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tfrasca's 142 Turbo Project

Duder said:
Tyler, I have been checking on your IG updates and was relieved to see you and the family are safe. I know you have put a metric sh**-ton of work into your house and the 142, and it would be crushing to lose them. Hoping for the best from LA for you; it sounds like you are keeping things well in perspective which is really tough at a time like this. Hang in there dude.

My wife and daughter, plus sister, brother, and cousin were all evacuated from Big Basin last Tuesday night - a few months ago we reserved a site there and it was going to be our "end of summer" camping trip before school starts (on Zoom) again. I was getting ready to drive up and meet them when I got the call that they had packed up the site in a rush and were driving out through Boulder Creek. Everyone made it out of the park safely. Really sad to see the structures were destroyed and some of the redwoods didn't make it. I'm hoping to somehow get involved in the reconstruction if possible, whenever it is time for that.

-Chris
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Thanks Chris. It's been rough. So many ups and downs that I lost track and basically just started assuming we'd lose everything, until they started giving us better news a couple days ago. Now it seems like unless really windy conditions happen, we will be ok.

Bummed your camping trip got interrupted, but really glad everyone is safe. Big Basin got hit so hard, but it's important to realize that a lot of those trees have been through several massive fires, and they'll be ok. It's a hard perspective to take as a human, though.

Thanks again for the thoughts, everyone. Hopefully I'll have some car updates a month or so.
 
Tfrasca said:
Thanks Chris. It's been rough. So many ups and downs that I lost track and basically just started assuming we'd lose everything, until they started giving us better news a couple days ago. Now it seems like unless really windy conditions happen, we will be ok.
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For a few years now I've wanted to make an "Emotional Rollercoaster" shirt for our racing team. Insert silhouette of our race car or box truck on top of a rollercoaster track graphic. Ups and downs. I'm sure it's much more intense when it's your home and family on those tracks and not just a project car.

Tfrasca said:
Bummed your camping trip got interrupted, but really glad everyone is safe. Big Basin got hit so hard, but it's important to realize that a lot of those trees have been through several massive fires, and they'll be ok. It's a hard perspective to take as a human, though.
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Yeah, too many people don't understand or remember that fire is part of the natural redwood forest cycle. Some of them have been around for 2 millennia and have seen massive fires many times in the past. Their bark is thick and resistant and the foliage and crowns are high up away from the worst of the flames. Still sad to see the human side of the park destroyed though - that visitor's center was a super neat building and the nearby museum was cool in a cheesy way too. I hope they can rebuild the HQ in the same style as the original buildings.
 
So I tried to make that intake manifold and failed miserably. The air box ended up being good practice, and I learned a lot about aluminum fab and welding. I don't love the way it looks, but it'll end up powder coated black anyway. I mounted it on three rubber isolators so it'll move a bit with the engine. It pulls air through a pretty big scoop next to the intercooler.

Tq90itB.jpg


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I need to use Noah's mill to do a few things to the intake manifold plenum base, then maybe I'll actually start welding that up.
 
So I made some progress on the intake manifold. I believe it was Culberro's idea to use the KL Racing DCOE runners, and I think it'll work well. It's nice to be able to focus on the plenum now and deal with injector bungs later. Here are the pieces of the plenum. A .5" base, with runner transitions made by a hand held wood router. The folded pieces are .125 5052.

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After the disaster with the last manifold, I was scared of welding .5 to .125, so I milled these rabbets in the .5 piece. That also gave everything a natural stop, so putting it together was pretty easy. The .5 stuff still welded like ****, but I'm sure it was operator error. I stand by the rabbet idea.

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Speaking of cutting aluminum with wood cutting tools, look how well this stuff fits together after hitting it with a flush cutter.

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By far the best welds on the whole plenum so far are on the bottom, right up against the firewall. Never to be seen.

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Here's how things are looking. The 960 throttle body I have wont fit onto the front of the plenum without spacing it out so the TPS clears. The plan with that is the use a 2-3" length of 2.75" OD tubing to space the throttle body flange out. I figure it might also help smooth out the flow into the plenum, plus get me a little extra volume.

Mv9aY3d.jpgl
 
Stiggy Pop said:
looks good. Do you have a metal brake or have those pieces bent for you? I also like your welding table, I really need to make one of those.

Hey I'm using those same clamps on my deck right now! I've never seen a set that didn't look like it was 50 years old.
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My friend made a little brake that fits in a harbor freight shop press. It works really well. For reference, the finger brake that he has wouldn't even come close to bending this stuff.

I love those clamps. I kind of stole them from my dad, so they may actually be 50 years old.

THIS is the welding table top I have. It seems to be the easiest/cheapest way to get a reasonably flat surface with holes.
 
The intake manifold looks great!

Good old certibent tables! I’ve been thinking about getting a SWAG finger brake for the HF press. It would be an awesome addition to the shop.
 
culberro said:
The intake manifold looks great!

Good old certibent tables! I?ve been thinking about getting a SWAG finger brake for the HF press. It would be an awesome addition to the shop.
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Thanks!

Hopefully we'll be moving in the next 6-12 months and we'll be able to afford somewhere with more shop space. The list of tools I want to buy gets longer everyday.
 
Here's a weird idea. I'm running out of room for stuff, and I definitely don't have any room on the short length of tube before the turbo inlet for the bypass valve recirc plumbing. What if I plumbed it back into the air box instead? Would that be basically just the same as venting it to atmosphere? Picture for illustrative purposes:

z0G8BEQl.jpg


The small space on the pre-turbo tube is now taken up by a -12 fitting for the eventual PCV setup. Any thoughts on this? Or should I just make my life easier (but. more expensive) and get a Tial blow off valve?
 
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