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SuperS Forged Turbo Build

This is with the Suretrac diff, I spotted it as I use witness paint on hub nuts. By the end of the first event using the car with the LSD it had undone by a bout 3/4 of a turn....

I get the same effect on our MGZR with a Quaife LSD

I'm obviously not trying hard enough then Matt :ROFLMAO:
 
While I'm waiting on head flow results for the next engine, (yes, I'm still waiting because the queue is huge!), I decided to do some ground work on the blue turbo K11 since it's a working vehicle and an ideal guinea pig to test out new stuff on.

Even though we made some fairly decent numbers on our last trip to the dyno, it took more boost than I'd have liked to make the power we were making. Head work and cams aside, the intercooler on the car is a bit on the small side, so I decided to look into a suitable upgrade.

The intercooler that was on the car was a 620x200x40 core 'tube and fin' unit, with pretty appalling fin density. It also had fairly small inlet/outlet at just over 41mm ID = #FAIL :LOL:
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After a lot of measuring and scouring of Google, I decided to go with a 550x230x65 core 'bar and plate' intercooler, which is the biggest unit that will realistically fit within the front end. Not only does this offer significantly better fin density but also provides a healthy increase in flow area as well as some additional thermal mass. Inlet/outlet sizes are also much better at just over 2" which removes any possibility of flow restriction at the power levels we have in mind.
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So, it's brackets, test fitting and then time for some cardboard ducting mockups to optimise airflow through the core. Not much point in upgrading if you're not going to pull out all the stops ;)
 
Mock brackets installed to assess position and potential piping runs. NSF needs a 90deg elbow welding on, as it's too tight for a silicone bend and hose clamp. That actually works better with the current hot side piping anyway and just leaves potentially a 15deg joiner on the OSF.

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Well, while I'm waiting for some extruded aluminium angle to arrive to make a nice intercooler mount from, I decided to remove the turbo and manifold to check port matching. Last time I had the manifold off I noticed the ports appeared a little on the small side but only after I'd had it finish milled. I also didn't have the tools to do any porting at the time, so it went back on as it was.

Now it's been on the car a while there was enough time for carbon to build up and show any mismatching. After removal the ports on the manifold, (which were copied from an HKS manifold), were shown to definitely be too small. In fact, they were all smaller than the gasket, which is a perfect match to the cylinder head on CG engines. In particular cylinders 1 and 4 were obscured by quite a bit due to some misalignment of the flange.

So, I paid a visit to SirChris' workshop for a spot of die grinding :cool:

This is how the manifold started out, bit of an old photo this but it serves to show how things were.

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After a short while with a nice sharp burr.

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Not finished yet. This is just a rough grind to allow me to offer it up to a spare head I have with an old pair of gaskets, dob or 2 of silicone to make them stick and check to see how the alignment is now. I'll then see how much finishing is required and where and do some final minor grinding ops plus some finishing with some flap wheels where it's needed and to even out the port shapes. It's always good to check along the way when you're removing metal, especially when it comes to No.2 cylinder, which doesn't have a great deal of gasket area ;)
 
Thanks to an empty Cheerios box, I was able to make up a template for the cylinder head to check the newly ported manifold for alignment.

Ports line up a treat with no obstructions and, if anything, there's a slight lip now which was the aim to help promote anti-reversion. So once the flap wheels arrive next week, I can smooth out the surfaces and this is good to re-install :)

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Extruded aluminium angle arrived yesterday. So that was cut to length and drilled for intercooler placement and bolted to the front cross member.

Dropped the intercooler off to my local welder to have the cast elbow welded up. It's now sat in the car to assess final placement for hose clearances. A smidge will get trimmed from the chassis to allow adequate hose clearance on the NSF for sure.

Once it's in it's final place, I can get to working on the bumper and start with the cardboard mockups for some ducting :)

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In the meantime the turbo has made it's way indoors and has been split so I can send the turbine housing to Zircotec to be coated. The turbo jacket was only a temporary measure and I'll be glad to see the back of it.

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If that wasn't enough, I decided I should invest in some tools. Good old eBay bought a decent degree wheel. Magnetic stand, digital dial gauge and TDC tool are en-route, so I can check the cams that are currently in the car. This will allow me to determine what we do next cam wise to help squeeze a bit more out of the engine :geek:

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A decent set of measuring tools are something I've been looking to invest in for a while. Especially those that allow me to time up an engine. Very useful, especially for what I'm aiming at.

