The purpose of this build is to produce a strong pulling truck, it either has a bed full of junk, or a car trailer behind it.
The truck is an '89 with EFI and a M5OD.
Not wanting to learn to program the factory ECU, I opted for a Megasquirt piggyback setup. The plan was to simply plug the MS into the factory wiring harness and clip the factory SPOUT and injector wires, but let the ECU retain control of everything else. More on that later.
The turbo I am using is from a Cummins Diesel. Its a Holset HE300, which should be from a 5+ liter engine. I purchased it on ebay, it still had the Holset green grease and purple turbine markings on it- brand new turbo for $250!
Lets see some build pictures. Some of these are huge. Sorry for the URLs, I typed this whole thing up and then got errors from the BB about 450x600 pixel requirements, rather than change every picture on my web host I just made them URLs.
I started out assembling the Megasquirt. For those familiar with MS, this is processor 1 on board V3 running the extra code.
and the wiring harness - in the past I have purchased wiring harnesses from DIY Auto, but this time I opted to make my own...
Next step made the truck undrivable on stock engine management. This engine uses something like 13lb/hr injectors stock. These are barely enough for the 150hp the engine makes when stock. My upgrade is 30lb/hr injectors off of a 90+ turbo Volvo 4cyl. (The pre-90 injectors are 29lb/hr) The math indicates that these should support a bit over 350hp.
I have seen some people who managed to mount the turbo under the intake manifold, but this one didn't stand a chance of fitting there.
I initially planned to just hack up a stock set of ford manifold to catalytic converter pipes. These would allow me to route the exhaust gasses up to the turbo. After starting the mock-up a friend told me he knew of a guy with a CNC mandrel bender, so we took the mock-up pipes to him and had them bent. I then tacked on the ford flanges so that the J-pipe assembly could bolt to the stock exhaust manifolds.
With the turbo location, fuel, and ECU squared away I went to plumbing the charge pipes. I picked up this intercooler on eBay for under $70 shipped. Its not as good as a name brand part, but it cost about 1/10 as much as a name brand. Its over-sized for the 7-10psi I plan to run on this truck. 18" wide core, 12" tall, 3" thick!
I almost wish I had gone a little wider, but at the time of ordering I was concerned about trimming sheetmetal to route charge pipes around the radiator. As it stands, I added a 3" extension onto the ends of the IC and still had to do some trimming of sheet metal to clear the ridiculous 3" IC outlets.
The truck is an '89 with EFI and a M5OD.
Not wanting to learn to program the factory ECU, I opted for a Megasquirt piggyback setup. The plan was to simply plug the MS into the factory wiring harness and clip the factory SPOUT and injector wires, but let the ECU retain control of everything else. More on that later.
The turbo I am using is from a Cummins Diesel. Its a Holset HE300, which should be from a 5+ liter engine. I purchased it on ebay, it still had the Holset green grease and purple turbine markings on it- brand new turbo for $250!
Lets see some build pictures. Some of these are huge. Sorry for the URLs, I typed this whole thing up and then got errors from the BB about 450x600 pixel requirements, rather than change every picture on my web host I just made them URLs.
I started out assembling the Megasquirt. For those familiar with MS, this is processor 1 on board V3 running the extra code.
and the wiring harness - in the past I have purchased wiring harnesses from DIY Auto, but this time I opted to make my own...
Next step made the truck undrivable on stock engine management. This engine uses something like 13lb/hr injectors stock. These are barely enough for the 150hp the engine makes when stock. My upgrade is 30lb/hr injectors off of a 90+ turbo Volvo 4cyl. (The pre-90 injectors are 29lb/hr) The math indicates that these should support a bit over 350hp.
I have seen some people who managed to mount the turbo under the intake manifold, but this one didn't stand a chance of fitting there.
I initially planned to just hack up a stock set of ford manifold to catalytic converter pipes. These would allow me to route the exhaust gasses up to the turbo. After starting the mock-up a friend told me he knew of a guy with a CNC mandrel bender, so we took the mock-up pipes to him and had them bent. I then tacked on the ford flanges so that the J-pipe assembly could bolt to the stock exhaust manifolds.
With the turbo location, fuel, and ECU squared away I went to plumbing the charge pipes. I picked up this intercooler on eBay for under $70 shipped. Its not as good as a name brand part, but it cost about 1/10 as much as a name brand. Its over-sized for the 7-10psi I plan to run on this truck. 18" wide core, 12" tall, 3" thick!
I almost wish I had gone a little wider, but at the time of ordering I was concerned about trimming sheetmetal to route charge pipes around the radiator. As it stands, I added a 3" extension onto the ends of the IC and still had to do some trimming of sheet metal to clear the ridiculous 3" IC outlets.