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KLR250, The build


KLR250

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Hi Guys, cool forum! thought id post my project thread over here. Im an Admin over at xfalcon.com...

anyways, here goes

The build plan:

XF Twin turbo

Twin KKR 330 turbochargers (until they die then a pair of GT28RS turbo's)

As much power as i can get on 1bar of boost, (this is all im planning to run)

Gas research 480CFM carb

90L APA tank

3/8 twin LPG lines to twin VFF30 lockoff to two B2 convertors

Twin tank outlets incorporating a Duo Valve

Home made manifolds

Twin 2.5" exhaust mandrel bent system

custom inlet Plenum with front mounted Throttle body

250 xflow with hemi rods, ACL pistons cam and lots of headwork

6 coils in wastespark, based around MSnSextra, using EF 36-1 crank trigger wheel on balancer and homemade coil ignitiors

A decent restoration of the body

Ford focus Electric orange 2k paint

C9 transmission with TCE 2800 Stall

3.54 Jag Power lock diff and IRS

Aluminium Radiator

330mm front discs with PBR twin spot callipers

28mm front sway bar

Airide Shockwave air suspension

Accuair Ride height control

home made tailshaft loop

homemade oil air seperator

Steering conversion to AU falcon rack and pinion

EL/AU steering column

Custom engine mounts

Changes to lower control arms and front suspension

Dynamat inside

Redone interior in beige

Whatever else tickles my fancy during the build (depending on what i can afford)

Basically, I want to either do, and be involved with every single aspect of the build, and hopefully my trials and tribulations will help others with there own projects. Any feedback is welcomed, especially if im doing something you think could be done in a better way. I dont earn lots of money, so just about everything has to be done by me lol but thats where the fun is!

First job on the agenda, strip it to a bare shell. The plan is basically to get the drivetrain sorted, mount everything in the enginebay the way i want it, make all the intercooler pipework, bracketry, and weld in decent fixing points for the LPG convertors, Intercooler, catch can and all the other stuff that needs to go in there. This way, i can prep the shell for paint when done, and get the shell sprayed and be able to bolt everything straight in with less chance of scratcing the new paint. Theres also nothing worse than drilling holes to mount stuff after youve painted things, and have the metal filings accumulate in nooks crannies and and go rusty!

Rust isnt to bad, both doglegs behind the rear doors, and some new steel needed in the wheel arch areas, the plenum chamber below the windscreen has also suffered some of the cancer (try finding an x series thats perfectly clean in that area!) but its all pretty easy to get to thanks to the removal of the dash and pedal box assembly.

I did start on a few rust repairs, as i got sick of working on mechanicals, but have decided not to touch the body until ive finished the stuff under the bonnet

A general run down of the progress so far:

The engine will be the old Faithful 250 crossflow ford six like the last car, they respond very well to boost and make bagfuls of torque. people always ask me why i dont just go a later model OHC engine, I dunno, i like the simplicity of the crossflow, it will also be a lot more fun wasting a few newer cars with my old tractor motor!

Ill be using two turbo's, which are KKR330's from http://www.otomoto.com.au. I first found out about these little turbo's when i was googling for something, and came across http://www.ls1turbo.com.au they run a pair of these suckers on there GENTT turbo kits with great success. Aptly named kkr330, they flow aproxamatly 330hp each at full pelt. Rear housings are .86, front housing isnt advertised, but is similar in size to a GT28RS. they cost $700 each, use internal gates, with an optional 3 bolt dump flange that is removable. Stock wastegate springs are 6 to 7psi and have adjustable actuator rods, They also carry a T28 flange.

KKR1.jpg

KKR3.jpg

here you can see the removable dump flange

KKR2.jpg

So, I had the turbo's, Now i had to get them hung on the side of the head!

Id never made manifolds before, so it was all new to me. First desicion was what material to use. this was a no brainer, Steam pipe, its cheap, easy to weld, and very very tough, which is a very important asset for something that is exposed to lots of heat cycling, Did i mention its also cheap? At $6 a bend, you cant go wrong!

The prerequisites for the manifolds were, compact, simple to make, and easy to package. Packaging took precedence over outright power, I wasn't interested in tuned length runners, and tricky merge collectors, remember, im only dealing with 3 pipes per turbo. At the same time, i didnt want a ****ty old log style manifold, I needed something in between **** and Great ;)

First Cab of the rank was the head flanges, these i had to get laser cut. I went with 12mm thick mild steel, this way they were less prone to warping. I got a gasket, took it to my local sheet metal place, and said, copy this in 12mm Twice ;)

Headflange1.jpg

next up i had to make the turbo 4 bolt flanges. these were easy enough to do myself, bought some 12mm thick mild steel flat bar, and went crazy with drills files grinder and hacksaw. now i could begin building the manifolds.

