Amphibious HEMTT

[Dougal]

Another data point, can you put a vacuum gauge on the intake before the turbo?

You've got a lot of plumbing on the way to the turbo. If this has a significant restriction then your turbo is working at higher pressure ratios for the same boost. Which means boost is hotter, cooling loads are higher and your intercooler has to work harder.

 

[WaterH]

You should put your IC in front of the engine radiator.

And get a bigger one. 12x12 is nowhere near close to be big enough

I’m not inclined to dump heat into the radiator. A bigger IC rad would be nice, but not in the cards right now.

Another data point, can you put a vacuum gauge on the intake before the turbo?

You've got a lot of plumbing on the way to the turbo. If this has a significant restriction then your turbo is working at higher pressure ratios for the same boost. Which means boost is hotter, cooling loads are higher and your intercooler has to work harder.

Ive wondered about this. My air cleaner has a indicator on it to tell me when it’s getting plugged, but it’s at the beginning of that long run. I wonder if the vacuum increases as it gets to the turbo. I will probubly test the temp first since I have the temp probes.

Today I drove a couple hours with the new IC resivour. It was uneventful.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I’m not inclined to dump heat into the radiator. A bigger IC rad would be nice, but not in the cards right now.

All production trucks have ics in front of radiators, mine included. 4bts run super cool, that's really the best move.

 

[Dougal]

I’m not inclined to dump heat into the radiator. A bigger IC rad would be nice, but not in the cards right now.



Ive wondered about this. My air cleaner has a indicator on it to tell me when it’s getting plugged, but it’s at the beginning of that long run. I wonder if the vacuum increases as it gets to the turbo. I will probubly test the temp first since I have the temp probes.

Today I drove a couple hours with the new IC resivour. It was uneventful.

If you've got a Donaldson Informer or similar vacuum indicator then you can move it to the piping by the turbo pretty easily. Mine was I think 1/8" NPT.

Intercoolers only add 2-3C to the air temp when they're working so aren't a concern to a radiator behind them. But a radiator can add a lot more heat to the air headed to the intercooler.

Basically there's not much heat rejection to cool your boost down, but there's a lot of heat rejection cooling radiator water down.

 

[WaterH]

All production trucks have ics in front of radiators, mine included. 4bts run super cool, that's really the best move.

I’m aware that they do this, but obviously if they didn’t stack radiators, they could use smaller ones. In the case of Dodge, I noticed they separate their AC condenser from the rad. In my case, it’s way to much work to do this now. If I was having a serious problem, I would consider it. To be honest, the high EGTs have had no effect on normal driving and only slightly when I’m towing. I just would like to see them a little lower.

If you've got a Donaldson Informer or similar vacuum indicator then you can move it to the piping by the turbo pretty easily. Mine was I think 1/8" NPT.

Intercoolers only add 2-3C to the air temp when they're working so aren't a concern to a radiator behind them. But a radiator can add a lot more heat to the air headed to the intercooler.

Basically there's not much heat rejection to cool your boost down, but there's a lot of heat rejection cooling radiator water down.

Yes my air cleaner is a Donaldson. Haven’t looked at the actual indicator in a while. I need to check it. I live on a dirt road, so it could be getting clogged. I would think a clogged (or restricted) air cleaner would cause the boost to go down. If the boost goes down for the same fueling, I expect lots of black smoke. I’m not getting that.

That little IC rad I have now blows hot air out. It is definitely more than 2-3 degrees difference. I guess a big rad would spread it out and it would be less.

 

[arse_sidewards]

Intercoolers only add 2-3C to the air temp when they're working so aren't a concern to a radiator behind them. But a radiator can add a lot more heat to the air headed to the intercooler.

And any heat the intercooler sucks out is heat not going into the engine so it's not like you lose radiator/cooling system capacity.

 

[WaterH]

Intercoolers only add 2-3C to the air temp when they're working so aren't a concern to a radiator behind them. But a radiator can add a lot more heat to the air headed to the intercooler.

Where did you get this figure? Could it be for a air/air IC?

 

[WaterH]

New parts in the mail. Here you can see the new intercooler rad next to the old one.

I wanted the new one to fit in place of the old one and even be able to swap back in if needed for some reason. But this little ring for the duct was a PITA to make the first time. So I drilled the rivets out to use in this build.

The cooler will have to be mounted sideways to fit, so the shroud is slightly different.

