Muncie

Another spurt of enthusiasm drivers side manifold just needs V band stuck on and I can move to the passengers side and cross over pipe. Crossover will be piss easy nice and low just above cross member so hopefully most of the heat disappears under car. Has been on and off of course 10 plus times in engine bay. Can tick off clearing sway bar power steering and transmission lines as well and its removable in one piece!

I expect some progress to happen very shortly. Original engine got dressed up with its new manifolds decided fuck it and dropped most of my savings account in Maxfabs account. I know there's a bit to do but once it's all sitting in engine bay I'll get motivated as. I bloody love building exhausts looking forward to what's coming up.

Most of Saturday in this bloody manifold I built it on the car which meant pulling the drivers exhaust manifold and putting it on and off an uncountable number of times. But! It clears the power steering lines the oil filter the chassis rail and the wiring, what a fuck around. Hard part is done now though it's poking out into vacant space knew it would be a right dog to make but got there. Need some smaller bends then it can be sent across to passenger side to hook in to that manifold Oh and I can also start on that side....... not today.

I reckon this might fit...... the running gear from the Deathped. And be kind of road legal

Tbh I did a couple of passes it was dead consistent. So just did big skids and took passengers. I'll treat it more racecar this time bring a tow car a laptop hopefully see a 15 something, I'd be over moon. If I can get turbo bolted on be excellent! I chopped out the stock cat and mufflers and fitted some R35 gtr bits and a pod filter so it actually makes noise now.

We might see a driver swap too if my Daughter passes her Restricted test she's quite a bit lighter and i can leave a lot of shit in garage this time see if it can do a mid 15. Last time i had 2 12inch subs a jack and 10 kg of chook food in boot. My daughter will treat it with no mechanical sympathy and get best out of it!

Got more welding gas, not sure if I can get a wof and turbo on In time for Drag day....... I've bought some Drag slicks just in case, Traction wasn't an issue last time but gearing might be better on the 19's and just rev the shit out of it instead of going over line at 3000rpm stay in second the whole way. Ive done some Na mods and a wee muck around with tune to suit and it actually hauls ass as is so should be a good day.

Wofs out in a week or 2 undecided if I strip engine bay out get existing engine turbo'd and and learn to tune without risk of killing something expensive. Will see how it goes through a wof make my mind up from there. #roughdavescience.

Played around with this reversed manifold today. No pics of cleanup because boring basically hit the epoxy shit with a blow torch and it fell off easily with flathead screwdriver prodding. Hit it with a grinder was really dirty welds so ground it all out and started learning how to set up my welder (and learn how to weld aluminium) watched a few YouTube videos...... this is what I managed was a few shitty casting voids which took some time to burn out and fill in. Solid as fuck im happy enough. Used all my gas up so off for first re-fill.

I kind of took a guess where the wastegate would end up against the plenum surprisingly I hit the mark looks good. Enough clearance to pop the v bands and slip it out for spring changes.

Ok some of you are probably thinking Muncie you Dickhead your inlet is pointing straight at your wastegate. I've been on hunt for a spare plenum to chop up and flip, stumbled across one already done but not very neatly welded it was cheap though! So I'll save money not buy one from Mace engineering fill my argon and weld it up better as practice for the intercooler plumbing It's been sealed up with jb weld in places so will sort that fill in the nasty bits and try making it pretty. Sometimes I'm ace on alloy others I struggle a bit more exposure can't hurt. Will also linish up the ports too

It's certainly a different mounting approach to how others do it. Probably not better or worse but to service it will be ace spark plugs are easy to get to everything is vee band so a few spanners everything could come out in a few minutes. Changes of wastegate springs will be piss easy too as its a gate off job due to needing a clamp to squeeze the top hat on to drop bolts it, not at all hard it not been under car will save my back.

Starting to remember how to tig weld again too almost through my first gas cylinder. No need to rate my welds I already give myself a 4 out of 10 they're strong enough at least.

Now turbo and wastegate are self supported decided to see how much room I have to do the downpipe in 3.5 inch surprisingly not bad, could be improved for sure and I'm lacking a few pieces so sticky tape and tack welds for now.

Got back in to things today revisited wastegate position reckon it should have about as good flow as I can give it now also tweaked it a bit further away from rocker cover.

Anyone keen on this? I need some extra cash for my commodore project. It's probably suitable for hard as nails kids its still a hoot for adults though will fit in a wagon too. Just the thing for ripping up tge lawn this summer. See the for sale thread.

A wise once chap said hold up.... something ain't right. So I ordered some parts chopped some things off and started again. Now ive actually got 50/50 priority turbo or wastegate. Chopped the T3 flange off and did my best to make a 4-1 merge to sit the new 1-2 90 degree blend which has some other benefits everything will end up closer to the manifold win win. Now to get v bands on this and weld it all together. From there I'll probably fit it in the car and start making the downpipe and front crossover in the engine bay. I may roll up at drag day N/A or turbo at this rate...... or as a spectator. If anyone has a sharp price on 3.5" tube message me a need some.

Added a small fuel tank to it and other than an annoying float height leak its run faultlessly just real minor things like adjusting brakes that didn't stop it for long. Kids and myself ran 3 tanks of gas through it over weekend took it to Auckland my son rode it around panmure basin. Good fun chugs along pretty effortlessly and steams up hills I struggle to walk up end up being pretty light too. Gets a wobble over 40kph I'll see if I can add some bracing to get rid of it but you wouldn't normally go that fast on it anyway.

If you want some knobblies would be keen to swap.

Plus one for Strata i Bought an AC/DC ex demo for $1800 from Proline in Nelson. its so bloody easy to use and has made my getting back in to tig so much better AC i'm still learning but havent blown holes in anything yet.

Cheers, i sat down today and watched some you tube vids got the coms working data was working but lots of errors. tried different options used one that shouldn't work surprisingly it did.

Finally Managed to get Tunerpro Talking to the car again settings were vastly different to how my previous laptop was setup, program would crash then i got coms but only Transmission information few more settings got some engine information and no trans information....... randomly checked a few more options everything fired back up all the onscreen dash became live, And it works so much better than my previous laptop everything is quick data logs nicely was a bit hit and miss before. If i wanted to run an aftermarket ECU i'd need something that can run the trans too hence i'm giving it a nudge others have with good results otherwise i'd run a Haltech R3 or something. Thank fuck for that! s

Managed to unseize this and get it running....... its poked runs but sounds like it's been lubricated with valve grinding paste. Removed CVT belt and sound is in the crankcase guessing a bearing has collapsed as its so down on power idles lovely though.

@cletus cheers few photos definitely helps especially of something that works. What size gate and turbo are you running?

Definitely taking that on ive ordered some more parts to reconfigure it, it's a 60mm gate so as soon as it opens there's going to need to be good flow to it or it's going to be terrible, turbo on this engine could support 700hp efficiently and I'm betting the insides would fall into the sump around 500hp so good control needs to be a priority. Interestingly this setup had a single 38mm wastegate venting only the drivers side exhaust flow welded on at a fucked angle im betting it came up for sale after killing a few engines.