Manifoldcutandtackeddummy-1.jpg

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finishedmanifold2.jpg

In total there are 4 90deg bends per manifold, the middle runner ends up being a straight peice of pipe, Here you can see how ive merged the pipes

manifoldmerge2.jpg

manifoldmerge.jpg

They turned out quite well. As usual the second manifold turned out better than the first lol (remember, i had to make two)

here they are mounted up to the engine, i have both flanges angled so the snout of each turbo is angled slightly to the drivers side, and up towards the bonnet a tad, this allows adequate clearance for the rear turbo's intake pipe, front turbo's dump pipe. Its all a balancing act between providing adequate clearence with all things in the way, and keeping the design simple and unrestrictive, i was stoked!

mountedturbo1.jpg

The manifolds need cleaning up, and coating, they should look a million bucks when done!

Next up, I needed to sort out what i was doing to the dumps. As mentioned earlier in the peice, the KKR330 has a dump flange, thats removable, it carries a 3 bolt flange for the dump pipe. This wasnt going to work for me, as the flange took too much room away, and i wanted something less restrictive, so i got two flange plates made, in 12mm mild steel, Cost $30 each

DSCF0713kkkrflange.jpg

Unfortunatly the KKR turbo's have a slightly differnt bolt pattern to regular T28's, and otomoto dont have gaskets, so after a bit of head scratching, i realised i could use T28 stainless gaskets, with a slight modification

Next thing to do was decide on what to do for the water lines. I could use steel bundy tube with flared ends, or olives, or use flexable stuff. Some people use rubber heater hose with barb ends screwed into the turbo, but this is a sure fire way of losing your coolant down the track, as the rubber goes hard from the heat put out from the turbine house, it splits off. I ended up using some heat and pressure rated hose, similar to hydraulic hose, but better for this particular application. First i had to buy some fittings to screw into the turbo's. these little fittings have a nice rubber backed sealing washer.

DSCF0714waterfitting.jpg

then i got some hoses made up. Im plugging into the water lines on the passenger side of the Block. The late EFI 250 engine has an alloy junction in the heater line, with two fittings in the top which are used for eitehr pollution or ventilation purposes. Usually they have vacuum thermo switch's screwed in. I wont be using these, so they get binned, the turbo water lines screw straight on with an adapter. The water then pass's through the turbo cores, and will return straight into the radiator end tank.

heres the hoses made up, two in two out. Note, on two hoses there are no fittings on one end. These will go straight into the the radiator end tank, i still havent ordered a aluminium radiator yet, so the hoses will be left with no fittings until i get a radiator sitting in place, this way i can cut them to the correct length.

The fittings are hydraulic spec, and were crimped on by my local hydraulic place

DSCF0712dfeedsanddrains.jpg

I got sick of welding and grinding, so decided to attack something else.

Im using a gas research carb, which i aquired off Cal, it used to live on his turbo XE, so the benefit here is, its been tuned for a turbocharged ford six, which should make things a hell of a lot easier for me, with only fine tuning to do (hopefully). Twin B2's will also be used.

GRAside.jpg

These are mounted on a neat little Bracket, but for clearance ill have to rework it a little

twinb2.jpg

This is where they will be mounted, Its a good position, low, hidden and resonably safe in the case of an accident (behind the shock tower) Cal had them mounted here in his XE. They wont fit without a few bracket modifications, The XE falcon has a lot more room here than the XF does, mainly because they have a different firewall. The XE uses a smaller ventilation and airconditioning assembly

B220twins20mounted1.jpg

For ignition control im using Megasquirt, with the MSnSextra code. Ill be using a 36-1 crank trigger wheel on the back of the harmonic balancer. I sourced a 36-1 trigger wheel of a very good friend by the name of Gary (Xdee), this guy has helped me out with so much stuff, for little in return, Top Bloke!

The plan is to run 6 coils, one per plug and do away with the dizzy. Megasquirt needs a few modifications to do this because Im using my megasquirt V2.2, which i built a few years ago for the first project.

The Gas research Carby has a TPS style shaft, which is great. I sourced a TPS of a throttle body from an EL falcon, and made a spacer to allow it to screw onto the side. The TPS will be used for datalogging, and possibly down the track a Gas research CTS feedback ECU, which use's an oxygen sensor to hold the mixtures in closed loop at cruise.

