Safari Turbo/Megasquirt Fuel Injection Project

[Clonebug]

Mileage, 104,234 miles

I've been putting some miles on between the rain and the engine is running better and better. I did some changes on the Boost controller and found that if I switched the hoses to the way I used to have them......and switched the polarity from normal to inverted... I got boost much like it used to be and max boost comes on by 3800 rpm. I can now get 21.5 lbs. boost at 3600 rpm and boost starts at 2400-2500 rpm.
One issue it created was I would get pinging at max boost around 4000 rpm since it hit 23.7 lbs. I thought I had to lower the timing but looking at a log I noticed that I was seeing IAT's at 100.7 degrees and it's never that high. I then checked my W/I and found I had the two nozzle hoses backwards. I fixed that and tried again but still had a little tinkle of detonation at max boost.
I then checked it last night and found that when I swapped the hoses it put the feed to the Hobbes switches on the output side of the EBC. That is why the hoses were backwards in the first place.
I plugged the original tee and installed a new tee on the other side and gave it a try today.
It seems to work correctly now since my W/I works correctly and my boost is working great.....
I even felt confident enough to run it out to 5500 rpm and it pulls hard the whole way. I didn't have to balls to slam through all the gears but third and fourth really fell good......good enough I would go straight to jail if caught.......

I'll continue to drive it when weather permits and hopefully can get a 1000 miles on it before our trip.......I'm looking forward to the time off and getting to see the country.
Tested the luggage rack and put the boxes back on. I will start stacking crap in it so we can take some of the comforts of home along with us.

[buguy]

Very nice! If i remember right i had to reverse the polarity on mine too. But good lord! 100 degrees is high for you?! That's about what mine are ambient!
Are you at any sort of altitude? I'm curious because after i get mine running I'm thinking about running regular fuel for a while.

[buguy]

I never have! Art should drive it to Florida and take me for a ride! I can powder coat that roll cage while he's here!

HaHa......

I googled the route and it is 3200 miles one way........ It would be a fun drive but I don't think I would be able to talk the wife into it.
She was just talking about flying to Destin.....spend a couple days there then rent a car and drive to Key West seeing the sights along the way....maybe check out the west side of Florida as we go.

That's not a bad plan. Destin is super nice, as is the Keys of course. Only a 2 hour ferry ride from south Florida to the Bahamas too.

[Schweg]

Ship the buggy! Then drive it down the coast!

Destin is very nice!

[Clonebug]

Very nice! If i remember right i had to reverse the polarity on mine too. But good lord! 100 degrees is high for you?! That's about what mine are ambient!
Are you at any sort of altitude? I'm curious because after i get mine running I'm thinking about running regular fuel for a while.

We are at 110 ASL.

That's probably higher than the highest ground in Florida if I remember correctly......

That IAT is higher than my usual temps of 90 or less in the spring and fall.

[Wally]

I would think the stock STI turbo would work great for a 2.0-2.2L VW.

I beg to differ

This is a dyno sheet of my old 1200cc Challenge engine with a stock TD04L-13T (stock 2.0 WRX/STI impreza turbo). The 'L' behind the TD04 designation is what makes all the difference: thats the smaller turbine wheel, I think also indicated as the 6cm² turbine area housing. TD04 is bigger, TD04HL is also bigger.
As you can see, this TD04L-13T spools (purple line in MAP, so 100 is ambient (right side on the graph)) as of about 3000RPM on a 1200cc engine!

I would say, its therefore 'perfect on 1200-1600 engines and too small for anything bigger unless you want more risk with ping and broken gearboxes



Its my feeling/opinion that people use way to small turbo's usually. Reason might be they look too much at factory applications..(?)

[buguy]

I assume when he's talking STI's, typically they have the VF series of turbos.
For me personally i was running mostly stock 1600 and i wanted quick spool. The 13t was perfect for that.

[Wally]

Yeah, some VF series have indeed bigger turbine sides and they would be better for larger engines.

BTW in the above graph, the 13T (remember the "13T" turbo has a TD04L exhaust housing, not a generic TD04 : its a big difference) spools to 18 psi at 4500 RPM and 20psi at 4700 RPM.
Its an amazing quick spooling turbo, but does have - as always the downside is - some accompanying back-pressure.

[buguy]

For sure. I'd have to look again, but i was making just over 30 psi at somewhere around 5000 rpm. On E85 with an almost stock 1600 that is.

[Bruce.m]

I’m no turbo expert but I do have my own long standing plan for my version of the turbo-mouse.

When I looked over the 13T map, it appeared to move outside its efficient zone, once the pressure gain got much above 15psi. Maybe I was miss reading the map but that would result in excess heat being generated.

Edit:

Nah, I’m talking nonsense. I’ve had another look at the turbo map. The 70% efficiency zone is fairly big and extends up to nearly 2bar of boost.

