T04Z Single Turbo Conversion - Under Construction

[fetish]

YES I HAVE GONE SINGLE!!



The Results

Over a year after I did the conversion I have finally got around to putting it on the Dyno. I have been putting it off because it still hasnt had a full tune. 17 Jul 2009 I took her down to In Tune for the Toyota Dyno Day. Boost is set to 18psi, and the fuel and timing are very conservative. I was hoping she would go close to 400, so I was very surprised when she ran just shy of 480! The engine is still unopened, but I am in the process of building another engine. Im looking forward to the results with the new engine and more boost




I have been collecting parts for over a year, but its finally done. Well actually it was done back in February. I just kept it quiet because I didnt want to put up the thread until I had finished alot more work on the engine bay.

Its going to take me some time to put this thread together with all the photos and details on the conversion so I will be adding to it over the next couple of days.

After alot of research I decided to do the conversion myself. Due to my location I had a limited number of workshops available, I wasnt really happy with some of the work I saw coming out of various workshops even in brisbane, I wanted the experience of doing it myself, I wanted to save money on labour so I could spend it on other goodies and im a bit of a perfectionist so I like things done a certain way. When I say I did it myself, I mean that I did it with limited assistance from workshops, but with alot of help from friends. I couldnt have done it by myself and therefore have alot of people to thank for their hard work, sleepless nights and dedication to the project. One again I learnt who my good mates really were. Often putting in more hours than I could due to my work schedule and never asking anything in return. It wasnt uncommon for me to come home from work to find my house mate already busy under the bonnet getting things ready for me to start on when I came home.

Macca my resident mechanic. Any problem I couldnt fix, he generally had a solution. If it wasnt for Macca I probably wouldnt have much hair left. weeks of work went into the project while his car sat next to mine in the garage untouched. Dont worry mate, we will have yours on the road soon!

Matt, couldnt of gotten the old turbos off without you. Its a c**t of a job for those who havent done it.

Ben aka God once you put a welder in his hand. For his excellent work on the stainless piping and other welding jobs.

Ryan for his help with one of the more difficult parts... getting that damn manifold on!

Jesse, always there when I needed 3 or 4 hands to do something. once again saving me lots of frustration and broken tools thrown at the wall in anger

Thanks also to Ken, for transporting the car backwards and forward.


Onto the good stuff:

RESEARCH:

The most important part. To help other members out, and also to make it easier for me to keep track of my research I created a thread on Single Turbo Conversion Research with a number or areas that should be considered.

http://www.supraforums.com.au/forum/...ad.php?t=36917

It is a very big investment so you want to make sure you get it right. If you spend upwards of $10,000 on your car you dont want to be dissappointed!

Other things I did to research the project included:

1. speaking to other members (workshop referals)
2. comparing dyno graphs
3. researching turbo specs
4. going for a drive in other members cars
5. extending my research overseas (US and UK forums)
6. searching and reading countless threads on these forums
7. everytime I saw a photo of a Supra with a single conversion I saved the photo. this way I could compare how certain things were positioned. What worked, what didnt.

Once happy with the choice of turbo I went shopping.


SHOPPING:

I like to shop around for the best possible prices. There more money I save on some parts, I can spend on others. By looking around, picking up bargains on the forums I was able to save thousands! With the strong Aussie dollar lots can be saved by buying parts from the US.

Dont impulse buy. I spent over a year collecting parts for the upgrade. You have done your research, dont change what you want or need simply because its not available at the time.

Shopping List:

1. turbo
2. manifold
3. wastegate
4. silicone hose
5. clamps
6. BOV
7. Vac line
8. braided line and fittings
9. dump pipe
10. wastegate pipe
11. intake pipe
12. pod filter
13. intercooler pipes
14. gaskets

and then theres all the supporting mods......


PLANNING:

My car is my daily driver so any mods I do have to planned in advance in order to limit the time its off the road. I usually have my mods planned 2-3 months in advance. I will preorder parts I need for upgrades or servicing and wont start the work until I have everything. This limits delays, it doesnt prevent them. I went through the plan over and over before we took the car off the road. Despite all the planning we still forgot a few things or didnt plan for others. We just had to get it all sorted along the way.

