01 sport - 4.0 SOHC STS turbo charged (Project complete)

4.0 SOHC turbo charger project

Guys - I'm done....well, almost (you know how that goes)

I've drove the truck around today very safely and all I can say is wow...I love this and I'm very glad I did it. I'll have to say I went thru a lot to get this far and lost a few buddies along the way.

I'm gonna try like heck to get you guys some videos soon but right now I need to chill cuss my wife is pissed. I've been working on this truck when I should be working on the house, but oh well. blah blah blah.


I've got the boost at around 5 LBS and that's where it's gonna stay until I can get the MAF, injectors, and fuel pump in. Oh yeah, I'm running the 73MM C&L housing and stock injectors and pump. Anyways, I'll be changing those out and tuning the thing out pretty soon - I can then take her to the track and see what happens.....

This is what I've been wanting for two years now so I'm a little excited that it's here now. Not trying to make a drama thread here but I'm happy to join James in the STS 4.0 SOHC circle. Now let me see if I can out run him? :

 

[Jakee]

New Daily Driver.

Check out my new daily driver. We traded in the Milan for this; I like! 265HP from a 3.5 stock.

 

[jah81592]

Yes - The transmission subject is a hard one for me.

Option 1 - Swap to the 5R55S. I'm a little nervous about this one. James did this and it gave him a run for his money. If it did that to him, then I know it'll be even harder for me to get it right.

Option 2 - Swap in a C4 and lose the overdrive. I don't like that much.

So the transmission would be a must if I went any further. Also, if I were to go further, I may have to swap the turbo to get the most out of it. All this equates to a bunch of money.

I'm going to stay where I'm at for awhile and enjoy.

Jake, This is still a sore subject to me. The tuning has been ridiculous. I tune nasty combos all the time but this has been an ongoing issue. If you (the general consumer) doesn't have patience then I don't recommend the 5R55S swap! I have countless hours tuning. Did I mention the 4-3 and 2-3 shift is a complete *****. The reasoning for the difficulty level is that there isn't any adaptive learning or other things built into this processor. Just getting the temp versus line pressure offset correct took me 4 months and I am still fine "tuning" it! I am done venting now.-j

Not yet but I would like to see the power curve on a dyn0. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to get it on the dyno first. The track would be good but I really need to get the locker in there first.

I'm still playing with the tune. I fattened the fuel just a bit up top cuss I was going to up the boost to 10 LBS but then I'm getting a sound like I hit the rev limiter. I'm pretty sure it's spark blow out but I'm going to pull the plugs and gap them back down to .035 and inspect for any detonation. I tried to gap them at .045 just to see if I could get it to work but I think that gap is too wide, thus the spark blow out.

I still need to tune LOAD W/FAILED MAF.

The only reason you should have to tune your Load w/failed MAF is if you are clipping your wot fuel and cannot control fueling through the meter. Then you would only adjust the top rows. Even then I haven't seen an EEC-v vehicle need the Load with failed MAF needing values raised. Only in the PowerPC vehicles. Right Robert, LOL! I would recommend your spark plugs to be gapped to .030 if you are going to run high boost. There won't be any power difference with the plugs at .035 or higher. Just more likelihood of the spark being blown out.

Oh yeah, congrats on your new ride. Hope you really enjoy it. Nice color.-j

 

[Jakee]

James - Another thing came up that took me a while to figure out. I thought I was getting spark blow-out but it turned out to be hitting the rev limiter between 1-2nd gear. I lowered the RPM shift then had to adjust the MPH shift too. I finally got it shifting at 5800 from 1st to second. We'll see how that goes. The more I tweak, the more power I produce, and then small things pop up that wasn't noticable. But, I haven't ran into any more problems. The trans is holding up (knock on wood) and I might push it to 10LBS of boost. THe plugs have been gapped to .035 and I'll be taking them out to see if I see any signs of detonation. When that happens, I'll adjust to .030

 

[rocket 5979]

Only in the PowerPC vehicles. Right Robert, LOL!

Hehe, yeah the PCM didn't know WHAT the hell to do with all that extra aircharge coming in!

