Project Big Red

[laserjock]

I was away for the weekend but did a little shopping. I have raw materials for a intake hat on order. It will have 2.5" or 2.25" inlet depending on what I can fit. I also did a little checking and it turns out that you can get the hot side housing with the t3 undivided flange like I have in all three available ratios. I have the 0.89 which is the smaller one. Heath I think is running the 0.99. New housing is less than $400 so at the price I got the turbo, if I end up changing the hot side, I'll still come out ahead of full purchase price so I can live with that. It should spool quick with the smaller housing as long as it doesn't choke based on the little bit of data from Heath.

 

[laserjock]

Project custom intake hat commenced today.

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O-ring I picked fits real nice. I pulled the extra manifold off the wall to take with me for fitting.

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Finish is not perfect but I'm no machinist either.

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I smell success! This part looks great. Fits like a glove. Couldn't ask for better I don't think. As long as it clears the turbo which it should, we should be golden.

Now I'm waiting for my mandrel bends to get here so I can move on to phase 2 which will test my cutting and welding abilities.

 

[F350camper]

sweet! what material is that?

 

[laserjock]

Mild steel. I picked that so I could mig it since that's what I have handy. Once it's all welded and smoothed up as much as I feel like it will get nickel plated for rust prevention.

 

[F350camper]

if that doesnt work, you could always cast one clicky cast hat

 

[laserjock]

if that doesnt work, you could always cast one clicky cast hat

Strangely enough I have made aluminum castings before. I don't have a furnace to melt the aluminum readily at my disposal.

[emoji6]

 

[laserjock]

So I have hit another snag. My turbo kit less the turbo is also less some other bits. There are things that I can use but I'm going to have to go off on my own on some of the brackets. I may call banks and see how expensive it would be to get a couple of the more interesting bits.

The biggest problem is the support brackets. I'll figure something out. There is a lot of adjustment to be had here. I may need to raise the pedestal just a touch to clear the intake and my new hat as is. I'm talking a 1/4" spacer welded to the bottom where it sets on the trans adapter flange. May not need to but I've got to sort out the anchor point before I'll know.

Nothing is ever as easy as it should be right?

 

[laserjock]

And things get better. After reading up on the Banks kit install, I have come to the conclusion that I am screwed. I have tried adjusting everything I can. I have tried spacers of all types. I looked at trying to put in an angled spacer on the pedestal and I can't gain enough with any combination. I'm down to 2 ideas and I'm not sure if the first one is worth a try. I considered an offset spacer. It might gain me 1/2" of height but it would also put a funny bend in the path. If it worked it would be the simple path but I'm not sure if there would be an appreciable performance loss.

The other option is to mod the intake. Think I'll sleep on it.

 

[IDIoit]

i vote intake mod.
there a crappy design to begin with.
all your cylinders care about is getting air.
it does not have to be aluminum either.
ive been fartin around the idea of a stainless intake.
i know aluminum eats the heat, but hell powerstrokes have sheet metal "intakes"

 

[laserjock]

That seems to be the road I'm going down. It worked for Heath so it should work for me. Now I just have to figure out how to cut this thing down. I briefly played with sticking it in the band saw but eh. Not happy. Probably will involve some cutoff wheels. They make them for Al.

 

[IDIoit]

i use SS cut off wheels, rips through aluminum well!
i have a spare intake thats yours if you need it.

 

[junk]

if you cut and fab that intake. You probably want to do it on the engine? I think R&D was having issues initially with warped intakes when he was fabbing them loose? I could be all wet.

Custom intake seems to be the way to go. For that matter would R&D's intake work for you? It's already fabbed?

 

[laserjock]

I don't think the R&D intake will work because of the pipe location. It might. Gonna chew on it today.

Hadn't thought about warping. Probably a good call to do it in place.

 

[pafixitman]

Mike, maybe I just missed it all together but what is the actual issue? Height clearance? or firewall to intake hat clearance or...

 

[laserjock]

Height between the intake riser and both the hot and cold side housings actually. I should have taken a pic of it with the pedestal mounted correctly. I can't even slip the o-ring over the intake with the turbo in place. I had thought the problems Heath had were caused by him having to adapt from T4 down to the T3 of the up pipe. While that may be partially true, I'm still in the same boat he was it seems. This damn turbo is just large compared to the stock banks.

So I had originally planned to do some type of adapter off the up pipe to make this work. Thanks to the measurements that crash-harris took for me, I can pretty much tell, I don't want the thing to sit any higher without going to a cowl hood. So do I make a custom adapter, and custom cowl hood or mod the intake. Seems like a simple choice to me.

Now on the intake. R&D makes a custom intake. I need to do a little research and see if I can tell if it would solve my problem. The pictures I have found so far are inconclusive bordering toward probably not. If I do it the way Heath did it, I can use my intake hat I made and bring the pip of whichever way I want. I can also weld a bracket on it for the throttle cable mount that I'll loose. I just have to knuckle under and cut up and intake and see if my buddy can weld it back together for me.