October '03 NEWS

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29/10/03 - 10:11pm. Quick update... Webcam... Must keep working... sorry its not perfectly automated yet and you will need to manually refresh the page at the moment to see updates. Will fix soon.

Jason

HERE IT IS!

25/10/03 - 8:10pm. More pics! We got heaps done yesterday. The new manifold is well underway, with the runners now all spot welded together, in a well designed (well we think so), good looking piece of work which is very compact, allowing us room for dump pipes and turbos to fit where we want them.

All runners are very close to equal length, and even though you can't really tell from the pics below, both sides of the manifold are literally identical (symmetrical), but they one is actually rotated around 180 degrees to the other. This way we've been able to make sure that we have identically lengthed runners for opposing exhaust ports. Plus, it looks much more uniform!

Yes, you'll notice that the manifold isn't going to be made from Stainless Steel. It was tempting, but due to the unfortunate ability of Stainless to crack under too much heat stress, we decided to use the better material for the job, being mild steel. I figured that there's going to be a LOT of shiny stuff in there anyway, so the manifold is fine like this. After all, I would rather it be more reliable and functional than that little bit shinier.

Well, pics now.

The first runner is underway.

Figuring out what way to run them. Bit like a jigsaw really!

Half way there... look messy?

The rear runner needed grinding back to fit with the runner on the other flange.

Both runners fitting together, perfect.

The finished job, all runners collecting in the center!

Some of you are about to say "Hang on, one of the runners had 3 pipe bends and another had 2! That's a big difference in length!"

Well, you're right, but we're not finished. We still have to create the collector for all the runners to feed into, obviously, and the runner with the 2 bends (shorter one) needs a small straight to get it where we want it to merge into the collector... hence by the time it's done, they will be close enough. Within an inch of each other, anyway...

The collector is going to prove to be a bit of fun making... but I'll be putting up more pics as we do it!

Oh... If you were wondering why there was a turbo sitting under the runners there.... don't. It was just a nice place to put it while figuring out where things were fitting... ;)

Stay tuned,

Jason

22/10/03 - 10:35pm. Well, things are going ahead pretty nicely, you could say. Though we haven't actually done anymore work on the car as such, we've laid out the piping and turbos and figured out where everything is going to fit! The flanges will be picked up from the laser cutters tomorrow, so we can start on the manifold after that!

I've had a bit of a hiccup on the wastegate side of things, which is really bugging me... I sourced and bought a new HKS GT 60mm wastegate in USA, and arranged to have it Express Air Freighted from USA to Perth... 2 day express shipment, $138USD... fair enough, I thought. So, here I am watching the UPS tracking system, thinking how cool it is that you can see exactly which cities my new wastegate is travelling through on its way to my door. Virginia Beach VA, Norfolk VA, Richmond VA, Louiseville KY, Ontario CA... then, apparent disaster struck!

Oct 21, 2003, 5:05AM, Ontario, CA, US. Package Delay, Security Check Beyond UPS Control. Delivery Rescheduled. "Crap" I thought... oh well, maybe an hour to verify that my wastegate wasn't a bomb or a grenade... maybe two, three max, surely!

I shit you not... that was 5:05am Eastern US time on the 21st. Right now, it's 10:50am on the 22nd! That's nearly 26 HOURS since being initially stopped for a security check.

I mean... seriously, how long does it really take to check that an HKS boxed item with installation instructions, AND a huge valve with HKS moulded in the side of it... just to make sure it's not a bomb or something. Especially on an item which you've paid EXTRA to get across the world in 2 days... 48 hours... and they've had it sitting in Ontario for the past 26 hours for a security check.

As you can imagine and see from this entry, I am *not* impressed. We really need that wastegate here when it was meant to be here. No way in hell of that happening now. Truthfully we needed it here days ago, but yeah, shit happens.

So... keeping as calm as possible, and after waiting till the end of working hours Eastern US time in the hope that someone might decide to OK the wastegate to continue its voyage, I decided to write a "What's going on? Please let me know" E-Mail to UPS.

Did I get a response yet? Nope.

Spewing... They're all standing around my little HKS wastegate wondering what the fuck it is and whether it's going to blow up, that must be why they're not answering E-Mails either. *sigh*

Well, I guess some stuff's gotta go wrong. All I have to wait for now is for them to OK it, for it to get to Australia, then have Customs knock it back and send it back to USA for some stupid reason. :)

Actually, I probably just jinxed it...

