2023 GT Premium - My Twin Turbo Build

[AcceptableNebula]

Billet Blues

I'm sure you've seen me mention the delay the valve covers caused in the build. Some from the shape but some are from the design.

When I installed the covers, I noticed there was no flexibility in positioning the cover. Usually there is a minor amount of movement available, but this was locked in place. The screw heads cut into the counterbores on different sides, so I assumed those counterbores just weren't big enough. I locked the covers down and went on. While messing around with the water pump, I noticed I could see the valve cover gasket. I decided to take them off. What I found was shocking to me. Perhaps my expectations are too high because I have the ability to machine things myself at a relatively high level.

First issue was the gasket path. It goes up and then back down again while the factory cover goes straight. That's the area that overhangs my front cover. So I figured I would put a gauge pin in each hole, and do some math, then open them up to the maximum possible, leaving at least 0.035" wall between the gasket and the hole.

After opening the perimeter holes, I had to do the 3 bolts by the HPFP. The 0.272" gauge pin did not fit, so I dropped in size until 0.269" fit in the bore. I noticed at that point the counterbore was not concentric with the center bore. In my opinion, this is the reason the cover would not move. The bolt head was removing the anodizing from the counter bore, and the threads were removing the opposite side of the bore. You can see where the chamfer operation only did one side of the bore, because it was not concentric to the location of the chamfer operation.

So I fixed all that, but the gasket is still barely on the gasket surface. I asked MMR to make me a new cover once they fixed the operation and gasket path. They said none of their covers leak, so they aren't fixing anything or making me a new cover.

Needless to say, I won't be using anymore of their stuff. What's funny is they quote themselves as a sales pitch saying they can't have a leaking cover at 265 mph (paraphrased). The gasket routing off the gasket mating surface would be a major cause of a leak. In my humble opinion of course.

To go with my billet blues, I made the water pump fitting and bracket out of 7075 aluminum. Apparently it has a secret to anodize, that I have not discovered. The fitting face is hard and you can tell it is anodized. I just can't get it to accept the amount of dye needed for proper coloring. I stripped it all off with sodium hydroxide and did it over again. Leaving it cooking for an extra 15 minutes and doubling the amperage to 5 amps per fitting had the same exact effect. Looking like I will be trying the standard Cerakote on these fittings instead. Very excited to try it. It is used on firearms all over and offers similar properties.

To finish of my bad luck with billet, my front wheels came in after 9 weeks. Someone forgot to mill the matching pockets in the spokes so they are making me another set now. Can't make this shit up.

Sponsored

 

[davidkrocks]

Billet Blues

I'm sure you've seen me mention the delay the valve covers caused in the build. Some from the shape but some are from the design.

When I installed the covers, I noticed there was no flexibility in positioning the cover. Usually there is a minor amount of movement available, but this was locked in place. The screw heads cut into the counterbores on different sides, so I assumed those counterbores just weren't big enough. I locked the covers down and went on. While messing around with the water pump, I noticed I could see the valve cover gasket. I decided to take them off. What I found was shocking to me. Perhaps my expectations are too high beucase I have the ability to machine things myself at a relatively high level.

First issue was the gasket path. It goes up and then back down again while the factory cover goes straight. That's the area that overhangs my front cover. So I figured I would put a gauge pin in each hole, and do some math, then open them up to the maximum possible, leaving at least 0.035" wall between the gasket and the hole.

After opening the perimeter, I had to do the 3 bolts by the HPFP. The 0.272" gauge pin did not fit, so I dropped in size until 0.269" fit in the bore. I noticed at that point the counterbore was not concentric with the center bore. This is the reason the cover would not move. The bolt head was removing the anodizing from the counter bore, and the threads were removing the opposite side of the bore. You can see where the chamfer operation only did one side of the bore, because it was not concentric to the location of the chamfer operation.

So I fixed all that, but the gasket is still barely on the gasket surface. I asked MMR to make me a new cover once they fixed the operation and gasket path. They said none of their covers leak, so they aren't fixing anything or making me a new cover.

Needless to say, I won't be using anymore of their stuff.

