YASVT (Yet Another Sixteen Valve Turbo) - now 16V Whiteblock (LS)

JohnMc said:

Sometimes I wish I'd just gone with a supercharger. All the boost built into the valley, out of the way, just two skinny pipes to fit out on either side, the whole front end opened up for accessories. Ah well, turbos are more fun.

Click to expand...

its going to be great when mine goes from the shelf to the engine.

Modest progress, everything else in the world has been keeping me busy. The sort of progress that looks like you really haven't done anything.

But the engine harness is on. The headers and crossover pipe are wrapped and bolted on 'for real', not just hanging there by a single nut. Wastegates are on, but not plumbed to boost yet. Put a throttle cable on it, verified that it opens the throttle 100% of the way. Was there something else? Maybe... Mostly waiting on a radiator to arrive now. Due to brain fade, I got one with the low pipe on the passenger side, high pipe on the drivers. And down low on the passenger side... is a turbo. That was NOT going to work, not even a little. So I had to return that and exchange it for the mirror-image version, that's still in the mail.

And the 'fix it and flip it Highlander' thing we bought from the neighbor? After finding the 30 PSI compression test, I poured a little oil down the hole and tried it again, absolutely no change. Hmmm.... that's promising. A shop had diagnosed it with a 'scored cylinder/bad piston - needs a $6K engine swap', but an unchanged wet compression test didn't support that theory. I tried a shadetree leakdown test - attaching a compressor hose (hooked to one of the 4Runers on-board-air compressors, lol) to the compression gauge hose. And then rather casually turning the motor around until it wasn't hissing out an open intake or exhaust valve. This wasn't very helpful, I heard hissing most of the time, but it was very hard to tell where it was going. But: I was NOT coming out of the PCV hose (or oil filler cap).

One last shadetree test to verify the growing consensus: I replaced the plugs on the front head and started it up with the oil cap off. No real noticeable draft from the oil filler cap. Revved it - same. Had my wife come out, put it in drive, and step on the gas some - not even then. Whatever's wrong - it isn't the cylinder/piston.

So I whipped the front head off, which really isn't all that hard. The rear head? 69.5% more of a PITA, I'm sure. But the front one is cake. And... little chunk missing off one of the exhaust valves on #2.

So yeah... the $500 'needs an engine' Highlander is starting to look a bit more profitable, with a lot less labor involved. Sweeet.

Even sweeeeter? A 2004 Highlander VVTI V6 literally showed up at Pick-n-Pull like a day later. PnP is great because they, unlike all the other local junkyards, has web-available car inventory. So we went by and snagged a good (enough) head for $65. It was even a sale weekend. Lol.

Not a whole lot of progress to speak of.

Starter: I found out my cheap Camaro starter wasn't going to fit. Too long. It might have been possible to remove the engine mount on that side, fit the starter, then put the mount back on, but not enough room for it to fit in at an angle, then into place. So I googled around, found out truck starters are shorter by an inch or two, got a cheap one, that bolted in just fine.

Put the goldbox wiring harness on. I just need to add a couple more wires to the loom - alt warning light, engine temp gauge, oil pressure light and gauge. I to a radiator hose fitting and drilled and tapped it for the Volvo temp gauge sensor, and got an adapter for the VDO oil pressure and light sender I had been using on the `16V - it fits in the place where the LS oil pressure sensor sat.

And I got the radiator hoses and intercooler hoses/piping done. It's pretty snug around the front of the motor - between it and the slightly thicker than normal radiator (Nothern 209622) - I got the 'Ford/Mopar' style so the high and low radiator inlets would be on the correct side - I have a turbo down low on the passenger side where the 'Chevy' style has the low outlet.

Some pics:


Cold side intercooler piping. Not a huge amount of room because I scooted the motor forward an inch or so. I still have to put a remote PS reservoir somewhere.


Hot side - wrapping the 3" piping down under the headlight, then up to the intercooler. It's the same bar and plate intercooler I was using with the 16VT.

