JustinOlson

Jeff, Thanks for the renderings. I really like that idea. How thick of material realistically can you form up from one sheet? I'd love to give it a try. Maybe I could carve out a wood form to use. 0.120" wall thickness seems to be what a lot of manifold fabricators are using for these intake manifolds. It seems like overkill to me, but I'm worried about the heat cycling and pressure cycling a intake manifold sees over its lift time. Aluminum doesn't have an endurance limit to fatigue, so I'm worried about cracks developing over time. I worry that if I don't make it sufficiently thick, I will have problems with manifolds failing down the road a ways. Justin

Ron I e-mailed you a picture of the plenum design. I think the internally welded 1/2" tubes couldn't hurt. I"ll have to do some research and see how many cracking issues people get into once they step up to thick walled material like this. My main goal by design this plenum is to finalize the plenum base so I can get it out for prototype. I'm not married to the current design as far as shape goes. By all means I'm open to suggestions. Regards, Justin

What do you guys think of the plenum design above. I think this will be the standard unless others have design input. With this design, the plenum base is a full 3" wide, and the plenum is built on top of it. This is different from Rons design where the plenum material actually wraps around the plenum base, making it made narrower then 3". I'd like input before I go ahead and order the prototypes. The problem with Ron's first piece was the material thickness of the plenum (0.065"). By going up to 0.120" I think we will have much less trouble with warpage when welding as well as less flexing and cracking when used in boosted applications. Justin

Honestly I have a really hard time with this one ???

Thick walled (0.120") turbo plenum: Regards, Justin

I'm also looking at replacing the bearings in my r200. Is it necessary to replace the pinion bearing while I'm in there? I'm replacing the carrier bearings, but not sure If pinion bearings are needed. Justin

Found something: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/4-50-Mandrel-Bent-Aluminum-90-11-gauge_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33742QQihZ015QQitemZ250038127666 Justin

I need help finding thick walled 3.0" aluminum bends with reasonable center line radius. Does anyone have some good sources? I'm just not finding anything with 0.12" wall thickness in under 9" CLR. Regards, Justin

I'm hoping to come out saturday. I'm trying my best to get my car driveable to bring it out. If not, I'll be rolling with the lady in here purple ford probe :) Justin

Are there any other Diesel Swapped 240z? I think it would be great fun to have a really strong turbo diesel under the hood. Maybe a vw TDI swap with a toyota transmission. I know they do that swap into Yota trucks. Justin

Been shopping for plenum material. Found these Aluminum hemispheres that are 0.125" wall thickness. Should work well for the end of the plenum: http://www.thomasregister.com/olc/smartcat.aspx?az=73226961&advancedsearch=yes&bgcolor=FFFFFF&border=0&bordercolor=000000&cartlink=yes&columnsort=yes&counters=yes&email=yes&font=Arial%2c+Helvetica&fontsize=2&iwidth=200&linktext=Back&listsort=yes&orderimage=http%3a%2f%2fwww.thomasregister.com%2folc%2fccc%2fmm%2fcec_AddToCart_f01.gif&printpreview=yes&ptnolink=yes&rfqimage=http%3a%2f%2fwww.thomasregister.com%2folc%2fccc%2fmm%2fcec_AddToRFQ_f01.gif&show=part_number+part_name+Dia+unit_price&showdiscounts=no&stripecolor=B7C0BD&tablealign=left&tablewidth=99%25&textcolor=000000&type=details_order&rn=503144&template=http://www.sharpeproducts.com/temp.htm Justin

I wont be talking about selling these until I have prototypes in and the bugs worked out. Once the final cost is finalized I will let you guys know. Regards, Justin

These pictures represent the changes that I've made to make these parts cheaper to make and easier for the end user to assembly. The plenum base is now made from a 1/2" thick aluminum stock instead of full 1". The cylinder head flange has been shortened slightly so that 3.5" x 1" aluminum stock could be used. I've also changed the slip fits on the runners. They now slip in 1/2" instead of the full 1" thickness. This was done so that the injector bungs wouldn't have to be machined after the runners were welded into the cylinder head flange. It may not be as strong as Rons original design, but I feel that it is a good compromise to make these easier to assembly. Regards, Justin

