Finished some updates to the VR6T

[leebro61]

I've been mostly unmotivated over the past few months due to stupid parts failing and causing me nothing but headaches, but I've worked through most of the issues and managed to finish building a few components that were needed to complete the setup.

Last fall, I finally finished some machine work on my fuel rail to accommodate some decent bracketry, so I installed the fuel rail and IE surge tank/044 combo.

The pictures are kind of blurry, but the first pic is with the stock fuel rail and 2 of the 4 oem tabs attached. It was only a temporary solution, and you can see that the injector doesn't sit squarely in the port.



After some machining on an extruded -6 rail, I managed to make some brackets that align with the center line of the injectors, keeping the injectors centered in the manifold.




Next, I built an enclosure that sits just forward of the rear axle beam on the passenger side. The box mounts to 4 of the factory studs, so no drilling was required. The box has a removable lid and the entire assembly is wrapped in dynamat. Right now I'm running -6 pushlock to and from the factory intank pump, and -6 all the way to the rail and back from the regulator. With the lid on and the car idling, the pump is audible, but not unreasonable. With the car moving, you need to strain to hear the pump.





Earlier this winter, I decided to have a go at building a catch can. I'm relatively new to welding aluminum, so be gentle...

Here's the parts layout. The outer pipe is ~4.5" OD, and the inner baffle is a 3" pipe that I machined some slots in. The piece in the center with the ribs is an old cast Garret turbocharger compressor back plate that I turned to the correct diameters (ID and OD).



The idea is that the incoming vapors would impinge on the inner baffle, and hopefully this impingement/mild pressure rise would encourage condensation. The remaining vapor would have to travel ~180 deg around the baffle to reach the "slots", and then the mixture would travel up through the compressor backplate (which separates the inner baffle and outer cylinder) and out through the vents.

Here's a crude picture before welding (it's not well aligned in this shot).



Some assembly shots:









The latest project was installing my electronic boost controller, which is a turbosmart Eboost2. Since I'm running a twin scroll setup and I've got to plumb two wastegates, I wanted to run hardlines for the pressure tubing to/from the solenoid.





Kind of reminds me of the old windows screen saver...



...and a finished shot of the engine bay. I haven't driven the car in awhile, so it's pretty dirty right now. I've got a rain tray cover and some windshield trim that is usually installed, so it does look a bit nicer when its all together.



Now my to do list is...

1) Fix fuel pressure issue. I've got a check valve on the 044 pump but the car still doesn't want to fire immediately after it's been sitting for a while. I think the check valve is either bad or the pressure is bleeding down too quickly through the FPR. Once this is resolved I'll remove that stupid oil pressure gauge that's sticking off my fuel rail

2) Design and build intercooler end tanks. I've got a core here that's the size (HxWxL) that I want, but I need some time to design and make the tanks. The plumbing on the car already goes through the front of the car, so it should be as simple as building/mounting the core and connecting the piping that's already there.

3) Build an exhaust. Right now a 2.5" TT system is on the car from when I bought the car in '03. I'll probably build a 3" aluminum system sometime this summer using vibrants new aluminum mufflers.

4) Coolant hardlines. The SAMCO hoses I have on there are junk and most of them have already been modified in some way to accommodate turbo parts.

5) Build a stainless intake for the turbo and clean up the bubble gum weld I put on the turbo outlet pipe

6) Custom radiator. I had a godspeed radiator for the car but the core was poor quality so I sold it and then refunded the guys money when it leaked anyway

Comments and questions are welcome. Thanks for looking

[DubmyRUCA]

Nice setup!

[GRN6IX]

Very clean, love the hard lines

[V-dubbulyuh]

Very well done, keep the updates coming.

Report back on the effectiveness of the catchcan.

[leebro61]

Very well done, keep the updates coming.

Report back on the effectiveness of the catchcan.

Thanks guys

It's not visible in the pics I posted, but I included a liquid level on the catch can via 1/8 NPT bungs, 90* fittings and some clear tubing. I intentionally tucked this beneath the coolant tank so it's easy to see, but only if you look for it. Once I start putting more miles on it I'll monitor the level and see how it works

[hubbell]

good stuff!

[SUPERCHARGED-JETTA]

Nice work as always lee...

[GinsterMan98]

I can only say "WOW". Nice attention to detail. Your welds don't look bad at all.

[Bluegrape2]

very very impressive, lovin the hard lines, we think alike. I always wanted to do all metal coolant lines (blew 3 heater core hoses on old VRT). Looks like one rock solid VRT set-up. Have you had the car on the dyno since that intake mani was completed? I always wanted to do one like that on a all motor vr with HC pistons , flowed head , schricks and some gears.