Still need to:
- finish the downpipe - I got a 3" oval 90-degree bend to make fitting it between the starter and frame a bit easier.
- heater hoses - I plan on running the 'hot' hose through a pressure reservoir and using a non-vented cap on the radiator. Also, LS motors apparently need coolant flow through the heater circuit all the time, even if the heat is off, I looked around and found an automatic bypass valve ( https://www.amazon.com/Four-Seasons-74882-Pressure-Bypass/dp/B004AF34DQ ). If the heater valve is open, a spring pushes the valve to make coolant flow through it. If that shuts off, it senses the pressure and the spring allows the coolant to push the valve open and it loops directly back. You can just add it anywhere along the heater lines - wherever it's out of the way and both lines are close to each other.
- Fuel lines - still haven't pulled the tank. I'm considering just hooking it up to the DW300 for a little bit - just to get the thing running and mobile, shake a few bugs out, then pull the tank and put the dual pump setup in it.

That auto bypass valve makes me nervous. Couldn’t you find a four port heater valve?

It's a stock part on some cheap ass GM cars. Sort of like the motor.

It's been miserable weather here. Hot and humid. And when it cools down some, mosquitoes from all the rain we've been having since forever. Abd bike riding season is in full swing, so all in all, the wagon doesn't get worked on much.

I temporarily half-assed the fuel system - just to get it started up and driving around for the short term, before I pull the tank out and stick in the 'big' dual pump system and larger lines to and from the engine. I just got some adapters for the current smaller system and made all the lines to the fuel rail and from it to the bigger FPR, then back down to the small original return line. It has a DW300 pump in it currently, should be OK for reasonable use.

And I spent yesterday sweating out about 5 lbs of sweat and welding up the first 2/3rds of the downpipe. I thought at first that I wouldn't need to mess with the downpipe that came with the Fox body kit too much - but with everything in place that space I thought I had evaporated. So I'm welding up an ovalized 90'degree bend to get down between the starter and front subframe. I got the top part - from the turbo, around the strut tower, down along to the engine, to a V-band clamp, and the ovalized adapter on the other side of the clamp. Now I just need to chop off the upward part of the ovalized 90 degee bend and weld it to the adapter, and then get the back part of it to hook up to the rest of the existing 3" exhaust system.

Slow progress taking place when I'm not out riding my bike. Which is, frankly, more fun.

Finished up the engine harness work on the engine bay side - added all the needed wires, reloomed it all, stuffed all the wires into the passenger footwell to work on later.

And finished up the downpipe. Down through the narrow area between the starter and front suspension, around and back to the existing 3" free flowing 2 muffler S.A.M. exhaust system I was using with the 16V motor.

Still need to work out the remote PS reservoir, a coolant expansion tank plumbed into the heater circuit (no room on the driver's side, it needs to be over on the passenger side somewhere). And the turbo oil drainage, I have a surge tank and a pump, planning on dumping it up into one of the valve covers.

Got the PS reservoir done, and the heater/expansion tank/etc stuff done.

Tried pressurizing the fuel system last night. As expected, a few drips here and there on the fuel rails, snugged the fittings tighter, no more drips. Then i tried running the fuel pump again, PSI went up to ~40 psi. Then trickled down to 0 again in about 10 - 15 seconds. WTF? Looked for leaks around the engine bay, nothing. Bone dry. Did this again, and heard dripping from the rear of the car. For some reason, pressurized fuel is leaking from on top of the tank. Stainless AN lines going to a bulkhead fitting on the fuel sender, with a DW300 inside (the old setup that was feeding the 16VT motor). The back end of the car is stuffed in the garage, can't really get into it to pull the cargo floor out and take off the little hatch to see what happened there. But that's strange, I certainly haven't touched the fuel system since I parked it and took the 16V motor out.

Ah well, it's getting close, I guess I'll just pull it out of the garage and park it in the driveway for the last bit of work. Still need to do the turbo oil drain setup. And run a couple of more wires in the engine bay (battery cables, wire to the alternator, etc). And somehow I forgot to wire up the reverse lights, ordered a pigtail for the trans switch. And then some wiring work in the passenger footwell, removing the 16V's MS3X and hooking the Gold Box up.

Then fill it with fluids and fire it up.

Something must have blocked the fuel tank vent

Now that I think of it, I didn't see how high the pressure went, I jsut turned the key on a few times to get the pump to prime, and it was ~40 psi when I walked a couple of feet forward and looked at the pressure gauge (mechanical one on the FPR). I wonder if the FPR is just set *way* too high, pressure spiked, and something popped back by the tank?