Well that's it for the rant about the wastegate shipping... still, NOT HAPPY! :(

In other news, we redesigned the entire control system for the turbo setup today, so it should run even better than first anticipated. Cool. Slightly cheaper, too! Cooler.

Well, I'm going to keep refreshing the UPS Tracking page in the false hope that it might tell me that my wastegate is actually moving again.

Take care.

Jason

17/10/03 - 5:30pm. Alright! Now we have some action! Pictures! Finally!

Last weekend we undertook the arduous process of grinding out the exhaust ports from the engine, so as to perfectly match the manifold runners we're going to be welding up shortly. This was pretty scary stuff, as the engine was still in the car, and we really didn't want to screw it up... Grinding them out should help flow from the engine quite a bit. Anyway, I know you've been waiting on pics, so with no further ado, here they are!

The Supra before we started pulling it apart...

The Supra after we'd pulled out all the Intake piping, Turbos, etc.

Me straining under the weight of the old turbo assembly!

The compressor size comparison between the old (right) and new (left) turbos.

The comparison from above. Note the size difference between the turbine side. It gives me shivers just thinking about it!

More coming soon when we get on to making the manifold and getting more parts in!

Jason

9/10/03 - 5:45pm. Last night, we got the turbos and manifold out of the car. That's everything out which needs to come out, so finally we can see exactly how much space we have to work with. By the looks of it, we've got enough room to squeeze everything in pretty nicely. The manifold we will have to make should run nicely under the turbos and intake piping, and the two dump pipes off the turbos have easily enough of a gap to fit through to connect up to the exhaust. From our initial "design" (which consisted of us holding up a few metal pipes in the engine bay) we figure that the small turbo can sit at the back of the engine bay, whilst the big one will be towards the front. Both will be mounted high. Airflow will be a LOT better in the new setup compared to the stock, so we should be seeing lower temperatures and better cooling as a result. We have been taking pics, and I must apologise for not getting them on here yet, but once Tris finds his missing cable to upload pics from his camera, trust me, they'll be here. We've taking photos of every important part of the process so far. The beginning, once the intake piping was out, once the turbo assembly was out, and now, with the manifold off.

It's all going pretty well... now I have to source and buy some more bits and pieces, and we then start to concentrate on fabricating the new manifold.

I'm pretty much better now, too. Damned relief that it only took a few days out of my busy schedule!

Take it easy,

Jason

7/10/03 - 6:10pm. Well, as of Saturday, the upgrade has been started! I took my car for one last run down the drag strip on Wednesday night, and managed to get a 13.2 second 1/4 mile run, on my last run on stock turbos. On Saturday, as I drove the car into the garage, I knew that next time I drove it, it would be an entirely different beast. Unfortunately it would be some time before I'd be driving it again. So, it started. After several hours work over the weekend, much sweating, cursing and coercing, we got the majority of intake piping off the stock install, removed the heat shield, and could see the turbos! First impressions? "Damn they're small." Second impressions? "Man that pipework is stupidly restrictive." Unfortunately we then found the first *really* nasty bolt so far. So nasty in fact, that we couldn't get it off, no matter what tool we used. We ended up using so much force on it that it rounded the head, and then we were screwed, dammit.

Plus, it just happened to be the sort of screw you needed to get undone before you could even reach other screws. Anyway... Tris decides that the best way to fix this is to weld a nut to it, then undo it via the nut, which would be in a more accessible spot. Good idea, in theory. Didn't work, and after 3 attempts and 3 lots of broken weld, Tris got serious about it.

Out comes the angle grinder, off comes the bolt head, and on goes our work, with the rest of the screw coming out nice and easily after that.

At the time of this news update, we *nearly* have the turbos off the manifold. Tomorrow night I should be back out there working on it, so I would guess we'll have the two turbos and the central assembly between them off by the end of tomorrow night. Maybe even the manifold, which we have most of the bolts out of already anyway. There are a couple of pictures so far, the first is of the engine bay, stock, before we started. The second is basically where we're at now, with the turbos showing and all the intake piping and heat shield off and out of the engine bay. I will post these once I get them off Tris's camera. All in all, we got a good start, except for the fact that I am now sick, and won't have worked on the car in the past 2 days, which sucks. Damned cold/flu shit. Hopefully will be over it by tomorrow night.

Well, that's it for now. Will update soon.

Jason