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I made up my mind a long time ago that I didn't want a front-mount. I briefly experimented with keeping the stock TMIC and running meth injection, but quickly came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to work. First of all, my intake temps were still too high, and second it was just too much of a bottle neck for airflow.
This left me with a v-mount as the only option. Unfortunately there are no good kits for the FC, plus I don't really have the money for one. I also like experimenting with creating new things, so it work well for me.
I had several goals with this install.
1) Re-use my existing radiator (Fluidyne w/large e-fan)
2) Re-use factory oil cooler
3) use a large intercooler to support my power goals. I ended up going with the Treadstone TR1035 due to the quality and price. I am shooting for 500 with a stretch goal of 600 at the wheels. I have a half-bridge and a MP T-70 and will be running e-85 to accomplish this. I also plan to eventually go big (GT42 or similar) so I want room for growth without re-engineering anything.
4) Do it without welding if possible. I plan to learn, but I don't have the time to mess with it right now.
5) Duct air from front of rad/intercooler into air filter box
I am aided by the fact that I don't have a battery, PS, or A/C components in the way. This should be fairly straightforward, but I had a wrench thrown in my plans. I got a good deal on a HKS log manifold because I don't trust e-bay tubular manifolds and I can't afford the good quality ones. When I got the manifold in, I realized that the turbo sits very far forward. Withe the location I was planning on for the rad, the inlet pipe of the rad was sitting inside the inlet of the turbo. After much experimenting, I determined that the only way to mount the radiator was to either have it below the outlet of the turbo or next too it.
After some creative thinking (and a decent bit of grinding) I managed to locate the rad all the way against the drivers side frame rail so it was next to the turbo inlet (its further to the right than it looks in the picture). The wires are holding up the bottom of the rad until I can get something fabbed up.
This allows the radiator to be at a good angle for airflow and meet with the intercooler instead of having to create some wacky ducting. This also makes it easier to create my air box for the intake filter. I created some rough braces out of various pieces of metal I found at Lowes. I will have to re-do a lot of them, but it will allow me to have good support and an anchor point for the ducting. The brackets have been modified from the above picture, but its the same idea.
The intercooler sits nicely on top of the brackets.
You can see that its a bit close on the back end, but it's going to be pivoted up some more once I get the bottom brackets in place.
Next up is to fit the oil cooler. I'm going to sandwich mount it (like in the oem configuration) because from what I have seen, this keeps the airflow from getting too weird. It will be roughly in the middle height-wise, which is mainly to give a place for the hoses to go, but will also get some air flowing through it around town from the e-fan. I'm going to have to experiment a bit with the hose routing, but I think I can get it sorted pretty easily.
The rad hoses are going to be tricky, but I have a few ideas that I will experiment with once everything is firmly in place.
The intercooler piping is going to be pieced together with some random pipes and non-ideal couplers for now, but it will be redone later once everything is finalized.
I've got a beat-up aluminum N/A hood and I'm going to cut a hole in it. I plan on creating some sort of ducting that will be mounted to the intercooler and direct the air out the hole, but I still haven't really finalized it yet.
Its going to be slow going for a bit as I will be out of town[ and busy with work/family, but I hope to have it together in the next month or so. Stay tuned!
I'm keeping the stock S4 filler neck. I have a high-temp cap on the rad and then am plugging the overflow nipple. This is what I've done for 5+ years with no issues.
The only wild card is that it is now slanted the other way, but hopefully there won't be any air pockets. I'm already thinking about taking it in to the get the inlet and/or outlet modified if I can't get the rad hoses to work, and that is also on my maybe list (I would probably just have it take off completely and covered with an aluminum plate).
Also, I'm going to have to rotate the compressor housing clockwise 60 degrees as the outlet is so close to the brake hard line that it could get damaged if the motor torques much. Once I do that, I may have to switch to an aftermarket filler neck, in which case I will run a remote fillter like this http://i53.tinypic.com/f5b040.jpg
You could use a a smaller intake pipe ID from the turbo to the intercooler and from the intercooler to the intake. The pipe in the pic looks like 3 inch? 2.75in would be fine and it makes the routing easier by the oil fill neck and throttle body adapter. I think the 3 inch makes the throttle response a little sluggish.
