Custom Twin-Chargecooler setup

[t70]

I don't remember those girls???

[dodgy]

i imagined they were there, and they appeared on the photo, shame they were not there really

[t70]

Nahhh.. we had hotter girls there anyway!

[aerobat]

Yikes - that engine bay looks empty !!

Do I trust you guys, or what? That's the first picture I've seen of Andi in my car since.....

Oh ya, I remember.

[t70]

There's another shot of andi in the engine bay.. I thought Dave might post it....

[Iconic Ride]

A good day

Your cover's blown guys! It's taken me 8 months, but I've finally figured out what's going on in Medicine Hat!

1. Just over the border, north of Montana.

2. Lots of small secondary roads into the States, with little to no border crossing surveillance.

3. Blond babes to distract the local Mounties.

4. Indoor facilities loaded with tools and heavy machinery.

What a perfect place for a Red Esprit "Chop Shop" operation. Pure genius! And the audacity and chutzpah to openly brag about it on an open forum. Moxie to the max!

I'm putting extra locks on my garage door asap!

[Günter]

shame on you guys, the engine is out -but Andi still has to hold the tailgate !?

[mike_sekinger]

On most turbos (if not all) you can loosen up the char to compressor housing and rotate it. I have not looked in detail at ours yet but if possible a simple rotation outwards towards the frame would alleviate any clearance issues. Of course this is mostly from looking at Mike's engine build thread and pictures of engines out of the frame. May be a differant story once I get in there and pull the old ones out.

You can

Edited November 25, 2008 by mike_sekinger

[t70]

Dear Mr. Heath;

It has come to my attention that you're 1999 Esprit V8, VIN: SCCDC0823XHA15846 has a serious fuel system recall (Recall #A033424.) It appears that you're address is not on file and because of the severity of the situation, you cannot drive you're car to the dealership to have the recall done, IT MUST BE PICKED UP BY FLAT DECK! Please forward you're mailing address to mark_terrio_cameron@hotmail.com and leave you're keys on top of the drivers side front tire for ease of pick up.

Yours,

Mark Terrio-Cameron

Lotus Cars USA Inc.

2236 Northmont Parkway

Duluth, GA 30096

USA

[Günter]

yeah, i know that 'recal' -you should follow that !

[Iconic Ride]

Dear Mr. Cameron,

Thank you so much for the notification concerning the fuel system recall. For some time now I have been wondering about the fact that I was averaging only 83 miles of driving distance per refueling stop. Up till now I had attributed this to "newbie" overzealous driving techniques, or perhaps the continuous ribbon of petrol trailing my line of travel for the last several months.

You will certainly understand my reluctance to place the vehicle's keys on the driver's side front tire (am asuming that would be the U.S. LHD side, and not the dyslexic U.K. bretheren side) without some form of identification from the soliciting source. Would you be kind enough to provide me with your complete legal name and address, Social Security number [or Canadian equivalent], D.O.B., names and addresses of any children, spouse (including maiden name), "ex", etc., and Bank routing number, current balance, and a current credit card number or Paypal account password.

Again, thanks for the headsup on this important recall. Looking forward to your swift reply.

Sincerely,

John Heath

7000 Scham'em St.

Lagos, Nigeria

Austin, Tx

USA

[t70]

Dear Mr. Heath;

I am open to different key locations, where would you like to place the key instead? As for my banking information, please click this link as it contains all my personal information: www.sucker.com/I_dont_think_so.pdf

Yours,

Mark Terrio-Cameron

Lotus Cars USA Inc.

2236 Northmont Parkway

Duluth, GA 30096

USA

Edited November 25, 2008 by Mark T-C

[Iconic Ride]

Dear Mr. Cameron,

I do, in fact, have in mind a specific alternative location for the key to my vehicle, but feel it inappropriate to describe said location on a "family forum."

I would, however, like to thank you for your assistance in helping me in my personal quest to hijack every single thread on the LEF website. As there are many more left to attend to, I must be off.

All the best to you, sir.

J. Heath

[t70]

well.. that was fun wasn't it!

As for the project... because the intercooler rad was too big... we are going with a custom aluminum jobby. I'll be making two different "templates" and discussing the options with a custom aluminum radiator manufacturer. What I mean by this is that I will be making one that will fit in the opening to the radiators, placed vertically; and the other I will make to fit laying on the radiators as they are now... once I've fit both templates, I will determine which method will restrict the airflow to the main rads the least and get the best cooling to the intercooler system.

I have also learned that the oil cooler method that is typically used will not work very well. The cooling effect of the oil cooler is ineffective due to the speed with which the water travels through it. The oil coolers simply flow too fast to actually have a chance to cool the water properly. The temptation to use an oil cooler is high, because the fin design interferes with airflow in a very minimal manner... but if the cooling effect to the intercooler water is near non-existant... than the useful-ness of the intercooler system itself becomes minimal. If one were to use the oil cooler type, you would only be able to use high boost for short bursts untill the water cools back down again... this, I think, is why Lotus made the S4 only have bursts of boost allowable by the computer... the factory intercooler radiator is very similar to a oil-cooler type setup and therefore needs a long time to cool back off.

So.. the end result of my research should yield a system that stays cool for extended periods of use... I'm hoping that the air intake temps would never get to the point where one has to let off the throttle for a bit and let the system catch up....