I did take the top off the FPR to reclock the manifold reference line, maybe I screwed up something when I put it back on?

It's getting there. Fluids going in. Just a few last things to clear up - mostly doing the wiring in the passenger footwell. Got the clutch bled, it's certainly firmer than the Saab 9000 clutch on the 16VT was, but nothing too hefty. Coolant in, trans oiled up, 5 quarts of oil in. I just need to finish up the scavenge pump piping - going to an oil cap with an AN fitting on it.

Finished up the wiring in the passenger footwell. Fluids in, 2-year-old E85 in the tank. I had just finished up the last wire (which was the starter wire) and decided to reach over and see if it would crank. Certainly wasn't planning on starting it. But it cranked and immediately started up. w00t! I haven't even hooked a tuning laptop up to it, it's running the gold box default tune. I shut it off quickly. Finished up a couple of more things, then fired it up again. Holy hell, it doesn't sound like the 16V did, not at all. It sounds mean.

Then I noticed a huge oil slick coming out from under the car. Turns out I'd finger tightened the PS pressure line. Lol, oops. Brand new PS fluid sprayed all over the place.

Haven't taken it for a drive yet, it started raining again. And the battery was acting dead.

And today? Nothing but hassle and grief with the starter. I got some cheap crapola eBay starter. It's a short truck version, because of the way I have the engine mounts a regular length one won't fit.

Yesterday I just assumed my cute little tiny Braille battery was weak, tired, run down. I started it 3 or 4 times, it was a bit slow to crank. This morning - even slower. So I used jumpers. The jumpers got hot, the starter got hot, and it would barely crank past one compression before it stalled out. After making sure that the engine would, in fact, turn around with anormal amount of effort using a ratchet on the crank pulley. I took the starter out, very hot, tested it, it spins. Put it back in, clunk, groan, not quite enough oomph to turn the motor over, but using LOTS of current.

So I bought an actual AC Delco brand name starter, going to pick that up and hope that it works better than the $55 ebay special.

Annnnnd yeah, don't buy eBay starters. Wasted a whole day messing with a bad starter, thinking it was something else. Put a non-crap starter in and it cranks normally, fires right up when the starter isn't pulling so much current that the voltage drops to 3 or 4 volts.

I still have a half tank of 2 year old E85 - the car so far seems to be pretty happy with it. Let it warm up and fogged the mosquitoes with heater wrap smoke. Fixed a couple of small leaks from loose fittings here and there, nothing too exciting. Nothing like it dumping a quart of oil out in a few seconds like the first time. The fans kicked on, hoovered around 190 degrees just sitting there.

Still haven't taken it for a drive around the block yet, though. But at least it actually starts up like it's supposed to, instead of straining and overheating wires, battery, starter just trying to turn the motor over.

You?re going to find that swapping to an Ls is going to loose a ton of headaches you were having with the 16v redblock. These engines are just easy to work on and solve issues. Tons of aftermarket options. I?ve had mine for 4 year and no issues. Just get in and go with working ac. I love it.

Took it on a short drive, and (ahem) promptly blew off both the lower coolant hose (crappy stripped hose clamp) and the power steering line, in short order. Yeah... I guess I didn't quite look at the PSI specs on that black hose I used all over the place. Good for every thing (oil/fuel/coolant) except that much pressure.

Anyhow, fixed all that, drove it about 10 miles, it's a rough tune so far, not getting into any boost. But it feels pretty fun. Not the entertaining off boost-ON BoOST feel that the 16V turbo had, but maybe it's pretty close in HP already with no boost.

JohnMc said:

Took it on a short drive, and (ahem) promptly blew off both the lower coolant hose (crappy stripped hose clamp) and the power steering line, in short order. Yeah... I guess I didn't quite look at the PSI specs on that black hose I used all over the place. Good for every thing (oil/fuel/coolant) except that much pressure.

Anyhow, fixed all that, drove it about 10 miles, it's a rough tune so far, not getting into any boost. But it feels pretty fun. Not the entertaining off boost-ON BoOST feel that the 16V turbo had, but maybe it's pretty close in HP already with no boost.

Click to expand...

At least the engine won't break as many times as the 16vt did

That is the hope. More HP, less rebuilding.