The CTS unit works by enriching the mixture at low load/light throttle applications. You basically need to lean of the cruise circuit by altering the mixtures on the gas carb. A PWM 2 wire Valve is fitted between the convertors secondry circuit, and a hose is run from this to a suitable position on the throttle. the CTS unit will cut in and supply more LPG to keep the mixtures hovering around stoicmetric in closed loop while cruise. When you stab the throttle it senses the quick movment of the TPS and injects a little more gas for acceleration enrichment.

TPSGRA.jpg

Heres a Megasquirt i prepared earlier

MyMSwithFlyingLead.jpg

MyMSwithtopcoverremoved.jpg

In the pictures below ive modified the megasquirt to include spare outputs, Fans, coil driver transistors for the LS1 coils etc, Ive run a new cable with a DB15 for all the extra stuff as ive run out of pins on the DB37

This also includes a VR conditioning circuit to condition the signal from the ford EDIS VR sensor. The sensor has to sit around 1mm from the teeth, and the air gap is critical. The circuit conditions the signal and converts it from a sinewave to a 5V square wave so megasquirt can process it, heres the circuit diagram as shown in the MSnSextra manual

vr-inputV22.jpg

msfinished.jpg

ms.jpg

msextra1.jpg

the edis wheel fits the harmonic balancer perfectly, or rather, it will when its machined down, a bit of alloy needs to be trimmed off the fords timing cover, but apart from that it all fits in like factory, the tricky bit will be mounting the sensor in the correct location. My plan here is to use a block of aluminium, cut and file it to shape, drill and tap threads for the sensor, then weld it onto the timing cover.

One issue so far, I dropped the harmonic balancer off to the machinist to machine it for the trigger wheel, he did this, but broke the trigger wheel pressing it on. it seems the wheel is pretty fragile, as its is made of a weird alloy like substance, but is ferrous.....it almost looks like a diecast material. Anyway, Gary has sourced me another, and this time it will press on properly...

heres a pic of the trigger wheel and sensor

Trigger20wheel20and20sensor.jpg

and here it is with the harmonic balancer

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the balancer only needs light maching to get the trigger wheel sitting properly, heres what it looks like before machining.

It sits snug over the seal surface, and needs about 8mm machined in towards the pulleys, and then it can be pressed on. the timing cover has a nice cavity slightly larger than the diameter of the trigger wheel, and only needs the three ribs removed, or ground back for clearance

Now that i had decided to go to all this effort, i wondered what i should do to the dizzy, as its pretty much redundant. It drives the oil pump, via the cam gear, so i couldnt remove the dizzy entirely, so i got thinking.

E series falcons that ran coil packs like the EF have replaced the dizzy with some kind of cam angle sensor, maybe i could use that? After all, Later model OHC engines share the same basic architecture as there older brother 250 engines. And again, Gary came to my rescue, (He's a champion) he had something even better! AU falcons have a dummy shaft oil pump drive in the dizzy location, without a cam sensor built in, so it is a lot less bulky. AU cam sensors are fitted into the timing cover, and seeing as i dont need cam phasing (6 coils in wastespark style) this would fit the bill.

This is how it looks after i made a few minor modifications. the first modification was to remove the AU gear, and replace it with the XF one, I used an XF distributor for a guide for correct height. The critical dimension is the distance between the plugs base, where it meets the block, to the centre of the gear, these need to be spot on. The other issue was, the Milled hex drive up the middle of the shaft. It wasnt as deep as the XF dizzy, which meant the AU drive wouldnt slide right home, which left a 2.5mm gap. this was rectified by simple removing the hex drive from the engine and filing 2.5mm off the end. the overall length of the bottom part of the shaft, below the gear was also around 2mm longer than an XF distributor, Which i dont think effects anything, it doesnt foul, so its probably okay, i decided to shorten it that little bit just in case

Modified20AU20dizzy20plug.jpg

Heres a picture comparing the three

from left to right:

Standard AU Modified AU to fit 250 Standard 250 distributor

DSCF0710comparo2064020x20480.jpg

I decided to get cracking on the intake side of things. The original plan was to use a Cain four barrell manifold, with a GRA adapter. I had a GRA to weber adapter that Cal was no longer using, so after a bit of rooting around i made a 16mm thick alloy adapter plate. in the end i decided i wasn't 100% happy with the arrangment, and decided to make a decent intake plenum, which im currently still working on.