To go with my billet blues, I made the water pump fitting and bracket out of 7075 aluminum. Apparently it has a secret to anodize, that I have not discovered. The fitting face is hard and you can tell it is anodized. I just can't get it to accept the amount of dye needed for proper coloring. I stripped it all off with sodium hydroxide and did it over again. Leaving it cooking for an extra 15 minutes and doubling the amperage to 5 amps per fitting had the same exact effect. Looking like I will be trying the standard Cerakote on these fittings instead. Very excited to try it. It is used on firearms all over and offers similar properties.

To finish of my bad luck with billet, my front wheels came in after 9 weeks. Someone forgot to mill the matching pockets in the spokes so they are making me another set now. Can't make this shit up.

That's a pretty big shame about the billet covers. Holy smokes, it goes to show you who stands by their products.

 

[TonyNJ]

Do you at least get to keep the wheels they forgot to mill completely? They look totally custom.

 

[AcceptableNebula]

Do you at least get to keep the wheels they forgot to mill completely? They look totally custom.

Sshhhh... They haven't mentioned sending them back yet lol. I have 4 20x11 rears so I could have R888Rs and Nt555 G2s for putting around. Would be cool to have 2 sets of fronts too.

 

[AcceptableNebula]

That's a pretty big shame about the billet covers. Holy smokes, it goes to show you who stands by their products.

In their defense, they did offer to take them back. However, I had already altered my turbo piping around them so they are going on. Winter will be here before long, so I will evaluate my options then.

 

[AcceptableNebula]

Meme time

 

[80FoxCoupe]

Hahahahahha

Meme time

Meme time

Hahahahaha

 

[AcceptableNebula]

Thermostat Relocation Part 1

Since my wastegates ended up being very close to lower radiator hose, I decided I would probably just use a remote tstat housing and clean up that crazy hose setup for the bypass and tstat.

I ordered one from MMR about a month ago. Funny that I had to buy it off ebay because they appear to be in a Remote Thermostat Housing war with I can only assume (aka guess) UPR. On ebay you can find it for 57.99 with free shipping. If you are a loyal customer and buy directly off their site, you'll find it there for 69.99, and you'll have to pay for shipping. So since I won't be using their stuff anymore, I went ahead and went to UPRs website and bought their tstat housing for 58.99 plus shipping. Clearly, I am a complete moron because they do the same thing, and sell it for 54.99 with free shipping on ebay as well. Anyway I digress...

I also couldn't find a one piece fitting to adapt the Gen 3 water pump directly to the lower radiator hose. So I just decided to make my own since I was going to be doing Cerakote later today anyway.

Started out with a 4" slug of 6061 and created a love child between the factory tstat housing and the factory lower radiator hose fitting.

I textured them all with 100 grit aluminum oxide and coated them with H series Cerakote, graphite black. Shit seems promising but only time will tell how durable the coating really is.

Once the UPR housing arrives, I'll do a side by side comparsion. A remote tstat housing shootout. No opinions, just measurements, pictures, and facts.

 

[AcceptableNebula]

On3 Turbo Kit - Cont'd

Well after staring at the crooked turbo for the last few weeks, I just couldn't deal anymore. I started googling pictures of On3 installs and all the drivers turbos are installed at an angle. It's the only natural orientation that I could get where the rest of the downpipe was not hitting something. I had clearanced the downpipe with the press but it still was closer to the behemoth valve cover than I wanted. So I cut a 1/4" pie slice out of the vband elbow at the turbo and that allowed me to straighten the turbo out. However, the downpipe was now hitting the valve cover. So I cut in a piece of 3" pipe to give me the clearance I needed. Welded everything back up and textured the pipe in preparation for ceramic coating. After checking the fit, I realized I was completely out of steam so it will get coated tomorrow. The good news is the fit is so good, the centering tabs on the 2 Vbands will hold the pipe in place without a clamp.

On another note, since my miserable MMR experience, I've been looking thru the UPR website. I decided to order their rear shock mounts. I liked the design and the concept. They arriced today and they seem very nice. A few extra machining marks from being a bit aggressive with a ball end mill, but other than that they are very nice. I wish they were coated but I will Cerakote them on my next batch.

 

[AcceptableNebula]

PP Radiator/BMR Subframe

Was able to get the drivers downpipe Cerakoted today. Feels good to finally clamp that in for the final time. Will just have to fix the little pipe that goes around the steering shaft. At no point did that ever come close to fitting.