Its 2.75". I actually thought about 2.5" but I think it might be a restriction as I'm going to be pushing 25+ PSI. Also, routing by the TB isn't where the issue is, its the inlet and outlet of the intercooler. I was going to put have the inlet and oulet on the front side of the intercooler (opposite of what it is now) but I would have to grind off more than I want to from the upper brace.
For reference, outlet of the turbo is 2.5", inlet and outlet on the intercooler are 3" and inlet on the TB adapter is 2.75".
I know that the routing isn't ideal, but I'm basically piecing something together to get the car running. I'm swapping to a megasquirt so I have to build the harness, verify everything is working properly, then learn how to tune it. Its going to be a bit before I'm able to run boost and by then hopefully I'll have some money saved up to get some proper piping welded up.
My plan is to have 3-2.75 reducers welded to the inlet/outlet. For the inlet of the intercooler I'm going to get a j-bend and cut the end to the right angle to go straight to the 90 coupler on the turbo outlet, and a 155 degree bend coming out of the intercooler on the outlet welded to a 75 degree bend going the other way, welded to a 30 degree bend into the TB inlet (kinda s-shaped).
Its 2.75". I actually thought about 2.5" but I think it might be a restriction as I'm going to be pushing 25+ PSI. Also, routing by the TB isn't where the issue is, its the inlet and outlet of the intercooler. I was going to put have the inlet and oulet on the front side of the intercooler (opposite of what it is now) but I would have to grind off more than I want to from the upper brace.
For reference, outlet of the turbo is 2.5", inlet and outlet on the intercooler are 3" and inlet on the TB adapter is 2.75".
I know that the routing isn't ideal, but I'm basically piecing something together to get the car running. I'm swapping to a megasquirt so I have to build the harness, verify everything is working properly, then learn how to tune it. Its going to be a bit before I'm able to run boost and by then hopefully I'll have some money saved up to get some proper piping welded up.
My plan is to have 3-2.75 reducers welded to the inlet/outlet. For the inlet of the intercooler I'm going to get a j-bend and cut the end to the right angle to go straight to the 90 coupler on the turbo outlet, and a 155 degree bend coming out of the intercooler on the outlet welded to a 75 degree bend going the other way, welded to a 30 degree bend into the TB inlet (kinda s-shaped).
Welding on reducers might cost more than using reducing silicone hose. Boostcontroller.com has some options under "reducing hose".
Just FYI, I'm having to move my oil cooler from sandwiched on the radiator to away from right in front of the radiator. I think thats part of my overheating issue with it blocking too much of the radiator and giving the radiator HOTTER air since the oil runs hotter than the coolant.
I'm going to move it below the cylinder bar and sandwich it between that and the under tray, then duct a piece of metal to the front grill and split the air between the 2 so they both get air forced directly at them.
Thanks for the info! That's exactly what I'm looking for with this thread. I'm basically going to fit the rad and intercooler where they fit best, then find where to put the oil cooler.
I've got to get the brackets firmed up, then I'll dive into the oil cooler. I've fire a really out-there idea, but I've got to get everything finalized before I can test it. If it works, it's going to be brilliant.
As for reducers,I've already got some. I was just talking about welding them on to clean everything up and reduce the number of joints.
We really need to meet up brotha . I feel would could throw some good ideas around between the two of Us And our rides . My fmic is about the same size and have been thinking bout going vmount also . I have a nice copper stock radios that still flows pretty good . But would like to bring my temps down .
I planning to head up to temple to see casey over at swb tuning for a retune on my 08 trailblazer as here soon .
Unek87 - yeah, definitely! I'm pretty busy, but we should figure something out once I get the car running. Also, I've got a stock-fit koyo in good shape. I scored a fluidine with a black magic fan for cheap, so I swapped it out. I'll even throw in a Villager e-fan if you're interested.
Phillip - Its been done. I think the rotary extreme kit even kept PS. It gets a bit tricky, though (if you read through his thread). I think a lot of the problem was around putting the oil cooler in a place where it actually had air flow.
ok I have done this the same set up you going for and i have a few pointers to help.
