Little Red Turbo Creeper

I filled up the tank the day before starting the turbo install and made it a whopping 50 miles on half a tank. I fueled up again and will be driving extra conservatively to see what sort of numbers I get but with the exhaust still leaking in the same place I don't have great expectations.
Drivers side manifold is going to have to come back out.

I am also not a fan of the smell coming through the cab from the vented oil catch can, it can't be healthy either so it may need re routed down into the exhaust instead.

I've got a few pictures of the install and I swear some of my pictures vanished into thin air.

I took the air intake off right out of the gate.


Next was pulling out the DT headers I've had on for the last 11 months (barely longer than it took for them to ship in the first place) luckily that all came off without a fight.


I noticed the filler neck for my windshield washer fluid is clacked and leaks but only when it's all the way full, a problem for a later date.

While removing the DT headers and crossover pipe I finally got a solid view of the oil leak I've been trying to find (I had suspected the half moon on the valve cover, I was close but still wrong).

Looks like it's the cam plug seal I installed with the valve cover gaskets (another problem for future me) this leak has been made worse with the addition of boost so ill have to address it sooner than later. Probably a good idea to do that when I remove the drivers side manifold for machining.

Now time for some new IK22 spark plugs with a tighter gap. I don't have any pictures of the new ones but I snagged a couple of the old ones coming out with around 15k miles on them. They all looked about the same


Next up was mounting the passenger side exhaust manifold so I could see where the turbo would sit and determine the routing for the oil, coolant, and charge pipes.


I put priority on building the oil lines.
Something I've never done before and it's definitely painful learning curve, I highly recommend wearing leather gloves for this part (I did not).


I had a couple different ideas on how to do the oil feed, either with a T off of the oil pressure sensor or utilizing the empty port of filtered oil just below the sensor. I started out using the T (because the fitting for the port I intended to use was way too small)

At the time this felt like a decent fit (but as @Jon64l predicted it needed to be tapped for a deeper fit utilizing more threads and sprung a leak upon initial startup).
Live and learn.

Now the focus shifted to the coolant lines. I had intended to T into the heater hoses to supply the coolant but it kept nagging at me and I ended up removing the lines from the throttle body and directed them to the turbo instead. These coolants lines are probably the tallest piece under the hood and I was concerned it would come into contact with it, it doesn't not.

I was thankful to have my grandpa helping me in the garage that day so we had a vehicle to go pick up the needed hose for the change of plans. We also figured out a temporary solution that keeps the core support from bending and twisting at the hood latch without the factory support that runs to the bottom of the core support. This will buy me some time to figure out the hood pins in the future.

Since I was still holding out on the promise of a custom made billet aluminum oil drain fitting I left that alone and shifted my focus to the charge pipes, blow off valve and intercooler setup.


This went together almost exactly as I had planned it
To remove the MAF housing from the OEM air box I just used a sharp D2 steel knife and a little elbo grease. Once you get a pretty good groove cut the plastic will break pretty clean along the cut mark

A little work with a file to clean up the edge and a lot of force to get the 2.75" couplers on each side. If the one side ever pops off again I'll use a 3" coupler instead but one side fits a 2.75 pretty good and I have a 3" waiting to go in on the parts shelf

Moving the MAF requires separating it from the ignitor wiring loom but that's pretty straightforward. I re wrapped it with someone 1/4 wire loom and retained the factory wire clip direct below the MAF for a clean install.
On the drivers side to get the charge pipe from the IC through the core support I turned a U bend into a J bend and it fits around the fan shroud like a glove. The BOV attaches to the longer section of the J bend utilizing the coupler from intake solutions with a 1inch port.

(masking tape was just to remind me I needed to pick up a 3" hose clamp)
I tried using a 45° and 90° piece of charge pipe to make the connection between the BOV and MAF but neither one wanted to go very well. It just so happens that the Airaid intake tube was a near perfect fit so that's what I'll use for now.


It would definitely look sharper with a nice shiny aluminum pipe here but if it works it works. I do still need to find a proper plug for what once was the driver's side crank case vent on the Airaid elbow, right now there's a gear oil cap jammed in there with some electrical tape to secure it in place.

Now with the charge pipes, IC, and BOV all connected I shifted my focus back to the turbo oil drail line.
It became very clear I wasn't going to be receiving the custom billet aluminum drain fitting and would have to make one myself like @GoJo had done a few weeks prior.
Luckily I was semi prepared for this I was just hoping it wouldn't come down to it.

