My truck, a work in progress
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Well, my life got busy, and I sort of became an absentee landlord to my 22RTE site. I'll try to bring things up to date without taking too much time.
Currently, the truck is running great! Here's a roundup of the mods since I last posted:
1. Reworked upper intake manifold. As I previously documented, I am running a 65MM TB from a 1998 Ford Explorer. Unfortunately, the opening in the stock intake plenum cannot be opened up beyond 62MM. So I cut the stock flange off a spare late model intake plenum and fabbed a new nose with a 65MM hole:
Compare the opening in this picture with the restriction visible in the bottom manifold in the following picture.
Big difference!
The finished manifold.
2. OK, with the manifold reworked, it was time to go after the old intercooler, which wasn't exactly what I wanted.
First, a quick review:
Intercooler #1:
Intercooler #2:
And here's intercooler #3:
I picked this intercooler up from Street Imports - it's their 18" X 9" X 2". It was a tight fit, and I had to cut their hose ends off and weld my pipes directly to the outlet tanks, but once fitted, it has proved to be a big improvement over intercooler #2. In addition to the reworked pipes and a more efficient design, it also allows me to use the stock vertical hood latch brace, which I couldn't do with the previous intercooler. If you are in the market for a 22RTE intercooler, I believe one of the ones offered by Street Imports would be a good fit, and you could certainly use one of the smaller ones for an easier install. They are also reasonable priced.
OK, so at more or less at the same time I was reworking these components, I got an out-of-the-blue email from Rick Tapp, owner/operator of Full Boogie Racing. Rick owned a turbo Toyota truck and had read through my site, and suggested that the turbo I was currently using was too small. After talking to him, I decided to try one of the Precision Turbo & Engine/Garrett SC34R T3/T04E turbos (link takes you to to Rick's page for this turbo) that he sells. The specific one we used had a 57 trim compressor wheel, a twin ball bearing center section, and a .63 A/R (Stage III) exhaust wheel. It is nominally rated to support 540 hp. I don't have any separate pics, but it looks like any other large compressor Garrett T3/T4 turbo. Happily, it bolted up to all of my existing pipe work, although I also took this opportunity to fashion a cold air intake, positioning the air cleaner almost near the fender and cutting vent holes in the inner fender (picture below is with the old plenum):
So, armed with a new turbo, new intake, and new intercooler, it was time to retune and re-dyno. Drum roll, please.....
Ta da:
That's 250 rear wheel HP and 279 ft. lbs torque on 91 octane pump gas, or more than double the stock power output :-) Not bad, not bad at all -- the truck really kicks some ass, and is a lot of fun to drive. If you look closely at the above dyno results, you'll see that they are graphed above the previous results, and show a full 35 rwhp/37 ft. lbs torque improvement. That's pretty solid, IMHO.
I'm going to end this long post now, as it's a good summary of the last couple of years. I do have one or two more tricks up my sleeve for this motor, but I'll save those for another post. Thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Jeff
Currently, the truck is running great! Here's a roundup of the mods since I last posted:
1. Reworked upper intake manifold. As I previously documented, I am running a 65MM TB from a 1998 Ford Explorer. Unfortunately, the opening in the stock intake plenum cannot be opened up beyond 62MM. So I cut the stock flange off a spare late model intake plenum and fabbed a new nose with a 65MM hole:
Compare the opening in this picture with the restriction visible in the bottom manifold in the following picture.
Big difference!
The finished manifold.
2. OK, with the manifold reworked, it was time to go after the old intercooler, which wasn't exactly what I wanted.
First, a quick review:
Intercooler #1:
Intercooler #2:
And here's intercooler #3:
I picked this intercooler up from Street Imports - it's their 18" X 9" X 2". It was a tight fit, and I had to cut their hose ends off and weld my pipes directly to the outlet tanks, but once fitted, it has proved to be a big improvement over intercooler #2. In addition to the reworked pipes and a more efficient design, it also allows me to use the stock vertical hood latch brace, which I couldn't do with the previous intercooler. If you are in the market for a 22RTE intercooler, I believe one of the ones offered by Street Imports would be a good fit, and you could certainly use one of the smaller ones for an easier install. They are also reasonable priced.
OK, so at more or less at the same time I was reworking these components, I got an out-of-the-blue email from Rick Tapp, owner/operator of Full Boogie Racing. Rick owned a turbo Toyota truck and had read through my site, and suggested that the turbo I was currently using was too small. After talking to him, I decided to try one of the Precision Turbo & Engine/Garrett SC34R T3/T04E turbos (link takes you to to Rick's page for this turbo) that he sells. The specific one we used had a 57 trim compressor wheel, a twin ball bearing center section, and a .63 A/R (Stage III) exhaust wheel. It is nominally rated to support 540 hp. I don't have any separate pics, but it looks like any other large compressor Garrett T3/T4 turbo. Happily, it bolted up to all of my existing pipe work, although I also took this opportunity to fashion a cold air intake, positioning the air cleaner almost near the fender and cutting vent holes in the inner fender (picture below is with the old plenum):
So, armed with a new turbo, new intake, and new intercooler, it was time to retune and re-dyno. Drum roll, please.....
Ta da:
That's 250 rear wheel HP and 279 ft. lbs torque on 91 octane pump gas, or more than double the stock power output :-) Not bad, not bad at all -- the truck really kicks some ass, and is a lot of fun to drive. If you look closely at the above dyno results, you'll see that they are graphed above the previous results, and show a full 35 rwhp/37 ft. lbs torque improvement. That's pretty solid, IMHO.
I'm going to end this long post now, as it's a good summary of the last couple of years. I do have one or two more tricks up my sleeve for this motor, but I'll save those for another post. Thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Jeff
