Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

[RONDAL]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

Ordered Today:

Peloquin LSD
BFI Stg1 Motor Mounts
Tranny Mounts
3" DP


tee heee heeee

[RONDAL]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

Sorted out all the parts for the external oil cooler I am going to be running. Good idea for those of you with SC'd VR's or even slightly modded VR6's that enjoy really driving their cars.
As you prolly already know it doesn't take much for the oil temps to creep up on warm days if you are running the car hard, so i found a solution.

Parts needed:

Mocal thermostatically controlled sandwich plate with vr6 specific top cap
BSP to -AN unions with stat o seals
Mocal/aeroquip black/titanium colored hose ends
Aeroquip socketless hose
Mocal 235 matrix 19 row cooler

19 row is big enough for large turbo applications but the thermostatically controlled sandwich plate means that the oil wont flow to the cooler until it reaches a certain temperature meaning warm up time is not increased and on cold days it wont overcool the oil.

[Tuna]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

The thermostat is a nice idea, I might have to think of adding one of those if it's compatible.

[RONDAL]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

it is. i will be ordering mine soon, let me know Jason and we can order together to save shipping $$$.

[RONDAL]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

The following arrived today, big thanks to Devin who was at Kinetic and Shawn Van Neer.

Only thing left to arrive now is the 5th gear conversion kit and intercooler. I found someone yesterday who does top notch TIG work who wants to do my IC end tanks which is key as fitment is going to be the make or break of this whole design.

The new toys:

[R_Ethug]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

nice downpipe

[Tuna]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

Nice collection of parts, I really want to see how hard the trany is to take apart 'cause I really want a tall 5th. I'm afraid to ask what this is costing you (and I guess it's not really any of my business either haha).

I can vouch for a 3" exhaust droning but it's not TOO bad. I'd be willing to bet it's still quieter than the car you posted though with that tiny can.

Edit: I plan to crawl under the car this weekend if I can get some heat in the garage so I will let you know if I can use that thermostat.

[RONDAL]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

yeah i need to start pulling everything apart now. I have prices on all the parts if you want to know what the 5th gear kit is going to cost you J.

The 3" is prolly quieter than the dump when the dump is open, but the dump will only open under boost, and only when i want it to, so in that respect its going to be quieter for normal driving, where the droning gets annoying.

let me know if you wanna go the oilcooler route i haven't ordered mine yet.

[Triple G]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

Went over and helped Andrew with his car today. Got the engine ready to pull. All that needs to be done is take the drive axles off and undo the motor mounts.

[Mitcheh]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

fun

[RONDAL]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

December 2nd 2007:

So today Graeme came over and gave me a hand as we began the first stages of this project. HUGE thanks for the help dude, turns out you taking apart your car once a month does come in handy when others need help haha.
Weather outside was horrible, they were saying -20, -27 with the windchill, but inside the heated garage it was a balmy +20.

First was removing the lights and grille, then the bumper. This gave me a chance to do some measurements for how I am going to run my FMIC. I would like to keep my A/C, and surprisingly my north american bumpers. A) I do a lot of highway driving so having A/C is HUGE cause there is nothing worse than cruising at speed with the windows down not able to hear a thing. B) the NA bumpers will hopefully allow me to run a larger IC without hacking the bumper to bits and keeping the stealty look I am going for.

As you can see however with the A/C condenser the space is limited down in the front. i was hoping to run a 2 1/4" thick IC that was fairly wide and fairly tall (24"x9") to get the maximum cooling possible. There doesn't look to be a whole lot of room and the rebar may need to get hacked slightly and some extra bits welded on to get things to fit. If anyone has some ideas I would love to hear them.














Next came undoing the A/C condenser, let it hang like this for a little while before discharging the system:




Next up came taking apart the intake and MAF. I had a K&N filter on there before, so it was a quick thing to pull, couple of clamps for the tubing to and from the MAF and a few bolts holding the bracket on. Holy crap these cars have a lot of emissions garbage, I didn't realize how much of the stuff in this area was emissions related.












Then using a expensive professional purging system we discharged the A/C refrigerant being sure not to let any escape as it would cause our world to warm up, and on a day as warm as it was today who would want to do that?
:rofl:


15 minutes later and the garage a little cooler we were back to work pulling all of the A/C related bits and pieces off of the front end of the car.






Next was on to pulling the spark plugs, coilpack and throttle body.








Then pulled the top half of the intake manifold, stuffed some paper towel in the runners to avoid dirt and dust getting into the engine.




