Tag: oil lines

Hot Side Torqued

In my previous post I detailed how I planned to run the turbo lines and work around the oil cooler sandwich plate etc. Well, the parts arrived, and it went mostly as planned.

The exhaust manifold and turbo are now torqued up, good to go.

It took a lot of fiddling to get the oil pressure line to work without contacting either the exhaust manifold or coolant line. I ended up just re-using the HKS kit line with a 90 degree M-F swivel off the top of the turbo. The return line was simpler; however it took me 3 attempts to get the height just right. First it was to low (in the oil), too high (no room to weld), just right (I hope..).

I still need to clean the sump thoroughly for welding and drill the locator hole for the bung. Hopefully, how I have it now is above the oil line as I am finding the stainless braided line a real pain to work with. Even when taping the cut location, it still frays quite badly, making the fit up of the nut very difficult. The plan is to fill the sump with water post cleaning to double check the return is above the maximum oil level but I’m quietly confident.

I’m also hoping the coolant line is OK with the heat sleeve around, everyone seems to think so, but time will tell. Doing a walk around, admiring my work I also noticed the wastegate actuator was sitting on the block. I managed to pry it so there is a circa 2-3mm gap – “clearance is clearance”. The ZC31S block must be slightly different in this location as I can’t imagine HKS had this kit leave the factory colliding with the block.

Before:

After:

This marks the end of the “difficult” mechanical scopes, it’s now time to tackle wiring…

Here are some higher resolution images if how the hot side setup looks:

Turbo Lines, Oil Coolers & Timing

I finally dummy-fit the turbo up and tried to fit up per the HKS ZC31S turbo kit manual but I really wasn’t happy with the setup, particularly with the length of the feed line.

The feed line is “AN4″ or 7/16” JIC and the return line is “AN10″ or 7/8″ JIC. If you’re a hydraulically inclined like me these sizes suits 1/4″ and 5/8” tube OD/hose ID respectively.

Personally, I hate how “AN” centric car plumbing is. You pay an insane premium for the anodized pretty parts. The hose fittings are nice and the way all the off the shelf hose options align to AN size is convenient given all the big automotive retailers sell both the fittings and hoses to suit a range of applications. Still, as a mechanical engineer/hydraulic engineer (depending on the day) it still irks me in a weird way. I can’t complain too much though – at work, our fitter and I both like using thread sizing as opposed to tube od/hose id dash sizing. Tomato tomato?

Side note, I love the Taipan Thread Identification Chart. It’s a great point of reference and I use it almost daily at work.

Below is my mud map of how I plan to run the oil lines. The water lines will make use of the lines that formerly served the OEM oil cooler (a very simple, leak-prone, heat exchanger). Excuse the horrible paint work, this was only really used for ordering bits – which have arrived!

The OEM oil cooler as mentioned above isn’t the greatest, the HKS manual calls for it to be rotated but removing it makes much more sense given I’m running a decent size oil cooler anyway. It’s worth noting with the oil cooler I hardly saw temps above 85C, even on 30C+ ambient track days. Unfortunately, removing the factory cooler reveals no “stud”, luckily, I found an option online that should do the trick nicely.

Apart from that I was fairly unwell during the tail end of this week. Today I did bolt up all the timing gear, new sprocket, guides and tensioner. I reused the chain as it looked to be in good condition and the manual states it is OK to reuse.

Once I make the new oil lines, it should all start coming together!