My DIY 02 housing (sans 02)

[EFIxMR]

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/se022.jpg

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/se02.jpg

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/weld1.jpg

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/weld2.jpg

Here's my DIY 02 housing I fabbed from scratch. It features a full uncheated 3 inch radius and very convienent vband clamp. I know what you're thinking... how is this supposed to fit an Evo... well let me show ya :)

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/assembly.jpg

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/se02installed.jpg

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/assembly2.jpg

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/assembly3.jpg

Now... how does it all fit? what's this mess I heard on EVOM about these things being a pain to install?

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/motorclear2.jpg

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/motorclear3.jpg

http://www.speedelement.com/images/FRinstall/motorclear.jpg

Phase 1 complete! Phase 2 tomorrow!

[AreSTG]

nice thats gotta help spool up

[EFIxMR]

the turbo is a 50 trim TO4E wheel with a stage 3 exhaust turbine in a .63 a/r. it is dual ball bearing and is supposed to spool just slightly slower than stock. hopefully this is the turbo us hp junkies who refuse to deal with a mountain of lag are looking for. :D

[evo_dadi]

schweeeet!!! keep us posted with your project :)

[dohcvtec]

Lookin good Andy.

[Stormtrooper]

wow awesome andy..... can't wait to see what this thing will do

[MarkSAE]

Poor AC compressor is going to get nice and hot. hehe..

How thick is that flange that mates to the turbine housing? Did you machine that mating surface flat after the weld?

[EFIxMR]

there's supposedly some gold reflective tape i can put on there to keep the heat out. I've run similar dp setups close to the ac condensor before and never had any problems. Thin wall ss is actually very good at insulating heat keeping the heat inside the exhaust gases. Hence why most new cars have ss exhaust systems for emissions purposes getting the cat up to operating temp as quickly as possible.

The flange looks like its 3/8ths. the welding didn't warp it according to the eyecrometer. bolting it on to the exhaust housing shows not visible gap. however, i will be applying some high temp gasket maker to the mating surface to make sure its sealed. While that sounds a bit ghetto, it is standard practice amongst many competitive drag racers... In fact, AMS sends their turbo kits with the manifold, turbo, and 02 housing assembled just like that and their mating flanges have permatex orange as sealant.

[MarkSAE]

Thin-walled tubing will transfer more exhaust heat out of the tubing vs. thick-walled.

I'd wait a few heat cycles before checking the flatness again. The turbo operating temperatures should help anneal the welded pieces, which may possibly warp the flange a bit. Don't they make a metal gasket in that size and shape?

[evo_dadi]

why did this end up in the cellar??

[EFIxMR]

Thin-walled tubing will transfer more exhaust heat out of the tubing vs. thick-walled.


Some experts in the field of header construction disagree with that statement.* Professional race teams build their entire exhaust system including the manifold from thin wall due to its insulating properties. Thick wall SS tends to act as a heat sink compared to thin wall SS.

The only reason why Full-Race builds their manifolds in schedule 40 forged SS is for longevity purposes, it as actually a theoretical performance compromise. There are SAE documents that prove the the benefits of thin wall SS. This debate over thin vs thick has been thoroughly explored as manifold construction is a big industry in motorsports.

Here is a quicky statement regarding stainless steel and its insulating properties.


You may have heard Smokey Yunick talk about maintaining high exhaust velocity and increase scavenging by covering headers with a thermal wrap. In addition, there are companies that coat headers with a thermal barrier, typically some type of ceramic formula, in order to keep the heat inside the exhaust system. Stainless steel performs this function without the need for add-ons because it has a much lower coefficient of thermal conductivity, thereby keeping more heat inside and transmitting it to the header outlet. Radiated heat is perhaps the most important reason to wrap or ceramic coat the headers to protect the car and the driver from excessive, fatiguing high temperatures.

Typical 1010 carbon (mild) steel conducts 219% more heat per foot than do the types of stainless steel we use in header fabrication. By contrast, quite a bit more heat stays inside the stainless header tubes and does not get passed into the surrounding air. By not allowing the contraction of the cooling gases as they flow down the tubes, more exhaust velocity is retained which promotes better scavenging at the collector. This retention of velocity increases the overall header efficiency.


