Project Lazarus: I start taking things apart.

Holy crap! I am actually working on my own CRX! I'm scared and excited. The first day of major surgery went pretty well.

So, here is where I started off. Well, sort of. I removed a bunch of stuff before and moved the radiator support out of the way to make my life easier:

 I sprayed everything down with liquid wrench:

 I like Liquid Wrench. It foams up and seems to "stick" pretty well, without just running off/away.

I got the clamps off the filter next . . . but man, that this is literally wedged in there:

 This is why I don't like using copper lines, especially for coolant:

 That being said, I still prefer hard lines to the braided stainless lines everyone seems to love so much. When I re-do these lines, I will be using annealed stainless steel brake lines. No rust, no breakage, no leaks, and they look good on top of it!

Data plate on my cute little turbo:

 Made in Japan, just like my CRX!

Ready to attack the bolts:

 Notice I used stainless bolts. I love stainless hardware.

Here is the very first exhaust piece I made entirely myself:

 That is a genuine 3" downpipe off the T25. Talk about overkill, but I wanted to minimize spool times, and I sure as heck did!

Ugh: reminders of a super annoying repair I had to make on this engine from the one time I let a friend take care of my car:

 Stu: You suck sometimes.

And another reminder:

I'll be fixing that when I take care of something for the front crossmember, too. 

Well, everything was going pretty smoothly! I even managed to get the O2 sensor out without an issue:

Yeah, that is really tight:

You have to thread the nut on before sliding the flange home.

This was no ideal, but still a pretty good drain angle:

 I never had any issues with it at all, but have something a bit better in mind for when everything goes back together again.

And then, a thunderstorm rolled in HARD. Ihad about 1 minute of warning when the wind shifted and a few fat drops of rain started coming down. I knew what was about to happen, so I jammed my tools under the hood, threw parts back into my trunk and barely made it into my Legend before the sky opened up.

I sat in my Legend for 45 minutes to this view:

After the storm had passed, I got back to it and managed to get the turbo out completely:

 Here are some of the things I need to rectify for the next version:

 SOHC exhaust manifold gasket, not even ported to fit! LOL!

See how much overlap there is up top?

Yeah, athat can't be good for anything, so next time, I'll be using proper DOHC parts and port-matching the manifold itself.

After the rain, I was too wet to really take too many pictures, but there wasn't too much more interesting that happened aside from me discovering that I need a new brake booster since I couldn't separate the master cylinder from the brake booster due to the MC leaking fluid and corroding the booster pretty badly.

I am ordering an Hf booster to replace this one, as it is physically smaller. I will need the extra clearance for running my Edelbrock manifold when it gets swapped into the car.

So, not a bad start to work, even if I didn't get as far as I would have liked. That's OK. I'll be back after I get the booster so I can get that replaced and get on with the brake R&R. I have new calipers rotors and pads for the front. I won't be messing with the back at all as long as there are no apparent issues in use, and I don't really anticipate there being any, either. Eventually I will replace the rear wheel cylinders for good measure. No, I am not swapping to rear discs, as I despise the Civic/Integra/Whatever integrated parking brake caliper. It is a piece of junk design and I hate it. I will only ever swap over to rear discs if I can find a way to install proper rear discs that uses a disc over drum setup for real parking/emergency brake use. Rear drums work better for that kind of thing, and since my car is so darn light, the rears don't do much for braking anyway.

Project Lazarus Update: Stuff actually starts to get done!

FINALLY! Some progress other than moving from one place to another. heh

I started out by taking out the radiator and fan:

Yes, that is a real Flex-a-lite fan. As you can see the fan guard "self-clearanced" with the hot downpipe (which I never got around to wrapping) and needed a new mounting bracket made for the bottom of the fan due to heat damage and how the radiator was emplaced. (Again, I didn't do that. heh)

Radiator out!

Hacked to death radiator support:

That is going to get fixed to at least look decent before everything goes back together!

Front shot:

My very first downpipe:

That is a legit 3" downpipe on a T25. It's rusty now, but it has survived a heck of a lot. There are some improvements I think I can make to it eventually, but for now, it will stay just as you see it.

