Thread: Stirlsilver's Disco Ute Project

Re firewall clearance - did you consider (a) penel beating the firewall in (smash it) or (b) cut a section into the fire wall?

You will need to ensure there is no heat transference otherwise you will have heat or worse issues in the cab - to state the obvious

Take your oil supply from the filter area, you can use a sandwich plate if you don't already have an outlet available.

So I haven't had a chance to post up an update for a few weeks. Things have been too hectic. A trip up to QLD for Easter and then this week I was away in Indonesia & Singapore. No progress this weekend, but I figured I should at least post up the progress from the previous weeks.

Regarding the oil supply for the turbos, I will bow to the opinion of well... everyone... and get the the oil from the outlet of the oil filter. I will run 1/4" hard line to each locations. It will look neater than braided hose running around everywhere.

Anyway, as for actual progress.

Because the intake manifold will be under pressure from the turbos, I needed to come up with some way to hold in the LPG injector nozzles from popping out. This is what I came up with and I think it will work perfectly well. Plus it looks reasonably neat (in my opinion).




I got AN to Banjo adaptors to allow me to hook the oil supply and drain to the turbos. Unfortunately AN uses a 37deg taper where as almost all other taper fittings are 45deg. Because of this 37deg pipe flare tools are expensive. So, I'm going to take a punt and see if the steel pipe flared at 45deg will seal. My gut feel is that it will. Below was a quick trial with a small piece of the 1/4" steel pipe which will form the oil supply line to the turbo. The drain will be a flexible line since it is a larger bore and will be too hard for me to bend.



This is what it all roughly looks like including the water water supply & drain fittings.


The channel clamps came in for the turbo dump pipes.


I only had enough time to fit one on the right hand side last weekend. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world since the welding deforms the machined mating faces. All up I think I will have two clamps on the right hand side dump pipe and only one on the left hand side. That should let me be able to pull everything apart when it is in the car.






It's all a VERY tight fit. Though I tested it and it is possible to get the clamp off even with this little space available between the pipe and the compressor bracket.

So we have cracked the 100,000 views on this thread!!! Not quite sure what to make of it though?!? Probably that I am taking too long to get this car up and running!!

Anyway, again a few more hours spent in the workshop this weekend.

I got some of the intake parts back from laser cutting (finally). Unfortunately I quickly found that I was a little bit too ambitious with the inside dimensions of the plenum flange.


With a little bit of cutting, it was all sorted. I then cut and inserted with thread locker studs into the intake manifold. All looked pretty good with the trial fitment.


I also checked the flange for the throttle bodies and it looked good also, but I didn't have the M6 all thread available so putting in the studs will need to come later.


I welded up the next joint on the RH down pipe which finished off that side. I'll leave an exhaust shop to finish the run from the end of the elbow.






Finally, I bent up and terminated the RH turbo oil line in 1/4" steel pipe. I was able to do the whole run in a single piece which was nice. It won't be so straight forward getting to the LH turbo all the way on the other side of the engine!!






That's it for the week! Till next week.

Righto, a quick update on some progress:
The flanges for the Vectra throttle bodies were drilled, tapped and had the studs fitted. So they are ready to go:




I got the partially welded up Plenum. Unfortunately the guy doing the welding took a few creative liberties. The biggest one being that despite my drawing illustrating that I wanted the box to be welded on flush to the opening of the flange, they went ahead and welded in the 3mm plate on the INSIDE of the flange. So I've effectively lost 6mm and can't fit the assembly over the trumpets...






So I've now got no choice but to shave off 3mm from all the trumpets to allow the assembly to go on. A compromise I really didn't want. But in hind sight what I may end up doing is removing the trumpets away. That is of course if I am happy with the amount of torque that I will get with shorter intake runners. I'll save that for when the car is actually running!




And this is where you realise how BIG this plenum assembly actually is! I'm going to be needing to do some serious bonnet modifications later!!


This is the only area I needed to look at carefully, the angled transition needs to make sure it doesn't foul with the brake master or the brake lines, so I took some measurements in this area. Unfortunately it means that I will need to make the RH transition 40deg off centre which isn't ideal, but I don't have much choice!


Oh and the latest news is that the 4HP22 auto box with the 4HP24 internals will be ready by the end of this week! I'm going to have to order the engine soon!

That's it for tonight!

I understand about 4 or 5 of the engineering/automotive related words in your posts.
But damn it's cool
Keep it up!

If it's not done iaw the drawing you don't have to take it! Is it a paid job or a love job?

I suspect that you could arrange the charge coolers at a slight angle to use the space above the rocker covers and the flanges on the charge coolers are not required as you have a welded assembly.

I think it will be easier to get the brake lines re routed to give you maximum space for your turbo pipe work.

Looks like fun.

I agree with slugburner getting new brake lines made and rerouted is the easier option and you might need that space anyway to service the new parts on top

Brake pipe is easy to bend and route. You just need to make up the pipe you want with lengths and bends (either with a tool or by hand) then get the ends done at a brake shop (unless you have your own tool)

This one is dead easy to use, fairly cheap and works perfectly on steel pipe
Austin Rover Hand Held on Car or Bench 3 16" Brake Pipe Line Flaring Tool Kit | eBay

Before I got one of these tools I used to get my local shop to add the fittings based on my measurement using a length of string - I then bent them to fit the engine bay.