V8RangerBoy
Feb 29 2008, 07:41pm
On request from pinellas50, I opted to do a writeup on my remote mounted turbo setup. The motor and computer are both from a '97 5.0EFI Explorer, with the M5OD tranny behind it. Since the chassis is a '94, we had to go through quite a bit of work to mate the EEC-V system into the EEC-IV chassis. The wiring was all professionally done by my dad, owner and mechanic at S&D Automotive in Twin Falls, ID. Everything from the shift solenoids to the Evap circuit got bypassed or dealt with so that the CEL would work for what was still relevant.
After driving the truck for about a year and half, I wanted more power. First I looked at the supercharger setup, but having heard numerous negative things about Powerdyne, I was leary. Then I started looking at intake mods, headers, etc, and stumbled across a '00 5.0 Explorer with a complete rear-mount setup. I really liked the concept, and decided to follow it up and learn up on my turbo systems. I read up alot about the remote mount to make sure there weren't any adverse effects, and then the parts starting getting ordered.
I knew I needed the turbo, obviously, a wastegate, blow-off valve, and I wanted a high-flow filter. I knew I'd need to add more fuel somehow. After looking at the Powerdyne kit, I decided an FMU would be sufficient. WRONG. Bad news. Didn't take very much research to realize that these aren't the solution, but instead another problem. Instead I bought a set of 39lb SVT Cobra injectors, and a 80mm MAF SVT Lightning MAF to go with it. The stock Expo MAF is borderline for pegging, and since I was setting it up as blow-thru, I wanted the bigger MAF just to be sure. I also used the Sniper Special Forces software to retune the computer for the injectors, MAF, and boost.
A quick formula for sizing injectors is: Horsepower = (injector flow * number of cylinders * max duty cycle) / BSFC. BSFC is essentially how efficiently the engine turns fuel into power. Typically 5. is used for naturally aspirated motors, .6 for superchargers, and .65 for turbos. Note that this equation doesn't equal the amount of horsepower the engine makes, but rather what the injectors are capable of supporting. Max duty cycle for reliable operation is about 80%.
I had planned on starting at 6psi of boost. Apparently 10psi is about what the Expo block will hold reliably. I used Turbomustangs.com Turbo Bible to size up a turbo for the truck. I went with a T3/T4 hybrid TO4E "57 trim" turbo (.57 A/R). It turned out to be nearly ideal for the remote mount setup. It's pretty small for a 5.0 above about 10psi, but ideal for 6psi. It's technically made for about a 3.0L at about 25psi, so it's not drastically small for the 5.0. Lag? What lag. Response is instant.
For the wastegate, I chose the 38mm TiAL. Quality unit, would use it again. For the blow-off valve I went with the GReddy RS. It's not obnoxiously loud, but it's definitely noticable when you shift. A good balance of sound and stealth. I also bought a conical K&N Filter.
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8781/pa050001nb3.jpg
What the engine bay looked like before the project began. I still have all of the accessories on the front of the motor, along with fully functional AC. Obviously, I wanted to keep the washer and coolant bottles if possible. The cruise control module is in the truck, except none of the wiring is hooked to it. It came out and back onto the shelf for reinstall later, when I find a clean tilt column. I ended up relocating the recovery bottle to about where the air filter box is here. I don't have the washer bottle in at the moment, but I will be swapping the coolant bottle with the washer bottle and finding an alternate recovery bottle. Bad/dirty roads and no washer bottle really sucks :(
Now for the placement of the turbo. Typically remote-mounted's are done clear in the back by the spare tire. While I had more than enough room back there, I put it as far up as possible for multiple reasons. 1) less charge tubing to fill (less boost lag), less exhaust tubing to fill (again, less lag), hotter exhaust into the turbo (less lag) and less oil equipment to run. Next to the transfer case looked like a good spot from the start. The one problem here is that there was no way to get the turbo, 3" intake tube, 2" charge tube, and 2 1/4" exhaust exit all tucked between the frame rail and the tranny/tcase. So, the intake is run through the frame rail.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_32_full.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_31_full.jpg
Normally on a remote mount the filter is located ON the turbo. Literally clamped onto the turbo inlet. For what I do though, this was definitely not an option. There's too much slush, ice, water, etc up here to have the filter down there, so the filter is plumbed back into the engine bay. Yes, this does somewhat defeat the purpose of a remote mount in that the intake charge isn't quite as cool as it could be. However, this is how it had to be. After watching it on a scanner, ambient intake temps are only about 20deg above outside temps.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_33_full.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_34_full.jpg
As for the hole in the frame, obviously I couldn't leave it like
it was. The frame is reinforced specfically so that the hole wouldn't be a problem. The plate is welded top, bottom, and rosetted throughout the center section of the plate.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_29_full.jpg
The charge tube follows roughly the same line as the intake tube, only on the opposite side of the frame rail. It then turns up and follows the intake through the fenderwell (see the picture). The tubing is 2" up until it turns into the fender, where it swells up to 3" alongside the intake. I cleaned up the line of the tubes before it was finished - they don't sit at odd angles like they are in the picture. They just wouldn't sit perfectly still on bailing wire!