Another closeup of the lines that I ran hastily:

I honestly hate braided stainless steel lines. They are extremely abrasive and if left to vibrate around can easily eat their way through anything, including belts, wires and even engine blocks! (That is not conjecture. I've seen SS braid eat through an iron block V8.) The copper line is a compromise in using was is available at the time. It works perfectly well, as it isn't under much tension or stress, but over time, it WILL break or crack due to work hardening from vibration and heat cycling. It will be replaced and the lines overall will be run in a cleaner and more efficient manner.

On to the next task: fitting the intercooler! "EFs" are notoriously difficult fit FMICs (front mount intercoolers) because of this:

That is the front bumper support. It fits across the whole front to provide structure in the event of a crash, and due to how low the front of all 88-91 Civics are, the bumper support inconveniently lies right where most people want to put an intercooler.

The other part of the issue is that the bottom of the bumper support has this lip that was made for the convenience of pinch-welding the pieces together at the factory. Here's a closeup of the lip:

A few minute with an angle grinder and a cut off disc and flap wheel and this is what you get:

Once I get my sheet metal brake (bender) set up, I will be bending up some sheet to cover the gap and provide more structure for mounting the intercooler to the underside of the bumper support, something like this:

I have some pretty clever ideas on how to actually mount the intecooler, which, of course you will see after I develop the ideas further and put them into action. 

Project Lazarus Update: New digs (again)

Personal update:

I have had to move. The house that I had been working out of is in foreclosure. That is pretty serious stuff, and so, I've been fortunate to find new space to work in and to store my CRX while I work on it. This is going to set back some projects for a couple weeks, but after that . . . GAME ON! September will be a busy, busy month. =)

So . . . Where is my CRX?

OHAI!

Safe and sound for now. =) 

Pete's Manifold: Slow and steady!

Yesterday, I got the first cut made. Today, I got the start of runners #2 and 3 mostly done. 

A lovely package came, too. In it was more laser cut flange goodness!

Those are the entry flanges that conform to the T3 twin scroll "standard" from Garrett. I have yet to fit them up to see how exact they are, and as with anything like this, there will need to be some adjusting for everything to fit perfectly together, but they honestly look darn close. Chris, who does this for me does excellent work. If you need flanges done, hit me up and I'll give you his contact info!

So, here's what happened with the pieces I cut yesterday:

I found some really useful hose clamps at Pep Boys when I was shopping for Chrysler crap:

 They are made by Ideal, and yes, they aren't as cheap as normal hose clamps, but, when you don't have to use a tool to tighten them up, they sure are more convenient to use.

I started cutting the straight pipe for the runners:

 The angles look funny because nothing is sitting correctly since I haven't cut he straight section from #3 to fit onto the runner from #2. This is a nice, low angle merge that will flow well and create very little turbulence. Now cutting and shaping that straight leg to fit is going to be monstrously hard to do with the tools I have, but, I will certainly make it happen.

I am going to finish mocking up the #2 and 3 merge and upturn before I handle #1 and 4. Notice the pairing of 2-3 and 1-4. This is the correct way to merge a twin scroll setup, with exhaust pulses 180* off, basically out of phase. When coupled with a twin- or divided-scroll housing on a turbo, this allows for a much more efficient system that will spool faster and allow wilder cam profiles since there is a significant and beneficial increase in the pressure ratio between the intake side and exhaust side of the engine. This is very important since the turbine wheel forms a huge restriction. Nearly anything that can be done to increase the pressure ratio by lowering the exhaust pressure is a very good thing since it allows the engine to breath in more clean, compressed air/fuel mixture, much like a properly built and tuned header. Hmmmmm . . . I wonder where those ideas came from? heh

The first cut is the hardest. (Not necessarily the deepest . . . )

As an aside from the really gross crap I'm dealing with the rest of my day, I took a break and made the first cut in what will be many for Pete's custom twin scroll turbo manifold.

The manifold is being made from 1.5" Stainless Steel Schedule 40 pipe and bends (also knows as weld els, short for elbows). In the above pic, you can see that I cut a 45* cast elbow in half (it is very nearly actually a perfect cut). I forgot to grab a pic of why I did this, but basically, I wanted to minimize the transition angle between two runners of the exhaust, in this case, #2 and #3, and make accessing the bolts for the flange and engine mount easier. This leads me into thinking I really need to write up an article on handling and welding Stainless, as it is far, far different than dealing with normal steels, even to the point of requiring special markers so as to prevent corrosion.

