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Evil Penguin Wagon

Just fyi this is the correct flywheel for the 4L80e the pilot is fully supported by the spacer.

Note that longer arp bolts 244-2902 are required to compensate for the 10 mm thick spacer.



 
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It rained a lot today making the temp in the garage more comfortable so I made a bit of progress. I am not particularly happy with the way the merge came out, but this is only the 3rd one I have ever made so I guess maybe if I keep trying maybe they will eventually get better? or not. I am not really sure if it is critical anyway.



And I am slowly putting the hot side together. I am not very good or very fast at tig, so it takes me a while to make much progress.



Not very good, but hopefully good enough.



I decided to add a slip joint after the 45 degree bend on the passenger side. I am pretty sure if I don't allow or some thermal growth something is either going to crack or break. 2" Sch 10 is 2.375 OD, so I ordered a foot of 2.5 x 2.375 304 stainless tube from metal supermarket. I am planning on having about 3" of overlap in the slip, but I am undecided about how much clearance is appropriate. I am guessing that .005" total or .0025 radial is enough, but honestly that is just a guess.

Suggestions?
 
I also ended up cutting a big hole in the passenger side of the tunnel to add clearance for the transmission cooler lines.





I may have been able to just beat a dent into the tunnel, but this will allow plenty of room to get a wrench on both fittings without getting totally pissed off.

The result is pretty hideous, but it will be covered by insulation & some carpet so I suppose it is alright.



Side note: Having a 2 post lift & a real transmission jack is the only way to go for this type of project… I can't see myself ever going back to doing this on the floor.
 
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A bit more hotside progress. I honed the ID of the 2.5 304 tubing until it would barely slip over 2" sch 10 pipe and welded it to the 45 degree on the pass side. I am curious about how well it works out.



Brushed a bit it looks a little better, but not great.





Installed

 
Mind if I come by and show ya some welding tricks? I'm in cypress too


** I should add that this is greatly relevant to my interests, as I have a 75 242 undergoing similar treatment.
 
cosbySweater said:
i got the exact same radiator. any pics of it sitting in there?
Click to expand...

I confirmed that it will easily fit with my relocated lower radiator support, but I don't have the mounts done yet. It probably will not fit under the hood if you set it on top of the standard lower radiator support.

Once i have the hotside finished I will probably start on the radiator, shroud, etc. I need to find one of the large electric fans used on the newer volvo's, not sure which one is the best/easiest to retrofit.
 
Some more hot side test fit.


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The Iphone camera seems to distort this photo, the turbo flange really is pretty close to level.


.


and brain fade on one flange bolt.

 
It is pretty hot out this time of year in Houston, but I am still getting a little work done every night after work.

I still need to make a decision on the waste gate(s) for this car. On my old Ford coupe I used twin TIAL 38 mm waste gate valves, even with the fairly small turbo it easily allows boost levels below 5 psi, but on this build I am thinking about just getting a single 50 mm TIAL and putting small merge together to save a bit of money since they are pretty expensive.

Some pics of the nearly finished hot side:



The 4" dia. down pipe will be moderately close to the front of the alternator, but I plan on adding some fiberglass wrap and if needed a heat shield to protect the alternator.



The 4" down pipe for reference:







No hood clearance issues.



The support for the turbo using just the drivers side manifold is surprisingly rigid, I really doubt it will have any issues supporting the weight since the lever arm is fairly short. The passenger side is still providing rotational support, and seems to be a pretty good idea so far. I really don't think this setup will have thermal expansion issues, but I certainly didn't do any modeling or FEA, so only a few thousand miles of street driving will prove the concept?




I am going to have to cut out a bit more of the drivers side inner fender, but I am going to box it back in again after sorting out the air cleaner, so I don't have any real worries about the body sagging, it really doesn't support much anyway?.I suppose front impact is a different story, but that isn't really the main objective here? ;-)
 
The fit up of the air inlet pipe and air cleaner is not going to be as good as I had planned. My initial estimate made it look like a 4" silicone 90 degree bend would barely fit inside the inner fender with a simple 5.25" diameter hole…


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yeah, that isn't happening. a 4" diameter 16 ga. metal tube wouldn't even fit, so the hole started growing.




Now I have a hole big enough for the silicone 90, but the large cone air filter I want to run is still going to be almost impossible to fit inside the fender… I may have to use another 90 and turn it towards the inside of the front bumper. :(



Update:

The hole in the inner fender got even bigger, and a few painfully expensive but made in USA parts should help sort out the air cleaner problem.





