1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

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fishpost19
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:57 pm

1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by fishpost19 »

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Long ago (4 years or so) I had no idea about turbocharged engines, but I wanted more from my 1988 Triton. I decided to dive straight in and do a turbo conversion, had a Weber 34ADM and some extractors and felt like it went awesome to me, I never knew any better, it had been my first and only car for 5 years. I wanted to do a blowthrough carby turbo setup on low boost. It ended up being a long process, with the typical loss of motivation for months at a time with other stuff happening, but finally got it running and back on the road back in February this year.

I ended up going a completely different direction with this build, and I also bought a 1JZ Soarer with a single turbo conversion while I was building this Triton, and learnt everything I need to know about turbochargers.

I had a TD04 off a Volvo with "VOLVO" lettering on the comp housing, which I still want to use for another application where the "VOLVO" is clearly visible just for laughs. Seemed too small for a 2.6. Instead, on eBay I found some sort of custom hybrid but freshly rebuilt Garrett TB28 (originally told it was a T28) with a different (appears to be GT28ish) front housing with a V-band inlet and carbon seals for a draw through carb setup off a Datsun drag car. So we have no idea exactly what this turbo is, nor did I know whether it would actually work well at all. I found a Sigma turbo inlet manifold and the old man had some SU carbs in his shed that I was going to do a draw through setup with. In the end I ditched the Weber and the fuel tank from the advice of a mate who had built a few LPG turbo setups, and just went straight LPG and blowing through a Impco 425 gas carb and boost referenced Aussie B2 converter with a big eBay intercooler painted black squeezed behind the grille. Made my own 3 inch exhaust withy worout any mandrels, all "lobster" style, with a hot dog and big straighthrough muffler which dumps before the diff and is plenty quiet enough for me thanks to the Garrett mechanical muffler mounted in the engine bay :D

I found a US VW specialist who makes a piggyback ignition controller called CB Black Box for a few hundred bucks. Wired straight into the factory hall sensor dizzy, locked the advance and set the dizzy to roughly 60 deg BTDC and the CB sees the signal, knows this signal is at 60deg, then retards it to get the desired timing anywhere in the rev range just like a conventional crank angle sensor and EFI, obviously not quite as accurate. Has an onbard MAP sensor good for 40 psi boost from memory, simple 4 wire connection, and a vacuum line to the unit. Bosch GT40 I had lying around provides plenty of spark, and some big eagle leads and fresh plugs prevent any sort of misfire which LPG absolutely hates.


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Made 240rwhp on its first rough tune at 10psi, the Repco generic "heavy duty clutch kit" I had installed years ago kept slipping with about a 400% power increase . Dialled it back to 8 or 9 psi and had fun for a couple of months. Installed a cheap Exedy cushion button clutch kit, made 277rwhp at 15psi after a few runs, but when we backed off it was idling rough and could hear a whistle when we revved it. The boost had pushed the carby off and ripped the bolts through the cheap eBay carby adaptor I had installed and blew the gasket out.
Made 277 after this, but love the fact this run had 707 or "LOL" torque
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The hex cut outs for the adpator plate nuts were clearly a weakness.

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Replaced the adaptor with a stronger one without cutouts for the nuts. While i had the carb of I went ahead and ripped the manifold off and ported out the original 2 barrel orifices, was going to match the intakes but seems Mitsubishi got it right at the factory and gasket/manifold/head ports were within 1mm of each other.

From this
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To this...not great....but an improvement
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Have not had another dyno run yet but pulls ridiculously for what it is, and is lighting up the 215s in the back easily with a welded diff in 3rd gear. Sees full boost around 3000rpm. Spins the tyres in the wet anything over quarter throttle at 2500rpm in 3rd. This thing is sooooooo torquey :D

I need to keep tinkering with the Impco carby and boost reference hoses, it runs a bit richer than I'd like on cruise, it is rich everywhere off boost, even with both mixture adjusters fully wound in and leaned out, but it leans out on large throttle applications as it comes on boost, put your foot flat below 3000rpm it'll lean out and not do much, so need to roll on the throttle as it comes onto boost if you're low in the revs. Once at full boost it will hold perfect air-fuel ratios as it revs out. The gas carb is obviously too big for a 2.6, bought it off an old F-truck V8.

Now to see how long the gearbox lasts. I really want to just crack 300rwhp and leave it at that. No idea if the manifold porting helped at all yet. And I never did upgrade those brakes (yet), and manual steering with a small steering wheel and slow ratio is fun. Power steering is coming soon.