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2074/riggingintakechargetubepp4.jpg
After getting the turbo roughly in place and the intake/charge tubes set up, I moved onto getting the exhaust inlet done. The truck was set up as true duals before, so I had to Y the duals together into the turbo. The inlet to the turbo is also a square flange, so the round 3" tubing had to be heated and pounded into the square shape. The tubing is set along the inside of the flange for strength. (You can also see the charge tube in the background of this picture, along the frame rail.) This picture was with the flange just roughly tacked to get an idea of fit. The welds were later cleaned up before it was finished.
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4631/exhaustreworkedvn9.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_32_full.jpg
The exhaust outlet was interesting due it's proximity to the transfer case. It had to be an extremely tight bend to bypass the case, but we made it.
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/6853/turboshot1sv6.jpg
I guess now would be a good time to discuss the wastegate placement. The mounting of the turbo worked out especially well for wastegate placement. The wastegate inlet is perpindicular to the exhaust inlet for the turbo, which isn't ideal, but for a lower boost application like this it's less relevant. The natural 90deg. bend in the wastegate itself worked out perfectly, placing the outlet of it right in line with the exhaust outlet on the turbo, as seen above. The exhaust exit was then Y'd back into duals since I wanted to keep my dual tips. The bung for the O2 wideband is placed just before the split.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_37_full.jpg
I then moved back up front and started finishing up the intake and charge tubes. Before I got too carried away, the blow-off valve needed mounted before the charge tube got locked into place. I wanted the BOV in the fender so that it wouldn't be TOO quiet, but it needed to be fairly protected against gravel and crap.
http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/7771/bovflangemountedqs8.jpg
Then I pulled and painted the intake and charge tubes, mounted the BOV, and built support brackets for both tubes.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_36_full.jpg
Next we had to come up with a way to swell the 3" charge tube up to the ~3.5" MAF inlet. We got pretty creative and put the section on the lathe, and with alot of heat, we spun the section into a bell shape using a large pry bar. Came out looking really clean.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_79_full.jpg
Then came 2 90deg bends to finish out the intake. 3" radiator tubing was used for many of the tubing joints (2" on the charge tube, 3.5" on the MAF outlet.) Mounted up the filter and the rough part of the install was done.
The oil system was fairly straight forward. The pump is actually just an agricultural spray pump. The max fluid temp is about 180deg, so the oil cooler was installed just to be sure. About 3,000 miles so far and no hiccups at all. I built a small sump tank from channel steel below the turbo for it to drain into after the igntion is off, since the pump would shut off as well. Oil backing up into the turbo will ruin bearings pretty fast. After the sump tank it is pulled through the cooler, then then through the pump and back up to the motor. Oil is tapped out of the oil sending unit and put back into the crankcase vent line. First we tried to just T the inlet into the crank vent, but the vacuum was pulling oil into the intake. We ended up adding another nipple above the stock crank vent and moving the vent to the upper hole. See the pictures above for shots of the oil system.
We rigged up the factory MAF to make sure the truck ran and there weren't any hiccups in the intake or exhaust anywhere. After making sure everything ran right, it was time to tear into the injectors. The upper intake is quite a friggin' adventure to get off. The two rear bolts are tucked underneath the upper firewall, and it took alot of finesse to get them out. They weren't hard to get loose, but the studs were so long they about didn't come out.
