Wednesday, May 09, 2007
A work in progress shot of the Dart
The guys at AutoFab Motorsports have been making progress with the Dart. They've made a J-pipe that mounts the turbo to the manifold, with a flex coupling in the middle of the pipe to deal with heat expansion. The motor mount has been notched to clear the pipe. They'll be building a support bracket so that the J-pipe will not carry any of the turbo's weight. Red hot steel isn't very good at holding up a 25 lb turbo.I've been somewhat surprised at how much room this installation is taking up. A slant six has a lot of room under the hood stock. I never thought it was possible to pick a turbo that would crowd the engine bay, but once the plumbing's in place, this is going to be a tight squeeze.
Speaking of plumbing, I found out the hard way that a standard T4 turbo flange and a divided T4 turbo flange do not have the same bolt pattern. I had assumed the only difference was that one flange was split down the middle and one was not. Oops.
In case you're wondering, the gear-like object that doesn't quite look right for a gear is a Ford EDIS wheel. Wayne found it on a Mustang. It has three bolts to attach it to a crank pulley, and we may try putting it on the Dart.
Labels: Dodge Dart