From there we moved on to pulling the exhaust manifold and headers. I just want to go on the record for saying whoever decided to run 12mm bolts on the header section that attaches to the cat and only use 3 so that you have 2 on the bottom and 1 on the top should be shot. It is so bloody hard to get that top bolt. Used the butane torch to heat one up and the other two was brute strength.








The pile of parts on the garage floor slowly began to grow.




At this point we drained the engine oil, coolant (rad, block, lines) and the power steering.




Once this was done we pulled the radiator and gained a lot more room to work.




I also discovered at this time it seems I have had a small but massive coolant leak somewhere around the thermostat housing. This is weird because i did replace the Tstat housing 2 summers ago. I cant exactly tell where the leak is coming from. There is just a lot of dried up G12 everywhere. I can't tell whether the seal with the block was crap, it was leaking from the yellow sensor, or between the two halfs of the housing itself. Looks like someone with ebola threw up on my block however.










The elusive VR6 "crack pipe" for those that have never seen it before and wonder what it actually is.




Now we pulled the f@cking secondary "CEL" air injection pump that seems to go on every other Mk3 built. While removing we cracked the brittle hosing as you can see in the pics. Anyone have an extra hose I can have?








We now began work on the mystery piece. We have no idea what this actually does, if someone knows please tell me, it has coolant going in and out of it and is located as you can see on the drivers side of the engine just behind the coilpack. It has the round silver top you can see in this picture and looks like a canister of some kind.




From this point we began moving all kinds of lines from the area located around the battery. Shifter linkage, hydraulic clutch lines, battery tray that houses my mini MMP Deka battery, etc. This began to clear out the area quite rapidly.
















You can see in this all the dried up G12 I scraped off of the side of the blocl and all of the space that we now have free.






We then finished pulling the header and disconnected the O2 sensor.






We got anxious so we test fit the new part in the old ones place just so it looked like we made forward progress






Started to wrap up the afternoon, pulled the rain tray to gain access to where we will put the new stage 3 C2 software eventually.




Then did some measuring and thinking of how I can get rid of this piece of crap




I would like it to eventually look something like this:




That was it for the day. All that is left now is to unbolt the axles and the mounts and pull the engine. We would have done this but are waiting on the lift so it will have to wait for another day.


Good thing for those doing projects like this to organize and label everything. We have been bagging and tagging every bolt we remove so we know where it goes back together, also been labelling all the small random pieces because as the old title said, "weight saving" wasn't the goal of this project.







More to come.....

[niXon]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

Awesome update guys!

[Mitcheh]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

Graeme's effin good at taking apart these things, we did my whole VR in what, like 5 hours?

[RONDAL]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

yeah this was about 5 hours as well. 6 if you count the drift session in the snow in the MX-5 and the 30 minutes waiting in line at subway for lunch.

[RONDAL]

Re: Screw weight saving....just add more HP (Project Turbo Smurf)

How to build a dump, for those that are wondering what is involved:

It works off vacuum and is normally open and needs vacuum to close. To open it you need to vent the vacuum from it. If you just hook up to a vacuum source it will close just after you start up the car but will open as soon as you come out of vacuum. This is not how you want to run it as it will open and vent your exhaust basically every time you push the gas pedal. What i did was just before teh valve tee off the vacuum line to have two paths to the valve. One side has a one way check valve that will lock the vacuum in the valve keeping it closed. Now that it will stay closed even when hitting any small amount of psi you need a way to open it. The other path has another check valve that normally is sealed allowing the check valve in the other path to maintain a sealed vacuum keeping the valve cloesed. This valve however will open up at a certain boost level opening the dump giving you teh free flow of exhuast. All this valve is, is two brass fittings with a ball and spring that i just set to open up around 5psi. Supper simple but effective.

How much would it cost to duplicate. I dont know because I wheeled and dealed teh parts. Probably over $250

Parts list/Cost: $0
Exhaust valve: From a R32 but can be found on various Audi's and BMW's
SS 3" exhaust flange
SS 1' of 3" SS tubing
SS 3" to 2.25" reducer.
vacuum line one-way check valve and vacuum tees: cost me a few bucks from lordco.
Boost sensitive valve: brass 1/4 male npt to 3/16 barb fitting. (might be 1/8 but i cant remember but either will work)
brass 1/4 female npt to 3/16 barb fitting.
SS bearing ball and spring. Total cost under $10