My GC Hardtop project

webby · Post by **webby** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 10:48 pm

I was gonna say 160atw sounds a bit anaemic for a turbo 2.6 lol

Post by **A112H** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:00 pm

I am with webby, I figured 160-180 was a pretty mild turbo tune that should push my 1000kg hardtop along very nicely. I am pretty sure the old man was saying they used to pull 200+ HP out of astrons NA back in the day.
Say a rough 20% drivetrain loss I will only be asking 215KW at the fly to achieve 180KW/240HP at the wheels.
According to my figures
180KW + 1000KG (with me in it) = 12.17 1/4 mile at 180kph. Sounds more than quick enough to me

by DanTurboLancer » Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:27 pm

Turbo 2.6 you can get a reliable 200+ im aiming for 250kw @wheels. And my tuner has had 300kw in a magna with a stock cam....

Sounds like the goods to me Dan

I need to workout what piston and head combo is best and what compression ratio would be best, I am thinking about 8.0:1 ???

orangelancer · Post by **orangelancer** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:07 pm

yeh the astron turbo looks like a good option. will be keen to see what path you go down

DanTurboLancer · Post by **DanTurboLancer** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:20 pm

i think my comp ratio is 8.5:1

DanTurboLancer · Post by **DanTurboLancer** » Wed Jun 15, 2011 6:26 am

Another name changer.
It gets hard to follow who we are talking to when you chamellions keep changing your name

Post by **astronturbo77** » Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:06 pm

ive seen a starion 220rwkw pull a 12.0 sec 1/4 mile, Im running 230kw, so i hope for a flat twelve. Obviously traction,tyre choices, vehicle design will change the times between individual cars. But yeah my setup is fairly mild so i think you will see 200kw easier than you think...

Nice name change too by the way

Post by **A112H** » Thu Jun 16, 2011 7:24 am

DanTurboLancer wrote:Another name changer.
It gets hard to follow who we are talking to when you chamellions keep changing your name

This is my first change in like 5 years, lol and I think it is a little more fitting

by astronturbo77 » Wed Jun 15, 2011 4:36 pm

ive seen a starion 220rwkw pull a 12.0 sec 1/4 mile, Im running 230kw, so i hope for a flat twelve. Obviously traction,tyre choices, vehicle design will change the times between individual cars. But yeah my setup is fairly mild so i think you will see 200kw easier than you think...

I am not going to say no to 200kw

and mild is what I am looking for. I want it quick but drivable, don't want a laggy thing that kicks in at 4000rpm or something with a stove pipe for an exhaust.
Something that that has a nice note, pulls from about 2500rpm and has a plumb back BOV, lol. I f I get this set up and it pulls 160kw at the rears I will be happy, if it pulls closer to 200kw at the rears I will be stoked

But you are correct astronturbo77, in a sub 1000kg car running anything over 160rwkw traction will be the issue. While I am not building it to be a drag car and leaning more towards track days, hill climbs and the odd bash through the twities in the Adelaide hills I do want to run it down the 1/4 a few times to see what I have built

Hotwire · Post by **Hotwire** » Thu Jun 16, 2011 8:33 am

Looking forward to the finished product jason.
Any progress made on the paint side of things?

Sadly my coupe is sitting exactly where we left it that day many months ago

orangelancer · Post by **orangelancer** » Thu Jun 16, 2011 12:22 pm

A112H wrote:in a sub 1000kg car running anything over 160rwkw traction will be the issue. While I am not building it to be a drag car and leaning more towards track days, hill climbs and the odd bash on the road I do want to run it down the 1/4 a few times to see what I have built

mate in my lancer 59 kws is a bit of fun with no weight no weight. idk what im going to do with the engine. tre40z kind of planted a seed in my head about boring out the 4g32 and putting on a set of webbers. his car sounds so sexual. but idk. in cars that weigh sub 1 tonne, 100 atk kw is plenty of fun. but hey more power never hurt no one (Y)

Post by **A112H** » Thu Jun 16, 2011 5:50 pm

Hotwire wrote:Looking forward to the finished product jason.
Any progress made on the paint side of things?

