56:54 PM

Hi JBerg, As with most things I made them myself! I went to my local hydraulic supplier and got some lengths of hose and connections!
Mitch I can see your fear with exhaust gas temp. All I can see is it seems to be a fairly well tried and tested conversion in the US! and some of these guy\'s are running some serious boost and power. Worsest case the turbine blade melts and I get a new one! That ends not going back around the engine! The Holsets run Journal bearing by the way.

leeroy_25 · January 10, 2010, 09:18:47 PM

Okay, lets get on track!

Most of the inlet side done.. What next? I thought it would be a good plan to finish connecting up all the fuel lines and get the inlet elbow back on to prevent any water getting in that end of the motor..
I found a nice spot to mount my FPR... I chose one of the bolts that holds the ABS system on saving adding any further holes or brackets to the bulkhead.

Now it was time to start getting stuck into the nitty gritty.. Fitting the turbo. but first it needed a clean up and also the wastegate disabled.
I dismantled the compressor end and sent it off for acid dipping..

Just like new!

I made an intial attempt to disable the wastegate:

.. But I quickly realised after abit more research this was going to take up too much room in the engine bay and cause fitting problems.
I also found that I was almost impossile to get a spec for the V-band used on the downpipe fitting of the Holset. It turned out it was a holset specific size and gettting hold of parts without part numbers as I already new was difficult not to mention I could not find a weld on flange to use with my downpipe.
There was only one answer. Draw up my own rear plate and get it machined. I could then incorporate a wastegate plug of sorts in it and had free choice of how to connect the downpipe. So that\'s what I did!

I also made up an oil restrictor for the turbo at this point using a rivnut and an M4 Screw. Initially I made a 2.0mm restrictor as a safe size.. I later had to change this down to 1.5mm after reasercing some more info.. Although I am still trying to find out if I can go smaller.

Next time we will look at test fitting up the turbo!

m1tch · January 10, 2010, 09:45:46 PM

Is that a FSE boost valve with a rising rate of 1.7:1? I thought it was best to get a 1:1 rising rate, which is why I am saving up for a fuel lab or aeromotive one lol

Im glad that the turbo will be ok

im sure it will be fine, I was just warned about it when I was looking, hopefully your fueling will mean that the EGTs won\'t get that high anyhow!

leeroy_25 · January 11, 2010, 01:30:37 PM

Hey there mitch
I am not sure what the spec on that FPR is to be honest.. it is an FSE one and I got it off this forum.. but it appears it\'s dudd as I wasn\'t holding pressure. I have changed it for another FSE one which I got of a different forum member.. that is 1:1 rising rate as far as I am aware and works fine.

leeroy_25 · January 11, 2010, 09:29:50 PM

In preperation for my single turbo conversion I had managed to get my hands on a nice Trust stainless manifold:

So very excited it was now time to give it a bolt up and see how the turbo fitted!

So manifold on was a good start!

But trust this progress did not continue long! As I dropped the turbo in the engine bay with the compressor housing off to give me a bit more room and to see what was going on.. I just managed to hook it on the top two bolts of the manifold flange only to find before it sat down on the other two it hit something solid! It was very close two the chassis rail.. But that was not it.

Oh so that would be the steering Column then!

With the compressor hosuing on this fouled the water pipe that feeds the heater system and also the chassis rail.
Bugger!! This was not in my plan!
After much deliberation an frustration.. I decided I would get another manifold with a different setup to see if that worked! Shame as I like the low fitting the Trust has.
So I managed to get a fleebay one to try which has a further forward and higher mount position. I bolted all this up and still no go with the turbo! With this unit the large compressor fouled the LIM! and had no scope to move it further out.

So with some head scratching and serious reluctance I decided there was only one thing for it.. cut up at least one of the manifolds and fabricate something that fitted! It was clear there was not a lot of room to play with due to the size of the turbo so I would also have to tickle some of the lumps off the exhasut housing where the internal gate was to slim things down a bit. A non gated housing would have helped hugely here but hey.. we had what we had!
Lastly I would need to cut and re-route the water pipe feeding the heater.

Until next time!

m1tch · January 12, 2010, 12:09:10 PM

Im getting a custom manifold made up due to the size of the T88, it will have longer primaries to help spooling as well, before you cut up perfectly sellable manifolds that will work for others, try and get some costs on a custom manifold as it might work out better as you can sell on the other manifold