I am going to cut about ⅜" more off of the turbo end so the hose doesn't push so hard on the fender and then use the cast 90 to get the air cleaner pointed towards the bumper. I think a 6" x 12" long round K&N will fit, but I am going to make some sort of cardboard mock up before I buy one.

The inner fender is going to have to get put back in at least on this side to protect the air filter…
 
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cosbySweater said:
i got the exact same radiator. any pics of it sitting in there?
Click to expand...

Starting on it now.

A while ago I cut the sides of the core support so that the radiator could move forward. I just overlapped the pieces and used some rivets to hold it together I will be adding some ?" thick soft foam to seal off the sides when it is finished.








Yesterday I went to the LKQ and got four of these from some late 90's Crown Victorias.


With so much of the core support cut off, I decided to mount the radiator a little different than normal, it looks like it is going to work out ok.

I apologize for the poor aluminum welds, I can do better if I go slow, but I was trying to move as fast as possible so the epoxy on tubes wouldn't get damaged. The tanks pretty thin, so I added a reinforcement, out of ⅛" material, then a thin wall ?" OD tube 2" long.


I cut the Crown Vic brackets down a bit, put a notch in the sides so I could bend them a little bit more, and then welded up the notch.

Note: I would not recommend using these, They are painted black by Ford, but they also have a pretty heavy zinc coating under the paint, and welding on zinc coated steel is not good for you.






And I got one of these from LKQ in Houston. Pretty expensive from them, but it came with the twin relay, etc. I wish I had known about these a long time ago, it appears to be a really good air mover, and the mounting design will make it easy to fit onto an aftermarket radiator.
 
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A little progress.
I got a "really good deal" on some 4" 90 degree aluminized elbows on 4" center line radius off of Amazon, but I think they are actually blem's because they are a bit distorted on one end, but for this project I think they will work ok. I was happy to see they are Made in USA.


and ended up with this.

I still need to finish the lower radiator supports, that will pull the radiator about ?" forward on the bottom and provide additional clearance, but even like this I think it will be fine.

The alternator has about ?" clearance, so I will be putting a few layers of fiberglass wrap in that area, the Power steering res is going to have to move, but I pretty much expected that anyway.



At one time on my old ford I had 4" dual exhaust with a blown 496 chevy, in order to quiet it down for street driving I slide a 28" long 2.5" glass pack inside the exhaust pipe and secured it in place with a weld nut and a small hole in the 4" tube, it did an amazing job of controlling the exhaust noise, and only took a couple minutes to remove at the track. I may try the same setup on this, combined with the turbo I think it should end up pretty quite.





I was surprised how much tire clearance this setup ended up with?



Because I pushed the engine back and the radiator forward, I should have plenty of room to fit a decent radiator shroud over about ? of the core on the passenger side, the 4" cross pipe is pretty much below the core and shouldn't really restrict the shape of the shroud.



with the exhaust painted black and the car back on the ground I don't think the exhaust will be too noticeable.

 
And sadly I purchased a part sold by Mr. Gasket that is made in China… I am sure I will (and deserve to) burn in hell for it, but I couldn't find any made in USA 45 degree swivel base LS thermostat housings…

I am sorry. I feel like a failure. I will probably throw it away later… it doesn't help that it is ding-dong cheap chrome… :(

If anyone knows of a Not Made in China company who sells this part please please please let me know….





A friend of mine has a manual brake at his shop that I used to make a metal fan shroud, it isn't going to be as big as I hoped because the down pipe from the turbo is too close, but this fan seems to move a lot of air, and the core is pretty big, so this should still work. Depending on the final clearance available behind the intercooler, I may put a small pusher fan on the front of the A/C condenser.







Even with the corvette accessory drive and pushing the radiator forward more than 1", it still doesn't leave very much room for the down pipe off the turbo.





 
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Volvo Fan test

I got the old A/C condenser installed in front of the new radiator and wanted to see how well this combination moved air? I am really impressed by the Volvo fan, it is much quieter than any of the cheap flex lite fans I have used before, and my gut feeling is that it is moving lots of air. I plan to borrow the air speed tester from work and get an "installed" cfm number, but I am confident now that this volvo fan is a good choice, especially since I haven't sealed up the 1" open air gap at the bottom & top between the a/c condenser and the radiator core, and it still is pulling a lot of air through the a/c condenser.



low
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uDysJJ0bcVc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


high
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yKBMU8xuL5s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Just read through the thread. Great work man! Can't wait to see it after you finish up the rest of the swap and start driving it. Hopefully your shop is air conditioned. I am coming out to Houston for work next week and I just checked the weather... 95 and raining the whole time. I don't know how you accomplish anything in that kind of weather!
 
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