Turbo Charging A Tundra!

Wait wait wait.... on a RAM?!

 

Well, trip report for my end of year,/repeat of the gauntlet from back in June trip was an epic flop due to leaf peepers throughout New England ruining any hopes of a steady haul. Anyone up near Franconia Notch today knows what I mean.

All I can say is that on the way up I burned through 3/4 tank of water methanol and cruised at 65-70mph without issue. I'll upload the map of the trip in the AM. Return trip took twice as long due to the traffic but I only used 1/4 of a tank since a lot of my time was spent below 4th gear and we'll be low the speed limit. Worth noting, however, is that I hit a peak of 4.4psi at some point today, so it was working some of the time. That's the highest I've seen on stage 1/1.5

I'll be back up to repeat the original trip again in June of next year. Same dates,, similar weather, so we'll have an actual Stage 1 vs Stage 2 comparison at that time.

 

This!.......absolutely this!......this 1000x times!

 

Agreed, was doing some family stuff around the state this weekend and traffic was insane it seemed, everywhere we went! Glad that you can add, truck, tow and turbo-wise another successful trip under your belt. The traffic like that must have been exhausting!!

 

It's been a bit since I've been back east. I saw it on our WA news about locals getting fed up with the traffic. Crazy!

 

Los Angeles EAST! LOL

 

I've never seen it to this extent before. Now, granted, the color amazing before the rains came in, but I've never seen lines of people visible at the tops of ledges and rock faces, taking photos and then moving back up, all from the highway. As t first I thought they were small trees in the wind and then my daughter was all "Are those people up there? Those ARE people!!". Add to them mix the morons who stop on the side of the road for family photos and it was an exhausting drive. Cool! Do tourist things, but keep your kids in the car on highway you idiots!!!

 

Conveniently enough: https://www.wmur.com/article/northern-new-hampshire-foliage-crowds-rescues/62600569

 

Holy crap! The garbage line really heats me!!

 

Leave it up to the humans to mess it all up! I could not be around that many people in the country!, hell bells I can barely tolerate them in and around Houston!! They just keep on cramming em in here like sardines!

 

Right!! LOL. Go to the "country" to get away from it all and there's more people there!

 

It's kind of amazing what ~1.2k lbs does when towing. The camper is fully winterized and ready for storage, meaning it is basically empty and dry (less the 3 gallons of antifreeze). I just towed it an hour north to Merrimack, NH for some service and I gained 1mpg and it absolutely felt lighter and more nimble. Trans temps also stayed about 5* cooler at the same speeds as Sunday. The trans temps alone makes me think it is safe to say I am truly at capacity for this rig, even if nearly 800lbs lighter than max listed due to the profile of trailer. Since I assume it will be asked, it is a Grand Design 2800BH.

 

The brick! LOL.

 

If only it wasn't accurate. If it had wings and was a Class A, it would essentially be Eagle 5.

 

Update: Here is where I installed the water/meth. solenoid. Nice spot considering the stage 2 nozzle location. Used a bracket that came with an old radio I had and 2 rivets to install it.

 

Did I mention Stage 2 install starts this week? I'm just a little excited about that.

 

I’m jealous. I’m paying my truck off this week and then getting the 4Runner sold and I’m buying one.

 

It's been a blast. Congrats on the payoff, too! Best mod by far.

 

Truck is with @TurboKits getting a full assessment of how stage 1/1.5 performed throughout an entire heavy towing season as we roll into a fully tuned Stage 2.

I'll leave it up to Jesse to discuss in more detail, but I'm pretty pumped to see what heavy, long duration boosted runs does to the surrounding components and to address some of them once and for all. More happy to realize the heat isn't causing any issues with the piping and the fitment of the system remains on point.

Jesse recommended the tubing get coated, and he and his fabricator turned their inspection around in one day so it doesn't cause a huge delay in schedule. I wish we had gotten raw tube temps before the coating for science purposes, but I think Jesse said he'd try to get infrared thermometer readings at the dyno. Still doing the DEI basalt mat as well as the ceramic coating.

I saw the injector and pump boxes but Jesse has the specs. Excited to get this thing back.

Thanks again @TurboKits !! Appreciate you.