heres a few pics of the original setup

Cainmanifoldplenum-1.jpg

Adaptercutout3-1.jpg

Topviewadapter-1.jpg

Finishedadapterminuscar-1.jpg

Finishedadaptertopview-1.jpg

I decided i wanted something a little more efficent and power productive, so i decided to make a plenum. Nothing to big. I started by cutting out some 5mm aluminium sheet using cardboard templates

platescutout.jpg

For the throttle mounting, i cut the Flange from the gas research weber adapter, seem's a waste, but it already had the studs fitted, and had a nice angle milled onto it to allow the throttle body to face down a tad, it would also save me heaps of time on cutting out and milling up another

throttlemount2.jpg

here ive dummied it up to get an idea of what it will look like

Plenumfront.jpg

Plenumrear.jpg

a good tip when cutting aluminium, if using a cutting disc or drop saw, candle wax will stop the disc from bogging up. The aluminium tends to melt and clog the cutter, making a real messy cut.

and the olbligatory plates bought by a group of xfalcon friends for my birthday!!

KLR250plates2.jpg

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After cutting out the plates i took them to the sheet metal shop to get the outside edge rolled and welded on.

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It came up a treat! Man, what i wouldnt give for a tig!!! The back plate isnt welded on yet, I have to first weld my runners.

Speaking of the runners, The plan here is to use the EFI Flange. I decided i didnt want to get a Flange cut up, the less flanges the better i say, less port matching and it looks less complicated?. So i got an EFI manifold head flange and cut and ground the flange until i had 6 nice stumpy runners, ready to weld onto. I grabbed some 38mm ID 5mm wall alluminium tube from the sheet metal place, it was cheap at $30 a metre, and is seamless. Ive cut 6 runners, and made sure there dead square. The flange will need bolting to a scrap head whilst the guy welds them, so the flange doesnt warp.

You can see in the pic how ive cut the EFI flange off, where the factory ram horn style runners would normally mount, basically ive cut the material away from between the runner stumps, and ground each one round...lots of dicking around, and grinders dont seem to mix to well with alloy, the **** likes to clog. But i got there with perserverance

you can do anything with a grinder, its the cletus way

4runners2.jpg

These just need to be welded, then im set! Ill drill 6 holes into the backing plate, get that welded onto the runners next, and prepare the ends of the new runners for some short Bellmouths from http://www.jntperformance.com.au there price list shows the ones i need for around $16.50, so there not that expensive, and well worth the effort.

heres a few pictures to give you the genral jist of how it will look. Thanks to my partner donna for taking the pictures while i stood there holding the plenum in position on the dunger motor. Youll also notice i had the runners stuck on with electrical tape. just for the photo ;)

The pictures are deceiving, in that there doesnt appear to be much space between the plenum and the shock tower, but in reality theres ample room. The runners i wanted as long as possible

5DSCF0706dummiedup.jpg

6DSCF0707dummiedup.jpg

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For safety sake, Ill design and fabricate a pop off valve to relase any major pressure in the event of a backfire. The plenum has a bit of volume, and if a backfire was to occur it could do some damage to the intake sytem. The plan here is to drill a 65mm hole into the base of the plenum, out of site, and cut a round 8mm thick plate to cover the hole, ill make a rubber gasket. A stud will be fitted from the top plenum plate and poke through the centre of the hole, and through the centre of the 8mm plate, A Valve spring will be used to apply the preload to the plate. i plan to run 15 psi, so will need the preload set at around 20psi, so it can also double as an over boost valve. It will be an ugly looking thing, but at least it will be hidden. Im hoping one 65mm hole will be enough, and one valve spring for that matter. Ill need approxamatly 35kg on the seat to hold 15psi with a 65mm hole, so seat pressure will need to be 40kg or so i think.

The power steering pump is next on the modification list, it is in the way, this was something i was prepared to deal with and knew would happen. The ford power steer pump is actually enclosed inside the metal resoivour, and the filler is in the way. So, ive cut the top of the filler off, and am currently welding a flat top on it, complete with a 1/2 90deg fitting, this will be connected to a remote container, mounted on the inner guard, Im thinking an older magna power steer container will be perfect. the only thing i need to work out is if i leave the return line going back to the pump, or return it to the remote container...the oil will stay cooler if the line is re-routed to the container, as the oil in the actual container will be utilised. If i keep the return going back to the pump, i suspect only the oil in the pumps container will be used, and as such, the oil in the remote container will just sit there, does it matter? Im not sure yet. if i return back to the container, will the oil drain back to the pump fast enough? Ill have to think on it, maybe i need a 5/8 line from the remote container to the pump container

