My recycle bucket

[The Freeak]

I think so. It's a trans cooler, but has no trans fluid in it, just fuel to air heat exchanger. It's cooling (theoretically) my return fuel coming back from the rails before it's returned to tank.

I'm curious what the temp change is across the cooler.

 

[ScottRS]

I'm curious what the temp change is across the cooler.

Not much iirc. It's probably mostly pointless, return fuel isn't enough above ambient to have much chance to shed heat without active refrigeration via simple airflow heat exchange. That's one of the interesting difficulties of this whole deal, gas boils pretty close to ambient temp and pressure in the summer/afternoon at 7-10k feet.

 

[ScottRS]

This project is deviating a bit from its recycling roots... I needed bigger turbos, and the numbers were pointing to GT35 or HX40 variants. Since I could get HX40's with internal wastegates and couldn't find GT35's that way, I got a pair of HX40w's. The stock wastegate actuators are a bit too high pressure so I got disassemble-able actuators and will be swapping springs to get the wastegate pressure down to where I can deal with, and will be making new actuator brackets and a new set of headers, along with a new exhaust system to go to dual 3" (currently 2.5").

If the HX40's end up too big, HX35's will be a bolt-in swap, but the numbers indicate that the 40's should be a better match for this engine.

 

['84 Bronco II]

Have you ever had this thing on a dyno? I'd be curious to know what it's putting down especially with the new turbo setup

 

[ScottRS]

Have you ever had this thing on a dyno? I'd be curious to know what it's putting down especially with the new turbo setup

No dyno time yet. After I get some tuning time on the new setup and get it decently drivable I'll probably start looking for someplace to get it on a dyno, but it'll be a while. Butt dyno guess is probably a little over 400hp. The only easy comparison I have there is a gas '19 F350, it feels quicker off the line than the Ford, but it's also lighter (1500-1800lb) and similarly geared (42s/4.88s vs 33s/3.55s), but has a pile (probably 800lb) more rotating weight. I doubt anybody would let me dyno it on 15yo Swampers (for good reason) either.

 

[ScottRS]

First world problems...
In between the last go-round of exhaust on this thing, and this go-round, my computer that talks to my mill, has crapped out. Have to find another antique (and teach it to speak 1981 CNC mill-ish) to get the mill running, to make another set of header flanges, another set of turbo flanges, and whatever other dumb stuff I decide I want along the way. Probably not a lot else there, that's enough dumb for one project iteration.

While I'm grumbling about first world problems, whoever decided that quarter-sizes on V-band clamps were a good thing, can go fawk off far away. And when they get there, fawk off some more. Stupid stupid stupid. 2.25" on the compressor outlet, 3.25" on the exhaust outlet. Normal sizes would've been easy, but nooooo..... and the Amazon "aluminum" 2.25" V-band flanges I got, are mildly magnetic, and a lot heavier than I'd expect for their size. I've been looking for an aluminum magnet for years, finally found one. Or not.

 

[The Freeak]

First world problems...
.

YIKES. good luck. Er, better luck.

 

[welndmn]

First world problems...
In between the last go-round of exhaust on this thing, and this go-round, my computer that talks to my mill, has crapped out. Have to find another antique (and teach it to speak 1981 CNC mill-ish) to get the mill running, to make another set of header flanges, another set of turbo flanges, and whatever other dumb stuff I decide I want along the way. Probably not a lot else there, that's enough dumb for one project iteration.

While I'm grumbling about first world problems, whoever decided that quarter-sizes on V-band clamps were a good thing, can go fawk off far away. And when they get there, fawk off some more. Stupid stupid stupid. 2.25" on the compressor outlet, 3.25" on the exhaust outlet. Normal sizes would've been easy, but nooooo..... and the Amazon "aluminum" 2.25" V-band flanges I got, are mildly magnetic, and a lot heavier than I'd expect for their size. I've been looking for an aluminum magnet for years, finally found one. Or not.

HA! A friend bought those too! He brought over the V bands for me to weld, I thought nothing of it as they felt normal in my hand, I started welding and it welded like crap, put a magnet on it, kind of stuck, but not much. I asked him where he would them and he showed me the Amazon link.
I don't know what alloy has both aluminum and carbon steel in it, but some dick is out there selling them on amazon.

 

[ScottRS]

What did you use to try and weld them? Eventual success? I haven't tried yet.