[buguy]

I think I've read most don't run over 18-20 psi through it. Subaru anyway. But it's a compromise. If you find one that maps out higher, it will be later spool. From what I've seen you can't have your cake and eat it too. That's when compounds and nitrous come into play.
If you can find a way to keep IAT down, one turbo can do a lot. Clone uses water and an air to air intercooler, i use E85 and a water to air intercooler.

[Clonebug]

Yeah, some VF series have indeed bigger turbine sides and they would be better for larger engines.

BTW in the above graph, the 13T (remember the "13T" turbo has a TD04L exhaust housing, not a generic TD04 : its a big difference) spools to 18 psi at 4500 RPM and 20psi at 4700 RPM.
Its an amazing quick spooling turbo, but does have - as always the downside is - some accompanying back-pressure.

Just for comparison... I get 21.5 lbs. at 3600 rpm and 23.7 lbs. at 3850 rpm.

The 19T modded one got me 20.5 lbs boost at 4000 rpm and I consider that a laggy turbo. But.... I have a rev limit of around 5000-5500 rpm.
The 19T compressor is only 2mm (58mm vs 56mm) larger on the exducer and 3mm (46mm vs 43mm) larger on the inducer.

I also tested the backpressure of the 13T and on my engine I got about 30 lbs. on the exhaust at 26.5 lbs boost. for a 1.13:1 ratio.
I'm pretty happy with that and don't consider it an issue for my street setup.

Mario mapped out my turbo on a graph and even at max boost it was still in the efficiency range.......It was on the edge but still in there.
It's a great turbo.......for up to 270 hp.

[Wally]

I agree: great (back pressure) values! Better then I even expected .
On a 1200cc engine, I also considered that extremely good spool, but I was just mentioning it for comparison
Carry on guys

[Clonebug]

Mileage, 104,389

OK......I now have 524 miles on the buggy for the season and I have to admit...I caved.
I pulled the straight pipe and put the cherry bomb muffler back on. I guess I am officially old.......
While in a way it was cool...and I secretly enjoyed heading out early in the morning just knowing I was erking some of the neighbors by cruising out at 2300 rpm and making a racket......it just got to be too much.
I have to admit....it sounded really good but in the end it's just too loud. You can't even converse to someone if you stop to talk to them. It's a little hard to even talk to my wife while driving.
Although....if you want attention...you can easily get it. Most comments from coworkers that say anything is.......that thing sounds really good!!!!

So, I put the red muffler turbo outlet on it and drove it 10 miles. It takes just enough of the bite out of it to make it a lot more enjoyable. I myself would like it even quieter since I don't need the noise but since it won't fit without a major redo...I'll be happy with this.
My wife said the straight pipe wasn't too bad but I'd never be able to take it for a long trip.

Since I have the miles on it I decided to mess with the ignition a bit. I've always had the advance cranked up pretty high right off idle but with these DRD POS heads and the free flowing intake it just didn't seem to like it. I had to hold quite a bit of pedal for cruise which put me pretty high in kpa and it always seemed to labor a bit when in cruise.
So today I saved my tune...then butchered the ignition map. Lowered everything from idle to cruise and all the way to 5500 rpm. Took out the high advance cruise areas and lowered idle timing and especially off idle timing.
So far it seems to be a bit better on pedal and I think my EGT's have dropped in cruise but I've only driven the 10 miles and it was 25-40 mph.
I'll drive and tweak for a week and see if my mileage goes up a bit.

Sorry for no pics but it looks exactly the same as it has the last couple years so I haven't taken many nor bothered to upload any. There is not much exciting going on except I just get in and drive it....mostly to work and back.
It's a little too cool for the wife to want to go with me too much so most driving is local.

The countdown continues and its only a month and a half till our 3 week travel vacation. I'm getting exited and so is the wife if you can believe that.
Crater Lake is a destination along with Mammoth Lakes, Lone Pine, maybe Cerro Gordo Mine, Whitney Portal and a bunch of stuff around Lone Pine.
We hope to spend a couple days there just taking in the sites. The last two times it was HOT when we got there and not being acclimated we left in a hurry. This time we will get a hotel and get up early in the morning to see the sites when it is cooler or catch them at sunset.
One other spot is Father Crowley's overlook at which you can spot fighter jets flying through the canyon blow the lookout. It might be worth seeing if it's not too hot.
A lot of movies were filmed in Lone Pine..... Tremors and Iron Man were a couple more recent ones but many John Wayne movies were done there and there are also some spectacular rock formations in the area.

If any of you are bored I suggest going to youtube and looking up Ghost Town Living....in fact.....here is a link....the guy and his buddy have balls too big to carry......
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEjBDK ... gzT9YLNT8g
Don't blame me if you fall into the Youtube Black Hole........

I would love to venture into Death Valley but July is the peak temperature and I don't want to die out there and become vulture bait.
The above is only the first week.....
We will do the coast on the way back..,...after the Buggy Meet if it goes.....if it don't we will still spend the weekend up there checking out the sights. There are bound to be some buggies up there no matter what. Lots of Club members are saying they are going either way.

[V8Nate]

Very cool! The trip will be here before you know it, have a safe and fun time:)