Also picked up some more 5mm aluminium sheet, and cut the section out for the Plenum backing plate, where the runners will be welded to. Have to Buy another hole saw to drill out the runner holes. the plan here is to machine the ends of the runners down with a shoulder, so each runner is spigotted into the backing plate, this will keep them square, and make it easy for me to jig up, and also make it a hell of a lot stronger. Its quite deceiving how heavy it is, especially with the Gas throttle body attached to the front. I will put two gusets along two runners, underneath out of sight to give a bit more strength...might sound like overkill, but the last thing i want is cracks in the welds down the track. For the gussets ill use two narrow strips of 5mm aluminium, welded along the bottom of two runners, and also weld the strip against the plenum and the flange on the head, i doubt it will even be visable from above.

to weld the runners to the plate ill use a heavy peice of C section as a jig, so i can bolt the runner tubes and backing plate to it. ill use 6 peices of thread rod, drill 6 holes in the C section, and poke the threaded rod through each runner, put nuts and washers on each end, and do them up, so the runners will be held down hard against the plate, so it stays square when he welds it

Dont think i can run bellmouths, i discovered today that i didnt leave enough room down the back on #6 runner for a bellmouth, the taper of the plenum starts to curve around right near #6...will see what happens, might just radius the ports inside the plenum

Other things to do, remember to buy some mig wire, so i can do the power steering mod, and start on intercooler pipework. i need to merge the two 2" turbo outlets into one 2.5" pipe, but do it in a way that looks good, and clears everything. I was considering a twin 2" into 2.5" merger collecter, as used on extractors, or i can just cut n shut the pipe into a nice smooth merge. I also need to start on the turbo drains. Each turbo drain will be 20mm mild steel tube, with flexable oil line clamped on the ends at the sump. the tube will be cut n shut for the required bends, as the **** doesnt like to bend without crushing. Another thought, was to maybe fill the pipes with fine sand, pack the **** in there, cap the ends and heat the pipe up to make nice constant diameter bends, the sand should stop it crushing....maybe lol

Another thing ive been working on is the LPG vapour line, well, not so much working on as yet, but planning. Im not a fan of the flexable Vapour lines available, i reckon it looks **** house, so i want to run a proper stainless hard line, with a decent threaded fitting onto the gas carb, using an olive. obviously i cant run the hard line all the way to the convertors, because they are mounted on the body itself. So i plan to bend up a 25mm staino line to go under the plenum, and towards the convertors, and have a flexable line clamped on down there. I took a trip to my local hydralic place (damn i hate hydralic places, they always seem to empty my wallet) and they showed me a swagelock fitting thats perfect, but holy F%$kin ****, $190 + GST for one 90deg fitting. so I went over to a guy who makes hydralic hoses and the like, he can get me a steel fitting, a whole heap cheaper fron Norden, which is cad plated, looks quite good. next challenge will be bending thin wall stainless tube without crushing it....maybe there are mandrel bends in that size?

Looked at another brand of threaded fitting today, it will look ridiculous, the flare nut is friggin huge, i think im going to bend up a stainless line and clamp a short peice of vapour hose between the gas carb and the hard line, i cant see any other way around it, apart from down sizing the tube to 20mm, which will probably restrict the gas flow.

One thing i did get done is the crank trigger. As explained previously, The first one broke pressing it on, due to not being careful enough.

This time, i decided to use a different method. gary had just sent me another trigger wheel, and theres no way i wanted to get on the phone and ask for a 3rd lol. Plus, he actually had machined them off the balancer for me, so its a bit of dicking around!

I put the balancer in the freezer. it had already been machined with a 1 thou oversize for a tight interefernce fit., I then cranked the oven to 180deg and heated the trigger wheel...it just about fell on! I tell ya what, i had to work quick with the tongs, lining the marks up id scribed in, all in all i was close, withing 1mm of my scribed mark, and seeing as i havent actually mounted the sensor to the timing cover yet, that was fine. So now ive got to work out the best way to rig the sensor up on the timing cover, so its has slight adjustment side to side and up and down, seems easy? well yeah, not really. problem is, the trigger wheel is a hell of a lot smaller in diameter compared to the balancer, so it makes it hard to run a feeler guage in there to get the 1mm gap, and also mark out where to put the mounting boss for it, i think the best way is to take ****piles of accurate measurements, and mount it based on that. If it has adjustment it should be fine.

