Slant 6 Turbo 68Dart Project

-
yea that sounds like a boost leak or something. do you have your boost controller hooked up? try and set it for a couple more psi. or try taking it out all together and just run from the actuator to the snail. what kind of boost controller are you running?
 
RustyPlymouth said:
yea that sounds like a boost leak or something. do you have your boost controller hooked up? try and set it for a couple more psi. or try taking it out all together and just run from the actuator to the snail. what kind of boost controller are you running?
Click to expand...

The boost controller is still screwed in pretty far. I'm assuming the further out its screwed the more air bleeds, and the slower the wastegate opens?

It looks like this:

http://www.made-in-china.com/image/2f0j00qMvtOigYaTpeM/Manual-Boost-Controller-003.jpg
 
the setup determines how it works. there are a couple different configurations for manual boost controllers. its hard to tell by looking at it. some are just a controlled leak. some like the one i have use a check ball to keep all pressure away from the wastgate until it is at the desired pressure. the ones that are just a controlled leak tend to start opening the wategate before it has reached the desired pressure. that makes it seem like it spools slowly because it is bleeding off pressure before it needs to.

did yours come with instructions? i would assume turning it out would make more boost but i could be wrong. you could always blow into it and turn the knob and see what happens. if its easier to blow then that should equate to more boost. you might need to block off the port that goes to the wastegate to see any change.
 
No instructions, just labels that say "to wastegate"

There's only one barb on the wastegate so I'm assuming that's where it goes this time. Looking across the web people have no actual input on how to attach it. I guess it's one of those things that's so simple no one documented it.
 
hmm. usually they come with instructions to let you know the value of a turn. i would block the one that goes to the wategate and blow into the other one and turn the knob and see what happens. a slight leak will not raise the psi but it will let the wastgate close faster when you let off the gas. if you are off and back on the gas quickly it will help it spool sooner. should help with keeping the wastegate closed until it hits the right pressure too=quicker spool. if you dont wanna do all that just hook the snail right to the wastegate and see what happens.
 
Tomorrow morning before I take off to drop the kids at preschool and daycare, I'll remove the bleed valve from the equation and see what happens. Only going to be driving about 2.5 miles total all day.
 
Well, taking the manual controller off yeilded almost nothing. You could hear the turbo spool up on the freeway, but it didn't feel like anything was going on power-wise, and the gauge did not move above 0. I put the controller back on and we're back to 2psi. I believe I am going to start chasing a leak because I can't think of anything else at this point.
 
Well today I went to an exhaust shop to get the downpipe linked up to the old exhaust. Surprisingly, they offered to bend up about half the exhaust in 2 1/4" from the downpipe to the rest of the system. It looks very clean, and much better than I could have made it turn out.

Open pipes are cool and it sounded great, but carbon monoxide and my children definitly don't mix. SO to keep it a daily driver I had to put it back onto a full exhaust. Later on I'll have them put in a better muffler than the straight-through that's on there now, and bigger pipe in the back. But for $100 I think they did some nice work.

IMG_20141014_122936_zpse6c1f426.jpg


They also welded on a slider bracket so I could move it on the transmission hanger, but now that everything is hung up again, and super tight, the turbo shell does not move at all.

The turbo could still be heard till I brought it home, installed the fel-pro gasket rusty mentioned, and re-torqued the nuts on the lower part of the intake. SOmehow they were just not that tight - probably overlooked by me somehow. BUt now you can not even hear the turbo whine. It also is no longer leaking because the high pitch air noise is gone and the engine acting like it has a vacuum leak is no longer an issue either. Maybe now it's functional and good to go. WOn't know till later today when I go drive again.
 
I'm still working it out. Even though it seems simple because there's only one way to hook it up, I believe I am somehow doing something wrong with the wastegate or blow off valve, in that one or the other is constantly letting off pressure (or both).

I can drive it around easy enough and the car is all well and driveable now, and with the fixing of the vacuum leaks the turbo whine is now gone - it's non-existant, but I took the filter off and you can watch the turbo spool at low RPM, and then it accelerates dramatically if you push the throttle, so I know the turbo is ok. I am getting some exhaust blow-out from between the intake and exhaust manifolds where they meet. I have it bolted down tight, but it still seems to be letting exhaust escape. Not much - but enough to notice warm air blowing slightly. I am debating a way to remedy this. I was thinking maybe a large hose strap across borth manifolds to lock them together for good just to see if that does anything. Otherwise I'm at a loss for what to do about it. I've tried RTV in the past for this situation but it just gets blown out after a few cycles.