I'll leave you with a quick teaser to show how it accelerated on half throttle when it was first tuned before I replaced the clutch. Was running about 9 to 10psi here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMo1y84w6FI

More to come
brichman
Posts: 71
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 9:05 pm
Location: Adelaide

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by brichman »

Following this one with heaps of interest. Good work :)
brichman
Posts: 71
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 9:05 pm
Location: Adelaide

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by brichman »

I don't suppose you'd be able to supply any more information regarding your programmed timing map? :)
Fingers
Posts: 46
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2014 11:01 pm

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by Fingers »

An Impco 225 should make it heaps easier to get your mixtures closer, and still be able to make the power you want.
fishpost19
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:57 pm

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by fishpost19 »

As soon as I remember to plug the laptop in one of these days I can a snapshot of the timing map.

And I have an Impco 225 in the shed but was told it'd be too small for 200+kw.

I have mixtures OK now with the 425, cruises richer than it used to since it had a permanent vacuum leak through the idle diaphram ever since I got it running with the 425. After discovering dirty residue around the idle diaphram I realised it had always had a vacuum leak, it was just coincidence that we got the mixtures perfect on idle, cruise and rich enough up top, and after replacing the idle diaphram it was much richer at idle and about the same up top (ie too rich, maybe I just need more boost to lean the mixture out a bit :lol:) I also boost referenced the idle diaphram port since after seeing how thin & fragile the diapgram was (newspaper thin) I was sure 15psi above atmospheric would pop it again.

Even at a richer cruise mixture it returns noticeably better economy than before, 13-15l per 100 is fine by me on LPG with my lead foot turbo spool driving style and a 4.2 diff ratio doing over 3000rpm at 100kph for most of my commute. Gets an extra 30+km to a tank than it used to. So 25 bucks a week on fuel to get to work instead of 40 in the 1JZ and has way more torque off boost, tradie spec ute draws less attention, and still makes the necessary turbo noises and seat push when I want.

Think I'll be leaving it like this for a bit, I should be upgrading the brakes and tyres and steering, also the new clutch seems to be slipping ever so slightly in 4th when cold for less than half a second until it heats up the slightest bit, then the ceramic seems to heat up and grab and then pulls hard and doesn't seem to slip again until it cools down. I do need to adjust the leverage ratio of the pedal, doesn't seem to give enough throw even though this clutch is for this car, I have the freeplay adjusted pretty much non existent to give enough throw to be able to put it into gear and change gears, and the cable adjusters are fully maxed out plus washers both ends (inner cable seems too long). Need to mod the clutch fork or pedal pivot to increase the throw I think.

Although I have been reading some ute builds and getting ideas for an auto (anyone know of a strong 4 speed auto with converter lockup that can be adapted easily?) and bigger tyres for straight line powah since it's never going to turn corners well :lol:
brichman
Posts: 71
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 9:05 pm
Location: Adelaide

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by brichman »

fishpost19 wrote:As soon as I remember to plug the laptop in one of these days I can a snapshot of the timing map.
That would be great mate! It seems as though it is hard to find a suitable 'base' map to start fiddling with for turbo lpg :(
Fingers
Posts: 46
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2014 11:01 pm

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by Fingers »

There is a retired bloke around here has done a few T700 to Astron conversions. He is running one in a turbo 2.6 GH SE, and seems to work really well.
He has said he will give me a disc full of conversion photos so I can post the info.
Might be handy :)
fishpost19
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:57 pm

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by fishpost19 »

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This is my pretty basic timing map, seems to work just fine
fishpost19
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:57 pm

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by fishpost19 »

I don't know whether it would be worth going through and blending the timing to give a smoother map, but runs fine and pulls hard. Good enough for this shitbox anyway lol. I have the rev limiter at 5600 rpm since it stops pulling around there anyway.

We also set up the map to 10psi since that was more than I originally planned to run, but the ignition box is capable of mapping up to 30psi. Rather than changing the settings and probably having to adjust the whole map again we just pulled more timing up at 10psi to suit 12+psi. If I get serious and end up running 20psi I will set this up properly.
BIG26L
Posts: 253
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:05 pm
Location: Sydney

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by BIG26L »

5600rpm is about where the factory camshaft runs out of puff in a boosted application. You'll need a bigger camshaft to make power above that.
brichman
Posts: 71
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 9:05 pm
Location: Adelaide

Re: 1988 Triton Ute....powered by BBQ fuel

Post by brichman »

fishpost19 wrote:Image

This is my pretty basic timing map, seems to work just fine

Mate! Fantastic. I just got my car back on the road the weekend just gone after 4 months of being broken. Thanks heaps! I'll have to order one of those black boxes shortly.
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