Part 2: My money flowed like wine (11/18/00):
A note to anyone who's been following my progress vicariously, and may be planning similar modifications for their own truck: assembling parts and getting work performed takes TIME! I'm now about a month into the project, and other than spending a lot of money, there hasn't been all that much progress.
The old long block was shipped down to D.O.A. Racing Engines, where it was disassembled. Tim found that I had managed to glaze the stock rings, something that I think happened when I was "experimenting" with the Link AFM setup last year -- too much fuel in the cylinder, which (when ignited) burned off the oil that was lubricating the rings, and the rings quickly polished their faces on the cylinder walls. So I've been admonished to "make sure (you) get it right this time." Heh -- I'll try. Otherwise, the block looked pretty good -- a bit of wear on the rod bearings, but virtually no wear on the mains. And no broken rings, which was something I was worried about. So after disassembly, the stock block checked out OK, and was sent off for machining.
The stock head was found to have some very small cracks between the cylinders -- not enough to prevent it from passing a pressure test, but enough to make it unsuitable for high horsepower use. So we're waiting for Tim to get some more turbo head cores in, which will hopefully be any day now.
All of the other engine parts (new pistons, rings, rods, etc.) are in, so we should be able to put everything back together within a couple of weeks of Tim getting a suitable head.
Since I'm already dropping a boatload of money into the engine, I figure I might as well address some other things that have been bothering me with the truck, and try to make a clean sweep of things. Soooooo...the truck is now getting the following additional parts:
• ACT street/strip clutch (heavy duty PP, OEM-style disk, for easier street shifting). This setup is supposed to be good to 290 ft. lbs. of torque, so if I manage to overpower it I'll know that everything else I did was successful ;-)
• PAECO aluminum flywheel. The stock 22RTE flywheel is 25 lbs., and, like the R151F's very low first gear, this was another one of Toyota's ways of getting these trucks motivated from a dead stop (hey, with a stock CR of less than 7.5:1 and a laggy turbo, they had to do something...) With the power that the engine will be making, I shouldn't have any problems getting this truck to move, and since the turbo engine will breathe best in the 3k - 4.5k range, I'd like to see it spin up there as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, no one that I'm aware of still makes an aluminum flywheel for the 22RTE, which uses a 236mm clutch/pressure plate (the other 22R-series engines use a 224mm clutch/PP). That led me to PAECO, which will make an aluminum flywheel from any stock flywheel you send them. Not cheap, unfortunately. Anyone else who wants to go down this path may be better off switching to a 22R/RE flywheel, for which there are several aluminum offerings, and a 22R/RE clutch and PP, which are not only cheaper but more widely available, with more "severe duty" options. Of course, there are some non-organic setups available, but I think for street use I want something I can slip a little.
• One other interesting note: The 22RTE/R151F uses the same clutch disk and pressure plate as the 5M-GE and 7M-GE Supras (but not the same as the 7M-GTE). I don't know if the flywheels are the same...but I couldn't find a cheap flywheel for those engines, either, so it was moot.
• Wrangler Power NW 110 amp alternator. Wrangler Power takes the stock ND alternator and completely rewires it, so this is a direct bolt on affair. They are not the only ones who do this -- EGR Products is another shop that is will rewind your stock alternator for output up to 100 amps, and will do it for about $100 cheaper than Wrangler -- but EGR never returned my email, and Wrangler has a very good reputation, so they got my business.
BTW, many people recommend having a local shop do this work. I tried that, and you'd think that in Silicon Valley I could find a competent local shop that could rewind a friggin' alternator, but the one local guy I did find who was willing to do the work wasn't able to actually *do* the work. If you can find someone local who'll rewire one of these for you, go for it.
• Just for the sake of completeness, there are other, cheaper ways to get a high power alternator into your rig, but all involve welding one or two new brackets. Since I'm welding-impaired, I opted to shell out some cash instead, but if you can weld, you can swap in either a GM or higher power ND alternator for $100 or less.
• Jacob's Electronics Accuvolt (review here). EFI fuel pumps are essentially electric motors, and their speed (and hence output pressure) is directly controlled by the amount of voltage they receive. Unfortunately, even with a high power alternator, the voltage to a fuel pump can vary a bit, and this sort of variance can play havoc with fuel delivery when the engine is spinning high rpms and really depending on the entire fuel system to supply fuel consistently -- high boost/high rpm engines that run lean at the top end die quick and painful deaths. The Jacobs Accuvolt is a black box that supplies clean, user-adjustable *constant* voltage to whatever you hook up to it, even if the voltage being delivered by the rest of the system is being strained by headlights, A/C, booming bass, etc. It's capable of supplying a constant 16V output even if the input voltage drops to 9.5 volts. It comes in three power ranges: up to 25A, up to 50A, and up to 100A. I was able to find a used 50A unit for about $100, and I intend to use it to run the fuel pump from a steady 14.5V feed.
• Kenne Bell (no web site) makes a product called the Boost-A-Pump that addresses this same problem, but also gives you a dash-mountable knob to control fuel pump voltage (and hence volume). Because I'm going with a completely programmable fuel computer, I elected to go with the Accuvolt rather than the BAP, but the BAP is another way to get more fuel to the injectors and address the weak voltage problem.
BTW, I've been told by Tim @ DOA (and Russ at RC Injectors) that the stock 22RE/RTE pump is capable of supporting up to 400 hp with enough voltage behind it...)
Mike Dixon's heavy duty 22R motor mounts. I've heard of people with big power 22RTE engines literally ripping the stock soft rubber mounts in two, and I like Mike's design better than the higher-priced NWOR offering. Tim prefers to use a torque limiting strap instead of harder mounts (which he says just transfer the stress load to the tranny mount), but these looked like a good solution to me, so I'm going to give them a try.
A 8" Supra limited slip differential (LSD). I made this choice because of my driving style and the torque this engine will be able to produce, not because I think this is a good choice for off-roading; it's not (although it does beat a stock open diff, which is what I've been running). Since I don't do any rockcrawling, and my off-road driving is limited to fire roads and forest service roads, I think this is a better match for a high horsepower street engine. These diffs are capable of standing up to 600 hp Supra engines, and while I won't be making anywhere near that much power, I didn't really want to find out if a TrueTrac would stand up to the sort of abuse I intend to dish out.
A 7.5" Supra LSD for the front. Hey, they're cheap at the local Pick and Pull, and the engine is out anyway, so this seems like an easy upgrade for me. Again, not as good as SoftLocker/ARB/TrueTrac/spool/etc., but better than an open diff.
Marlin Crawler's short throw shifter kit. This is one of those parts that addresses a long-time complaint I have with the stock shifter (it always hits the passenger's left leg...and the throw is a bit too long...), but it's not listed in Marlin's regular catalog. It took a lot of will power to keep from ordering a set of 4.7:1 TC gears at the same time, but given all of the other cash I've been throwing around, I just can't afford 'em right now.
Whew. Well, between those purchases and my earlier engine expenses, that used up my poker bankroll and then some. But as someone once said, if you were meant to hold on to money they would have put handles on it 8-)
I'll post another update in a month or so, by which time I hope to have everything back home in my garage, and a little more cash in my wallet.
