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Well i would have done this as a work in progress, but i decided the best time to take the car off the road for project work was whilst moving house :alco: so i couldnt upload any pics and access to the net was rather tricky too.
So now im back from RSP with the dyno results, you can tell it turned out ok in the end!
Chapter 1
First job was to acquire another plenum for messing up, got one with the crossover pipe too which was a bonus, from the parts bit on here, they turn up occasionally.
Then it sat in a box for about 9 months till i got my ass of the chair and did something about it:whip: still running the smic i had to sort this too before i could see how the pipe work would need to be altered and where it would all lie. Looking at others that have done this mod some FMIC kits route the pipes differently to others so when the Japspeed GTR cooler
cheers was all in place my plans changed.
Chapter 2 'Intercooled'
money was spent :nono: lol. Very pleased with the Japspeed FMIC! Ordered and there next day topstuff. Got my ass in gear straight off this time!! What can i say i had big shiny stuff and was inspired to get into action :drivin:
From this
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To this!!
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Now with the kit all in place and the air leaks sealed up :doh: and all working i was confident to chop the plenum up!
Chapter 3 'Grinding'
The original plan was to have a small length of 70mm pipe between the plenum and throttle body, as putting the flange straight on would mean losing the oil breather pipe on the plenum. But when the new cooler was in place i could see that doing this would mean making a very tight bend near the rad. It seemed to make more sense to bin the oil breather, put a smooth bend in and put the throttle body flange straight on the plenum.
So Mr A. Grinder met Mrs Plenum and sparks flew immediately!! :boxing: Chopped of the throttle body flange and cleaned up all the edges so a new plate could be welded over the top. Then placed the throttle plate over the front of the plenum to see where it would best line up. Marked it all out and using a 65mm hole cutter drilled a hole in the front of the plenum. DIY is fun!!!
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From looking at other plenum mods i decided to put the throttle body back on upside down, as this would allow the throttle cable to reach without further mods! Another reason for not adding the bit of 70mm pipe.
Chapter 4 'Off to the welders'
I cant weld, but i know a man who can. Tig welding is the prefered way of welding alley cos you have more control over the weld iirc. But the local boys do mig, and were happy to give it a go. This also allows you to build up the weld more where required, messy but it will grind back later. They were very helpfull and considering how busy they were with big contract work were good enough to sort it in a few days! :wave:
Mr A Grinder and i have some work to do
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Chapter 5 'Grrrrrr '
As you can see its not pretty, so armed with sand paper i got to it.....:swear: :boxing: :uzi: :apoke: maybe i need somehting more manly. This bit was very boring, i dont have a dremmel or any other type of usefull tools so had to make do with the sanding job on the grinder, great for the flat bits, but no good in all the fiddley bits, and plenums have lots of them! So after 6hrs with grinder and a half round file, i put the rough polishing mop over it.
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Looks great from over here but if you look closer, more pits than Myrthyr.
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Im wasting my time, some castings will come up like a bottle, this wont. The more a rub back the more pits i uncover, its just air bubbles in the casting and nothing i can do about it. So i'll go for the brushed alley look and laquer it to keep the salty coast air off it. Still it looks pretty good considering i only went to 800 grit and used aerosol spray in the worlds dustiest garage. Heated it up with a paint stripper gun first so the paint would dry quicker. Put 6-7 coats on (i forget now) in 15 mins each one nearly dry before the next. Im quite pleased with my first attempt at spraying, not a blemmish, shame about the pits though....
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Chapter 7 'Fun'
Now with the new plenum ready to go, i could get the old one off:swear: :boxing: , and start chopping up my new intercooler pipework:crazy: The 90' bend that used to join into the original crossover pipe was selected as the candidate. Putting the throttle body in place i could now see where to cut, and get an idea where the dumpvalve would go, im using the stock one cos im a cheap ass lol. The dumpvalve flange was chopped off the stock crossover pipe and shaped to fit the new pipe. So happy with the position of the new bits i looked at the other side.
The stock feed to the intercooler is rather poo, small diam and lots of 90' bends, plus now with the new positions i needed a T for the boost control. Bodger into action! The new cooler replaces one of the stock pipes both having this T. So the oe was shortend and chopped so no 90's were in it, and marked up for rejoining......:swear: dumbass here marked it wrong, and now both ends are too short and dont meet. Its getting dark and the cars parked 150 feet away from my dads garage and grrrrrr. More chopping marking chopping and a 3rd piece is installed to fill the hole, lets hope it works.