Ive been so damn busy as of late i havent really done a great deal, but i did get some stuff done. I decided to fiddle with the intake again. Than plan was to machine the aluminium tube runners down on the ends to spigot them into the plenum back plate, this way i could wack them in the holes with a mallet, much nicer, stronger, and they tend to stay square when welding

8machined20runner.jpg

I also got the machinist to square of the ends of each runner, as i had cut them with my drop saw, and accuracy isnt its forte.

next i got the 5mm sheet id cut to size and prepped it for the runners. The first attempt i stuffed, as i didnt lubricate the holesaw when cutting and the holes ended up rat****. I bought a new 44mm blu mole holesaw and arbor, I love this brand, they cut very nice and stay bloody sharp for ages

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this goes here

10Plenumbackingplate.jpg

Then i wacked the runners in with a peice of wood and big mallet, they were a really tight fit

11runnerspressedin.jpg

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12plenum4.jpg

Today was spent porting the inlet flange, It took bloody ages, and heaps of material had to be removed. The xflow inlet ports are around 37mm, the EFI manifold flange has 34mm ports, How dodgy is that, all so ford didnt have to cast them spot on, i.e you could cast it a few mm out and still not have overlap, and no port matching required. But its pretty resrictive.

I needed a compressor and a few months ago i came across a cheap V twin 14CFM for $200...bargain! Now i could plug in the diegrinder and go crazy!

14compressor.jpg

15diegrinder.jpg

The manifold flange was a pain in the arse. To stop the bur bogging up, i used tranmission fluid. I just dipped the bur into the fluid every now n then, and it cut really well!

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here you can see the head side of the flange, and the extent of the porting. In this shot i still have a a lot more material to remove to match the head ports! obviously unported side is on the right

17porting.jpg

This side has had a lot of material removed, to bring the size up to 38mm to match the new runners

18plenum2.jpg

more soon

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i also made a jig to hold my manifold together while the dude welds it, basically, its consists of a chunky peice of C section, some long coach bolts and nuts, and 12 bolts and nuts to bolt the flange down solid, the long coach bolts run up through the middle of each runner, and have big washers at the top, and its all pulled down tight

this will get dropped of for welding in the morning

Jiggedupandreadytoweld.jpg

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sorted out my power steering pump. Because ive opted to go with a straight runner intake manifold the stock pump will not fit.

went to the wreckers, and sitting in the power steering pump pile, i found a pump with VL written on it in wrecker pen (its not VL, its VK or VH i think)

thing is, its a V belt pump, i thought VLs ran those 4 or 5 rib belts.

this pump is virtually identical to a ford pump, albeit with the resouvour removed. it has a screw in fitting for a remote resouvour

best thing is, its a straight bolt on

heres a pic of the VL one (if it is a VL one) and beside it is the ford one, removed from its resouvour (can someone spell that for me? lol)

only thing that needs changing is the pulley size, holden one is much smaller, a ford pulley will go straight on

pumpboltedon.jpg

Vlandfordpowersteer.jpg

it bolted straight up to XF bracket, even the high pressure hose screws in

VLpowersteerpump.jpg

this is the magna pump i was playing with, but the holden one looks easier to work with and will work correctly with the ford steering box

magnapowersteer.jpg

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My LS1 coils arrived finally, they came with the connectors to, which is good. currently making up an aluminium plate to bolt them to, which will be mounted on top of the rocker cover. Will Take some pics tommorrow

These are great coils, and after some bench testing ive confirmed that one LED transistor on the megsquirt will easily trigger two coils. The internal ignitors are bloody awsome

Im chasing up a mil spec bulkhead connector, This would make the efi/lpg wiring very tidy

basically im making the ecu loom and want to have a bulkhead plug through the firewall

the loom will have the 6 coils run through it, LPG wiring, sensors/trigger the works

DSCF1201.jpg

coil2jpg.jpg

coilsjpg.jpg

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6L of electric orange, with heaps more gold pearl mixed in, Its a great colour.

also got 6L of clear reducers hardeners and miscellaneous

Im now 1k poorer lol, $1000 in a few tins, unbeleivable, dunno how people fork out for house of colour

SDC10467.jpg

http://chemspec.co.za/metalux_range

Id never heard of this stuff till recently, The original plan was ppg, but i would have been up to $1500+, so i thought fvck it, ill get protech

then i was talked into this, the clear is mint apparently, was a bit dearer than protech, but the pearl should have a better kick