 

Absolutely Brian, the data you have gotten for us and the whole community is invaluable. Piping is loaded and on the way to the coaters already this AM

P.S. How good were those Tacos!!!

 

Nice!

Any facts or expectations about surrounding components considering tubing getting coated or not coated in a short or long term?

 

Since handling the heavy towing and heat mitigation has always been Brian's #s goal. We are really just testing and trying things to see what-does-what to the system. In all reality, his temps are fine and well under any concerning levels, but with his prolonged heavy loaded, boosted pulls, we do see some places we can reinforce the heat protection! So having this extreme use scenario to compare with our other test Tundras is awesome and will only serve in making the best decision for each owner / turbo kit install for it's intended use.

We suspect, next tow season, that we should have in effect, got him back to temps he was seeing when he was stock and keeping them consistently in the 200* range +/- 5-10*.

 

Most important piece of data discussed yet in this thread! Perhaps the best tacos I have ever had! I don't understand how such a tiny little hole in the wall town has such good eats, but I'm not complaining. I don't even remember the name of the place and "OMG, the tasty goodness" probably won't yield the results I'm hoping for in Yelp or a Google search.

I'm still needing to meet you back there one more time with you guys if for no other reason than to order calzone so I can bring some back to the family. So, maybe I place a calzone order AFTER we do lunch again. The tacos wouldn't travel well anyways, right?

 

WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!
How can y'all talk about such good food while not sharing!!!!!!!

 

We had a great discussion regarding just exactly how impressive things were considering the use case. At the fabrication shop, lots of turbo vehicle, but lots of them are meant for the track which is very different. Explaining it's not uncommon to be running 2-4PSI for 2-5 miles consistently during some climbs made Jesse smile while his fabricator did some sort of Beetlejuice impersonation. We then laughed at the fabricator when he thought I was a unicorn: 1) because clearly I am (or not), and 2) because he didn't fully appreciate what he had created, which speaks to his craftsmanship and Jesse's development QC.

Facts:

• The basalt mat is working as intended.
• Those hard coolant lines down to the trans heat exchanger are just simply in the way. EDIT: and simply next to impossible to wrap completely as I hoped
• The trans thermostat soft lines as showing some signs of just how much heat was down there.
• The data collected shows we have mitigated the performance (fluid temps) issues, so now we're simply looking at physical effects.
• There was so little work required during their assessment that we gained time back in the schedule and Jesse's contacts were responsive and willing to support him, hence the coating. Wasn't planned, but in the name of science, why not?

Expectations:

• I know this sounds silly, but I don't really have any except to ensure the system has held up 100% after a full season of towing, and to wrap the entire system with DEI heat mat before it gets reassembled (target of opportunity).
• Based on yesterday, my curiosity and potential opportunities for improvement are:

• • To keep the heat in the system through the turbo and out of the engine bay.
    • Possibly faster spooling
    • Certainly to eliminate any potential impacts to surrounding components
    • Even with the coating, we're still using the DEI heat mat on the entire system, including the entire run of cross-over piping. We're also going to use it to completely wrap the transmission thermostat soft lines (the white wrapped lines at the trans).
  • As Jesse said, our new test is to see if these mitigations takes our data (you've all seen my OCD over trans and coolant temps) and returns everything back to stock.
    • My trans temps have always crept up when using 5th or 6th gear. My ECTs never budged. Ever. Based on the assessment yesterday, and with Jesse's plan, we think we could lose those 2-5% spikes when on those long boosted runs.

 

Awesome! Thank you both @bflooks / @TurboKits for such a great data, for this and all you are doing! I love the idea to make things a 200% better if possible. I will follow you on this!

I am not sure if I am going to do it, but I got an embossed aluminum heat shield and some aluminum bars with the intention to make like a heat shield between the firewall and pipes to protect the break lines there. Also, to make another heat shield between the engine and the turbo/pipes. The idea is to make some aluminum brakets with the bars I got to hold the shield separated from both areas, using rivets to attach the shield to the brakets and existing bolts to hold the brakets.

 

I saw those heat shields on a much earlier photo posted up here. I really like how clean it was to protect the wiring and coil packs. Staying tuned! Please document the heck out of the dimensions for the brackets (or make 2 sets... one for a distant friend LOL)

 

Not sure if it will be possible to do the same in the trans. area.