Back off to the welders, the markings are explained and i hope it all fits ok cos you cant tell sometimes, when its all solid it might be different to what you first thought.
:bounce:
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Chapter 8 'Start it'
Now that bits all done i can look at the ancillaries. The boost hoses needed moving around, i have no oil breather into the plenum, the throttle cable needs someone(thing) to hold it in the right place, and the funny pipe that was T'd in the the crossover elbow needs somewhere to go. Some were easy.
The boost hoses were all marked before i took anything off, so they were extended simple enough, i have a new one now for the boost control, and the one i lost on the front of the plenum for the fuel pressure reg during welding i used the dumpvalves pressure T at the back of the plenum to feed all of the usual ones, just T'd off. Its all the same iirc. I'll try and get more pics soon, to show all this lot.
The oil breather issue was sorted with one of Apex's breather tank kits, adding a bit of bling to my minging engine bay!! The water feed that used to go through the throttle body was joined with some 8mm pipe, so that was easy, i dont think there's any detriment at the mo not having the throttle body water heated. Cant see the point except in ciberian winter.
To mount the throttle cable i just knocked up a bracket to hold the oe one somewhere near the right place for the linkage to work, and hey presto its does what it says on the tin. It just bolts on with one of the ones for the plenum top half. I'll show this a bit later :sorry: Then the pipe that feeds the AAC valve that used to be in the crossover pipe was put in the oe dumpvalve resirc pipe. Theory's simple, AAC draws air after the AFM at atmos pressure only at idle, the dumpvalve is VTA now so the recirc pipe needs to be blocked, instead i filled it wi the AAC pipe. Job done. BTW i learned this from Andyuk42 :wave:
*I think thats everything* Lets start her up......bwaaahhhh pop pop buh pop :swear: Now what?!?! Long story short, i had a huge air leak, meaning she would run massively rich and would not rev past 2.5k! The problem, i didnt leave any pipes loose this time, it was the dumpvalve! I didnt know this at the time, but the oe dumpvave is designed to recirculate :crazy: so wont stay shut at idle, loosing lots of air to atmos and causing it to run very rich. 2 solutions:- 1/ Buy a new VTA one £££ 2/Bodge it
hmmmmmm
Down to motorworld, one length of 22mm hydralic hose and jubilee clips, and one 22mm T piece. Sorted. Now it recircs and draws air at idle both from the same place and the ecu is happy.
So now im back from RSP with the dyno results, you can tell it turned out ok in the end!
Chapter 1
First job was to acquire another plenum for messing up, got one with the crossover pipe too which was a bonus, from the parts bit on here, they turn up occasionally.
Then it sat in a box for about 9 months till i got my ass of the chair and did something about it:whip: still running the smic i had to sort this too before i could see how the pipe work would need to be altered and where it would all lie. Looking at others that have done this mod some FMIC kits route the pipes differently to others so when the Japspeed GTR cooler
cheers was all in place my plans changed. Chapter 2 'Intercooled'
money was spent :nono: lol. Very pleased with the Japspeed FMIC! Ordered and there next day topstuff. Got my ass in gear straight off this time!! What can i say i had big shiny stuff and was inspired to get into action :drivin:
From this
To this!!
Now with the kit all in place and the air leaks sealed up :doh: and all working i was confident to chop the plenum up!
Chapter 3 'Grinding'
The original plan was to have a small length of 70mm pipe between the plenum and throttle body, as putting the flange
straight on would mean losing the oil breather pipe on the plenum. But when the new cooler was in place i could see that doing this would mean making a very tight bend near the rad. It seemed to make more sense to bin the oil breather, put a smooth bend in and put the throttle body flange straight on the plenum. So Mr A. Grinder met Mrs Plenum and sparks flew immediately!! :boxing: Chopped of the throttle body flange and cleaned up all the edges so a new plate could be welded over the top. Then placed the throttle plate over the front of the plenum to see where it would best line up. Marked it all out and using a 65mm hole cutter drilled a hole in the front of the plenum. DIY is fun!!!
From looking at other plenum mods i decided to put the throttle body back on upside down, as this would allow the throttle cable to reach without further mods! Another reason for not adding the bit of 70mm pipe.