Its made in souf efrica

SDC10470.jpg

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My new Gun arrived!! Cant wait to test it out

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Ive been working on the engine lately, bending up stainless oil and water supply lines, as soon as the dash 4 and dash 6 banjo fittings arrive ill be able to finish it off. Head still has to be machined for the roller rockers and guide plates, bottom end has been freshened up. Block is ready for the electric orange, but it been to damn cold, im thinking of buying a gas heater. Ive rekitted the VFF30 lockoffs and started on another twin B2 bracket, my mounting of the B2's and VFF30's is turning out really good, and it all will be pretty much hidden away

anyway, im about two weeks away for a picture update, providing some parts arrive.

At the start of my thread id gotten some flexable water lines made up, but i hated them, they looked shithouse. Plan B was to go for some braided line, but its still to messy, it needs strapping up so it doesnt rub on things, which isnt really an issue with 1 turbo, but with two turbo's id have hoses every where. So i went with stainless tube with flare nuts and flared ends, and the stainless polish's up like chrome, and once bent to shape it stays put. Ive tapped the water jacket on the driveres side for water feed to the turbo's, basically just drilled two holes and tapped 12mm x 1.5mm threads to accept some JIC 9/16 fittings, this really simplifies the water feeds. The oil is supplied via the sender fitting on the passenger side as per usual, but ive used an aluminium fitting that has 3 1/4 bsp threads, 2 for the turbo's and one for the sender, Ive been looking for ages for a fitting that looked nice, i didnt want adapters hanging off the block, this looks really good and will keep the lines tidy. I need to restrict the oil supply with 1.5mm holes, I can purchase banjo bolts with a 1.5mm hole

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Finished the oil lines, Ive used 1/4 stainless tube. I managed to get hold of some banjo fittings with the appropriate ends, -4 for the oil lines and -6 for the water. they came from Japan Via ebay, cost me about $80 for all of them, in Chrome, and took 4 days to get here, Better than the companies ive been dealing with in oz, I just couldnt seem to find exactly what i needed in catalogues.

The oil comes from the sender outlet in the block, to which ive screwed an aluminium fitting which are normally used for multiple airline couplings. Its the tidiest fitting i was able to find, as i didnt want tee fittings. Ive run an oil line for each turbo from the block

heres some pics, nothing exciting, but ill post em up anyways

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I re-routed the water lines, made new ones. It was getting to cluttered above the manifolds, so ive run them below the manifold.

Ordered some braided line and -6 earls fittings to go between the block and the turbo's to allow for thermal expansion of the turbo's and manifolds. Doing away with the double banjo bolt on the thermostat neck as im tee'ing the water outlets together underneath

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Okay, as mentioned earlier, Ive re-routed the water outlets to underneath the manifolds, as its much tidier. Im teeing the outlets together with a -6 T fitting, Just got to get the rest of the pipes flared tommorrow.

In this shot you can see the rear water outlet from the block. From this it will be joined to the stainless tube via a -6 speedflow line, same for the front outlet. Hopefully my speedflow fittings and hose arrives this week.

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here you can see how ive bent the tube through the manifolds. The rear tube goes underneath all the way to the front where the T will be off the front turbocharger. From the T it will be speedlow -6 fittings and line to the thermostat neck. This then means the lines wont be rigid and things can move a little bit as things heat up

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You can see the line from the rear turbo here....

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made some flexable lines up for the water feeds and return back to the thermostat housing. Also had to tap the thread in the thermostat neck to a parrallel thread, as there a tapered thread, which is no good for a banjo fitting. Also got the banjo bolt turned down to the correct thread, it was 18mm x 1.5mm originally, got it turned down to the correct thread to match the thermostat neck...

pretty boring, but another job done

I really got to get some alloy spannersfor doing up earls fittings, there immposible to do up without scratching them using normal spanners.

Next up is the oil drains, just waiting on some -10 weld on nipples, then its convertor mounting and rigging up balance lines and associated gear

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bent the original dipstick tube to get it sitting in the right spot through the plenum runners, but it looked crap, so i made a new tube from stainless.