Advisory in advance, some real redneck ingenuity coming into play here. I used the supplied fitting for a template and marked the hole location and shape of the base to a piece of sheet metal that was left in the field across the street from my house after a construction crew installed a new billboard. I had cleaned up the mess and knew the metal would come in handy for practicing with the freebie welder I had in the garage.

Band saw? Yeah I got one of those... Borrowed this one from a friend. Might not seem like it but it was actually "safer" clamped into the table like this.
There's a piece of the blade guard missing and I found that out the hard way

My Tshirt got snagged by the blade and it tried to suck my stomach in with it. Luckily all I got was a couple holes in my shirt and a small bloodless scratch on my belly, and maybe a little poo in my shorts


Right, back to work now.
Stainless steel pipe fit perfectly snug inside the hand crafted flange

Buzzed them together using some Blue Devil stainless steel Flux-Core welding wire (I'll add a link for it later)
Also note the big oily WD-40 spot on the ground right under where I'm welding from drilling holes and cutting metal .

I must have been thinking hard and working too much because I didn't get very many pictures of the drain and it took me a lot longer to get right than I had expected. The gap between the turbo T4 flange and the compressor housing is very tight so getting the oil drain clocked correct was more difficult than it should have been. Anyway after welded the pipe to the flange I cut the pipe off at an angle and rotated it before welding it back into place to create the angle needed and then welded the spare AN 10 bung left over from the oil pan to the end (this time I left a cap on to protect the threads, a lesson I learned the hard way on the oil pan)
After cleaning it up I put some primer and red high heat paint to keep it rust free and beautiful for seasons to come. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture before installing it and it's in a tough spot to see. aside from looking a little phalic I'm pretty happy with it


Now we have oil feed and drainage, we have coolant lines and complete charge pipes so that means the first test run (without a down pipe because that doesn't exist yet).
After pulling the EFI relay and turning the motor with the starter a few times to prime the oil and disconnecting the charge pipes from the intake (just in case there's anything in the pipes I don't want sucked into the motor) it fired right up but didn't want to idle (because the MAF is reading air that the motor wasn't actually getting). After a short time I connected the charge pipes back to the throttle body and fired it up once more. That was a glorious sound and feeling. The motor sounded like a V8 with a little bit of a lope at idle
Using some heat shield to keep the exhaust off the delicate bits and direct it up and out of the hood I took it halfway around the block for some good 4th of July racket in the neighborhood. Retuning home grinning from ear to deff ear (but really it wasn't that loud especially inside the cab).
I have a short video of it idling and I couple blips on the throttle in the garage I'll have to upload and share on here for your audible pleasure.

Shortly upon retuning is when I noticed the copious amounts of oil dripping on the garage floor. Mostly due to the oil feed line, I was still in high spirits. There was a game plan to fix the leak and if I needed to I could still drive it to work and back.

 

I hear you on the vented catch can. Routed mine back into the intake pipe before turbo. I've seen a car catch fire with it routed back into the exhaust.

 

You can also route a hose down under the cab. This is how mine is. The pre-turbo choice is a bit better though.

 

After a few days of hitching rides to work it was time to get back to work on the truck. Starting with the leaky oil feed T. I had ordered a 1/8th npt tap for this and thought it was going to be quick and easy. Grabbed my tap handle and what do you know, it doesn't fit in the bit. No big deal, redneckedness will prevail!
Right?...
Wrong

Somebeetch! I tried fruitlessly to extract the broken tap from inside the T, maybe a better handle would have helped but I'll chalk this one up to inexperience. I was so close too I literally told myself just a quarter turn more and bam it was a sixteenth of a turn too much. Now I have no oil feed going to the turbo so I ordered a replacement stainless steel tee as soon as possible and then thought more on the oil port below the pressure sensor. A dedicated line seemed like a better option anyway so I snagged the wife to grab some lunch and then snuck over to Home Depot to browse through their fittings with my broken Tee and the oil port plug in hand to test what they have, what do you know they had almost a perfect brass fitting, at just over $5 I was willing to give it a try, but not until after I had my burrito and large strawberry lemonade because garage heat in July is no joke.

Lunch was had but I definitely got someone else's burrito, I mean who gets a chicken and rice burrito, the obvious choice is pork and beans am I right? At least they smothered it with the correct sauce.

Back to work, now with a properly fitted fitting
But as soon as I had posted my solution on the Turbo BS Thread a little birdie called out yet again expecting a leak because I had forgotten to use teflon tape and yes he was right again! But the leak was less than before so it's still progress right?

