CIH Turbo EFI by RallyBob

[davegt27]

hey that sounds pretty Good

thanks
David

[RallyBob]

I see that TIG is DC only though, so no aluminum welding capabilities. Either way, I'd go for the 220 version, it won't draw as many amps.

[Sportwagon75]

Nope...you'll need to spend alot more than that to get aluminum capabilities. But this is a great machine for the average guy just doing small jobs in his garage and around the house...like me!!!!

[Nathan Acree]

Bob,

Do you know anyone that will make custom "dead-soft" header gaskets?

I am looking for some for the custom headers on my V6 project.

Thanks,

Nathan Acree
Albuquerque New Mexico

[RallyBob]

Originally posted by Nathan Acree Bob, Do you know anyone that will make custom "dead-soft" header gaskets? I am looking for some for the custom headers on my V6 project. Thanks, Nathan Acree Albuquerque New Mexico

I assume by 'dead soft' you mean annealed copper? I had some big-bore 97mm Opel head gaskets made from copper a few years back, but I had to anneal them myself in my 'shop' oven. I had a water-jet cutting company make them, as no one could cut them via laser or plasma cutter.....the copper is too great a heat-sink.

I had about 30 gaskets made though.....which cut down on my programming/setup time costs a bit by spreading it out over multiple pieces.

Sorry if my answer doesn't help you, but I imagine with some patience you could make them by hand. IIRC, the 60 degree V6 has a round exhaust port (at least the iron heads), so with an appropriately sized hole-saw, a Unibit, and some aviation snips, I imagine in an hour or so you could cut out a set.

[Nathan Acree]

Originally posted by RallyBob I assume by 'dead soft' you mean annealed copper? I had some big-bore 97mm Opel head gaskets made from copper a few years back, but I had to anneal them myself in my 'shop' oven. I had a water-jet cutting company make them, as no one could cut them via laser or plasma cutter.....the copper is too great a heat-sink. I had about 30 gaskets made though.....which cut down on my programming/setup time costs a bit by spreading it out over multiple pieces. Sorry if my answer doesn't help you, but I imagine with some patience you could make them by hand. IIRC, the 60 degree V6 has a round exhaust port (at least the iron heads), so with an appropriately sized hole-saw, a Unibit, and some aviation snips, I imagine in an hour or so you could cut out a set.

Bob,

Dead-soft means annealed as far as I know ( I was simply told to ask for dead-soft copper).

I never thought about making them myself, but you are correct- with round ports it should not be that hard.

As always thanks for your insights,

Nathan Acree
Albuquerque New Mexico

[RallyBob]

Well, thanks to our own oldopelguy's ideas, I fabricated a custom breather tube off the side cam cover of the head. I used a piece of radiused 1.75" tubing, and cut out a stock cam cover. This part will eventually be chrome plated, so I polished them before welding to make the plater's job a little easier later on.

[RallyBob]

At the top of the breather, I fitted a piece of 18 ga. sheetmetal. Onto this I still need to weld a -10AN fitting in place for the breather hose.

[RallyBob]

I then welded the top cap in place....

[RallyBob]

Finally the tube was welded to the cam cover. I still need to grind the welds better and polish it some more, but it's taking shape now.

[RallyBob]

Yea, I know, blasphemy.

Okay, I sanded the 'OPEL' letters off, but I thought it just cleans up the look of the valve cover nicely. I'll be powdercoating the valve cover in lieu of polishing or plating, so I decided to smooth things out.

In addition, the breather holes in the side will be filled and smoothed over to match the other side of the cover.

[RallyBob]

I also sanded off the bumps at the rear of the cover. Of course, this broke through to the bolt holes within, but I'll just weld them up and sand it smooth again.

[RallyBob]

With the 3 day weekend here I decided to focus on the turbo manifold, as I'm already a week behind schedule. Things just got worse when I realized the manifold that I had designed in my head would not fit in reality. The stock EFI intake manifold simply gets in the way, and if I tried to place the turbo below the manifold I feel the heat would melt the engine mount, the upper a-arm bushings and would potentially create too much heat in the block itself.

My final solution is to place the turbo above the inner wheel well. It gets fairly close to the hood, so some heat shielding will be required. It also gets close to the throttle cable, so I may have to reconfigure that as well. If the inner plastic liner melts, the throttle will stick.....