I have the specs of the cams that are in the engine and they're pretty docile to be honest. On paper they sound radical but when you look at the actual data, it's a different story. These were budget cams, so were re-grinds of a standard cam and that only gets you so far. They did however deliver on what they were supposed to do and that was to increase top end power for a more track focused output. Power went from 201bhp to 224bhp on the same boost with a bigger spread of top end power.

On paper they're a 288deg cam but when you look at the timings at 1mm lift, they're down to 208deg. Couple that with them having only 8mm of lift valve, (7.75mm at the valve), they're nothing special. The engine is doing extremely well to make the power it does IMO.

Just to add a comparison, a 256deg Tomei Poncam seems mild but measures 216deg at 1mm and 8.35mm lift.

I have a set of cams already ground for this engine, which I am looking forward to trying out but I want to know how the current cams are timed in, so I have a known data set to work from. Profile wise, my own grinds are 272deg but have more duration at 1mm and a much better lift profile. I also have a set of 270deg Catcams just encase I feel like easing into a cam upgrade (nothing worse than over-camming a small engine). From my NA days the CG heads fair very well, even as standard, with 9mm or so of lift.

I'll also add, that I've just received a set of detailed cam data from Tighe cams over in AUS who are one of the few companies that offer custom cams for the 4efte. Aside from a difference in lift, (9mm vs 10mm in my case), they're identical, so that's reassuring.
 
Throttlebody all stripped down ready to send to Mark at Tornado Systems for a 48mm butterfly. It's by no means my ultimate intake for the CG engine but it's cheap and will bolt-on to eek a bit extra out of the OEM setup.

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Another little update. Just got off the phone with the company who is carrying out our cylinder head flow testing. The jig arrived this morning for the head so, aside from a bit of fiddling, the head will be shortly ready for flow testing.

In order to make this extra interesting, I now have a standard CGA3 head which I will be dropping off in the next few days to be cleaned and flowed along side our modified head to provide a baseline.

I will happily post up standard cylinder head flow numbers here, so the community can see what the potential is for using a standard head and what can be expected from a flowed head. This will help to serve as a 'yard stick' so to speak which will help people make informed decisions with respect to power expectations and cam profile selection (for those that are interested in taking that route of course).
 
A metal degree wheel!

I should probably own one of those, Ive still got the paper printed and glued to cereal box diy version. Which was surprisingly accurate haha.
 
Demon Thieves order arrives this morning in the form of a cylinder head component organiser and a set of cylinder head stands. This makes stripping down the head extremely simple and should serve to stop parts walking off anywhere.

So, the spare head is all up and ready to remove the springs, valves and retainers as soon as my removal tool arrives. Yes, and the thermostat housing too :geek:

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Thanks to Charlie at Surrey Rolling Road, I got hold of a re-scaled copy of our last dyno printout last time we had the turbo Micra up on the rollers. Amazing that this was all the way back in October 2017!

In terms of output the new hybrid turbo only came in 100rpm later the standard GT2554R that it replaced. Considering we didn't bother to do any tuning, (there's a big lean spot around 3500rpm), the difference in boost threshold and spool is more than acceptable.

Anyway, this sets the standard to beat for next year ;)

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Well, not as much progress as I had hoped to be able to report at this point in time. To the point I have actually considered changing this blog title to "Blue K11 turbo Upgrade", since things are progressing so slowly with the fresh engine.

It seems as though my heads still aren't on the flowbench and my throttle isn't ready yet from Tornado. The head flowbenching can wait though, as that's a nice to have and for a new project but a TB is pretty essential to a running engine in the Blue K11!

What I can confirm is that I've finished with all the info gathering on cam specs and that's certainly been an interesting journey. It's actually extremely difficult to obtain detailed information, even when you're a paying customer, so choosing a good company who are willing to discuss the finer details is a must!

According to Catcams, here are the specs for a standard CG13DE cam. There's some variance between their .com and .co.uk websites though and I'd imagine that reflects from variance between an as ground cam and the written spec.

