Dat73z

Thanks it feels good to be working on it semi-consistently again. I still haven't had my half day this weekend, but I had an hour tonight so I started final shaping the lower condenser mount. I drew what I had conceptualized on a piece of cardboard a few weeks ago but decided to freestyle it as I was filing things down. I could do a lot more but I think I'm going to punch some speed/air bypass holes on the bottom of the mount and call it. The mounting is Setrab sandwich style soft mounts with high temp silicone sheet. I'm going to try to wrap this tomorrow and weld in the top soft mounts to the intercooler air plate.

Things got super busy again but this evening I went ahead and hardlined the oil cooler. I'm a bit out of practice on stainless so I accidentally put a couple of tooling marks in the tubes. The line sections are short so I'll work them out with a hardened rod when I wash everything out and rebrush the finish for final assembly. It's one of those things where I need to remind myself to slow down and think things through otherwise I end up making more work for myself or waste material. I also hit the AC Hardlines with some steel wool and wd40 to get a uniform finish but it's is a bit bright for me. I may go back and redo those in brushed as well. I realize I keep getting busy so this weekend I'm going to try and dedicate a solid half day to wrapping up the turbo cooler packaging updates.

@calZ I actually got the fresh air duct idea from the v8 subforum here a few years back when brainstorming the AC setup. I don't recall the thread but it was a super clean silver Z and they ran the lines across the rad support to the pass side. HybridZ is an absolute goldmine of info so maybe someone will stumble across our discussion too and get some inspiration. There's a lot more going on with the AC install on this build I've been working in the background including inside the cabin (I'll update that ongoing thread in the Interiors sub sometime) but I've been trying to keep this thread mostly dedicated to the turbo aspects. For the cooler packaging I intentionally wanted to keep all the AC componentry all on the DS and the oil cooler all on the PS with the intercooler in front of and crossing between the two instead of single sided. So that's why I went through all the fabrication work so far...it would have been a heck of a lot easier to mount the oil cooler in front of the intercooler, run the AC lines much longer onto the other side of the car, etc. but that wasn't the vision

My workspace is a mess so this evening I started cleaning up before proceeding so I threw the intercooler back on to check clearances for the AC and oil cooler sections. I think everything looks good to continue fabrication. My welding station is currently set up for AL which it never is so I've been contemplating also hard piping the intercooler with aerospace wiggins clamps. Not sure if it's worth it for this ebay special as the clamps and separate weld ferrules are eye bleeding expensive but I'll simmer on it over weekend projects.

It's actually AL tubing but I was using stainless instrument benders to bend them. That's a good point on the sweating, I actually had the same question and emailed Vintage Air tech last year here was their response: "The only line that should sweat would the #10 suction hose/line, make sure this branch is insulated on the hardlines or metal sections of the hoses that are inside the cabin." So it doesn't sound like any of them should sweat but I'm not AC expert. I'm sure some insulation on the appropriate branches would increase efficiency so I may consider it at some point but I'm just trying to get the car back on the road first.

Life was getting crazy and I had to take a break from the project for a while but I'm hoping to get back into things this weekend. Where I left off I was mostly wrapped up the AC hardlines for the tucked AC setup. I have a workable solution which clears the intercooler/hood hinges + springs now but have some alternate routing in my mind for a cleaner aesthetic. The most limiting factor was minimum bend radii using my stainless hardline tools and basically I had to rely on changing directions to make the angles work in such a compact area. I think most people just say screw it and run softlines all the way around the engine bay 😂 I left fabricating the condenser soft mount brackets for last as I wasn't sure how much things would need to move to accommodate the hardline tool limitations so I'll focus on that next along with hardlining the oil cooler. Once that's all sorted, the intercooler can go back on and the turbo cooler packaging updates for this service will be complete.

Today ran away but I had an hour in the garage so I continued on the AC condensor situation. I sectioned and welded the no6 hardline from the condensor to the dryer. Due to the SS hardline tool minimum bend radii I need to rethink the routing a bit. Everything just barely clears the intercooler though which is the most important thing.

Just got back from a nice end of year vacation to some boxes of parts so I started back in on the build. I mostly finished cleaning up the turbo castings in preparation for welding, which to be honest I didn't realize just how bad the castings were internally until I started really blending things out. I also started bending up the AC hardlines in preparation for sectioning and welding. AL lines are super easy to work with compared to SS but all of my tools are set up for SS hardline fab so some of the bend radii are slightly larger than what I could probably achieve on the AL. -10 AN fittings also came in for fuel hardline, so tomorrow I'm going to drop the tank and start back in on the tunnel.

Some quick updates, still waiting for parts so tonight I matched the turbo compressor discharge to a cast 90 elbow in preparation for welding. I also picked up some 4943 tig wire which I'm excited to try out on a few components I need to weld. Next week, I have a few days off so I'm hoping to knock out the rest of the fuel hardlines and get caught up on some other fabrication work.

Personally I have almost solely used Hondabond moving onto 2 decades now and I always use an OEM oil pan gasket, rear main, and side seals. For the pan make sure it is absolutely straight all the way around verified on a flat surface, otherwise any slight bend or wave and you'll start leaking again. This includes the bolt holes which can get dimpled and ovalled. I got frustrated enough with the OE pan that I eventually went AL pan with a machined flat surface.

Take a really close look at those side seals as well. I did a rear main once on an L then got to do the job all over again along with the pan when I got the car back together realized the side seals were also leaking, masked by all the oil and years of grime on the rear of the block.

Now that the year is finally winding down I'm actually able to spend more than 30min blocks at a time working on the car. Tonight I measured things up for the condenser hardlines and bent up some tig wire as templates. I also ran the AC softlines into the DS fresh air duct as the intercooler takes that up on the rad support. Basically it'll be a tucked AC setup. I could probably have most of the AC system invisible in the engine bay actually, if I was willing to exit the softlines into the fenderwell. I'm also contemplating fabricating a AC line bulkhead using the OE rad support holes like I did for the oil cooler. It'll add complexity and parts cost to the project but like the oil cool I think it'll be a cleaner solution. With the holidays I probably won't get any materials I order until the new year anyways so I guess I'll sleep on it and decide next week.

I wrapped up the fuel system mounting in the engine bay and realized I was missing a couple of AN fittings so while those are on order, I moved back to the cooler packaging. While the AC drier can really be mounted anywhere, including the cabin I wanted to keep everything tight in front of the radiator support. After some further mockup and measurement I realize I'll need to hardline most of the condenser packaging, as the packing including the trinary switch is just too tight for soft lines. What I found interesting about AC hardlines is there are no handheld tools that I could find to produce AC oring flares. Everyone I called who produced hardlines mentions they have some large proprietary hydraulic machine. So this limits me to purchasing pre-flared lines in varying lengths, such as those from Vintage Air, to bend myself and/or section and tig weld back together as necessary.

I'm also going to Vintage Air hardlines to clear all of the cooler packaging, and running everything else tucked on the DS reduce bulk. Another option are the EZ Clip style lines and hoses from Eaton, Vintage Air, etc. I'm running those in the cabin and they're much smaller in diameter with much tighter bend radius than traditional AC softline. They can also be disassembled for service or re-clocking unlike the crimped soft lines.

Last night I mostly re-laid out everything on the firewall, close enough to finish fabricating the rest of the lines at least. Sort of tempted to start welding up the unused holes in the engine bay and shave things a bit, but I know that will turn into a major project so saving it for when I repaint the entire car someday. It'll also be interesting to see how the bulkhead heater fittings I put in for the vintage air will look with the OE hoses, but won't get that full view until the engine is back in.