My gauge is reading 0 now, or rather, on a run, it will start at -1 (somewhere on the vacuum side) and then go to 0-1. Still not much of anything and I have the gauge tapped directly off the turbo/ wastegate line, so it should read SOMETHING being that close to the turbo. I don't know. It's kind of frustrating right now being that it drives so beautifully but I can't tell what's going on with the pressure, and yeah - I mashed on it on the freeway. Nada.
 
This is kinda like reading a suspense novel with lots of twists to the story. Hope you get it sorted out soon.
 
Idaho said:
This is kinda like reading a suspense novel with lots of twists to the story. Hope you get it sorted out soon.
Click to expand...

haha. I know. I thought it was a going to be bolt and go there for a second. Now it's "done" and evil is afoot.

I guess I can probably rule in the PCV as a suspect as well? But I'd think once the car is running above vacuum it wouldn't be functioning anyway?

The other question I have, while I'm still under low/no boost, is the afr is about a 13 or 11 when mashing on it, which seems like it is ok, but once you let off the gas, it goes to a more lean condition pretty immediately. IS this ok? Or do I need to figure a way to get the mixture to lean out more slowly? I'd assume with the turbo spooling hard, just because I let off the gas, doesn't mean there's no pressure, or does it?
 
any kind of exhaust leak is going to affect spool and pressure. try a remflex heat riser gasket. they are pretty thick have a nice crush and hold up pretty well. pcv shouldnt have any affect unless its bad. as soon as the boost comes on it should close the check valve and not do much of anything.

these are from my personal experience and lots and lots of reading and asking questions on various forums.

idle afr is what ever the motor wants. if its too lean it will not idle right and stumble when you hit the gas. to rich and your eyes will burn but it will run smooth and accelerate normally.

a good cruise afr is between 13-15. anywhere in there is safe and should net acceptable mpg. keep an eye on the temp, if you go over 15 it will start to run hotter. the trick is to find a good balance somewhere in there that the motor likes and gets you the best mpg you can.

light load should be 12-13. moderate load should be floating around 12. wot it should drop to 11.5 fairly quickly and stay there if not go slightly richer. remember lean is mean but fat is safe.

when letting off the gas a lean spike is going to happen. you are closing the venturi's and not letting air or fuel in so there is nothing to burn. as long as your bov is working properly there should be no pressure as soon as you let off the gas, the vacuum opens the bov and that dumps your pressure.

its always tedious getting a new setup to work and there is almost always something else to do. once you get past all the big ones it starts becoming fun because all of the work starts to pay off. stick with it man. you are almost there. you have all the hard stuff done. and hook the boost gauge to the manifold. its helpful in setting timing and idle mix. get the most vacuum you can. double check your clamps and seal off any exhaust leaks you might have and you should be set to turn it up a little for the first time.
 
im pretty sure i saw that your bov is adjustable. try cranking the adjustment in. you can go pretty far in without it negatively affecting anything.
 
The bov adjustment is turned all the way in now. Perhaps it's somehow getting stuck open after opening or something. I'll take it apart tonight and see what can be seen.
 
Nothing too exciting, but my girlfriend bought me a GoPro Hd. I was pretty excited. Not at a race track so there's no prize money or trophies to be won by going fast, but did see how quickly I could get up to the speed limit, and trying to spool that turbo. I believe there is some kind of boost pressure and my gauge is just straight up defective, because this car pulls me into the seat now, and I was only hitting the pedal maybe 1/4 of the way down to climb or get up to speed where I used to have to kickdown to 2nd to pass something while flooring it.

Still no action from the BOV and it was raining so I didn't real feel up to taking it apart.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-RCyiP5dNI"]Dodge Dart Turbo 225 GOPRO test - YouTube[/ame]

Also stalled out at 0:12, 0:26, 0:35 lol. Gotta get the carb tuned a little more.
 
richen up the idle mix a little and bump up the idle speed a couple hundred rpm. should take care of the stalling.
 
i set the idle screws out a tad more. It got rid of the stalling during the day, but the first start up in the morning has a tendency to stall. That's not worrysome for me personally, as I know it will start the second time and go. The car has always done that, through 3 different carburetors, so I let that be.

