OK Doke, I have been busy, honest... Most things have gone well but not all... suffered a couple of minor setbacks for my deadline (under 2 weeks)....more on that later.
Anyway... on with the fabrication.... I'll not go into as much detail but basically it took some time to fabricate the Turbo brackets. The goal of these were to take some of the weight of the turbos so the manifolds aren't bearing the full weight which may increase the chances of them cracking. So the requirements are the need to help bear the weight, still allow a certain amount of flex (for heat expansion) and minimise heat transfer to the gearbox (which they are bolted to...) with nowt more than a few bits of metal lying about, an angle grinder, vice and a welder....... ! No probs...
Well first of all I noticed on a prefacelift manifold I had, already had a strange support bracket:
For those interested the part no. on it is : 078 253 034 BP... Only on one side though, the shape of the other manifold is such that its not that simple.
So of course I lopped that off and welded it on to the Tubular manifold:
Well to skip a couple of evenings messing about and trying different methods (and swinging off the downpipes to measure the flex). I came up with these...:
I made a video of the amount of flex there was before and after... but Im having software issues so that will have to wait for now... Sorry.... So next I needed to find some ceramic, phenolic or fibre washers and things to try and minimise the heat transfer. I tried a few places but couldnt find anything suitable. So I ended up chopping up the supplied manifold gaskets with the manifolds which look to be thin metal plates with some fibre in between, so I doubled it up got some longer bolts for the manifold to turbo flanges and bolted them all up after making minor adjustments to allow for the extra spacers (meaning the original holes etc were slightly out of line and adding the washers etc)....... and I painted them with black VHT (very high temp) paint......cutting up the gaskets...
Finished effort:
DPs were looking good after I had a chap tig weld everything up ( and replace some of my iffy welding...)
Another shot to show you how much more these will flow over std!:
I treated some parts of the downpipes with black VHT paint too... End result is an engine/transmission assembly ready to go in the car!!! woo hoo!
Looks the business from the side....I would say it certainly looks the part for 250bhp a side!
nice.... sooooooo to the point....
so the assembly is in the car.....
However remember I mentioned set backs?
setback number one: I wanted black silicone hoses for the FMIC and as such I have to wait for them to be made as all places I tried only keep blue.. how long? 4-5 weeks.... I'll be fitting the standard ICs then for the move!... this also means I cannot fit the oil cooler (as that was going to live where one of the side ICs live....) oh well not the end of the world.
Setback number 2. When bleeding the clutch system I tried getting the wife involved to pump the peddle, but it was taking ages.... so I got the pressure bleeder out. I didnt run high pressure and started to bleed the system. Suddenly the fluid reservoir burst and splattered brake fluid over the windscreen and roof!!! luckily I was pretty quick to mop it up and get a handy hose over the roof and windscreen..... what a pain in the butt.
However.... its a holiday weekend which means I wont get a replacement till tuesday and the clock is ticking..... doh doh doh doh doh.....
Mark.
