by "StudyStudyStudy" (jesterjin)
Published 04/21/2017 at 12:05
by "StudyStudyStudy" (jesterjin)
Published 04/21/2017 at 12:05
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STARS: 4
Managed to bolt my waste gate on. Had to clearance part of the logo and the bolt holes to make it fit without risking cross threading.
Now came the exhaust. Quite tedious. Fabricating non existing exhaust is fairly easy. Making exhaust mate up to an existing one with only v-bands is a bit more difficult. Especially when you don’t have both v-bands....
Still managed to eyeball my way into making the correct lengths and angles. It is a bit close to the brake line to be honest, but with thermal wrap I remember being able to put my hand on it. Worse comes to worse I’ll dent the exhaust or relocate the brake line. Granted I think my turbo would hit the shock tower before the exhaust would hit the brake line.
And just to show you the area I was working in.
With space at a premium and the welder more or less pushed back into the back again, not much room here. I think this really helps convince me I am a decent welder, if you can weld with a mig gun upside down with one hand crouched on one knee in about a 3x4 foot space on the floor that also includes your body, just imagine what I can do with a table, vices, and clamps!
The finished product. With the waste gate dump and the o2 sensor bung welded on. Lots of reading on that, but generally it seems that short of running a divorced pipe and transitioning into the main exhaust later down the line that is about as smooth a transition I can get. The o2 bung is about 12 inches away from the exit. Lots of opinions on this. The LC-1 says 12-24 inches, my friends have said 4-6 inches, my old exhaust came with it welded about 2 inches from the end on the 7m and it didn’t seem like the sensor malfunctioned. Still when you get the chance best to try and do things better.
The exhaust still has a bit of wire stuck to it. This definitely is the reason why you don’t want to do any of this stuff pre-turbo with a MIG. Wire will slip through the smallest crack and then you have a nice piece just waiting to go right through your turbo.
As long as it hasn’t warped and as long as the exhaust wasn’t hanging poorly this should be fine. It was way too hot to try and fit up so I called it a night.
I’ll probably do a check to make sure I haven’t left any gaps and then put a coat of paint on it before wrapping it.
Pretty much last bit of fabrication done! Just a matter of wiring up the JZ stuff, torquing things down, and putting the pieces back together.
Lessons learned:
Old trick, use straight lines when you have to bridge a gap that way you know how all the pieces are supposed to line up.
When trying to bridge large expanses, keep some offcuts of pipe handy, much easier to weld a patch over then trying to bridge the gap with a huge weld.
Oh my GAWD if you are doing or plan on doing some pipe fabrication get yourself a portable band saw. These things are awesome! Major cuts for fabricating this took maybe 5 minutes total.
Money spent:
Portable band saw - 150
Milwaukee blades - 15
U-bends - 40
O2 bung - 10
Subtotal - 215
Total spent - 28570
"OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars" (jakeauern)
04/21/2017 at 12:10, STARS: 3
How far into this project did you think “I should have spent more up front to save more time/money now to have a running car sooner” or are you enjoying the journey of it?
"StudyStudyStudy" (jesterjin)
04/21/2017 at 12:54, STARS: 4
At this point it doesn’t really click too much, I should probably do a break down after this swap to see how that breaks up in parts, tools, services, etc.
There was a really good deal on a very sorted car that popped up a while back. Definitely felt I would have been better off just getting something more sorted like that off the bat. Then again, I’ve learned so much. I used to be the guy that couldn’t tell lateral from longitudinal engine layouts. Now friends call me for complicated projects because they know it will get done, not sure you can put a price on going from clueless, to reliable.
"OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars" (jakeauern)
04/21/2017 at 13:02, STARS: 1
I was wondering if that would be a factor. I’m happy that you’ve learned so much. That’s priceless.
"theloudmouth" (theloudmouth)
04/22/2017 at 06:23, STARS: 0
Bravo man.