My truck, a work in progress
Saturday, August 04, 2001
Part 6: Oh-so-close...(08/04/01)
OK, you'd think by now that I'd have the damn engine done and would already have thousands of miles on it. And really, I should have had this thing done months ago...but it hasn't worked out that way.
For anyone who's thinking about having a baby AND building a complicated, high-performance engine at the same time: forget it. It's one or the other, kiddo, and it's usually the one with the dirty diapers that gets the attention ;-)
Still, I have found some time to work on this, and it's really close to being ready to start. The added delays have given me more time to screw with stuff, though, and this has lead to two significant additional modifications: a new throttle body and a new intercooler.
The throttle body is a monster 65MM piece from a 5.0L Ford Explorer. (BTW, you want to use the Ford Explorer TB over a 65MM Mustang TB because it's much easier to graft the Toyota linkage to the Explorer linkage.) Because I'm using a Speed Pro ECU, I can run the Ford TPS, which makes this a lot less complicated. In fact, I don't think you could get away with this swap using the stock Toyota TPS unless you fabricated a very clever little interface between the TPS and the TB. Glad I didn't have to do that...
Anyway, the new TB looks like this:
THAT should move some air :-) As an added bonus, the Speed Pro can control a GM idle air control (IAC) motor, which is adapted to the Ford TB via a neat little billet adapter, so my idle should be pretty smooth...if I ever get around to starting this thing.
The linkage looks like this:
The second mod was a switch to a bigger intercooler.
This intercooler is about the same physical size of the old one, but it's about 1.5" thicker, and it features 3" inlets/outlets. This has allowed me to step up to 3" intercooler pipe for most of the system. Hopefully, this will be the benefit that I'm imagining it to be. My old intercooler had about a 2 psi pressure drop across the core, and I expect the new intercooler to be *much* better in this department, probably coming in at about .5 psi. Less pressure dropped = quicker response and greater effeciency.
So where do things stand now? Well, everything in the engine is installed except for the vacuum lines, which need to be recut, and some final bits of wiring. It's really all-but-done, and it looks great, too. So why isn't it running? Because I decided that I also wanted to upgrade the stereo and install an alarm, projects I'm almost done with. If I can find a couple of days worth of time -- 10-20 hours, max -- I think I can have everytthing done and finally get this thing running. But like I said up top, it's really hard to find the time with a 5 month old at home. And it's not like this is the only thing I have on my plate, either -- I have a pretty full life, and as a result this project has just sort of slipped away from me. But I'm gonna get it done reeeeeal soon now. I promise ;-)
Anyway, for anyone who's followed along with things this far, please continue to be patient. Someday soon this engine will roar back to life, and it should be making a *boatload* of power when it does.
OK, you'd think by now that I'd have the damn engine done and would already have thousands of miles on it. And really, I should have had this thing done months ago...but it hasn't worked out that way.
For anyone who's thinking about having a baby AND building a complicated, high-performance engine at the same time: forget it. It's one or the other, kiddo, and it's usually the one with the dirty diapers that gets the attention ;-)
Still, I have found some time to work on this, and it's really close to being ready to start. The added delays have given me more time to screw with stuff, though, and this has lead to two significant additional modifications: a new throttle body and a new intercooler.
The throttle body is a monster 65MM piece from a 5.0L Ford Explorer. (BTW, you want to use the Ford Explorer TB over a 65MM Mustang TB because it's much easier to graft the Toyota linkage to the Explorer linkage.) Because I'm using a Speed Pro ECU, I can run the Ford TPS, which makes this a lot less complicated. In fact, I don't think you could get away with this swap using the stock Toyota TPS unless you fabricated a very clever little interface between the TPS and the TB. Glad I didn't have to do that...
Anyway, the new TB looks like this:
THAT should move some air :-) As an added bonus, the Speed Pro can control a GM idle air control (IAC) motor, which is adapted to the Ford TB via a neat little billet adapter, so my idle should be pretty smooth...if I ever get around to starting this thing.
The linkage looks like this:
The second mod was a switch to a bigger intercooler.
This intercooler is about the same physical size of the old one, but it's about 1.5" thicker, and it features 3" inlets/outlets. This has allowed me to step up to 3" intercooler pipe for most of the system. Hopefully, this will be the benefit that I'm imagining it to be. My old intercooler had about a 2 psi pressure drop across the core, and I expect the new intercooler to be *much* better in this department, probably coming in at about .5 psi. Less pressure dropped = quicker response and greater effeciency.
So where do things stand now? Well, everything in the engine is installed except for the vacuum lines, which need to be recut, and some final bits of wiring. It's really all-but-done, and it looks great, too. So why isn't it running? Because I decided that I also wanted to upgrade the stereo and install an alarm, projects I'm almost done with. If I can find a couple of days worth of time -- 10-20 hours, max -- I think I can have everytthing done and finally get this thing running. But like I said up top, it's really hard to find the time with a 5 month old at home. And it's not like this is the only thing I have on my plate, either -- I have a pretty full life, and as a result this project has just sort of slipped away from me. But I'm gonna get it done reeeeeal soon now. I promise ;-)
Anyway, for anyone who's followed along with things this far, please continue to be patient. Someday soon this engine will roar back to life, and it should be making a *boatload* of power when it does.