I wouldn't want to qualify myself as an expert, so if you dont believe me you can speak with Burns Stainless who is a major supplier of high end fabricators across the country. Their phone number is 949-631-5120 and the guy to talk to is Casey and he is a huge proponent of thin wall ss vs schedule 40 which comes from the pharmaceutical plumbing industry.

[earlyapex]

Hey Andy,

How come some welds I see on things are rainbow colored/tinted like I see on the 02 housing and tubular manifold?

I've seen other products that aren't (raw so you can see the true welds)

I know nothing about welding so I thought I would ask.

[EFIxMR]

The color has to do with the amount of heat used in the weld, and the travel speed that you are welding. A good sound weld is one that ranges in color from gold to blue.

A perfect weld is completely gold, that means it had the perfect amount of heat used and zero contamination. the bluing experts have told me are actually a sign of slight imperfection (from contamination) but is extremely minor, and some people think looks better asthetically.

a bad weld on SS is black or dull. That means too much heat was used or the travel speed was too slow, resulting in the loss of chromium from the metal. when its black and dull, basically the SS has become essentially mild steel. You will also see a whole bunch of small cracks on the weld and the texture will be flaky/not smooth.

By hand it is very hard to get a perfect gold weld everytime. Robot welders are very good at welding because they are extremely consistent. In asia, many of the parts you think are robot welded are actually by hand, there is machine called a rotary table which rotates the pipe for you so you can keep your hand in a steady position resulting in very inform welds.

[AreSTG]

is that for mig welding? when i was tought to TIG the welds were all shiiny ass silver, like chrome, the only thing that changed a little was the actual metal you are welding together, if you got it really hot.

[mygsx]

Can you fab a stock o2 housing for the stock turbos? That would be good for us who are on the majority sotck 16g's. Was this tig or mig? Sorry being a arc welder for the railroad industry i dont see as much discloraration on the blue side for the welds. However they are decent[i] welds overall. Good job Andy overall =)!

[earlyapex]

Andy,

Are you going to put the 02 sensor in that?

[EFIxMR]

there's no beating those ebay 02 housings for the stock turbo in terms of price. the quality on those is pretty good too.

it was tig welded. thanks, arc welding i hear is pretty tough. i don't weld enough every week to be a super pro at it, its pretty fun though as it seems the more you weld the better you get at it.

Bryan,

not going to put the 02 sensor there. I tried putting my new wideband which uses an LSU4 bosch sensor in the stock o2 housing and they were way off... extremely lean 34:1 afr. I suspected that it was too hot and the temperature was throwing the wideband off.

whats wierd however is that my other wideband made by innovate works fine in the stock 02 housing using the same type of sensor, not sure if its because they are using some kinda software that does heat compensation.

the technical papers i've read on the bosch lsu4 does say that it needs to be some distance away from the turbo to work correctly. i put the new wideband where the secondary 02 normally goes, and now it works fine. Wierd!

I made it this way just to address some concerns with the FR kit since some people said it was hard to install. plus making it two piece with a vband makes it easier to fabricate than a single piece downpipe from the turbo to the exhaust.

[earlyapex]

Bryan,

not going to put the 02 sensor there. I tried putting my new wideband which uses an LSU4 bosch sensor in the stock o2 housing and they were way off... extremely lean 34:1 afr. I suspected that it was too hot and the temperature was throwing the wideband off.



So you are just using a wideband with the AEM EMS? 34:1. LOL, mine doesn't even read that high. haha

[EFIxMR]

im using a motec plm wideband supposedly it reads from 10.3:1 to 470:1 on gasoline.

[L8eight]

+1 on the welds! I have ARC welded and TIG'd before in high school shop/welding classes and i can say that it is a very difficult craft to master...

[earlyapex]

im using a motec plm wideband supposedly it reads from 10.3:1 to 470:1 on gasoline.


only 10.3:1? That seems odd that it would go all the way to 470:1 which is pretty much useless on our cars but not go below 10:3.

Why would you ever need to read over 20:1?

[EFIxMR]

well technically the wideband reads that range of lambda .7-32, so it is probably for other fuels like meth, ethanol, propane, ect... or it could just be that the processor has great DAC and can just read that lean. all guesses at this point.