With the turbo finally in place, I was going to connect the charge pipe to the it. Clearly, the kit wants the turbo at an angle. The gap is pretty obvious. For now, I will just use a 30⁰ silicone coupler. I will add this to the winter piping correction list.

Changed out the stock GT radiator for the PP radiator. The core is 0.450" wider. I wasn't going to change it, but at this point it was about 20 minutes to swap it out. Adding the turbos to the coolant system and parking a 3.5" intercooler in front of the radiator, this just made sense.

Earlier, got rid of the factory subframe as well for the street/strip BMR Subframe. It saves 20 lbs and makes getting to stuff a lot easier. The fit is just OK but that's what I personally have come to expect from BMR products. Each bolt rides on one side of the the hole, so even with the engine supported there was minimal adjustment possible. Overall it does seem solid.

I spent a bit if time searching for a billet radiator hose tee for my bypass loop. I just couldn't seen to find one smaller than 1.5x0.625 and I just want a 1/2" bypass. I got a 1/2" check with a 2 psi cracking pressure. Although the dynamic pressure of the flowing coolant should minimize the amount of bypass, the factory tstat has a spring loaded bypass that opens around 2 psi. Full open is ~7psi. They didn't put that in for nothing. Since I am already adding the heat from my turbos to the cooling system, I'm just trying to avoid unnecessary heat circling back into the engine. So I started my tee fitting. Should have time to finish it in the next few days. It was less time carving it out of 7075 than I spent searching the internet for one.

 

[Johnny Rockit]

Yiu are a talented man. Enjoying these types of threads immensely.

 

[AcceptableNebula]

Thermostat Relocate Part 1.5

Didn't have a lot of time today, but I was able to finish the machine work on the bypass tee. I have some random radiator hoses coming that look like they will be helpful. So I should be able to get coolant in it soon.

 

[AcceptableNebula]

Various Progress Update

Well the last piece of the turbo kit exhaust wasn't even close to correct. I don't blame On3 for this as I did use different turbos, and a pair of ginormous valve covers. Even after adding/subtracting and also changing the angles as far as I could without rebuilding it with pie cuts, the turbo is slightly angled but everything clears nicely. I will be doing some of this stuff over the winter but I just want to get it running to enjoy the rest of the summer. After welding, I recoated with the Cerakote Glacier coating. All the vbands are finally tight.

The 30 degree silicone coupler came in, so it solved the angle issue. I don't like it but it'll work for now.

I also was able to get the bypass tee and the UPR shock mounts coated with the H series Cerakote.

I used some Gates 90 degree elbow hoses to create a lower radiator hose. Replaced all the clamps with stainless t-bolt clamps. I will probably end up using the billet aluminum ones eventually, but there are some in between sizes that I will have to either make or hope the market fills the gaps sooner than later.

 

[DeadSpool]

Great job so far! It looks like we both share the attention to detail bug which most people find kind of crazy. Lol

I’m thinking we should collaborate on some stuff in the future.

 

[AcceptableNebula]

GT350 Front Suspension - Tip of the Iceberg

So I've been playing around with this conversion since I bought the car. While very straight forward, I guess a simple conversion isn't what I'm after.

Main objective is to get rid of the cast iron knuckles. From what I gather, the weight savings is about 4 lbs for each knuckle. Even the 6 piston calipers are supposedly weighing in lighter but I haven't confirmed that in person. People run the PP Girodisc rotors, which weigh about 23 lbs. Factory GT rotors come in at 28 lbs. Unfortunately there isn't a way to run the PP rotors on a GT350 knuckle and caliper that I can find. The rotor is offset by 7mm. So I ordered the GT350 rotors and being 15.5" and 36mm wide, they weigh in at a beefy 30.5 lbs each. There is a bracket for the iron knuckles to run the PP rotor and GT350 caliper. However, that doesn't achieve my goal.

So now that I have both setups, I really want my cake and be able eat it too. The larger rotors are beefy and look great. A perfect fit for car shows and street driving. Bad news is without a wheel spacer, the GT350 calipers will hit my front runners. So if I could swap out the rotors without removing the caliper from the hose, that would solve both.

First step is to get a workable object. This will allow me to tinker with my ideas when I am relaxing at end of the day. So I did a 3D scan of the GT350 knuckle. This gives me a rather accurate model. Supposedly within 0.1mm accuracy but I will take some measurements of my own before I go trusting the object blindly.

Sponsored