Sadly Hotwire my coupe is sitting exactly where we left it that day many months ago

Sadly mine hasn't moved since I pulled yours out of the shed

Now that I have more time and more money up my sleeve things should start rolling very soon. My end goal now is for the end of October but the goal posts are likely to move again $:\$
I have been collecting a range of new parts and am starting to get quite the collection going but still have many more to go.
My first full pay at my new job is the 15th July and that is already gone, lol but from then on it will be full steam ahead.

Post by **A112H** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 7:44 pm

Okay, update time.
I have found a sweet engine that has been rebuild and is pretty warm, apparently makes 99rwkw and it is N/A.
Specs
4G54
Balance shafts removed
Flat tops
Shaved 2.0lt head
Reground cam
New timing chain
Running around 10:1
Has only covered 4000k's since rebuild.

I have two options;
1, Keep the engine as it is for now but add EFi. This should see around 105rwkw / 140rwhp, I can still use my Starion box and set up the diff and tailshaft to suit. While running this engine I can build a bottom end designed to suit a turbo application and the Starion box will hook up and the EFi will bolt straight on.
2, Pull the head and replace it with one to lower compression and fit the turbo and EFi and cross my fingers the bottom end likes it.

Picking the engine up next weekend, you will get pics then

webby · Post by **webby** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 7:50 pm

Atmo motor would be cool, everyone has a turbo these days. 140hp is nothing to sneeze at, especially when your car would be lucky to weigh a tonne

Aftermarket ECU would be needed though, I have doubts the Magna computer would know WTF was going on if you tried to run that engine with it

Post by **A112H** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 7:53 pm

I have jumped from one set up to another and it looks like I might do it again, lol
I am slowly thinking atmo with quad throttle body EFi. This is about where I was 3 years ago with engine/induction ideas

webby · Post by **webby** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 8:03 pm

Sounds good. Match those tasty quads with a nice set of polished 75mm trumpets and tuned length 4-1 pipes and you'd have the coolest bay on this site IMO

Post by **A112H** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 8:23 pm

I ahd a bloody twin weber or quad TB manifold I sold last year

But the engine does come with some tri-y extractors

Blurry phone pic but this is my new engine

Post by **84GKSIG** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 8:56 pm

A112H wrote:Re: My GC Hardtop project

Post by A112H » Fri Jul 08, 2011 7:23 pm
I have jumped from one set up to another and it looks like I might do it again, lol
I am slowly thinking atmo with quad throttle body EFi. This is about where I was 3 years ago with engine/induction ideas

thats always the case hey, just as you think you've got your plan set out, out come other ideas and other options and then your back at square one and the planning starts all over again, took me 2 years to decide whether to go efi on my GK and during those years i just did research

hmm

wouldnt mind seeing some quad tb efi action though

M.B

geezer101 · Post by **geezer101** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 9:38 pm

Nice pipes jason! Looks like someone was in a rush to pull that motor out- clutch fan is toast. Is the rocker cover polished or just absurdly clean? Added bonus of anodised hose clamp sleeves.

Post by **A112H** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 9:53 pm

I haven't seen the engine yet myself, the seller sent that to me.
I think it is just really clean, it has only done 4000k since rebuild so I guess it shouldn't be leaking, lol. Yeah, that fan looks pretty buggered but I have thermo's for it already so thats cool, I am not a fan of braided hose but will reveal my plan when the time is right

webby · Post by **webby** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 9:57 pm

Needs a set like this ;)

These particular headers are for a 20v 4AGE in a RWD application, but you get the point.
The 2.6 has enough capacity to make the loss in low-end power inherent in these designs negligible, and the improvements up top would be well worth it IMO

Post by **A112H** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:09 pm

And they are f@*king sexy too

geezer101 · Post by **geezer101** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:11 pm

Now those are some serious pipes. TIG welded stainless headers- see your bank manager today! The guy who put these together was using the force or some other mystic power, that is what art looks like...

webby · Post by **webby** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 11:42 pm

The guy who put those together did it in his garage, and is a graphic designer by trade

Just goes to show what practice, good equipment and hours and hours of patience will do for you

geezer101 · Post by **geezer101** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 8:13 am

Hours of patience? Can you imagine calculating the volume of each of those pipes, then jigging them to meet at their junctions, then re-jigging them to clear everything in the engine bay, and then welding it all together and have everthing align? From a design point of view, this is a very complex assembly.

webby · Post by **webby** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:35 am

I wouldn't have the patience

These are the guy's original posts on the subject

70XIN wrote:Okay, so i have finally finished making them.