I decided to do the conversion in February while the car was off the road having the clutch upgraded. The turn around time for the clutch should have been 2 weeks in which time we were going to complete the conversion. The clutch ended up being away for about a month so we had plenty of time on our hands.

Leave youself enough time to do the work. Be realistic. it is possible to get it done in a weekend with a few guys working on it that know what they are doing as long as you have every part that you need! dont rush. When you rush you make mistakes. When working on something like this mistakes often cost money.

During this phase of the project I had some work done on the manifold by XSpeed. The redid the welds and cleaned it up on the inside. They also took off the tiny wastegate pipe and replaced it with a 60mm pipe!

So the research is complete, the planning has been done, the parts have all arrived. let the fun begin!


REMOVING THE TWINS:



This part sucks! it took two of us a whole day to get these off. This is a good time to talk about tools. If you dont have enough, borrow some or buy some. If you dont have the right tools it makes things very difficult and frustrating. I have a full set of 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" sockets. spanner sets and various pliers long short, angled the list goes on. We couldnt have done it without multiple sets of tools. you can never have too many tools.

Bolts will be a bitch to get off. WD40 or similar is your friend. you will lose the tops off your knuckles. suck it up, its going to be a long ride!

Removing the twins is fairly straight forward. you dont have to remember how to put them back on, so just work you way through it, take off whatever bolts you can see of that you need to get to something else. I didnt right down the order in which I took parts off. If you cant work it out, maybe its best that you dont proceed without professional help

heres a link with some more detailed instructions:

http://mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=82952


TRIAL FIT OF THE NEW TURBO

The manifold I purchased had the T4 flange sitting square to the engine. I wanted to angle it for 2 reasons. 1 is that the intake pipe would hit the top radiator pipe, and the 2nd is I think it looks a bit better on a slight angle. So we removed the flange and tacked it on a new angle.

With the manifold bolted in place we were able to put the turbo on and make sure there wasnt any major clearance issues.





INTAKE AND INTERCOOLER PIPING

These two pipes are most visable so they had to be perfect. For this part of the project I decided to take it to a professional. Brad and Ben at Stainless Customs were given this task.



After looking at countless photos of single conversions I decided that I wanted the outlet of the turbo to go through a 90 bend before connecting up to the FMIC piping through the fender. Alot of guys run the outlet straight down and towards the radiator keeping it out of view. I didnt have the room for this as I was still using the standard fan shroud. I also wanted the bend to be visible as part of the asthetics.



To fill the corner of the engine bay nicely I went with a Blitz 6" pod. Instead of using a flat plate on the back of the pod with a 4" inlet I used a 4"-6" cone connected to a 4" mandrel bend. the intake pipe looks nuts. The only down side is that it makes the turbo look smaller when its on haha.

The BOV is a custom 50mm plumb back design. I wanted it kept out of site as much as possible but not to the extent that I would have to run the return pipe all over the place. They were able to fit it under the intake pipe so that its barely visable when all the pipe work is fitted. You can just see the silicone connecting to the BOV straight after the 90 degree bend out of the turbo. Being a plumb back the BOV is legal but keeping out of site is one less thing for the cops to pick on and it keeps the pipework looking neat.




GETTING RID OF ALL THE LOOSE ENDS

There are quite a few left over lines (water and oil) as well as wiring you no longer need. Its a little daunting at first but once you get down to it, its fairly straight forward. just pay particular attention to what you pull off when removing the stock twins. label things with tape if you need to. I decided to run the water feed and return for the new turbo from new locations. Most people connect them up to the standard water lines where possible. I ran braided lines so it was easier just to weld on new fittings. The outlet next to the alternator was capped and a new fitting welded onto the thermostat housing.