Good to see some new engineering ideas on here.

[leebro61]

Have you had the car on the dyno since that intake mani was completed?

Not this particular car, but I did send the intake manifold to a friend and he did a back to back comparison against another runner length compensated short runner manifold. I've got a back to back dyno and some more details in this thread...

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...results-thread...

Good to see some new engineering ideas on here.

Thanks! If you liked that, stay tuned for the intercooler build and intake manifold version 2.0.

[leebro61]

Nice work as always lee...

Thanks Sam... how is your project coming? Have you tried out your eboost2 yet?

I can only say "WOW". Nice attention to detail. Your welds don't look bad at all.

Thanks man. I'm used to looking at my brothers welds, and he does this stuff for a living. In comparison my stuff sucks, but hey, I'll get better slowly but surely

[24vGTiVR6]

have you ever had trouble with that push lock line by the exhaust mani coming off? (due to heat)



I think I wanna switch to some aeroquip hose + push lock for my turbo oil drain because it has a wider inner diameter vs braided AN, but some people have told me that the push lock fittings slip under high heat.

looks good btw

[leebro61]

I wouldn't expect it to be an issue, that stuff is a pain in the ass to remove. Worst case scenario, slip one of those spring loaded clamps over it before you install it

On my car, I've actually got a 5/8" stainless steel hardline as the first half of my oil return, then once it's past the manifold it transfer to pushlock.

[Capt.Dreadz]

I love your work. I wish i had your skill.

[Highbeam2]

Great Stuff ! Any pics of the turbo manifold?

[leebro61]

Great Stuff ! Any pics of the turbo manifold?

Certainly... my brother and I spec'd out the fitment and then he welded up the manifold, downpipe and dumptubes for me. This actually is the second vr6 manifold we've built for this particular car, and this time around we were able to incorporate everything we learned from the first manifold. As an example, we left room for a reasonable oil return (via wastegate placement), and we paid extra attention to bolt access so this manifold installs just as easy as an oem manifold.















Sorry about the picture quality. It's surprisingly hard to take a picture to show how well the welds turned out

[leebro61]

It's visible in most of the above pics, but this was one mod that I really liked:







Functionally, I think it's beneficial to compressor performance to avoid a hard 90 or abrupt transition out of the compressor outlet. To better match my 2.5" piping, we welded a v-band on to my compressor outlet, intentionally spacing it at the very end of the discharge. Then we built up the inside with filler rod and then ported it smooth so I actually extended the diffuser section on the compressor housing and it smoothly transitions to the pipe ID. Then, to make it to the passenger side frame rail we cut out from the cam cover and grafted in a notch (shown above). Looking at this on the inside, it also seems like it would act as an additional baffle to prevent oil being slung out the breather. The powdercoat job left some room for improvement, so I'll probably have it redone sometime soon...

[dasbeast3.0]

my all time favorite turbo build. looking great as always lee.

[pubahs]

Always impressed with your work. I love the hardlines, eventually id like to get these done for my car, and the hardlines for coolant. I find with all these custom VRT setups, you can't find proper hoses that fit always correct, so it requires bespoke lines.

Watching this for inspiration and ideas

[Capt.Dreadz]

Always impressed with your work. I love the hardlines, eventually id like to get these done for my car, and the hardlines for coolant. I find with all these custom VRT setups, you can't find proper hoses that fit always correct, so it requires bespoke lines.

Watching this for inspiration and ideas

Couldn't have said it better myself. It takes true skill to apply an idea rather then settling for the easy route.

Inspiration indeed. I'm already getting ideas on what route to take with my vac lines.

[Highbeam2]

Lee, is this a daily driver or drag car?

[leebro61]

Lee, is this a daily driver or drag car?

Its kind of intended to be a "nice weather" street car. I daily drove it for a month or so this summer, so it definitely could serve that purpose, but I've got a newer 3 series for that. I definitely want to do some drag racing, but that certainly won't be the primary intent either.

[Capt.Dreadz]

lol....Thats my cars status. Nice weather/weekend/GTG/cruise mobile. I'm lucky to drive it 2x a week. It made no sense to build a drag car as there's no drag strip near me. (Englishtown being the closest which is 150 miles away )


Looking at your bay just sold me on changing my vac lines to QC fittings. Mainly the lines that go into the intake. I love your bay. So much inspiration. Sh*t...Gotta step my game up.

[turboit]

wheres the "Like" button when you need it!

[Highbeam2]

As far as the intake manifold, there's a lot of time involved in it apparently. Did you offset the velocity stacks inside to compensate for runner length?
Any intercooler pics?