It ended up taking about 30 hours, maybe a little less. Only took about 6 to make the design, then another LOT of hours adjusting them so they fit perfectly and were equal length (honestly probably 20 hours), then another 3 or 4 to weld them.

The only thing i'm SLIGHTLY annoyed about, is i didn't expect the actual pipes themselves to warp much under welding - they did enough so that two of the runners were touching each other - after a tiny bit of persuasion and grinding, i now have about 0.5mm gap - hopefully stainless doesn't expand enough for them to touch during driving conditions?

(pics cut- webby)

Anyway. Runner length ended up being 855mm - with less than 10mm of variation between all four pipes (smallest was 852mm, largest 859mm). Just for complete interests' sake, when i just knocked the design up without measuring lengths, there was almost 11cm of variation - i made runner 4 waaay too long - the others were within 4cm of each other.

Overall, for my first ever manifold (hell, first ever anything except cooler piping and exhaust) i'm fucking happy. I guess i'll see how it goes, and then maybe down the road i'll make one with larger 1.75"+ runners and a larger exhaust.

Larger primaries because he's found that the 1.5" ones don't quite flow well enough. It may only be a 1.8L engine (this particular engine is a 7AFE with 20v 4AGE pistons and head, making a 20v 7AGE) but it has two exhaust valves per cylinder and the limiter is pegged at 9700rpm. It makes peak power (144rwhp) at 8400. So it moves a hell of a lot of gas in the top end, hence the need for larger primaries

70XIN wrote:Haha thanks guys. And yeah Skylar, i probably would have given up on trying to make them equal length, but because the mate i had over at the time has as bad OCD as me, he wouldn't let me haha. That worked out well for me i guess

And yeah, you are indeed correct - but because (in my case) i used a similar number of the same bends for each runner, they end up pretty close - as far as my brain told me, the real way to know if the *lengths* are the same, is to CC each tube. Because i welded each of the runners off the the flange/collector, i could do this, and the result were pretty similar (within 20cc or so of each other) - but this wasn't exactly easy or perfect, as you have to refill the burette many times to fill up one runner, which leaves a margin for error.

To be honest though, there are SO many variables that come into making a perfect header, that i'm not educated enough to even go into any more detail

Sorry if any of the above doesn't make sense, i am faaaarked.

Details what he did pretty well.
Sorry for dragging your thread offtopic Jason

Post by **A112H** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 12:08 pm

All good mate, I am wondering who could make some for me

but lots of other things are needed before I worry about pretty extractors.

Post by **A112H** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 10:06 am

Just picked up my engine, cheers Casey. Gotta get it out of the back of the 4x4, have family over for lunch then see if I can get it into the hardtop this afternoon

geezer101 · Post by **geezer101** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 10:16 am

Good luck- don't forget to charge your camera up!

Post by **A112H** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:40 pm

Engine fitted, not too exciting but it makes me happy, lol. Feels like something is happening again after a very long break.

Pic's

As some of you might have noticed some of the engine bay is red. Well I have decided to paint the entire engine bay red, lol. In keeping with my red and white theme my engine block, gearbox and diff white with everything alloy either polished or anodised red.

Post by **75wagon** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:49 pm

So what's the plan with putting the motor in (if you going to repaint the bay)? Are you just putting it together and then when it's up and running, pull it back out, paint, detail and reinstall?

Good to see some progress with this BTW

Dave...

Post by **A112H** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:36 pm

Pretty much excitment got the better of me, lol
Yeah the plan is to get it all up and running, exhaust and wiring all sorted so when I pull it to get painted all the holes will be pre drilled and so on.
While the shell is off getting painted I can paint up the mechanical componants ready to go back in