The mount will use the same holes as the old cooler, but I up sized them to 5/16” from 1/4”. This mount hangs off the back of the T-case crossmember. It’s made from the AR500 I used for the skid plate. PITA to drill and tap, but should be strong enough.

Shroud and cooler on mount.

Hard to take a pic. It blows on the T-case and it’s adapter.

The last thing I did was put a screen on the front of the duct. When I took the old cooler apart, I found a bunch of dragonflys smashed on the cooler. I wonder if they were blocking air flow. At least it proves I’m getting some ram air from the duct. Theair has a straight shot at it, but wasn’t sure if the axle tubes were not disturbing the airflow. If Draggonflys smash on this, I can clean them off easier.

I did a short test of the system while driving to the store to buy some electrical connectors I needed for this installation. (I rigged the connectors for the test) It appeared to lower EGTs by about 50 degrees. Half way there the temps went back up 50 degrees and I was like WTF. I checked underneath at the store and found that my rigged setup fell apart.

 

[bdkw1]

That air tube is to small for that fan in suction. You better be getting some good ram effect in the front for it to work well.

 

[Bebop]

Good info on intercoolers for diesels :



Look at the size of the radiator.

Your "new and improved radiator" is the same shit we use on transmissions. Not on an intercooler. You're way too undersized.

 

[WaterH]

Let me explain my logic on this intercooler. First, when I ran the test with the 5 gallon bucket, the little radiator really didn’t come into play in the first 3-4 miles. This is because the pump would not turn over the 5 gallons in that time. So all the water going to the IC was ambient during those few miles no matter what the little rad did. During that run, the EGT was about 950 degrees at 60 mph. On the run back, the EGT was just over a 1000 and my lazar gun said the water was around 140.

This tells me that 950 is the best I can hope for with this IC and the little rad is not keeping up.

The run I did yesterday I got 950 degrees with a much smaller reservour and it didn’t go up after more than 4 miles. That tells me the bigger rad is keeping up. So I would say this is the best I can hope for with this system.

Of course, if I got a bigger IC, it should dump more heat. I can also figure that if I dump more heat in the water, I might (probably) need more radiator to get rid of it.

In my case, there is some speculation that my side mounted engine radiator is not breathing good enough. So mounting a IC radiator in front of it may be mistake. Changing The side mounted rad is a major undertaking. One that I’m not ready to tackle. Certainly, not unless big garentee gains are to be had.

So you guys that are suggesting I get a bigger IC and a bigger IC rad (somewhere) are not getting an argument from me that it won’t lower EGTs. The question is how much money and work do I want to do to achieve that. Quite honestly, I don’t know I have a problem here. What will running a 1000 EGT in cruise do? Lower the engine life by 20%? I’ve experienced no drivability problems due to this so far.

I enjoy testing and making things better, but I’m not in a rush at this point. I’m enjoying the ride.

 

[Dougal]

Where did you get this figure? Could it be for a air/air IC?

I ran all the calcs years ago for my Isuzu 4BD1T which is almost the same use case as the 4BT. Same capacity, similar boost etc.
That was based on a 600x400 front mount air-air being in front of the radiator. The amount of heat (kw) extracted from the charge air at about 80% cooling was going to raise air temp through the intercooler by about 3C at road speed.

Temps will be higher obviously in a high load and low speed situation. But it's also hard to use high boost continuously without climbing hills at speed so it all kinda balances.

WaterH Have you got a temp probe for the charge air before/after the intercooler?

 

[WaterH]

WaterH Have you got a temp probe for the charge air before/after the intercooler?

I don’t have a guage for it, but I have a 4 probe gauge box pictured above a few posts. I can put it on anything. My only problem with it is the remote screen doesn’t work. The leads aren’t very long, so I need someone to ride in the back to see what it says.

 

[WaterH]

So I drove down south for T-day and the truck is running good. I’m running about 60 and you can see the EGT is about 950. I notice the boost is around 12-13 which seems kind of low.

I sure like the traffic around Okeechobee.

My friends compound. I’m going here if SHTF and my house gets burned. He keeps extra ARs to hand out to guests. Lol

 

[WaterH]

Saw this down in air boat country. Made me think of Angelo

I wonder what they would say if I landed a helicopter there. Not sure if the pump hose is long enough.

 

[arse_sidewards]

I wonder what they would say if I landed a helicopter there. Not sure if the pump hose is long enough.

Bring four HF dollies with you and have the passenger set them just before you land. Then push it up to the pump when the rotor stops.

 

[WaterH]

Bring four HF dollies with you and have the passenger set them just before you land. Then push it up to the pump when the rotor stops.