This is where im mounting my convertors, Ill be mounting them side by side under the plenum, and using the fuel pump blockoff bolts as the main attaching point for the bracket, and also a smalll strap to one of the lower plenum bolts, ill have some pics soon of them mounted. Basically its the 2 B2's with the 2 VFF30's mounted directly underneath, keeps it all hidden quite well, and resonably close to the throttle body, and also in the perfect position for the water plumbing

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modded sump

Also, you cant see in this pic, but its been dented slightly in 6 spots to clear the big ends as they swing around

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More pics to come soon, My LS1 coils are now setup on a bracket, should look trick

still waiting on my dash 10 nipples for the oil drains :(

stripped the paint off the block and redid it lol, i couldnt look at the silver any longer

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heres my pipe bender, its actually the best one ive owned, and bends 1/4 just as good as 3/8 line

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heres how i did the water returns, both into a 9/16 JIC tee, then hooked to the braided line up to the banjo on the thermostat neck

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heres the 1/4 oil feeds, i managed to get the bends really tight, if anyone plans on doing there own hardlines, make sure you measure and mark your pipes, i kinda just made one, then duplicated it, but didnt really mark anything and did it by eye, very tricky, and a pain in the arse. Really not an issue if your running one turbo, as you dont have to make things symetrical

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heres the banjo bolt, this started out as 18 x 1.5mm, i had to get it machined down on the thread, then i tap'd a bsp thread on it, and then tap the thermostat housing to BSPP, The bolt had plenty of meat on it, so it was all good

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then this is hooked up to the banjo and earls line

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theres heaps more plumbing to come, Mainly LPG balance lines, liquid lines etc, then the engine comes off the engine stand and gets bolted to the C9 so i can make some 3/8 stainless tranny lines, which i want to get hugging the trans/block nice and tight. The trans hard lines will end up near where the aircon/alt Bracket bolt to the block, These then gets nipples on the ends to transition into more -6 earls lines. Trans cooler and engine oil coolers are going behind the front bumper in front of the tyre, but as close as possible to the bumper. Holes will be cut into the bumper, It will be subtle, and hopefully look kinda cool

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heres a before picture before i start prepping the floor pan, still gotta rip out the hand brake cables, brake line, exhaust, trans. This weekend ill only be working on the rear section. Floor pan is very clean, can still see most of the factory grey paint

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been busy getting covered in sh1t today, ive used degreaser and scrubbing brush's, then a rinse, ive got half the floor done (back half) front half tommorrow night, then its soap wash. Considering this is only degreaser its coming up really nice

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bits to get zinc plated, they will get a gold passivate to bring them back to factory

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So much for no rust!! Heres what happens when muck gets behind the front guard...lots of you would already know.

you can start to worry when the 2 10mm bolts underneath just spin around and you can hear crunching noises

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heres the replacment panel

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Considering that this thing was one owner and always garaged it goes to show just how important it is to remove your guards occasionally and clean them out

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ahh, been busy!

Still scotch briting and cleaning the underbody, Mongrel job, but coming up great. Id like to Thank glenn (xm221) for sending me a brand new spot weld drill bit, why ive been using normal drill bits all these year is beyond me, this thing halves the time and you dont end up with a million holes to plug weld, anyways, what a dumb arse for not getting one ages ago!

Im using it to remove unwanted bits n peices atm. Because its going to be a straight LPG car The petrol tank is obviously removed, so im underneath removing all the petrol tank mounting brackets, exhaust heatsheild and generally just tidying it up before i lay on the epoxy primer. I really want to piss the spare tyre tub off, as i cant stand it, the fact it sits below and can be seen, it just looks ugly, so im trying to come up with a plan to remove it, and replace it with a rail similar to the passenger side. Easier said than done, its a structural peice, and there seems to be no obvious way of removing it without some major fabrication. At the moment im leaning towards just cutting the bottom off and making a flat bottom, at least it wont be seen from behind or while standing behind the car.

After spending ages cleaning underneath Im thinking of painting the floor pan a differnt colour. I bought 4L of GMH satin black, same stuff they used in the engine bays of the early holdens, But now im thinking of going freighter silver, which incidently is the same colour i used on the AU Racecar roll cage. The reason im thinking of going this way is because i think a lighter colour underneath may look a little nicer than just a black, and highlight the detailed under carrige, i.e control arms, diff, gearbox etc. Talking to some mates about it, they all agreed that it will look crap in a short period of time, from rocks and road debris, But i came to the conclusion that it shouldnt be a problem, If you look under the car now its really clean, bugger all in the way of paint damage and stone chips, and its all original paint, fromt he factory in 1986! I think the key is to paint between the rails with just the 2k silver, and on the outside of the rails & in the wheel tubs use the underbody stone guard/deadner, as this is where all the stones and stuff get thrown, between the rails is immaculate....anyway, ill take a few pics, not much to see atm

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