ss45466's turbo IX build

[ss45466]

Guess I should start one of these... I know I'm leaving a ton out but here we go:

I had the oppertunity to buy an 89 IX from my boss after I had done alot of maintenance work to it and the customer could not pay for it. So I picked it up and repaired some body panels (front valence, headlights, foglights and drivers fender) After a few months of driving it as an auto I swapped it out to a 5 speed with the correct 3.91 gear ratio diffs. Fallowed by some performance mods, mega squirt PNP. Rebuilt the suspension, raised the rear subframe and installed poly bushings and m-coupe diff cover. I got it runnung fairly well and there was a definate improvement in power output. But that was short lived, I started gathering turbo components....

I started with a tiny t3/t4 garrett journal bearing turbo with a 524TD manifold, water to air intercooler, 42lb. injectors and 3in downpipe routed back into the stock cat (gutted), tial 50mm bov, and 38mm turbonetics wastegate. Full boost came on @ 1800rpm and I could feel the power drop off on the top end from the exhaust restriction. Pt. 2 I upgraded to a turbonetics t3/t4 GTK series ball bearing turbo and full 3in exhaust with a 18in glasspack and borla xr1 series muffler. Full boost came on @ 2800 rpm. Power was great! I easily defeated many sti's and evo's. Recently (about 2-3 weeks ago, now parked) the bottom end has decided to give up the ghost, lower compression and a slight knock can be heard I think alot of the reason it failed was how the previous owner took care of her...

Now I moved on to the interior and ordered a kit from The Artisan, Kevin at Creative Options. So far I have only recieved the front seat material and he is working on the rest. I think it looks awesome.

And finally on to what I'm doing @ the moment is building an M20 based stroker with an M52 crank/rods, custom pistons from JE, and some head work with p/p and cam/springs/retainers from VAC motorsports... so on to the pics:

When I first got it:


I put some ATS 17x7.5 Et38 wheels w/ yoko parada spec2 205/40's on:


Ejnight prototype skid plate and H&R lowering springs:


Engine bay:



Undercar:


New turbo:


Added tint, need it here:


Picked up these RS003's and refinished them:



With dunlop star specs 205/55r16:




Only pic I have of the progress in the interior ATM:
OLD:


NEW:


I picked up a set of 3.64 gears:


And the current state of my engine build in progress:


Where you have to massage the block to make an m52 crank fit (if you don't bob the counterweights)



Cylinder head, waiting on valve springs/retainers:


Still waiting for my pistons to come in ATM but will fallow up with more pics. I need to resize these pics to make em fit this webpage. should be good shortly....

[ss45466]

got them resized, also saved for updates

[hassmaschine]

Wow nice! Paint your front valance red and it will be complete!

Thanks for the pic of the s52 crank in the block, im doing the same thing. I doesnt look too bad.

What pistons are you using? Cam?

[ss45466]

Thanks! I was planning on painting the whole car but needed to build an engine first....

I'm using 8.5:1 JE pistons should be in the mail in 2-3 weeks will post pics of those. Ordered OEM oil pump and rod bolts that should be in this week. And I'm using M52 rods, supposedly good to ~700hp... I'm not looking for that much tho.

As for the cam I'm in between 2 choices:

Vac Motorsports turbo Mild grind cam:
----------------------INT.-------------EXH.
(cL)---------------.30mm----------.25mm
(0.10mm+ cL)-----272*--------------248*
(1.0mm+ cL)-------234*-------------214*
(cL = 0)----------10.85mm---------9.90mm
---------------------6.9mm-----------6.35mm
---------------------110*--------------120*
(cL= 0)-------------1.97mm----------.54mm

and VAC motorsports turbo agressive grind cam:
------------------------INT----------------EXH
(cL) ----------------.30mm-------------.25mm
(0.01mm+ cL)-------288*----------------272*
(1.0mm+ cL)---------247*----------------234*
(cL= 0)--------------11.55mm-----------10.85mm
-----------------------7.30mm------------6.90mm
-----------------------110*-----------------120*
(cL= 0)--------------2.60mm-------------1.05mm

They don't list the specs on their website, I emailed them for it. The mild cam can use stock springs/retainers and the agressive cam needs VAC HD springs. I'm going to order the VAC springs and retainers anyways and I have the HD rocker arms already. Which one would you pick?

[hassmaschine]

I'd go with the 288/272, it sounds like they copied the schrick 284/272 and moved the LSA of the exhaust lobe for turbo purposes. it should idle just fine, you probably aren't going to try and run it on Motronic 1.3 with a build like that. :p

[ss45466]

That was the one I was going to go with, hopefully by the end of this week I can place an order. I had TEP spec the pistons a little deeper on the valve reliefs if I want to go bigger. Oh and heres a little info from their site for people questioning quality: "Like all our VAC cams, these are ground from 100% new blanks and never re-grinds." Chris Jurkiewicz said they have had many happy customers with these cams.

I'm running Diyautotune's DIYPNP setup ms2, 4 bar mapdaddy, wasted spark, boost control, the ability to run semi-sequential( installed it but hard to get injection timing right, it made the engine to off/on with throttle) so I went back to batch fire. other than that it has worked great for me for over a year already.

We'll see where this build goes!

[hassmaschine]

how did you have the injectors paired, and what timing angles were you using?

if one of the pairs is mistimed, or both of them are, and they're injecting into an open valve (especially at idle) it won't run very nicely..

they should be paired 1-5, 3-6, 2-4. at idle you'd want to end injection (use end of pulse BTW) at around 400deg BTDC, and increas with RPM/load

[ss45466]

I will have to try that. When I first did the conversion I had them paired 1-6,2-5,3-4 like the wasted spark.

I have them paired 1-5,3-6,2-4 now but my timing is around -250* I didn't mess with it a bunch before I swapped back the injector harness to the origional 135,246 pairing. I remember talking with you about it over on e30tech about 6-8 months ago I just haven't had the free time to sit down and get it right.

I will play around with it agian after I break in the new engine.


Just e-mailed Steve @ TEP pistons will be shipped in 1-1.5 weeks!

[hassmaschine]

turns out I'm wrong - the MS2 semi-sequential code forces you to fire them twice per cycle. So one cyl will be timed right and the other will always be 360* off. You'd want to pair them in opposites like you did before.

I think it would be idea to submit a feature request - allow timed semi-sequential, 1 squirt/cycle, using the timing table. on high cylinder counts the difference between the closest cylinders isn't so bad, 60* on an M20, which is close enough for decent performance.

in the above case I'm not sure how beneficial semi-sequential is since one cylinder is always 360* out (actually both are, but on opposite cycles). But pairing them as I suggested won't work well with the current code.

[ss45466]

I'm glad I hung on to the 3 injector harness I modified, 135-246, 1-5, 3-6, 2-4 and 1-6, 2-5, 3-4. I can swap to any of them easily.

When I did have it running semi sequential the idle was a bit rough but I couldn't get it close to how smooth it was with batch fire. That is why I went back for the time being. I could pick it back up here in a couple months when I have the engine sorted.