High temp teflon tape had been ordered to correct my mistake yet again. I also ordered a different brass fitting that matched the tapered dimensions of the original plug slightly better than the home depot brass fitting.
Once they arrived I went back out into the heat of the garage, the engine still warm from the drive home from work and began the tedious process of removing the oil feed once more.
Everything was going smooth, the teflon tape was applied and the brass fitting was sitting in the black as it should, no way was it going to leak this time, I'd done everything perfectly. I went to put the 90° AN 4 elbo back on and call it a day but instead the elbo twisted in place kinking the line

I did not see that one coming.
Right when it happened I ordered a new fitting to be sent overnight.
not wanting to need to hitch a ride to work again I started thinking, I have an extra fitting but only a straight one and there's no way it would clear the alternator that way but the turbo side has a 90° fitting on it and a straight fitting just might work up there so I removed the line and flipped it around. It was a tight squeeze and the length of the line was originally cut to fit based on the T fitting location with two 90° elbows that add a little overall length.
But it seemed like it would work. After priming the oil feed line again and staring it up to see how it would hold under pressure I was sorely disappointed by yet another oil leak

But at least it got me to and from work for a day and the new leaking location is much easier to reach when it comes time to repair.
I had ordered a 45° and 90° elbow hoping to avoid using the 90° in favor of better oil flow but the replacement 45 was too tall and the line was coming into contact with the hood.

I swapped the 90° fitting back on the turbo side and was sitting pretty so I went to change the oil because I still had 10w30 in it from before the turbo setup and while fighting with the unusually tight oil filter I bent the damn 90° fitting!


This time it didn't kink as bad but it's definitely bent. Not knowing what else to do it turned the entire line around yet again. My logic behind this is that there's already an oil restriction fitting going into the turbo and if the slightly kinked line is going to cause a restriction it would be better to have it at the end of the feed instead of the beginning. I haven't contacted the manufacturer yet and I don't doubt they would send me a replacement free of charge based off of the previous customer service experience I had with them but I really don't know that I would like to replace it with the same one. I have since ordered 2 new fittings from Jeg's and will see what happens when they get here.


Right now that we're caught up on the crap I should also mention I was able to fabricate the turbo downpipe with the SS Flux-Core wire and black horse racing 3in exhaust kit I picked up from Amazon (will add a link later)

As a complete novis to welding I really won't complain about how it turned out. I wasn't preheating the material because I completely spaced it but the welds seem to be holding up well enough. I burned a hole or two in the metal and had to fill them back in but I actually find that part kind of fun (except trying to clean out the inside of the pipes).
The first piece I welded up.

I welded it on the inside of the pipe since it was easy enough to get to and it would look a little better in the long run. This one worked out pretty well. I didn't get great pictures though

I have a hard time using the grinder now days. My older brother was kind enough to brake the middle bone in my thumb into 3 separate pieces with a training tomahawk a few years back and that gets really agitated when the grinder comes out but anyway back to progress.
The end of the down pipe is going into the regular catback system i have so it needed to be necked now

You can see where I burned a hole in the reducer and filled it back in on the right hand side.
Unfortunately the smaller end of the reducer didn't fit inside the 2.5" V band flange so I didn't weld it from the inside like on the 3" flange but it will came out alright


And lastly I mocked up the ports for the O² sensors (one factory and one wide band). It was a real struggle drilling the holes in the steel pipe for the sensors and I used a lot of WD-40 trying to preserve the drill bits as best as I could, I used enough of it that I ended up putting some oil spill cleanup on the ground to soak up all the WD-40.

Apparently I should have swept the oil spill up because it cause some slag and started a small fire, it was easily stomped out so no need for the extinguisher on the wall (or the one in the truck toolbox).
This first O² sensor bung was the first piece I had remembered to preheat, I did so using a simple camp stove bottle propane torch and it worked beautiful, I finally felt like I was hitting my stride with the welds, even stacked a couple dimes. I was glad this bung burned in smooth because it had some large gaps to fill for me to place it how I wanted. Again I enjoy that part like filling in the holes.

Also worth noting these studs were sacrificial, I used a different set to attach the O² sensor I just didn't want to damage the threads or get slag in the hole.

The plate steel I'm using as a work top was once a target back and had several holes from a 30-06 going through it. they were some of my very first welds when I first got the welder to my house and probably part of why I enjoy filler welds

It was at this very moment I ran out of welding wire. Talk about a buzz kill. It was very early in the morning and I was so close to finally being finish that I decided to put the regular non stainless steel flux core wire back in the machine and went from one of my best welds to one of the ugliest welds just like that.