Chapter 4 'Off to the welders'
I cant weld, but i know a man who can. Tig welding is the prefered way of welding alley cos you have more control over the weld iirc. But the local boys do mig, and were happy to give it a go. This also allows you to build up the weld more where required, messy but it will grind back later. They were very helpfull and considering how busy they were with big contract work were good enough to sort it in a few days! :wave:
Mr A Grinder and i have some work to do
Chapter 5 'Grrrrrr
'As you can see its not pretty, so armed with sand paper i got to it.....:swear: :boxing: :uzi: :apoke: maybe i need somehting more manly. This bit was very boring, i dont have a dremmel or any other type of usefull tools so had to make do with the sanding job on the grinder, great for the flat bits, but no good in all the fiddley bits, and plenums have lots of them! So after 6hrs with grinder and a half round file, i put the rough polishing mop over it.
Looks great from over here but if you look closer, more pits than Myrthyr.
Im wasting my time, some castings will come up like a bottle, this wont. The more a rub back the more pits i uncover, its just air bubbles in the casting and nothing i can do about it. So i'll go for the brushed alley look and laquer it to keep the salty coast air off it. Still it looks pretty good considering i only went to 800 grit and used aerosol spray in the worlds dustiest garage. Heated it up with a paint stripper gun first so the paint would dry quicker. Put 6-7 coats on (i forget now) in 15 mins each one nearly dry before the next. Im quite pleased with my first attempt at spraying, not a blemmish, shame about the pits though....
Chapter 7 'Fun'
Now with the new plenum ready to go, i could get the old one off:swear: :boxing: , and start chopping up my new intercooler pipework:crazy: The 90' bend that used to join into the original crossover pipe was selected as the candidate. Putting the throttle body in place i could now see where to cut, and get an idea where the dumpvalve would go, im using the stock one cos im a cheap ass lol. The dumpvalve flange
was chopped off the stock crossover pipe and shaped to fit the new pipe. So happy with the position of the new bits i looked at the other side. The stock feed to the intercooler is rather poo, small diam and lots of 90' bends, plus now with the new positions i needed a T for the boost control. Bodger into action! The new cooler replaces one of the stock pipes both having this T. So the oe was shortend and chopped so no 90's were in it, and marked up for rejoining......:swear: dumbass here marked it wrong, and now both ends are too short and dont meet. Its getting dark and the cars parked 150 feet away from my dads garage and grrrrrr. More chopping marking chopping and a 3rd piece is installed to fill the hole, lets hope it works.
Back off to the welders, the markings are explained and i hope it all fits ok cos you cant tell sometimes, when its all solid it might be different to what you first thought.
:bounce:
Chapter 8 'Start it'
Now that bits all done i can look at the ancillaries. The boost hoses needed moving around, i have no oil breather into the plenum, the throttle cable needs someone(thing) to hold it in the right place, and the funny pipe that was T'd in the the crossover elbow needs somewhere to go. Some were easy.
The boost hoses were all marked before i took anything off, so they were extended simple enough, i have a new one now for the boost control, and the one i lost on the front of the plenum for the fuel pressure reg during welding i used the dumpvalves pressure T at the back of the plenum to feed all of the usual ones, just T'd off. Its all the same iirc. I'll try and get more pics soon, to show all this lot.
The oil breather issue was sorted with one of Apex's breather tank kits, adding a bit of bling to my minging engine bay!! The water feed that used to go through the throttle body was joined with some 8mm pipe, so that was easy, i dont think there's any detriment at the mo not having the throttle body water heated. Cant see the point except in ciberian winter.
To mount the throttle cable i just knocked up a bracket to hold the oe one somewhere near the right place for the linkage to work, and hey presto its does what it says on the tin. It just bolts on with one of the ones for the plenum top half. I'll show this a bit later :sorry: Then the pipe that feeds the AAC valve that used to be in the crossover pipe was put in the oe dumpvalve resirc pipe. Theory's simple, AAC draws air after the AFM at atmos pressure only at idle, the dumpvalve is VTA now so the recirc pipe needs to be blocked, instead i filled it wi the AAC pipe. Job done. BTW i learned this from Andyuk42 :wave:
*I think thats everything* Lets start her up......bwaaahhhh pop pop buh pop :swear: Now what?!?! Long story short, i had a huge air leak, meaning she would run massively rich and would not rev past 2.5k! The problem, i didnt leave any pipes loose this time, it was the dumpvalve! I didnt know this at the time, but the oe dumpvave is designed to recirculate :crazy: so wont stay shut at idle, loosing lots of air to atmos and causing it to run very rich. 2 solutions:- 1/ Buy a new VTA one £££ 2/Bodge it
hmmmmmm
Down to motorworld, one length of 22mm hydralic hose and jubilee clips, and one 22mm T piece. Sorted. Now it recircs and draws air at idle both from the same place and the ecu is happy.