I'm hoping I can just blast enough weld onto them (assuming they're steel-ish) to get a hose onto the "aluminum" flange, but I'm also tempted to just turn something and press it together. It won't be under a ton of stress.

Worse comes to worse, I'll just straight up turn my own v band flanges with the hose nipple integral to it, but I'll spend more in materials to start with to do that, than the Amazon flanges cost to buy.

This was the only supplier I found claiming aluminum 2.25" v band flanges, lots of "stainless", not much carbon steel. Betting what I got is also sold as "stainless" with a different sticker.

 

[ScottRS]

Got the mill taking code again. I've upgraded my garage computer, from a Win95 machine to a WinNT machine. Hopefully this one lasts, it's hard to find hardware that old still running.

For anybody playing along, I had way too high pressure (25ish psi to do anything) of wastegate actuators that came with the new turbos. Not surprising, since they are turbos intended for performance diesel application. So these wastegate actuators:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B09P694V8T/
with the springs replaced with McMaster-Carr part number 9657k532
nets out a wastegate actuator that takes about 4psi to start it moving, will have the turbo wastegate as open as it can go at about 14psi, and will run out of internal stroke on the actuator itself (ignoring the turbo's mechanical limits) at about 24psi. Same actuators "should" fit an HX35 or HX40, so if I have to step down turbo sizes, I "should" be able to transfer these.
I have a boost control solenoid, so I can force wastegate actuation pressure lower to build boost faster, but the numbers there look pretty good to me. I can make some small tweaks, either externally with pushrod adjustment, or internally with shims inside the wastegate actuator, if needed.

Hopefully soon i can find some time to start carving another pair of header flanges.

 

[Will Scarlet]

Got the mill taking code again. I've upgraded my garage computer, from a Win95 machine to a WinNT machine. Hopefully this one lasts, it's hard to find hardware that old still running.

You could always buy cheap newer computer and run Windows 95/NT, or any thing else really, on a virtual machine in a newer OS. Plenty of options out there for doing that. And it would only be a matter of configuring the virtual machine to connect with what ever the interface for your mill has, which shouldn't be difficult. Just food for thought.

 

[ScottRS]

It's not so much the old OS that I need, it's Hyperterminal (easy) and a real old-school DB9 serial port (not so easy). USB to serial seems to be a problem for the mill communications, I have several adapters to do that and none work for this. They work for other stuff, just not this. I suspect there's a way, but it's probably a custom (or self) built desktop machine to get there.

 

[aczlan]

It's not so much the old OS that I need, it's Hyperterminal (easy) and a real old-school DB9 serial port (not so easy). USB to serial seems to be a problem for the mill communications, I have several adapters to do that and none work for this. They work for other stuff, just not this. I suspect there's a way, but it's probably a custom (or self) built desktop machine to get there.

Let me dig it up, what you need is a higher voltage DB9 serial port, the newer ones are lower voltage and you need a higher volt one as I recall when I was looking it up a while back.

Aaron Z

 

[Wendle]

It's not so much the old OS that I need, it's Hyperterminal (easy) and a real old-school DB9 serial port (not so easy). USB to serial seems to be a problem for the mill communications, I have several adapters to do that and none work for this. They work for other stuff, just not this. I suspect there's a way, but it's probably a custom (or self) built desktop machine to get there.

DB9 Daughterboard?

I'm running a 25 pin parallel port daughterboard with a couple of hardlock dongles plugged into it for some old CNC software.
I didn't expect it to work at all when I bought it, but it's been flawless.

Edit: This kind of doodad - DB9 RS232 2 Serial Ports to PCIE PCI Express 2.0 Expansion Card 5Gb/s Adapter | eBay

 

[ScottRS]

Edit: This kind of doodad - DB9 RS232 2 Serial Ports to PCIE PCI Express 2.0 Expansion Card 5Gb/s Adapter | eBay

Yep, probably something just like that, thanks for the link/info. Probably would even work in a modern OS desktop (I assume I likely can't cram that into a laptop). I don't have a desktop newer than XP at present, but if it comes down to it, I might have to build something.
In the "build something" realm I was vaguely wondering if something to do this exists in the raspberry pi world, but then I reminded myself that raspberry pi is being scalped for stupid markup because "covid chip shortage".
For the moment, I'm honestly ok with running an NT box off network and porting programs back and forth via 3.5" floppies (not joking) just because I already have it and it works. A "big" mill program for my machine is 1kb, so it's not like I need large volumes of media storage.