Out came the orange 19lbs, and in went the blue 39's. The black peices on the left are injector adapters. My harness uses the square EV1 style plug, whereas the Cobra injectors use the round EV6 plug. Slick adapters, only cost about $8 each. They did, however, have to be notched to clear the injector body. Took all of about 10 mins though, and they slid right on. Dunno why the picture's so blurry.
After driving the truck for about a year and half, I wanted more power. First I looked at the supercharger setup, but having heard numerous negative things about Powerdyne, I was leary. Then I started looking at intake mods, headers, etc, and stumbled across a '00 5.0 Explorer with a complete rear-mount setup. I really liked the concept, and decided to follow it up and learn up on my turbo systems. I read up alot about the remote mount to make sure there weren't any adverse effects, and then the parts starting getting ordered.
I knew I needed the turbo, obviously, a wastegate, blow-off valve, and I wanted a high-flow filter. I knew I'd need to add more fuel somehow. After looking at the Powerdyne kit, I decided an FMU would be sufficient. WRONG. Bad news. Didn't take very much research to realize that these aren't the solution, but instead another problem. Instead I bought a set of 39lb SVT Cobra injectors, and a 80mm MAF SVT Lightning MAF to go with it. The stock Expo MAF is borderline for pegging, and since I was setting it up as blow-thru, I wanted the bigger MAF just to be sure. I also used the Sniper Special Forces software to retune the computer for the injectors, MAF, and boost.
A quick formula for sizing injectors is: Horsepower = (injector flow * number of cylinders * max duty cycle) / BSFC. BSFC is essentially how efficiently the engine turns fuel into power. Typically 5. is used for naturally aspirated motors, .6 for superchargers, and .65 for turbos. Note that this equation doesn't equal the amount of horsepower the engine makes, but rather what the injectors are capable of supporting. Max duty cycle for reliable operation is about 80%.
I had planned on starting at 6psi of boost. Apparently 10psi is about what the Expo block will hold reliably. I used Turbomustangs.com Turbo Bible to size up a turbo for the truck. I went with a T3/T4 hybrid TO4E "57 trim" turbo (.57 A/R). It turned out to be nearly ideal for the remote mount setup. It's pretty small for a 5.0 above about 10psi, but ideal for 6psi. It's technically made for about a 3.0L at about 25psi, so it's not drastically small for the 5.0. Lag? What lag. Response is instant.
For the wastegate, I chose the 38mm TiAL. Quality unit, would use it again. For the blow-off valve I went with the GReddy RS. It's not obnoxiously loud, but it's definitely noticable when you shift. A good balance of sound and stealth. I also bought a conical K&N Filter.
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8781/pa050001nb3.jpg
What the engine bay looked like before the project began. I still have all of the accessories on the front of the motor, along with fully functional AC. Obviously, I wanted to keep the washer and coolant bottles if possible. The cruise control module is in the truck, except none of the wiring is hooked to it. It came out and back onto the shelf for reinstall later, when I find a clean tilt column. I ended up relocating the recovery bottle to about where the air filter box is here. I don't have the washer bottle in at the moment, but I will be swapping the coolant bottle with the washer bottle and finding an alternate recovery bottle. Bad/dirty roads and no washer bottle really sucks :(
Now for the placement of the turbo. Typically remote-mounted's are done clear in the back by the spare tire. While I had more than enough room back there, I put it as far up as possible for multiple reasons. 1) less charge tubing to fill (less boost lag), less exhaust tubing to fill (again, less lag), hotter exhaust into the turbo (less lag) and less oil equipment to run. Next to the transfer case looked like a good spot from the start. The one problem here is that there was no way to get the turbo, 3" intake tube, 2" charge tube, and 2 1/4" exhaust exit all tucked between the frame rail and the tranny/tcase. So, the intake is run through the frame rail.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_32_full.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_31_full.jpg
Normally on a remote mount the filter is located ON the turbo. Literally clamped onto the turbo inlet. For what I do though, this was definitely not an option. There's too much slush, ice, water, etc up here to have the filter down there, so the filter is plumbed back into the engine bay. Yes, this does somewhat defeat the purpose of a remote mount in that the intake charge isn't quite as cool as it could be. However, this is how it had to be. After watching it on a scanner, ambient intake temps are only about 20deg above outside temps.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_33_full.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_34_full.jpg
As for the hole in the frame, obviously I couldn't leave it like
it was. The frame is reinforced specfically so that the hole wouldn't be a problem. The plate is welded top, bottom, and rosetted throughout the center section of the plate.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_29_full.jpg
The charge tube follows roughly the same line as the intake tube, only on the opposite side of the frame rail. It then turns up and follows the intake through the fenderwell (see the picture). The tubing is 2" up until it turns into the fender, where it swells up to 3" alongside the intake. I cleaned up the line of the tubes before it was finished - they don't sit at odd angles like they are in the picture. They just wouldn't sit perfectly still on bailing wire!