 

[jah81592]

The plugs being at .035 should work since you have a coil but I would be real attentive to any signs of popping and snapping. Move them in a touch if you do get spark blow out. Good to hear that this is going well. Remember when we first started talking about you tuning your combo I mentioned you would probably have to adjust a few parameters to get the shift to complete when you want it to. -j

 

[Jakee]

The plugs being at .035 should work since you have a coil but I would be real attentive to any signs of popping and snapping. Move them in a touch if you do get spark blow out. Good to hear that this is going well. Remember when we first started talking about you tuning your combo I mentioned you would probably have to adjust a few parameters to get the shift to complete when you want it to. -j

Yes - I remember, I was so concerned about watching the air/fuel and boost, I didn't pay too much attention to the RPMs (I used hearing). All is well.

 

[Jakee]

Little tweaks.

After upping the boost I started getting a little oil on the valve cover filter. Nothing major but I fixed it like this...

Here are some new plug wires. The quality on these wires is great other than the fact that the #1 wire is to short (Will send back for 1" longer).

 

[CDW6212R]

That looks very well done and clean. Do you have some oil seeping out from the filler cap fittings?

 

[Jakee]

Yes, I have an aluminum cap that is being drilled and tap that I plan to use in place of the plastic cap. I have a bud doing it for me and it should have already been done by now. Because of me thinking it was gonna be done, I've been lazy and not messed with this plastic one. It's not leaking bad at all but just enough to stain.

The problem with the plastic cap is the o-ring sit's right on the edge of a big chamfer in the valve cover. This prevents it from fully sealing under higher boost. The stock cap that I had before was a two pc design which caused it to leak with lower boost so that didn't work either.

 

[CDW6212R]

I asked because I hope to need to know those things for turbo charging.

 

[Jakee]

There is a universal aluminum cap made by billet specialties that I picked up from summit. This cap fits my engine better than the plastic ones you get from the auto store and the o-ring fits perfectly with the flats on the valve cover. The only thing left is drilling and tapping a 3/8" NPT hole.

 

[Jakee]

Oil cap return

No more leaky.

 

[Jakee]

by the way....I have 'the next' project in the works. For me, the explorer is very very fast and I'm very happy with the performance I have with it. I don't want to push to much further with it but I do want to do some more to get it looking better. Anyways, I've bought a 1988 S10 bazer 4X4...This truck was my first vehicle I purchased by myself and I couldn't pass up the oppurtunity to buy it back. I'll be 1) tearing her apart and swapping in a 383 stroker motor and converting to two wheel drive, or 2) building the v6 (I can probably get around 280 N/A out of the 4.3) adding a turbo to it, and converting to AWD. Either way, should be fun.

 

[1996explorerxlt]

So you gonna make it like a GMC Typhoon? Nice!

 

[jah81592]

by the way....I have 'the next' project in the works. For me, the explorer is very very fast and I'm very happy with the performance I have with it. I don't want to push to much further with it but I do want to do some more to get it looking better. Anyways, I've bought a 1988 S10 bazer 4X4...This truck was my first vehicle I purchased by myself and I couldn't pass up the oppurtunity to buy it back. I'll be 1) tearing her apart and swapping in a 383 stroker motor and converting to two wheel drive, or 2) building the v6 (I can probably get around 280 N/A out of the 4.3) adding a turbo to it, and converting to AWD. Either way, should be fun.

Swap in a LSx engine. There are rodder retrofits (for wiring) and the engines are just stinkin' NASTY. I tune them all the time. As a matter of fact I am tuning my second G8 GT tonight! This one will be bottle fed. Just plain fun.-j

 

[Jakee]

I'm really itching to turn the boost up to 10-12 LBS but I'm pretty sure the tranny won't survive. What do you guys think?

 

[CDW6212R]

Is the engine compression really in the range of 9.7:1? I had my 347 built with that compression, and the 8/9psi range is a good limit for that. I also agree that the 5R trans is not really up to that kind of power.

 

[mr.p]

level 10 transmission FTW!


http://www.levelten.com/store/ford.htm

 

[Blacksheep Josh]

Jakee, I just read through this entire thread... great job!

I'm really impressed that you did all of this yourself, plus figuring out the problems that came along with it...

I personally think you should wait to turn up the boost until you have the tranny built up. You don't want to lose it at this stage... I'd rather see you buy the tranny and be working on that then possibly have a busted tranny with no fix within a week or two.

Keep up the good work.

-Josh

 

[rocket 5979]

I personally think you should wait to turn up the boost until you have the tranny built up. You don't want to lose it at this stage... I'd rather see you buy the tranny and be working on that then possibly have a busted tranny with no fix within a week or two.

Smart thinking Josh. That is the way I would do it. Jake just have some patience and enjoy what you have while saving for the next step somewhere down the line. Don't get into too much of a hurry to continue the upgrading process.