I spent a bit of time cleaning up the saw cut, which you can see the "as cut" finish here:

 And here is the finished part:

Why go through the extra step when the saw cut is fine? Because Stainless. The basics of Stainless are:

PREPARATION! A good plan solves many issues before they start.
CLEANLINESS! It is NEVER too clean.
FITMENT! Perfect is not an option.
BACKPURGING! If you want it to last.

I'll definitely have to work on an article . . . And I just added that to my to-do list for next week. 

PVC and Biiiiiiiiig sharpies . . .

Every once in a while, I'll find out how badly I've been stuck under a rock. Case in point: 

The Sharpie Magnum. I was at Home Depot picking up supplies for the next project, and while I was walking through the tool aisle looking for blue Sharpies, I laid eyes upon the biggest, baddest and most awesomest Sharpie I have ever seen! I just had to get one and see what it was like; if it could fulfill my every dream of marker perfection!

In that regard, it isn't and doesn't, but it is certainly super useful. The Chisel tip, as you can see below is really well designed allowing you to mark a HUGE swath, a BIG line or a PRECISE mark just depending on how you hold it. 

If I find out that they make this thing in blue, I'll never buy another type of Sharpie again!

Now, here's a pic of what I was working on today:

I mostly used my camera, file, sharpie, machinist's rule, mini tape measure, a reciprocating saw (off camera at the time) and the PVC bits. The black bag is full of magic, though. It's one of my most useful sets of tools. LOL!

So, what is all the stuff for? Mocking up Pete's twin scroll turbo manifold! If you recall the picture I posted a while back of the really nice looking GT3076R? Well, this is the start of a manifold for that!

Pete and I decided that a Schedule 40 1.25" pipe would be the best bet for the manifold, but, I was doing some math and I found out that 2" schedule 40 pipe has nearly the same CSA (cross sectional area) as two of the 1.25" pipes. Since this is going to be a twin scroll manifold, why not keep the CSA constant after the primary merge? So, that is what I am going to attempt to mock up in PVC, since it is cheap and easy to work. 

Lets get to work! First up, knocking down all the casting ridges on the PVC, as you can see here:

Now you might ask yourself, "Self, why the heck is he bothering doing something as anal retentive as that?" The answer is pretty simple! Taking care of those ridges will allow the fittings to fit flush, in necessary, which will make measuring and fitting more accurate and precise. Granted using PVC isn't exactly the most accurate way to build a template for this, but, I am mostly using it as a good visual aide   an to figure out approximately how many bends and how much pipe I need to buy in order to finish a manifold of this sort. This will ultimately lead to a more succinct design process with less overall headaches, even if some of the dimensions change. This will also allow me to see a real, physical model in 3D, and hopefully will allow me to package the whole thing much tighter as a result, which is a huge concern given how tight the engine bay is of the car this whole mess is going to go in to. 

After I filed down the casting flash, I started making some spacers to hold bits and pieces together:

 I won't be gluing things at all, so I made sure to keep the tolerances pretty tight for these things. Holding a tolerance of under 1/32" with a reciprocating saw is pretty effing good, I'd say. I also cleaned up and deburred the rough cut edges and kept everything as flat as possible.


This is the kind of fitup I am after:

The spacer is nearly perfectly snugged to the cast in edges of the elbow.

Everything fitting together superbly:

The main U is made from one 2" street elbow and one normal elbow.

 The upper part is a 22 1/2"* elbow, which I like very much and may get some in the 1.25" size, also, to keep turns nice and easy for the trickier bits of running the inner (2nd and 3rd cylinder) primaries to their merge. 

Here are the ready to experiment secondary pipes:

 As always, more to come in the next few days! =)

This is why I won't use cheap Chinese turbos made from WTF

Garrett containment testing

Most guys who run cheap turbos really are taking a good amount of risks. One of the ONLY things preventing more nasty crap from happening with these cheap turbos is that the bearings are so poor that they simply prevent the impellers from spinning high enough to reach their failure point, but if they did, I doubt the metal used is of the correct strength to contain that much energy!