[leebro61]

As far as the intake manifold, there's a lot of time involved in it apparently. Did you offset the velocity stacks inside to compensate for runner length?
Any intercooler pics?

I posted a link above to the intake manifold build thread... or you can search my name and find it.

The velocity stacks are offset such that the runner length to the intake valve is ~equal (within my ability to easily measure it) between the front and rear banks of cylinders. This is accomplished partially outside of the plenum by staggering the cylinders on the plenum baseplate. The remainder of the offset is achieved by raising the even cylinder stacks off the plenum floor.

The intercooler is not yet complete. I built a thermal model of an intercooler and I ran through a number of simulations in order to optimize a core size for the front of a Corrado with my power goals, so now I've got the core in hand and only have to design the intercooler end tanks. I'm working on a full navier-stokes CFD solver and grid generator that should be done in the next month or so, and I'm hopeful to use that to optimize the intercooler tank designs (and later, v2.0 of the intake manifold). I've got some ideas that I think will be very beneficial

I realize it's way over thought and the end benefit is small, but lately I get more enjoyment out of designing parts than I do wrenching on and driving the pos.

[Highbeam2]

I posted a link above to the intake manifold build thread... or you can search my name and find it.

The velocity stacks are offset such that the runner length to the intake valve is ~equal (within my ability to easily measure it) between the front and rear banks of cylinders. This is accomplished partially outside of the plenum by staggering the cylinders on the plenum baseplate. The remainder of the offset is achieved by raising the even cylinder stacks off the plenum floor.

The intercooler is not yet complete. I built a thermal model of an intercooler and I ran through a number of simulations in order to optimize a core size for the front of a Corrado with my power goals, so now I've got the core in hand and only have to design the intercooler end tanks. I'm working on a full navier-stokes CFD solver and grid generator that should be done in the next month or so, and I'm hopeful to use that to optimize the intercooler tank designs (and later, v2.0 of the intake manifold). I've got some ideas that I think will be very beneficial

I realize it's way over thought and the end benefit is small, but lately I get more enjoyment out of designing parts than I do wrenching on and driving the pos.

Lol. Last line

[Norwegian-VR6]

Its kind of intended to be a "nice weather" street car. I daily drove it for a month or so this summer, so it definitely could serve that purpose, but I've got a newer 3 series for that. I definitely want to do some drag racing, but that certainly won't be the primary intent either.

Really like your build. Serious VRT builds are always nice to see. Good luckthis summer

[leebro61]

Really like your build. Serious VRT builds are always nice to see. Good luckthis summer

Thanks!

Started and finished my power steering reservoir. Pics are pretty self explanatory, nothing too wild here.

Before powdercoating:



After:





It's got a little bit less wrinkle than the catch can did, but it's two separate batches of powder that was coated on two separate occasions, so maybe it's to be expected (and also, the coating was done in a buddies garage).

Next project, coolant hardlines. The upper and lower radiator hose are going to be 1.5" aluminum. Here's a -16 union and weld bungs that I'll be welding onto the hose and the aluminum radiator neck.

[DieGTi]

Looks great. I used the hardlines and fittings on my fuel. I would be most concerned about the engine moving and the hard-mounted hard lines taking the strain over time.

[Capt.Dreadz]

Looks great. I used the hardlines and fittings on my fuel. I would be most concerned about the engine moving and the hard-mounted hard lines taking the strain over time.

Wouldn't braided sections at the stress points help eliminate the chance of it breaking? I thought about running hard lines from pump to firewall, then braided line from the FW out.

Lee,
I need a res like that except for coolant. I'll be sending you a PM.

[DieGTi]

Yep, soft or braided as long as the transition joint is secured to the chassis on the solid line side. That will insulate it from vibration.

[leebro61]

Looks great. I used the hardlines and fittings on my fuel. I would be most concerned about the engine moving and the hard-mounted hard lines taking the strain over time.

Thanks! The solenoid isnt really hard mounted, its sitting on a stud that comes off the firewall, but its not bolted down. The solenoid also has a rubber bushing between the solenoid body and the stud, so it still has almost all of its degrees of freedom. Ill keep an eye on it over time though and revise if necessary

[Jeebus]

Very nice work.

However coolant hard lines scare me... what happens with built up pressure such as lifting a head or overheating? I'd rather my coolant hose pop off in an extreme case than containing all that pressure in.

[leebro61]

Very nice work.

However coolant hard lines scare me... what happens with built up pressure such as lifting a head or overheating? I'd rather my coolant hose pop off in an extreme case than containing all that pressure in.

Seems to me like the reservoir/cap would always release first, no? Im still keeping the oem reservoir, just bought a new one actually