[Günter]

Mark, can you insert an 'inline-restriction' into the return pipe of your system !? It's an simple thing that we have used in the garage if an engine cooling system was 'to fast' in flow. an piece of stainless steel, with an drilled hole in it. Insert that into the rubber pipe... .

Edited November 26, 2008 by G

[bosbon_be]

But if you slow down the flow to much, the effect on the chargecooler will be that the exit airtemp. will rise.

A bigger oil cooler, more capacity, will increase the time the water will have to spent until leaving again heading for the chargecooler. More time in the frontcooler gives the water time enough to cool down.

[Günter]

to place an restriction into the oil-cooler return pipe was just an simple thought. As the good thing is (if the square area for bigger radiators is limited in the car) that you can vary the effect by use of different holes. And you just need to open the pipe clips and change the restictor elements... .

Edited November 26, 2008 by G

[t70]

I have discussed this whole idea at great length with the custom radiator manufacturer and here's what I've learned... Basically, the pump I'm using will be doing somewhere around 30 gallons per minute and the biggest oil cooler I found was able to effectively cool at 18 gallons per minute... and it was soo big I would need to install it in place of the front bonnet! The oil cooler concept works well for short bursts of boost, but then you need a computer program to increase boost temporarily and reduce it later... plus you need a "overboost" fuel and ignition map to take advantage of the intercooling properly. So.... I discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the "vertical" and the "lay on top" options with the radiator manufacturer. I am going with a 2 core aluminum "vertical radiator" that will fit in the "mouth" of the radiator box. The problem with the "lay on top" option is the air gap necessary is about 1.5" and therefore the size of the cooler would have to be decreased and you would still have a pretty significant decrease in available air to the radiator and to the a/c condenser. Additionally, If I lay the radiator on the a/c condenser... I have a heat transfer problem -- the a/c condenser operates about about 100 degrees celsius in the summer... and that's going to be way too hot to have any proper effect on the cooling of the fluid. The "vertical" system is going to be big enough for the system to not heat soak... and it will allow plenty of air to get to the main radiators. It will not completely fill the "mouth" so there will be room for air to go around the top, bottom and sides of the unit as well as through it. I will also be looking into getting them to build another "custom" aluminum radiator with fans for the esprit at a cheaper cost than what is currently available. The price of the new intercooler radiator will probably be somewhere around $600USD plus shipping... but it will work better than any of the other alternatives and I think the price of the "other" one is close to the same.

Edit: as a side note... the heat exchanger (intercooler radiator) I'll be getting built will be similar in cooling capacity to the one used on the Kenne Bell Mustang Cobra which is a supercharged (10 psi?) 4.6 litre v8... and since superchargers are about 60% heat efficient or less and turbo's are about 70% efficient... this intercooler rad will be absolutely perfect for the v8 esprit.

[t70]

I will post pictures later of what we got done today, but here's a description at least...

First we test fitted the styrofoam mock up of the intercooler radiator. Then we pulled the transmission out of the S4 and split the casing on the v8 transmission... Doesn't sound like much, but it was quite a bit to get done in 6 hours I thought.

[t70]

My pictures wouldn't upload to photobucket yesterday... but likely Dave decided to lend a hand and upload his. So... here we go:

This is the mock-up radiator (to ensure proper fitment... it's crude.. but it works)

And this is what it's fit is like... it's quite tight, but the styrofoam dimensions aren't perfect and the measurements line up perfectly.

After we did that... we tackled the S4 transmission removal.. forgot to take a pic before we pulled the turbo.. but here it is after:

Here's the crossmember removed:

Abracadabra (again) the transmission is out!

Here's the empty S4 bay:

And me tackling the v8 gearbox:

And the gearbox seperated:

Now to get the S4 box apart and the LSD swapped over.

P.S. Earlier in the thread I made comments about the use of silicone being a really bad idea. Apparently there is at least one car out there running with silicone hose instead of the cast aluminum pipe... and nothing has happened to the silicone. Though I still don't think it's the best way to go, apparently... it's not as bad as I thought. My plan, however, is to cut the original piping, weld on some aluminum extension pipes and use silcone to attach to them.... or at least that's the current plan, as my mind seems to still be a bit up in the air about this one.

[t70]

I received 4 pretty new -12AN fittings today... I will upload a picture of them later. And... I also purchased the microphone that Mike Sekinger is using to tune his timing belt on the V8 he's building.. Once I receive the microphone, I will rent the necessary tools from Richmond Auto Clinic to finish Johns belts.

[Bibs]

That gearbox looks very scary! Nice work

[t70]

There hasn't been a whole lot going on lately... we transported the gearboxes to the local machine shop -- as their tools are far better than mine with regards to tolerences etc. We are waiting on a fair amount right now.. I've ordered the following stuff:

4 x 2.25" to 2.00" 90* silicone elbows

4 x 2.00" 90* Mandrel bent aluminum elbows

1 x Microphone for the timing belt (as per Mike Sekinger's post on building the V8)

and... the custom aluminum heat exchanger for the chargecooler.

[bosbon_be]

the custom aluminum heat exchanger for the chargecooler

looks like an pace chargecooler setup for the Escort Turbo

http://www.paceproducts.co.uk/public_html/...escortrsturbos2

The heat exchanger cost about 250

[t70]

Huh? Peter, there hasn't been any pictures of the heat exchanger yet... and the one that is in the kit at the bottom of the page (on you're link) looks to be brass and copper cored (it's painted black which is usually only done to non-aluminum radiators/heat exchangers), and the kit is 795