 

[aczlan]

The issue is that old serial ports used up to +12V and -12v for signaling and in some cases, they drew power over the serial port to run the "logic" side of things.
New serial ports often use 5v, 3v or 1.8v for signaling which allows them to use less power, transmit faster and be cheaper, but the lower level of signal can lead to the signal getting "lost" in the background noise of something like a mill, CNC plasma, etc.

Something like: PCI Express Serial Card, PCIe to RS232 - Serial Cards & Adapters would work and can provide 5v or 12v power over the serial port.

A RS 232 to ethernet adapter may also work (generally they come with a program to map the remote port to a local port such as COM1):

Amazon.com: DTECH Serial to Ethernet Converter Adapter RS232 RS422 RS485 to TCP IP Device Server Supports DHCP DNS Modbus RTU/TCP 10/100M Power Over Ethernet POE : Electronics

Amazon.com: DTECH Serial to Ethernet Converter Adapter RS232 RS422 RS485 to TCP IP Device Server Supports DHCP DNS Modbus RTU/TCP 10/100M Power Over Ethernet POE : Electronics

www.amazon.com

A "real" RS232 USB adapter such as this will use a 6v signal which may be enough to work:
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Connective-Peripherals/USB2-F-1001-X10?qs=l6ZoeTYLMwNBX7tOJ6uK2g==

Do not get a "Serial TTL" adapter, that is the new lower voltage stuff and will likely not work.


Aaron Z

 

[Will Scarlet]

It's not so much the old OS that I need, it's Hyperterminal (easy) and a real old-school DB9 serial port (not so easy). USB to serial seems to be a problem for the mill communications, I have several adapters to do that and none work for this. They work for other stuff, just not this. I suspect there's a way, but it's probably a custom (or self) built desktop machine to get there.

HyperTerminal isn't the only serial communications terminal out there. PuTTY is popular, it should work with serial communications, and works on modern OSs like Windows and Linux. And there are other terminal emulators out there that will work on Windows or Linux, it will just a matter of finding one that will work for your needs.

So it seems, as already discussed, you just need to find a serial adapter that will work on a new computer. Good luck...

 

[ScottRS]

Short term, I just need to keep fingers crossed that my NT box keeps working for a while longer. As long as that continues, I'm in good shape. And I have my new header flanges and turbo flanges cut now, so what I actually "need" from the mill for this iteration, is done. What I need next is time to start sticking metal bits together.

 

[ScottRS]

I got one header welded up, other one is still just flanges. These larger turbos will be a tight fit.

 

[ScottRS]

One of the wildcards that I haven't totally figured out but probably need to solve: under boost, particularly on an extended boost situation, with probably a little blowby, there's no crankcase vacuum. In turn, crankcase pressure is building, and was blowing out my OEM engine oil dipstick, and spraying oil mist onto the underside of the hood. I'm replacing the dipstick with an o-ring sealed Lokar one, but it's also causing oil seeps elsewhere, so I need to figure out how/where I want to relieve that to prevent it. I'm thinking really light check valve off a valve cover, to the air filter side of one turbo, should do it. Can't say that I've seen that as a thing before but I'm thinking it "should" be out there in the boosted engine world.

 

[SLOWPOKE693]

One of the wildcards that I haven't totally figured out but probably need to solve: under boost, particularly on an extended boost situation, with probably a little blowby, there's no crankcase vacuum. In turn, crankcase pressure is building, and was blowing out my OEM engine oil dipstick, and spraying oil mist onto the underside of the hood. I'm replacing the dipstick with an o-ring sealed Lokar one, but it's also causing oil seeps elsewhere, so I need to figure out how/where I want to relieve that to prevent it. I'm thinking really light check valve off a valve cover, to the air filter side of one turbo, should do it. Can't say that I've seen that as a thing before but I'm thinking it "should" be out there in the boosted engine world.

I'd think oil mist going through the turbo wouldn't be ideal. Why not just run a vented catch can with a hose to each valve cover?

 

[AK_F250]

Air oil separator, it won’t have to be emptied like a catch can. I had one on my old race car and it was way better than the catch can it replaced.

 

[ScottRS]

I don't like making headers. Slow fiddly work and always seems to end up with one pipe that just won't work without some weirdness. But all the header bolts can be installed with nothing more exotic than a ball end Allen wrench, and the plug wires will fit. Took me all day today to make one header, didn't get to the downpipe yet.