Standard CG13DE Cam:
Duration at 0.1mm: 228deg
Duration at 1mm: 192deg
Lift@TDC: 0.15mm intake / 0.15mm exhaust
Valve Lift: 7.55mm

Kent 288deg Cam (Current Cam):
Duration at 0.1mm: 288deg
Duration at 1mm: 208deg
Lift@TDC: 0.25mm intake / 0.25mm exhaust
Valve Lift: 7.75mm

Catcams 270deg Cam:
Duration at 0.1mm: 270deg
Duration at 1mm: 224deg
Lift@TDC: 1.15mm intake / 0.55mm exhaust
Valve Lift: 9.20mm

The above timings for the Catcams grind represent how I will dial them in. Straight up would result in quite a bit of overlap and more lift@TDC. In order to make the engine more tolerant to backpressure, we'll plump for a larger LSA compared to the as ground profile. We won't know what the engine will want until we've seen the power distribution but, this should serve as a good starting point based on our turbine choice.

Matt is flat out with work this week, so next week I'll pop up to the Micra Mecca and see if I can find some shimless followers that will allow me to get the intake cam installed.
 
Nothing groundbreaking to update with. Just got back from a trip out to Matt's where I was able to acquire 7 followers which were much needed to shim in the new cams.

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Well, due to some recent let downs, I decided to push things forward. In a nutshell I sent a stock throttlebody off to be bored out and after 2 months it's still not ready. Therefore I'm skipping a step and going for an all out intake manifold and charge piping upgrade.

So, out came the craft tools for a spot of templating. After a lot of measurements, I arrived at a weld-in template for the internal pedal box.

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Finally, some progress this week!

Picked up the spare machined CV joint, which Chris and I managed to damage when we were mocking up shafts for the RS5F70a gearbox upgrade. Woops! :sneaky:

I also dropped off the template to have the pedal box plinth made up. I'll get them made from carbon steel 2mm plate, which will more than suffice for the intended service. ETA for that is middle of next week. I can then sort the final position for both the plinth and the pedals and start thinking about piping and cable runs.

Hopefully I'll hear back from Jenvey regarding the intake manifold quotes next week too. The initial ones received were a bit wrong, so there's a few tweaks needed and some decisions to be made.

Hopefully, I can start making some progress on the next suite of upgrades and get this blasted car back on the road for some miles and data gathering in 2019!
 
Picked up the pedal box plinths earlier. They turned out really well and are nice and robust.
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Stuck one in the white shell for a trial fit. I'll wait for the short boss to arrive before marking up the final position for welding in, so I can ensure wheel position is taken into account.

Ran out of time to sort things with Jenvey and AT Power today. I did manage to get some new fuel injectors from ANSU sorted though.
 
Made some significant progress this week. Despite a lot of things going wrong over the past few months, I've managed to pull things out of the bag and get things back on track. The SuperS is back on the agenda and I finally have a way forward.

Pedal box plinth was measured, drilled and some weld nuts welded in position. Bit of weld through zinc primer on the underside for good measure.

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While I'm waiting for my Works Bell boss to arrive from Japan, (so I can set final positioning), I got in some board tape to get the pedals prepped. Nothing worse than slippy aluminium pedals! ;)

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Ordered up some braided brake lines from Matt Humphris to suit the rear disc setup. Standard kits are all for rear drums, so not suitable. Thankfully Matt was able to help, as usual so I can replace the very old 10+ year old ones that are currently on there and likely past their best. Once they arrive, I can bust out the metal coat hangers and get measuring for some hard lines.

Ordered some more parts from Japan. I'm keeping schtum on those though until they arrive. Lets just say they'll be worth the wait! :cool:

To finish off the week, I had a very nice chat with Ed at Fusion Motorsport regarding our next tuning options. Ed's been doing a LOT of calibration for Syvecs over the years and has recently setup up one of the first of their new S7i units, so he's got a lot of experience to offer. Small post below from the Syvecs main Facebook page ;)



I bought a Syvecs S6GP ecu some while ago, which I've been saving for a rainy day like this. It's always been on the cards, but with the intake manifold upgrade, new intercooler and charge piping, it seems like a perfect time to upgrade. We're waiting for Syvecs HQ to advise on the finer details but our Omex 600 days will be officially over.