Talk about a mess but it did the trick and the painful grinder took care of most of the mess.
Now that we have a down pipe I was able to hook the O² sensors up (after calibrating the wide band in open air) and she scoots down the road as quiet as ever.
I did have a little hickup with the V band flange that I welded onto the catback side, I wasn't thinking about the width of the V band Clamp itself and welded the flange too close to the already existing flange on the end of the catalytic converter and had to bust out the metal sliver creating dremel tool with the carbide bits and make it fit. There was also some filler welding needed on the cat that I did not enjoy, it was dirty pipe and trying to get to it from underneath the truck without it being lifted was a real pain in my back it could also probably still use a little filling but I'll probably just change it out in the future instead. The exhaust shop that did my current exhaust welded everything together so from the tail pipe up to the front cat is all one piece and the rear O² sensor does want to come out after it's 20 years and 330,000 miles of service so I can only move the pipe around underneath as much as the wires for the O² will allow. Yeah I could have disconnected it from inside the truck understand the passenger seat but I don't want to have to take extra steps so I continued to work harder vs smarter.

At least it's a working vehicle again and the oil leaks are limited to the 90° elbow on top of the turbo that needs replaced and the cam plug seal.

 

The intake tube before turbo on my setup is nonexistent. Maybe I could incorporate a couple fitting to the air box once I get around to building one. I was under the impression it wouldn't be good to have those routed anywhere before the MAF to keep it clean.
I may run the tubes under the cab for a temporary solution, I believe I have enough hose to do so and if not it's worth the price to get rid of the smell.

I was questioning the exhaust routing method already, seems like if there's any pressure in the exhaust it wouldn't be able to vent properly but that's just my uneducated thought. I also felt like it would need a decent section of hard line to be able to handle the heat from the exhaust pipe.

I'm liking the air box idea more now

 

Ouch, leaking that bad still? I think I finally have mine resolved, took a bit and I was tightening those clamps down after every run I made but I am getting ~18mpg now driving freeway mostly, in the city its bit worse and then on the pedal even more so but over all its definitely better than I was pre turbo.

Took it up the mountains the other weekend, and it was definitely so nice to have that extra power when climbing. Only things slowing me down where other cars and the tight canyon corners haha

 

The maf is so far down stream in this situation. I had no issues. The IC will catch some of it, but there really isn't much residue, atleast for me. You can clean the maf every 3 oil changes or as you see fit. A quality catch can /air oil separator is helpful. I cleaned the IC after a couple years and basically nothing came out. Just used simple green and it seemed just the same as it went in. No residue on the outlet pipe.
Maybe you can figure out a way to make it happen.

 

I think I can make it happen. Move the air filter forward and curve it towards the fender a little more to box it up. Make a few adjustments to the snorkel piping behind the fender.. I can see it now and the lines are probably already long enough to work without replacing them

 

Ya that's going to be difficult to get a angled coupler and tube in there.

 

Just a thought, drill the filter flat rubber somewhere, use a quality grommet, and insert a receiver tube for the pcv hose. Some how bead roll, clamp or flange that receiver tube so it can never come loose and enter the turbo.

 

I could probably get something through the back of the filter, lots of flat realestate there

 

So how we liking it?

Gas mileage getting any better if you stay off the skinny pedal ?

 

I took it up the canyon yesterday afternoon and the temperatures got a little hot. I pulled over and let it cool off when the coolant hit 215°
It was a 2,200ft clime in 15 miles going up hwy 14 so I wasn't surprised.

I took a buddy and my brother on a couple test runs so my foot was in it a little bit again but so far this last 50 miles has only taken a 1/4 tank.

I also made a trade with a buddy for some tool boxes, well see what happens with these

Just me trying to be cool like @El Taco Diablo.
I've been wanting bed side boxes with a rack for a while now so I could fit a bike in the bed again. These might be a little on the big side though.

 

Lmao... Not sure I look cool or anything.

Those look about the same size as I run though.

 

You might not look cool but You've got one hell of a rig.

 

Awe... just a mall crawler. It doesn't do shit and I don't know shit.





There's a bunch of shit I would know better if I "really wheeled" my truck.

 

There's always a bigger fish

 

Well this escalated gradually. Warts and all.
Epic.

 

I wasn't seeing any positive pressure on the boost guage and after testing it this afternoon the guage was working correctly so the next quick and easy step was to install the Turbosmart manual boost controller.

So tiny.

turned it 1/5th of the way up (or 20/100 clicks).

I wasn't focusing on the guage but I did see it hit 3.6psi instead of the previous 0.0 and the Freeway ramp felt much shorter.

 

How are you liking that PTP blanket on your turbo?