Based on how well it held up on the last pair, I'll probably sandblast and rattlecan these with exhaust/BBQ paint as well, I think that process is somewhere earlier in this thread.

 

[ScottRS]

Since they were out, and I warped them slightly in welding, I went ahead and skim cut the headers flat.

 

['84 Bronco II]

One of the wildcards that I haven't totally figured out but probably need to solve: under boost, particularly on an extended boost situation, with probably a little blowby, there's no crankcase vacuum. In turn, crankcase pressure is building, and was blowing out my OEM engine oil dipstick, and spraying oil mist onto the underside of the hood. I'm replacing the dipstick with an o-ring sealed Lokar one, but it's also causing oil seeps elsewhere, so I need to figure out how/where I want to relieve that to prevent it. I'm thinking really light check valve off a valve cover, to the air filter side of one turbo, should do it. Can't say that I've seen that as a thing before but I'm thinking it "should" be out there in the boosted engine world.

I'd think oil mist going through the turbo wouldn't be ideal. Why not just run a vented catch can with a hose to each valve cover?

That is exactly how the factory plumbs the crank case vent on 7.3L Powerstrokes.

 

[ScottRS]

It's a bit of a mess. But both turbos are in, bolts are loose still, downpipes to the mufflers are in, headers bolted on, lots of stuff loose-fitted. I haven't gotten to the air side yet. Soon.

 

[ScottRS]

Getting there. Plumbing is complete, need to do an oil change on the engine so I'm putting clean oil into the new turbos, and should be good to fire it up.

Exhaust is now dual 3" to the tips, intake is 2" where separate and 2.25" where merged. Bigger intake would be better but I don't have room.

Still need to wire up rear rock lights (yeah, I'm one of those guys) and dome lights (yes, seriously) while I have stuff apart.

 

[ScottRS]

It's together, and it starts and runs, but there is an exhaust leak on the driver side turbo at the v band clamp, I think because holset uses non standard v band clamp sizes, the clamp isn't getting the flanges smashed together tight enough. So I have to come up with a gasket, preferably quickly, on Saturday morning of a holiday weekend, if I want to drive this thing.

Beer to the rescue, I'm going to try and improv a gasket out of a bud light tallboy can.

On a totally unrelated note (ha) it's apparently illegal to sell beer before 8am in Colorado. Standing in the checkout area at 7:58 waiting for 8:01 feels every bit as stupid as I assume it looks.

On the plus side, my wife considers this a perfectly reasonable excuse to take up day drinking.

I suppose this is a bit of coming full circle as I try to make car parts out of my recyclable trash.

 

[ScottRS]

...and it's still getting hot.

Not sure how many thermostats can fail in one engine, but apparently this one is cursed. It's getting an oldschool circle track restrictor washer this time. I'm done with this stupidity. I think this is thermostat number four (? I'm losing track) to fail in the two years since putting this engine into service. If I got 100 gallons of gas through this thing per thermostat that's probably better than my reality.

 

[ScottRS]

Quick lap around my area, and it stabilizes temp at 50mph on flat ground about 215, which is about 125 over ambient. Acceleration will make it go up, idling/decel/slower will make it go down (unfortunately nowhere near as fast as accel makes it go up). At 215 I'm seeing a 10-15 degree drop across the radiator. Idling will (slowly) bring it down to about 195 (maybe lower, I got bored).

Also found a high rpm breakup of ignition/fuel/spark. 10k shunt resistor in the crank position sensor wiring fixed. Common mega/micro squirt issue, didn't realize I had it till I started pushing this harder.

At 5-5.5k rpm, 70% throttle, it's making about 6psi of boost and running the injectors at 75% duty cycle for a 12:1 AFR. I'm confident it has more to give, but need to get the AFR's in that ballpark closer before I really start pushing it hard.

I'm on the ragged edge on turbos. I think the HX40's are too big, HX35's are cheap (clones are <$200 each on Amazon), and would be a near bolt on swap. Probably can be minor-modded to be 100% bolt-on. I think that'd bring the boost RPM relationship lower on the tach, which could be good for fun, but probably would be bad for cooling. I'm not ordering more turbos yet.

I think my beer can exhaust gasket is failing. It's not bad yet but it is making slight exhaust leak noises on that side again. Probably will replace it with a copper washer when I can get some.