I've got more things running in the background, but I'm a bit battered with everything that's been going on this week. Hopefully the next few weeks will follow suit and I can get back to updating things a bit more regularly :)
 
Plenty going on over the past two weeks. Loads of parts have arrived and consequently my study now looks like some sort of parts emporium :LOL:
I'll save the list of parts until the car's back from having some work done on it. Along with getting the pedal box plinth welded in, the car is booked in for the beginning of May to have it's new charge piping fabricated.

Engine wise, I've spent the past few days dialing in the cams. It doesn't take that long really but, when you only have an hour or 2 per evening and when you consider how fiddly it actually is to dial in cams accurately on a CG engine, it does take a bit of patience.

The 270deg cams have now been dialed in as good as I cam get them. Only the dyno will tell if they need changing from there. I've based the initial dial-in on similar cams used in the 4EFTE but, to be fair, the majority of engines spec pretty similar cam data so it's probably going to be fine. The distribution of things will dictate where we go from there, if at all.

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Next is to strip down my ABS hubs and replace the bearings. Seeing as though we're upgrading things significantly in terms of engine management, it seems like a good opportunity to run a full suite of ABS sensors, so we can implement traction control, boost by gear and even cruise control if we wish. The latter isn't really necessary but it would be fun on long drives to and from events :p

Plenty more happening in the background but I'll make some updates a bit later, as everything is a bit of a mess at present.
 
Plenty going on over the past two weeks. Loads of parts have arrived and consequently my study now looks like some sort of parts emporium :LOL:
I'll save the list of parts until the car's back from having some work done on it. Along with getting the pedal box plinth welded in, the car is booked in for the beginning of May to have it's new charge piping fabricated.

Engine wise, I've spent the past few days dialing in the cams. It doesn't take that long really but, when you only have an hour or 2 per evening and when you consider how fiddly it actually is to dial in cams accurately on a CG engine, it does take a bit of patience.

The 270deg cams have now been dialed in as good as I cam get them. Only the dyno will tell if they need changing from there. I've based the initial dial-in on similar cams used in the 4EFTE but, to be fair, the majority of engines spec pretty similar cam data so it's probably going to be fine. The distribution of things will dictate where we go from there, if at all.

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Next is to strip down my ABS hubs and replace the bearings. Seeing as though we're upgrading things significantly in terms of engine management, it seems like a good opportunity to run a full suite of ABS sensors, so we can implement traction control, boost by gear and even cruise control if we wish. The latter isn't really necessary but it would be fun on long drives to and from events :p

Plenty more happening in the background but I'll make some updates a bit later, as everything is a bit of a mess at present.

Nice work Dave, i need to educate myself on cam timing, do you do lessons?!
 
Nice work Dave, i need to educate myself on cam timing, do you do lessons?!

Honestly, it's a bit of a PITA on a K11. There's a bit of slop being chain drive and everything is pretty small, so it doesn't take much to be as much as +/- 1 or 2deg out at the crank. I'll be double checking my dial-ins before I torque everything up finally that's for sure!

I try to not get too hung up on it, as cam timing is only a guide. An engine wants what it wants at the end of the day in terms of overall output.
 
Hubs and bearings pressed out of the uprights. Sadly one of the original ABS sensor bolts decided it didn't want to move and snapped off in the casting :mad: So, it's MAPP gas, drills and easy outs to try and persuade it otherwise.

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Fingers crossed it'll come out so these can go off for blasting. They're in reasonable shape but a fresh surface, a coat of upol acid #8 and some black HT will give them a much needed lift :)

My special pasts order from Japan has just landed in Coventry for customs clearance. No doubt it'll sit there festering for a week while they send me the customs charges by post (such a primitive system). Hopefully this time they won't waste 3 days sending it to the wrong depot, back to Coventry, then back to the correct depot for final delivery this time! :sneaky:
 
Import duty and taxes paid on the JDM parts order. So, hopefully it'll be released and will arrive tomorrow and I can do a bit of a reveal :cool:

Speaking of parts from Japan. My Works Bell boss arrived which enabled me to install the steering wheel, so I could check seat position and mark up the final placement for the pedal box :)

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Well, I was hoping to take advantage of the lovely weather we have today and post up a nice reveal.

However, since ParcelFarce, (yes, that IS spelled correctly) have lost my package, that's not going to be possible. **** off doesn't begin to cover it! :mad:
 
Well, plenty done this week so far thanks to a break in the British weather.