The two outlets on the top radiator pipe were removed and we had a new fitting welded on to the bottom of this pipe so that it didnt get in the way if the intake pipe. As I mentioned earlier, we also angled the flange on the manifold to angle the intake away from this pipe.

[RSOL]

Subscribed....will be watching this thread closely

[fetish]

Theres also alot of wiring that can be removed and tidied up at this stage. all the wiring for the sequential system can be removed. the best way to do this is to unbolt all of the solenoids off your old piping and find where they plug into. then strip all the tape off the wiring harness and cut the sequential wiring out. then retape the remaining wiring. I also rewired the 02 sensor, the alternator, and my defi water temp sensor so that the wiring ran over the head along with the coil pack wiring instead of infront of the turbo.



I also reran the heater hoses that normally run over the back of the head. Simply remove the hoses and work out what angles you need to replace them with. head down to supacheap and have a look through the heater hoses the have until you find something that matches. they should have a fairly big range. it doesnt matter what car its off, as long as the bends and the diametre are correct. simply cut off what you dont need and fit them in place. also take this opportunity to replace all the clamps.





these two vacuum lines were also blocked off



I used coloured tape to mark the wiring i wanted to take out. anything with red tape had to go. anything with green tape had to stay. its easy to get confused and forget which wires are which. the last thing you want to do is cut the wrong wires.



The IAC used to feed from the standard turbo setup however with all that gone now, the easiest solution was to put a seperate filter onto it.




When the project nears completion its easy to forget to reconnect plugs, vac lines and other bits so I also used coloured electrical tape to mark items that still needed my attention. Think of them like 'remove before flight' tags.




OIL AND WATER LINES


After looking at heaps of engine bay photos I decided to go with a black and silver theme. This does make parts alot harder to get. I printed photos of a similar engine bay and took it into my local speed flow retailer. After a few phone calls they managed to find out where we could purchase black and silver fittings. the brand is Russel, its a US brand so you need imperial spanners to fit them. The installation is similar to speedflow and quite easy to do yourself. the hardest part is not scratching them you can purchase an aluminium spanner or you can tape them up. With the turbo bolted onto the manifold we were able to use a piece of braided line I already had to bend into place for each of the lines and work out what fittings I needed. we ended up going with 3 straight fittings. 1 for each line where they connected onto the engine. 1 45 degree fitting for one water line, and 2 90 degree fittings one for the oil feed and one for the other water line.



click here for the install thread on my Oil Cooler as it explaines how to cut and fit braided lines.

I went with braid for the durability and also the bling factor. I dont see the point in spending heaps of money if it doesnt look good aswell as perform. I wanted to run the same size braid for all of the lines on the turbo. This presents a problem due to the small thread size of the oil feed on the top of the turbo (it usually only supports -4). I had a custom fitting made by cutting and joining two different fittings. The result was a -6 male on one end and the other end to suit the turbo. Fittings for the water lines were available off the shelf so there was no problem there. No I could run -6 for the oil feed and both the water lines.

To match up the fittings I needed for the block I took the banjo bolts in from the old turbo setup and matched up the appropriate adaptors. There are two oil feeds on the block. one of them will need to be capped off. Here you can see the rear feed with a cap on it, and the front feed with the new line.



I ran the lines in such a way that they would not interfere with the pipework, not restrict flow, stay away from the manifold where possible and also look interesting. This is the final product.



Next was the oil drain. This needed to be larger in diameter and due to it being out of sight and not under pressure I used rubber line. I ordered a flange to suit the turbo but it never turned up so made a new flange to suit the turbo and one to suit the block out of stainless steel. the flanges were made by a laser cutter locally and we welded some pieces of stainless pipe onto each one. getting the angle right was a bit tricky. we had to make sure it didnt obstruct the other lines or piping. Luckily we managed to pull it off.



This shows the drain bolted to the engine. it had to clear the power steering aswell as the stud that it was bolted to.



Here you can see the drain off the turbo. it had to be angled away from the engine slightly and also slightly towards the front. You can also see the adaptor for the oil feed on top of the turbo.