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2074/riggingintakechargetubepp4.jpg
After getting the turbo roughly in place and the intake/charge tubes set up, I moved onto getting the exhaust inlet done. The truck was set up as true duals before, so I had to Y the duals together into the turbo. The inlet to the turbo is also a square flange, so the round 3" tubing had to be heated and pounded into the square shape. The tubing is set along the inside of the flange for strength. (You can also see the charge tube in the background of this picture, along the frame rail.) This picture was with the flange just roughly tacked to get an idea of fit. The welds were later cleaned up before it was finished.
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4631/exhaustreworkedvn9.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_32_full.jpg
The exhaust outlet was interesting due it's proximity to the transfer case. It had to be an extremely tight bend to bypass the case, but we made it.
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/6853/turboshot1sv6.jpg
I guess now would be a good time to discuss the wastegate placement. The mounting of the turbo worked out especially well for wastegate placement. The wastegate inlet is perpindicular to the exhaust inlet for the turbo, which isn't ideal, but for a lower boost application like this it's less relevant. The natural 90deg. bend in the wastegate itself worked out perfectly, placing the outlet of it right in line with the exhaust outlet on the turbo, as seen above. The exhaust exit was then Y'd back into duals since I wanted to keep my dual tips. The bung for the O2 wideband is placed just before the split.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_37_full.jpg
I then moved back up front and started finishing up the intake and charge tubes. Before I got too carried away, the blow-off valve needed mounted before the charge tube got locked into place. I wanted the BOV in the fender so that it wouldn't be TOO quiet, but it needed to be fairly protected against gravel and crap.
http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/7771/bovflangemountedqs8.jpg
Then I pulled and painted the intake and charge tubes, mounted the BOV, and built support brackets for both tubes.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_36_full.jpg
Next we had to come up with a way to swell the 3" charge tube up to the ~3.5" MAF inlet. We got pretty creative and put the section on the lathe, and with alot of heat, we spun the section into a bell shape using a large pry bar. Came out looking really clean.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/7/web/2479000-2479999/2479061_79_full.jpg
Then came 2 90deg bends to finish out the intake. 3" radiator tubing was used for many of the tubing joints (2" on the charge tube, 3.5" on the MAF outlet.) Mounted up the filter and the rough part of the install was done.
The oil system was fairly straight forward. The pump is actually just an agricultural spray pump. The max fluid temp is about 180deg, so the oil cooler was installed just to be sure. About 3,000 miles so far and no hiccups at all. I built a small sump tank from channel steel below the turbo for it to drain into after the igntion is off, since the pump would shut off as well. Oil backing up into the turbo will ruin bearings pretty fast. After the sump tank it is pulled through the cooler, then then through the pump and back up to the motor. Oil is tapped out of the oil sending unit and put back into the crankcase vent line. First we tried to just T the inlet into the crank vent, but the vacuum was pulling oil into the intake. We ended up adding another nipple above the stock crank vent and moving the vent to the upper hole. See the pictures above for shots of the oil system.
We rigged up the factory MAF to make sure the truck ran and there weren't any hiccups in the intake or exhaust anywhere. After making sure everything ran right, it was time to tear into the injectors. The upper intake is quite a friggin' adventure to get off. The two rear bolts are tucked underneath the upper firewall, and it took alot of finesse to get them out. They weren't hard to get loose, but the studs were so long they about didn't come out.
Out came the orange 19lbs, and in went the blue 39's. The black peices on the left are injector adapters. My harness uses the square EV1 style plug, whereas the Cobra injectors use the round EV6 plug. Slick adapters, only cost about $8 each. They did, however, have to be notched to clear the injector body. Took all of about 10 mins though, and they slid right on. Dunno why the picture's so blurry.