kimokalihi's 91 SS EJ20 Swap

[cj91legss]

Dammit......

[kimokalihi]

Drift Machine!!

[cj91legss]

Nice!!!

[mike-tracy]

UR Drift-o machin-o is Fwd!

[kimokalihi]

Just shows how good you have to be to drift it haha.

[kimokalihi]

Cleaned and polished my exhaust tips. Big difference but I didn't go all out since the exhaust was still on the car.

The left tip has only been washed. The right tip was washed and steel wooled and the 2nd 2 pictures are after polishing.

[mike-tracy]

Looks veddy nice Kimo!

[Legacy777]

Nice Kimo!

What did you polish the tips with?

[kimokalihi]

One of those mini power ball drill attachments and mequiers all metal polish. Seems like the steel wool did most of the work but like I said I didn't spend a whole lot of time on it and it was a tight work space under there.

[sqc151]

<<< likes exhaust...

[kimokalihi]

Its a real nice exhaust actually. Glad jess found it for me. Has a really smooth deep sounds that doesn't give you a headache and its not very loud either.

[SiCkSTi04]

That makes me want to take care of my exhaust one of these weekends

[kimokalihi]

It was pretty easy. Jacked the rear end up sky high and disconnected 3 hangs and then I put a small 2x4 on top of the muffler wedged against the bottom of the car to hold it away from the bumper. Spray some wd40 in the rubber bushings to make them easier to remove and install.

[cj91legss]

Looks real good kimo

[kimokalihi]

Thanks. I got the stupid s14 roof visor and its wayyyyyy to big for my car. Bummed.

[kimokalihi]

Someone at my work drives a nice 280Z in excellent condition. Another guy drives a decent looking 300ZX. There's also an 06/07 STI and an 05 WRX EJ257 Swap done at PIA and an S14 240SX and a nice clean Integra(I hate hondas so this says a lot). Small handful of neat cars. Could be a lot more considering there's around 700 employees but I work out in the styx so nobody is into the tuner scene.

[kimokalihi]

Spent my whole day off installing my new thermocouple temp probes and a pair of multimeters which can be wired up to several things including these thermocouples which can be used for either intake or exhaust temps and maybe even oil temp and water temp and you can also use them to monitor boost and Air/Fuel ratio. Pretty neat. $120 shipped for two of them and the thermocouple wiring. 7 hours of work and it works great and looks awesome too.

Here we have the package contents as it arrived today. 2x Auber Automobile Multimeter which can be purchased here: http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_ ... ucts_id=19

And some K Type Thermocouple wires which are made up of a pair of wires that are sheathed in fiberglass and I also got some that have an extra braided stainless jacket which I used under the hood for extra protection. They can be purchased from the same company here: http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_ ... cts_id=144 and here: http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_ ... cts_id=169








Here's a panel I fabbed up to replace my double din compartment and mount the multimeters in. The top one is measuring just before the intercooler and the bottom measures temps right after the intercooler.








It's a very simple system. You just wire up the positive and negative wires to the multimeters and wire up power and ground and I chose to also wire up illumination so it dims at night. Then you run the thermocouple wires through your firewall to your desired location in your intake system. Strip back some of the jacket and fiberglass sheath and twist the two wires together. Insert them into the intake and button everything back up and you're good to go. One wire is coated in a certain type of metal like nickel or something and the other wire is coated in another type of sensitive metal and when you twist them together they react to the temperature of the air and creative a very small voltage which is read by the multimeter and converted to a temperature reading. Pretty neat.









Here's a few install pics of the gauges. Unfortunately they were taken at night since it took me all day to do the job and they don't really do the install justice. It actually looks really nice in person. The last picture is after I had drive 25-30 miles and turned the car off for a minute.










It works really well! The thermocouples react surprisingly quick which is good. I don't know if the turbo itself got hotter or if the intercooler somehow started to get heatsoaked but after about 20 miles it started to climb in temp which was strange I though. It was about 50-55 F outside and for the first 2/3 of the trip (with several 2nd,3rd,4th and 5th gear pulls it would quickly level out afterwards to about 110 before and 75-80 after the intercooler but then by the time I got home which was pretty much all cruising at 50-60 mph on the way back it was at 140 before and 100-110 after the intercooler.

Temps reached a max of 245 on the freeway in 4th gear and 5th gear with a reading of about 125 after the intercooler. Right before I got home I went up the hill I live in and did a 3rd through 4th pull and saw it hit nearly 270 degrees and probably 140 after.

So in conclusion, without knowing what are ideal temps with a TMIC setup like this I would have to say it seems as though the intercooler is doing a better job than I thought it was. Although I'm seeing knock in 4th and 5th gear from probably 4,000-6,000 RPM which I'm guessing is from carbon buildup on the pistons but that's just a shot in the dark. I went to one heat range colder plugs and that didn't stop it.

I wonder if an AWIC with a reservoir would pull significantly lower temps.

[SILINC3R]

Kimo that is awesome, i have been looking for something like this for awhile. I want the Mach V gauge that does what yours does but its like 300 plus however it is one gauge and looks very clean. Great little right up looking forward to see what kind of temps it continues to show.

[kimokalihi]

Thanks. I saw the mach v one and if its the one I'm thinking of it didn't react as fast as this setup probably due to a different sensor but I'm not sure. I saw a video of it. It had different settings and would only show one thing at a time so it could monitor twp temps but only show you one at a time. It also had a setting to show you the difference in both temps instead. And yes it was expensive. This setup wasn't cheap at $120 shipped but it wasn't $300 and I think its pretty valuable info and I'm surprised more people don't have this on their cars when they spend crazy amounts of money blindly bolting expensive parts on hoping their butt dyno will be pleased with the results.

[Legacy777]

Nice work Kimo! Very good info for sure. What turbo are you using? I'd be curious to look at the compressor map for your turbo, the pressure ratios and temperatures to see what the efficiencies are like.

[Alphius]

I'd say during cruising your engine bay was probably venting hot air through the intercooler and it was starting to heatsoak. That's probably why the temps started to climb.

I know after lots of highway cruising my intercooler is quite warm to the touch and I can see the heat waves coming out of the scoop when I come to a stop.

Those Auber instruments are pretty cool. I am seriously considering grabbing one and using it as an EGT. I've wanted to get an EGT on my car for quite a while. It would be helpful if I went standalone too.

[kimokalihi]

Thanks. I thought it was pretty neat as I've only seen a before and after temp setup on two other cars before.

The turbo is a TD05 18G.

[sqc151]

very nice Kimo. looking forward to more feedback from ya on this.

[Alphius]

Looks like you are probably way outside of the efficiency range of your turbo. It's too big. You will be down around 60% efficiency or less running it to 7k on 18psi. On the plus side, you have plenty of room to hold like 28psi to redline easily.

To be honest I have the same problem even with a TD05-16g on a 2.2L.

[kimokalihi]

That link is not working. So should I run a smaller turbo? What turbo is a good match and how do I determine if one is or not?