1. you will have to get the rad welded and modified, the filler neck the intake and exit as well
2. you will also need a reverse vent on the hood, and it needs to be custom to expose the intercooler otherwise your intake air temps will be very high
3. you will also need to custome airintake, the rad gets in the way with the angle
4. oilcooler needs relocation and thats tricky i put min in the space infrom the engine behind the rad and then i relocated it to the front airway
5. and the most inportant thing, you need custom ducting and a lot of i tand the angles will drive you mad
This is a little off topic but has anyone done a vmnont and kept the ac?
It could be done. Totally custom, a small, say 12x14 condenser with a pusher fan in the 'V' to one side sandwiched on he Radiator. Or a double stacked condenser say 12x12 (if such an animal exists) set to one side, vertical with a puller fan. If double stacked, feed the hot gas from the compressor into the rear condenser, feed into the front condenser, from there to the reciever dryer. It should be biased to the hot end of the intercooler
Either way will 'interfere' somewhat with air flow and add heat load to the radiator (12x14) or both the radiator and the intercooler (12x12 double stack) MY tendency would be to look at for the 12x12 as it would interfere less with the total flow on the radiator and intercooler, so when the a/C was not dumping heat, the performance of the v-mount would be least compromised.
Its been almost 2 years, I figure its time for an update. I ended up remodeling my house prior to selling it (4+ months), then moving, then work and family, etc, etc, so the car was basically untouched until a couple months ago, but I finally got it running! Pics are on my phone so I will upload them separately.
First - how I did it. You can see from my earlier pics how the radiator and intercooler are laid out. That remained roughly the same. The interesting part was the oil coolers. I might have been able to fit them in the same manner as in the RX8, but to me there just wasn't enough room so I rotated them 90 degrees. I don't think I could have fit them around the headlight retractors very well anyway, but with them in this position it was hopeless. Next step was getting rid of the retractors. I yanked them and went through the arduous process of deciding on where to mount the coolers and how to plumb them. I debated this for over a year while working on my other projects.
I've been eyeing the Eastbear Headlights since as long as I can remember, so I eventually grabbed a pair of knockoffs from EVO-R on ebay. They were good enough, so I installed the junk lights it came with so I could pass inspection, and put the housings on. Everything fit pretty well, so I buttoned it up and to my surprise everything fit and nothing leaked. Add in a few weeks to get my exhaust figured out and get my new megasquirt tuned up and here we are.
All I can say is wow! I was so used to my IAT's shooting up when I went into boost that I thought something was broken. On a 10-second mostly full throttle run at ~10PSI, my IATs went from 72 to 74 with an ambient of about 65, and whats more impressive is that I have only done minor ducting and my hood isn't even vented yet! I will really be able to tell once I turn the boost up, but I am very optimistic.
I can't speak much to oil and coolant temps, but the coolant stayed rock-solid at 180-185.
I was worried about throttle response due to the size of my intercooler, but thanks to the relatively short piping it still seems nice and crisp.
All-in-all, I am super pleased with how it turned out. I'll be sure to update as I have more solid info.
Finished product. I might tweak the intercooler to TB piping, but its good enough for now. View from the front. You can see the lower outlet of the rad. I'm about to take it off and get it rewelded. Drivers side cooler. You can see I still need to clean up some wiring. Passenger side cooler. Pic from the front showing how the cooler sits. At the moment, I've got the FTP lenses out to get more air to them. I still working on how I'm going to do the brake ducting.
I am resurrecting this thread as I am interested in how you ran the inlet/outlet piping for the radiator. Do you have any additional pictures showing this? I actually have a similar V-mount setup with stock radiator, but I am not happy with how the inlet pipe is installed.
Wow, I really suck at keeping up with project threads!
To answer your question, the radiator had already been modified by the person I bought it from. The rad inlet Das only a few inches long and at a 90 angle from the end track (it didn't curve back down). That said ,even that is really tight. I had to route the house below the coupler going to the filter then back up. It is far from ideal.
I going to be pulling pretty much everything off the block to properly plug the coolant ports (one keeps leaking) as well as swap out my fuel system for E85. While that's going on, I'm going to take the rad to a shop and have him Weld the inlet to the top of the end tank. That will allow me to use a short universal hose and route it farther away from the turbo.
06-10-15, 11:43 PM
