Turbo Induction .

19th December 2007
After mounting the turbo onto the car for the first time , the reality of the rest of the components that I needed to obtain started to dawn on me.

I thought my original budget of £500.00 to add the turbo would have been enough to get my turbo working. Now at this stage having the turbo mounted and the first section of the turbo system made. I could see that I was already over budget at £550.00. I had to make a decision about whether to go forward or to try and fit together what I had. I spent some time working out the cost of buying pressure caps for my IDF carbs and running the turbo through the carbs instead of my original plan to build a custom intake manifold. My Carburetors had been second hand and had come from Texas , so I was unsure of their origin and further more not sure they would be able to take the extra boost pressure from the turbo. My worries where that the throttle rods where not sealed for turbo use and would leak petrol. This was a very serious problem as although the carburetors could be made to work with the turbo the cost of this was looking more than $500.00 . I estimated that to get this stage working that it would cost in the region of another £500.00, although doing this would get me some experience in running the turbo I decided that It was fool hardy to spend this money in a direction that I was going to use as a stop gap to the fully turbo'd injected engine.

I had been looking on eBay at the multitude of different induction kits that there is on the market. It seems that when you buy one of these components you must know the car that it is being fitted onto. This is a bit of a problem , when you are building your own. I soon realized that most of these induction kits where in the region of £80.00 - £150.00. This was not something that my budget could afford at this present time.

Luckily I had been talking to a friend about my dilemma of which direction to take my turbo and he had said that he had seen an induction system sitting on the shelf of my local breakers Yard 'Ripleys'. The following morning I went down to the breakers yard and was happy to find that they had the kit and they only wanted £15.00 for it including the AMF sensor. This was a result as the unit turned out to be Piper X from a Renault Saxo Turbo. I fitted the induction kit to the turbo and realised that I would need some more Samco hose to ensure it did not come off.

I ordered the tube from Demon tweaks and would have to wait till after Christmas to receive it.
I had a telephone call from Demon Tweaks stating there was a problem with my order. Unfortunately I have not been able to find out what this problem is as Christmas 2007 is nearly on top of us.

I want to wish my readers a very merry Christmas and a happy new year 2008.

Turbo Exhaust Inlet manifold - part three

17th December 2007
With the to parts tacked and then bolted on to the exhaust , with an small engineering level I was able to see that the flange was pretty much level and with the turbo attached temporally, you could see that that the turbo kit sat quite neatly on the back of the buggy.

I removed the turbo and unbolted the adapter and took it back to Philcox to have the flange welded in its final position.

Whilst the adapter was welded I returned home to find that the oil adapter T pieces I had ordered had turned up. I decided to see if this would connect up to the braided cosworth line that had come with the t3 turbo as the oil line feed. With the 1/8"bsp to 1/4" bsp adapter that came with the turbo I was able to connect up the oil line and screw in the oil pressure sender. I ensured that all the lines where jointed with oil proof thread lock.

I used a brass 1/4"bsp screw cap to seal of the oil line. The engine could now be turned over to test the oil line. The line pressured up without leak.

Turbo Exhaust Inlet manifold - part two

6th December 2007
My visit to Philcox had been successful and the old flange had been successfully removed. Philcox had suggested that the triangular flange should have been welded on the other side of the flange as was consistent with traditional methods of exhaust manufacture. They cut a new flange from stainless steel and ensured that the hole in the centre of the flange allowed the pipework to fit snugly inside. They used a plasma torch to cut around the gasket which would be cleaned up after the position of the flange had been ascertained and tacked, re-checked and then finally welded in position. I was very pleased with the job that they had done so far and it was obvious that the work they had done looked no longer like my own and more like that done by a professional company, something the previous company that worked on this item failed to realize. When you pay for a professional job, it should be just that, not something that you could have done at home with a MiG welder and some stainless steel MiG wire.

I would need to mark the flange position with a level and ensure the turbo bracket was in the correct position. Once this had been established, I would be able to return the two parts to have them tacked up.

With the two parts marked up with a pencil it was going to be a couple of days til the two parts could be tacked together.

I had been ordering some oil line parts for the oil feed for the turbo and received some of the parts only to find that they where the wrong size. I had ordered a 1/8bsp to 4-N adapter thinking that the 4-N was the size of the Goodridge Ford Cosworth oil line. Unfortunately this was not only to Small but had the curve on the thread top convex instead of concave. I learnt something today all bsp fittings have concave tops to the threads. I ordered the new adapter the 1/8bsp to 1/4bsp adapter and hoped this would be the correct one as these threaded fitting are very difficult to match up.