Didn't finish it, but it's all 'figured out', and the rearmost tubes are tacked in place. Should be able to complete it tomorrow.

[RallyBob]

Had to heat 'n hammer the turbo collector so that all 4 header tubes would fit. PITA too, since the metal is nearly 1/4" thick. Here it's roughed out, and you can see the taper created from the opening of the collector down to the turbo housing itself.

[RallyBob]

Here you can see the approximate location of the turbine housing of the turbo. It gets kinda close to the intake manifold, so the thermal barrier I'm having applied (Swain Tech) will go a long way towards reducing the radiant heat.

More pics tomorrow....

[oklaopel]

I've been planning my EFI conversion for a long time...but your efforts and attention to detail leave me thinking about starting over and doing some of what you've done...very impressive!!

[RallyBob]

Thanks for the nice comments. Usually I prefer to plan these things in my head for some time (sometimes months, other times years....). This way I can weed out the ideas I don't like before I go and spend any time or money on them. But in this case I literally was given the word 'go' on a Sunday and started fabricating on Monday. So I hope it lives up to my standards, and to those of the Opel crowd at Carlisle.

I should have finished the manifold today, but I was one 90 degree bend short.....

I still got the rest of the manifold welded up. I chose to smooth out all the welds, which required each tube to be partially assembled/welded first and then sanded, otherwise access to certain seams could not be made after the manifold was tack welded together. Here's one of the center tubes after welding, but before polishing. So far, so good.

[RallyBob]

This was as far as I got today because of the missing tube bend. I still have two welds at cylinder #1 and #4 to smooth out at this point.

[RallyBob]

And here's an overview of the manifold, with the collector roughly in position, and the turbine housing of the turbo in place. The collector still needs to be polished down too, it's really rough from hammering on it....

[okieopel]

Enough with the polishing already! Put it together and lets see if she will fly.

[namba209]

Very nice Bob, I've got to smooth out the welds on the exhaust manifolds, I just hope they turn out as good as yours. They do look nice.

Ron

[RallyBob]

Originally posted by namba209 Very nice Bob, I've got to smooth out the welds on the exhaust manifolds, I just hope they turn out as good as yours. They do look nice. Ron

I kept track of how long it took to grind a weld down Ron (mostly for your sake as I know you're undertaking the same type of project right now), and it boiled down to about a minute per weld.

Used a 7" electric disc sander with 80 grit paper on it to rough it out, then a 'DA' sander locked out to spin (not orbital) with 150 grit paper to smooth the 80 grit scratches. Good enough for ceramic coating! It helps that I used the TIG method, MIG welds are a lot harder to grind and are usually bigger as well, the TIG welds are nearly flush with the surface of the tube. Oh, and the 80 grit disc sander will polish out the letters/numbers that are stamped into the tubing too....

HTH!

[namba209]

Bob, thanx for the info, I was going to ask how you got them so clean looking. I've already seen that my manifold will not appear to be one solid piece, the pipe spacers between the fitting are not the same OD so there will be steps between the fittings, one about .600" and the other 2.380". I'm a little concerned about taking out the size markings, they appear to be fairly deep in the fittings I got. I tried to hand file the welds yesterday for a while and it will take a lot of time. So I'm going to use my Dremel with a 1/2" grinding wheel for a start, then go with the sanding drums. I've got the flange bar that runs the length of the manifold so I can't get to the total outside of the pipes with a large disc. That reducer is amazing, it's over a 1/4" thick where I cut it. I've got to bore the inside of it out for more area and to smooth out the flow. I wish I had the camera to take some pics. Margaret took it to Kansas for her Breed Speciality Dog Show, Iwon't get it back 'til Saturday. Oh well, that leaves me with more time to work on the project


Ron

[baz]

have you thought of using flap discs and drums
they are a composite made from emery tape and come in various grades so you can polish the end results up very well i use them all the time and you just cant beat the "finnish against speed times"

[Gary]

I went to Nu-Chrome's shop a few weeks back and watched them work on polishing up some bumper parts they fabricated. They take a round sanding disk and cut the edges so it is five sided. This eliminates the swirl marks.