I could just fly with the ground handling wheels and wheel it over. But that does involve waiting for the blades to stop. It would be much nicer if I just flew in and landed with the blades spinning above the pump and “hot fueled”. Ha-ha

 

[arse_sidewards]

I could just fly with the ground handling wheels and wheel it over. But that does involve waiting for the blades to stop. It would be much nicer if I just flew in and landed with the blades spinning above the pump and “hot fueled”. Ha-ha

Know any marinas with avgas? They have real long fuel hoses so they can spool them out down the dock. You could set down on the dock or if you're good you could fuel without even setting down.


Edit: I wonder if any of the cannonball run people have ever tried to get fuel from a plane or chopper? Drop a hose in the sunroof at 170mph somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

 

[subybaja]

Edit: I wonder if any of the cannonball run people have ever tried to get fuel from a plane or chopper? Drop a hose in the sunroof at 170mph somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

The other way:

The world’s longest flight spent more than two months in the air ​

 

[arse_sidewards]

The other way:

The world’s longest flight spent more than two months in the air ​

I bet refueling would be so much easier today when a F250 with a transfer tank can simply cruise at 100+mph.

 

[WaterH]

I bet refueling would be so much easier today when a F250 with a transfer tank can simply cruise at 100+mph.

It would be much easier in a helicopter hovering over a refinery.

I wonder why they don’t just use a blimp. Could be solar powered.

 

[WaterH]

So on our last trip I found out that I need cup holders. You may recall that I have a cup holder right next to each seat. Those are fitted to yeti cups that my wife and I use all the time. The problem is on a trip we will have a yeti in the holder with an ice cold drink when we leave the house. If I am leaving in the morning, I like to stop at some place and get a cup of coffee. I don’t want to dump out the cold drink and I don’t want keep holding the coffee. Also, if we stop for lunch on the road and get the meal deal, what to do with the drink? Even if it’s the same drink, there might not be enough room in the yeti to dump the refill in. So I need more cup holders.

They won’t be used that much, so they don’t need to be quite so sturdy. My first addition.

The channel will be screwed on a surface and the pivoting cup holder can be folded up flat.

I like it pretty good, but the pivoting part has stops that are a little too small. Also the thin stainless I made this from is rather sharp. I’m affriad it could cut a styrofoam cup to easy. So I made the next version with thicker aluminum.

You can see the sides are slightly taller to give it a better “stop.”

Painted and installed.

Didn’t have a cup when I took the pic, but you get the idea.

 

[WaterH]

So the cooling system is on the back burner because it’s cold outside. We had a rainy weekend and I decided to do a little work on it. One of the theroys on my radiator is that it is in a bad aerodynamic spot on the truck. The rad fans are trying to blow out into the slipstream. Of course, this is not a problem at slow speed, but maybe at 60+ the fans can’t fight the incoming air from around the front fender. I will say, the only time I can get the water temp up is at highways speeds. So there is some logic to this theory.

There have been several suggestions to fix this. One of The most promising (in my opinion) would be a rearward facing scoop that could vacuum out the cavity the fans are pressuring. I’m not inclined to change the look of the outside like that. Then someone posted a pic (maybe Bebop) of a motor home that had a inside slanted vent for its cooling. I like the way it is more hidden, so lets try to make one.

Heres what I got to work with.

First, some cardboard.

Then aluminum.

Then duplicate it eight more times.

I needed some kind of link between them. Played with a small piece to figure out the bends.

Eventually, I had this.

Temporarily, mounted on the truck You can see how it looks different depending on if you look from the front.

Or the back.

If you look from the bottom up, you can see the angled pieces where the body line bends.

Im painting it all flat black as I type this, so I’m hoping it will be all but invisible in the future. As far as testing, that will have to wait till next summer. About a month ago I separated the intercooler system from the engine coolent. By coincidence, the weather changed and we really haven’t had a really hot day since. The truck never gets hot when the outside temp is below 85.

 

[gt1guy]

Looks good. If that doesn't do the trick, I'd try rear facing louvers on the outside next.

 

[Grendel]

So, I am no diesel expert, but seems like you're chasing a ghost to me.

I haven't seen high intake temps in this thread.

High for me is over 1200 (sustained) degrees in my Cat 3406B or Cummins 855.

 

[CDA 455 II]

I bet refueling would be so much easier today when a F250 with a transfer tank can simply cruise at 100+mph.

Rotation speed on a Cessna 172 is only 62MPH.