Some of you who frequent Facebook will have already seen a sneak peak at some of the parts that'll end up on the SuperS.

I managed to get hold of some long since discontinued parts from Aspect in Japan. One in the form of a carbon rear wing.

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The other is a bonnet vent which should help to promote better air flow through the intercooler and radiator. That's not my bonnet but the only picture I have that's representative.

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I got the 2 front uprights back from the blasters, put 2 coats of UPOL Acid#8 on followed by 2 coats of UHT black. Now just to press in the new bearings, front hubs and bolt in the new ABS sensors and they're ready for final assembly :)

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Not much happening as it's a bit too nice to be spannering.

Just a set of polly bushes to replace the old Nismo mounts that were past their best. These are also significantly easier to press in that Nismo mounts, especially the bottom mount.

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Took a trip out to see Charlie at Syvecs HQ this morning to go and collect the ECU.

My S6GP went in for a board upgrade to turn it into the full S6 Plus. It's now got more inputs capability to allow us to run plenty of sensors, on board DBW support for the new Bosch Motorsports TB and also an upgrade to full knock control.

The upgrade also provides a better set of connectors to make the wiring job a bit more pleasant and comes with a fully sealed billet anodized case. Syvecs really do make some stunning hardware :geek:

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Finished prepping the SuperS shell. Made the necessary cutouts for the boost pipe routing. Etch primed and painted in.
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Pressed in the bearings and front seals on the reconditioned uprights. Just the hubs and rear seals to go in now.
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A nice package arrived from Jenvey today (finally). So I got to mocking up the turbo plenum onto the intake manifold. Just a set of M5x45mm bolts to arrive to bolt up the Bosch DBW throttlebody and it's ready to install on the engine.
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Loads more to do on Friday but it's time for a cleanup and a well earned rest :)
 
Engine bay almost populated. Just need to crack out the trusty step drill to finish mount the radiator and FMIC. Hopefully the M5x45mm bolts arrive tomorrow to hook up the DBW throttlebody (nothing like cutting things down to the wire!).

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Pick up the trailer tomorrow, then it's off to the fabricators on Sunday to drop it off for charge piping :)
 
Hats off
Credit we’re credit is due
Serious build and attention to detail overall

Nice find with the spoiler by the way aspect done some nice gear back in the day

Wat sort power is u aiming to push out of this thing ??
 
Hats off
Credit we’re credit is due
Serious build and attention to detail overall

Nice find with the spoiler by the way aspect done some nice gear back in the day

Wat sort power is u aiming to push out of this thing ??

Ultimate goal on a fresh engine ~300bhp.

From this particular engine, not 100% sure. I'm confident we'll exceed 250bhp but it's all dependent on what the factory cylinder head is capable of, as this engine still retains a factory head. Also on what the turbo can flow also. We'll be monitoring a LOT of stuff on the dyno, even turbine drive pressure to see if we need more turbine.

I have 2 heads on the flow bench one standard and one ported with over-sized valves. We should be able to draw a reasonable guesstimate based on what this engine makes and the head flow numbers, as to where we'll end up.
 
Ultimate goal on a fresh engine ~300bhp.

From this particular engine, not 100% sure. I'm confident we'll exceed 250bhp but it's all dependent on what the factory cylinder head is capable of, as this engine still retains a factory head. Also on what the turbo can flow also. We'll be monitoring a LOT of stuff on the dyno, even turbine drive pressure to see if we need more turbine.

I have 2 heads on the flow bench one standard and one ported with over-sized valves. We should be able to draw a reasonable guesstimate based on what this engine makes and the head flow numbers, as to where we'll end up.
You obviously know your stuff anyway
Fair play
300bhp in a k11 is a serious achievement so hats off.

May I ask do u come from a mechanical background yourself or you gain ur knowledge from test and failure?

Can’t wait to see the car finished
Will it be a road legal car or strictly track based ?
 
You obviously know your stuff anyway
Fair play
300bhp in a k11 is a serious achievement so hats off.

May I ask do u come from a mechanical background yourself or you gain ur knowledge from test and failure?

Can’t wait to see the car finished
Will it be a road legal car or strictly track based ?

Yes, I'm a mechanical engineer by discipline :)
 
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