DUMP PIPE


My existing exhaust consisted of a 3" Prof Cat Back System, and a Tune Agent Stainless Steel 3" Dump and Front Pipe. The Dump Pipe off the twins was of no use so that was sold to make way for the new custom dump pipe. The majority of the dump pipe is out of site so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to have a crack at making one myself, and save a bit of money in the process. I picked up a cut off saw from bunnings on special for about $130 along with most of the bends I needed from my local exhaust shop.



MILD vs STAINLESS

Stainless looks better, lasts longer and is usually more epensive. I decided to go with mild because I didnt need the looks of stainless as it was going to get heat coated aswell. Most of the fittings I needed to put into the exhaust were mild, many werent available in stainless either.

The dump pipe consists of 1 90 degree bend, 1 45 degree bend and a few small short straight pieces. We had to put a small bend straight after the turbo due to the change in angle of the flange.






The 45 degree bend on the bottom of the 90 degree bend lined up perfectly with the angle of the front pipe. this was more good luck than good judgement. I was impressed that I managed to buy all the bends that I needed without having to make a 2nd trip to the exhaust shop.



Unfortunately we only had access to a stick welder. The welds werent the neatest but they were easily tidied up with the grinder.



With everything Jet Hot Coated, it looked just like a bought one




SENSORS

as you can see in the picture above there is provisions for the two factory sensors along with two additional sensors fittings. This involves a bit of forward planning as you dont want to be drilling into and welding fittings onto the dump pipe after its been coated. The two fittings added were for the Defi Exhaust Temp, and for the Innovate Wideband O2 Sensor.

I picked up the weld in fitting and plug for the Defi Temperature Probe from pirtek for under $10. The bung and plug for the innovate O2 sensor can be purchased for around $10-20 http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/x...cat=251&page=1
The advantage of fitting an bung and plug for an innovate O2 sensor means that you can add a wideband gauge later or your tuner can screw their sensor straight into the dump which is more accurate than placing it in the exhaust



WASTEGATE PIPE

The Wastegate I chose was HKS GTII 50mm. Due to some miscommunication between the person I purchased it off at first I believed it was a 60mm gate. Therefore I had the manifold modified by XSpeed with a 60mm wastegate pipe. This presented a problem when the gate arrived and it was actually a 50mm. rather than just weld the fitting onto the manifold I had it modified on a lathe so that it reduced from 60mm down to 50mm with minimal restrictions.




FOR THE RECORD V BAND CLAMPS ARE AWESOME! It is so much easier when making the exhaust and wastegate pipes because you can take your pipe on to the flange and bolt it up tight enought to allow movement and then just rotate it where you need to go. it allows for fine tuning of your design unlike with 2/4 bolt flanges.



We actually built two interchangeable setups. By using sections joined together with 2 bolt flanges we can replace the front pipe and last section of the wastegate pipe. The first setup has the metal cat fitted and the wastegate pime is plumbed back into the exhaust before the cat. the second setup is a front pipe without a cat and the wastegate pipe vented externally (Track use only ).

I WILL TAKE A PHOTO OF SETUP NEXT TIME IM UNDER THE CAR

The tricky part was getting the wastegate pipe and exhaust to line up, and also to cut the little angled wedge that we needed. A simple cardboard jig held the pipe in the right position while we adjusted the wedge on the grinder to get it to fit nice and snug.



All the bends were tacked in place. Before being welded by another friend (thanks ben) with a much neater welds than ours haha.

[fetish]

Subscribed....will be watching this thread closely

you had to reply inbetween my posts didnt you :P

gotta finish cleaning the car, so i'll put some more up later

[VB MAN]

in for pics

[The Scarecrow]

hurry up and post up the rest of this thread as this is more of a tease then watching a stripper knowing that you will most likely get nowhere.

[marcus]

hey man cool cant wait to see your pics! mines nearly done too!

[Jimbo49]

I know your engine bay will be perfection just like the rest of your car

[Wogrocket]

Hey rich did the heat shield fit
also cant wait to see the eng bay

Mick