I took the BOV apart and feel like maybe it opens too easily, even with 2 springs I can push it open no problem, and feel like I'm not trying that hard, but I'd think the manifold pressure would help keep it closed as well. I'm going to clean it up real good, make sure nothing's "stuck" run a thicker walled vacuum line to it just in case it is collapsing, and see what happens. At this point I'm having a feeling that the orange tubing I chose previously is somehow not allowing accurate operationg of everything. After changing to thicker walled blue hose with a very small inner passageway of a little less than 1/8", the gauge started reading, but still won't read vacuum (I'm thinking gauge could be bad).

I think at this point all I am fighting with is the blow off valve, and the boost gauge. Once that's sorted out, I think I'll have a pretty functional setup. Everything else is operating nicely.
 
Of course I know very little but I'll go out on a limb and guess your gauge is not the problem. You're getting tiny boost and feeling it. When you get it sorted out, you'll know it and that grin will be from ear to ear.:burnout:
 
Idaho said:
Of course I know very little but I'll go out on a limb and guess your gauge is not the problem. You're getting tiny boost and feeling it. When you get it sorted out, you'll know it and that grin will be from ear to ear.:burnout:
Click to expand...

Probably true. But the fact that the gauge has a vacuum side, and boost side, and will not read vacuum when attached to the manifold where a brake booster would be is odd to me.
 
gotta let it warm up a little bit. remember you dont have a choke anymore. the bov is held shut by boost pressure and opened by vacuum. it should be pretty easy to open by hand. if you put your hand in front of the opening and rev it quickly enough to hear some turbo noise and let off quickly you should feel something. at the lower boost pressure it will not make much noise. adjust your boost controller to get it to read 5psi. its pretty hard to blow a motor on 5psi unless it is getting next to no fuel while on boost. fwiw i did this with my setup with full 35* of timing and an afr of 13 at wot and 5psi. did not blow my motor and it pulled harder then it did once i locked the distributor and turned it up to 8psi. so with locked timing and a richer mix you should be fine.

the boost/vacuum gauge plugged into the manifold not reading vacuum is weird. i would pull the line from the manifold and suck on it. i tested mine that way and could pull -3 psi without popping a blood vessel. just make sure it moves.
 
how do you have the gauge tied into the manifold? dont forget you can use brake line for the vacuum boost referencing if you suspect the rubber line of collapsing.
 
RustyPlymouth said:
how do you have the gauge tied into the manifold? dont forget you can use brake line for the vacuum boost referencing if you suspect the rubber line of collapsing.
Click to expand...

Right now I have a pipe thread adapter that goes on the intake where the brake booster line would have come from on the last intake runner towards the firewall. That's about as direct to the intake as it gets, and that is tied to the BOV, the FPR, and gauge.

Here's the kicker, I detached the gauge, put a length of the hose on it, and tried both blowing and sucking. My eyes were going to pop out of my head but I could not get the gauge to move. I tried just blowing on the end adapter with the gauge and I could move it... so I feel the old junk from EBAY is not allowing any boost referencing at all, but that would cause the wastegate to just not open I'd assume. Very strange. More research tonight.
 
the wastegate should still be hooked up to the snail. gauges, fuel regulator and bov should be manifold. if the wastegate isnt opening you would know the boost would go crazy high (overboost). this may be a dumb question but are you sure you hooked your wastegate actuator up with the door in the closed position? i.e. can you push the rod out to swing the lever attached to the door? it will be a little hard may need pliers to get a good enough grip to do it.
 
RustyPlymouth said:
the wastegate should still be hooked up to the snail. gauges, fuel regulator and bov should be manifold. if the wastegate isnt opening you would know the boost would go crazy high (overboost). this may be a dumb question but are you sure you hooked your wastegate actuator up with the door in the closed position? i.e. can you push the rod out to swing the lever attached to the door? it will be a little hard may need pliers to get a good enough grip to do it.
Click to expand...

Even though it sounds silly, I know the issue is something I have done somewhere along the way. The lines are routed as you described. The only thing attached to the snail shell is the wastegate. I will detach the arm and see which direction I attached it in, and check other things.

I have the gauge funtioning now, and no boost is occuring at all. I get about 10 inches of vacuum at idle (could be more), then it will move close to 0 but never over. There's something in the mix i have done wrong - guaranteed. Just gotta find out what it is.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top