So 70MPH is plausible for a low pass/fuel transfer as pictured.

 

[WaterH]

So, I am no diesel expert, but seems like you're chasing a ghost to me.

I haven't seen high intake temps in this thread.

High for me is over 1200 (sustained) degrees in my Cat 3406B or Cummins 855.

You maybe right here.
The truck has never actually spewed any coolant. The highest temp I have ever seen on my water temp is 250. That was when I had the intercooler water running through the rad. (The temp sensor in the rear of the head) Since I separated the intercooler to its own rad, I’ve never seen it above 210.

As far as EGTs, in running about 950 in cruise since I got the separate rad. If I stomp it to the floor, I can get 1400. (I back off when I see that.) It’s been awhile since I towed my tractor, but it was running right around 1200 in cruise when I did. The intercooler separation lowered everything about 50 degrees, so I’m hoping I can tow at 1150.

When I was towing it at 1200, it was easy to accidentally hit 1400 or more on a hill. Since I got the intercooler somewhat sorted, it seems like it’s much harder to hit the high temps. Of course, without towing I really can’t hit those temps for more than a couple seconds because I will be going too fast. I didn’t build this for towing, but you got to do what you got to do. I’m about to drop insurance and plates on my Bronco, so this will be my only truck.

 

[Grendel]

You maybe right here.
The truck has never actually spewed any coolant. The highest temp I have ever seen on my water temp is 250. That was when I had the intercooler water running through the rad. (The temp sensor in the rear of the head) Since I separated the intercooler to its own rad, I’ve never seen it above 210.

As far as EGTs, in running about 950 in cruise since I got the separate rad. If I stomp it to the floor, I can get 1400. (I back off when I see that.) It’s been awhile since I towed my tractor, but it was running right around 1200 in cruise when I did. The intercooler separation lowered everything about 50 degrees, so I’m hoping I can tow at 1150.

When I was towing it at 1200, it was easy to accidentally hit 1400 or more on a hill. Since I got the intercooler somewhat sorted, it seems like it’s much harder to hit the high temps. Of course, without towing I really can’t hit those temps for more than a couple seconds because I will be going too fast. I didn’t build this for towing, but you got to do what you got to do. I’m about to drop insurance and plates on my Bronco, so this will be my only truck.

Sorry I guess I missed those temps. Yeah, you need to drop them.

 

[WaterH]

So if you have been following this thread, you know I made a skid plate for the engine and transmission a few months back. That left my Transfer case wide open. If it was a cast iron one, probably wouldn’t matter, but my B/W 1356 is magnesium. (I think) Anyways, let’s build a skid plate for it.

First, I played with cardboard.

Next, I wanted to put a bend in this 1/4”. Broke the ecetilene torch out.

Spent a half an hour and ton of gas and didn’t get anywhere bending it. Plan B, cut in two bends.

Well, I lied. After wasting a bunch more gas, cut in three bends.

If you remember I drilled pilot holes at the rear of the engine/tranny skid plate so I had something to attach the T-case skid. Now I drilled pilots out. You can see I have a mating plate clamped underneath to transfer all the holes.

Here I welded the mating plate on the skid. Also welded some nuts on and the bend slits got welded back up.

That’s all for now. In other news, I drove the truck at an averaged speed of 65-70 mph for a couple hours straight with no temperature issues. Not sure if the radiator louvers are working or it’s just the cool weather. Even on hills, I never broke 1200 on EGT. The water temp is like 200. In the summer, that kind of speed was melting my tires. (No problems there either)

 

[WaterH]

Still catching up on the skid plate.

I made the rear mount out of a piece of angle and some plate welded on one side.

It bolts on to a layered part of the frame, so I had to machine a recess in two places. Here I’m doing the angle. It was easy. The other part was on AR500 plate and didn’t machine worth shit until I annealed it.

Anyways it got bolted and some holes transferred to the skid.

I mounted the skid and checked clearance to the T-case.

There is slightly more than 1/4” to the case. On the front skid I can jack the truck up and it doesn’t bend. This is not nearly as reinforced. So I decided to jack it up to see the flex.

When I jacked the truck up one inch, the plate had already flexed up about a 1/8”. Compare that with jacking the front plate up 5” and then letting the air out of the bags. That won’t do. It appeared that a lot of the flex was in the two bends of the plate, so I made a rib to go inside.

This is where I’m at right now. Actually, I’m out of town on vacation.

I’ll finish up next year.

Happy New Years!