I wrapped up the changes last night before bed. I'll post some updated pictures when I arrive home tonight. Justin

I hate you 280z transmission tunnel! I got my S2000 passenger seat all squared away. Cutting off the factory mounting tabs will make the seat rails fit very nicely. I go to test fit the same modifications on the drivers side and then realize theres a big bulge in the transmission tunnel to accommodate the catalytic convert. To get the drivers side seat to work, I'm going to do some "custom" mods with a sledge hammer. Circled in red is the bulge I'm going to have to beat down to make the seat fit. I finished installing the passenger side toyota caliper. Easy enough, but I didn't have a cut off wheel for the dust shield. I ended up using a sawzall. What a bad choice of tools. The dust shield is so thin, it just shakes back and forth and its very difficult to get a good cut started. On the OBX differential front, I have a guy with will fit bearings to the diff. He's going to heat up the bearings in a oven at work and fit them to the diff. Once he's done with that, the install should go fairly easily. Do you guys usually set the pinion depth when swapping a new diff in? I'm going to reuse the ring and pinion that are currently in the pumpkin. Justin

Here are pictures of the OBX 240sx (R200) differential as received. Regards, Justin

What size fuel rail do people want with these? I was thinking -8 fuel rail extrusion would be big enough for most. Ross Machining sells -6, -8 and -10 fuel rail extrusion (0.50", 0.69" and 0.80" inside diameter). Regards, Justin

Depending on the demand, I may sell these as complete pieces. I'm not sure yet. I have to talk it over with Ron and see what he thinks and wants to do with this. I definitely dont think I want to see this piece by piece. I may put together a complete "KIT" that is unwelded. Just have to price everything out and see where we are at. Justin

Talk to a machinist just a little bit ago. He had a couple ideas to make it more manufacturable and cheaper. I'm going to draw up these changes and post the design. Price is coming in fairly reasonable IMO. The injector bungs will be machined into the cylinder head flange. I'm going to try and make the plenum base a bit thinner to get some cost out of it. Besides that all looks good. Justin

I realized my secondary injector bungs were messed up in my model. Heres a side view with them changed: Outlined View of above:

John, I definitely agree with you that it is nice to be able to run 2 smaller injectors in place of one larger injector. Does your TEC3 allow you to run 12 injectors? I can work on modeling up the secondary set of injectors properly and see what kind of additional cost it would impose. For a big turbo car it would be very nice to cruise around on a set of 300cc primaries, and then have the 720cc secondaries come in under boost. Heck, I planned out a very cool setup that would have 1600cc secondaries for straight methanol. That would allow one to idle around on pump gas then have methanol come in under boost. 40psi on the streets :) I'd have to think a bit about how to turn on the second fuel pump at the right time so the whole system would work. Maybe a switch for the pump would also change to a different fuel and timing map for the methanol. Best Regards, Justin Olson

I left the secondary set of injectors in for these pictures. I'm going to take them out for the final model that is getting sent out for quote. I think I have the injector ports correctly placed. I need to confirm with Ron and Paul the exact depth and dimensions of these ports. Anyway, figured it was about time for me to post an update. BTW, the fuel rail needs to be tweeked for the flange mounted injector spacing. It is setup for the injectors being centered on the port centerline. Little things here and there. I'm going to call my machinist today and see what he thinks. Hopefully I can get a run of 6 of the head flanges and plenum bases started next monday. It will probably take all of June for the machining because this guys slow, but the price is right. Justin

KISS.... Keep It Simple Stupid Sorry for my lack of progress lately. I've actually been working on my car in my spare time. A welcome change for me. I'll work on the flange when I get out of school tonight. Justin

We need to KISS on this first design. Justin

Cool, I'll have to sit down and read those when I have time. Justin