Bondo. Twin Turbo Project. 535i. Hate is bad.

[sbeckman7]

Looks awesome!! Great fab skills too I can't wait for more updates.

[Trasportador]

Dude, I give you MAD PROPS for all this custom work, at home, in the garage. Your attention to detail is phenominal!! Will be looking at this work for sure.

[eightynine535]

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/l...r/IMG_3138.jpg

so how does this fit with the new condenser?

[Captain Bondo]

Thanks guys.

It will fit perfect with the new condenser. The old condenser is 18" from top to bottom. The new one will be 12" and the intercooler is 6", so it will sit right above the intercooler. They won't interfere with each other at all.

Wish the old thread wasn't deleted. Some people were pretty convinced this IC would not fit.

[T444E]

Thanks guys.

It will fit perfect with the new condenser. The old condenser is 18" from top to bottom. The new one will be 12" and the intercooler is 6", so it will sit right above the intercooler. They won't interfere with each other at all.

Wish the old thread wasn't deleted. Some people were pretty convinced this IC would not fit.

Well you cried when they posted in your thread before so now they don't.

[Captain Bondo]

Apologies, should not have brought that up. I indeed appreciate the lack of idiotic commentary in this new thread and that's more important.

[T444E]

[Captain Bondo]

Yes, of course it does. I guess I'll go "cry about it", now.


Anyways just a couple pics from tonight. Slightly less terrible welds. Excellently mediocre.

Next will probably be the EMS wiring since I still have no exhaust flanges. Geez.

[eightynine535]

Are you keeping the stock intake or will you modify it like the Alpina Bi-turbo intake?

[Captain Bondo]

I made a sheetmetal intake for my last project, I've been thinking of building something similar:



The difference is I spun that motor to 7600rpm and it was a twin cam.

For this project I'm not sure there is much to gain by going to a sheetmetal intake, since it's not going to have huge turbos or gnarly cams. Having an intake manifold that shines on the top end might not be a good idea for a motor that will likely be done making power by 6000rpm.

So long story short, I'll likely do the "alpina style" throttle body swap and leave it at that, at least for now. I will do that at the very least though to help intercooler pipe routing.

I have absolutely no idea where the intercooler to throttle body pipe will live, by the way. Not much space. "Not much space" is pretty much the motto of this project. lol!

[clevertd]

Are you looking for an exhaust flange? I know somewhere that has stainless and mild for the M30.. http://www.stainlessheaders.com/engineheaderflanges, the pattern was provided by Otis (goodntight).

[Captain Bondo]

Yeah I had a hell of a time getting those guys to sell me one, for whatever reason. Emails went back and forth for weeks, then i tried calling a couple times, couldn't ever reach the guy and abandoned the cause.

My brother will come through eventually.

I ve normal t3 flanges kicking around the shop, but I'm thinking about making some custom T3 flanges as well, but i can probably make them myself. The turbos are T3 flanged but have what is nearly a round turbine entry.

Since it's 3 cylinders into each flange, a t3 flange with a round opening would make sense as well.

I'm also considering cutting the flanges right off the turbine housings and welding vbands on. That'd be gnarly. I've never seen anyone convert a standard turbine housing to vband entry. That would allow me to upgrade to GT28's with stainless Tial turbine housings when i win the lottery, too.

[stealthpenguin]

Yeah I had a hell of a time getting those guys to sell me one, for whatever reason. Emails went back and forth for weeks, then i tried calling a couple times, couldn't ever reach the guy and abandoned the cause.

My brother will come through eventually.

I ve normal t3 flanges kicking around the shop, but I'm thinking about making some custom T3 flanges as well, but i can probably make them myself. The turbos are T3 flanged but have what is nearly a round turbine entry.

Since it's 3 cylinders into each flange, a t3 flange with a round opening would make sense as well.

I'm also considering cutting the flanges right off the turbine housings and welding vbands on. That'd be gnarly. I've never seen anyone convert a standard turbine housing to vband entry. That would allow me to upgrade to GT28's with stainless Tial turbine housings when i win the lottery, too.

V-Band or nothing!

[clevertd]

Weird. I honestly wonder if it's because you're in Canada.

[Captain Bondo]

I gave them a US address to ship to, so I doubt it. Seemed they just didn't feel like selling a flange, like it was too much effort for the amount of money involved. No biggie.

I am definitely warming up to the idea of modifying the turbine housings for vband inlets.

I took a 3" vband flange I had laying around and just laid it on top of the inlet. It could work but it's a little big. I'd have to port the hell out of the turbine housing to make a nice transition.

A 2.5" vband looks like the ticket. Unfortunately that is an oddball in that the tial GT28/GT30 etc inlets are 3", but if I actually change turbo setups I'll just have to deal with it.

The header primaries will be 1.625" tube, so with 3 runners per collector the 2.5" flange is a better size in regards to the manifold side as well. 3 x 1.625" tubes just don't make a very large footprint. Really this is being treated like two, 1.75L 3 cylinders making 250hp each that happen to share a crankshaft.

The turbine outlets will get 3" vbands, so I will have twin 3" downpipes merging into a single 3" exhaust (this is kinda like having a single 4" downpipe and 3" exhaust).

I'll post some pics of the turbos and misc flanges etc tonight or tomorrow.

[Captain Bondo]

I bought some nifty 2.5" interlocking vbands for the turbine housing entries:



Should be here late this week, so I can hopefully weld them to the housings and get started on the manifold collectors this weekend!

Also have a wiring cross-reference made up to wire the VEMS using the stock harness. Need to stop by the office and make up some wire labels. It's going to go quick all the sudden!

I want to drive this thing when the weather warms up again!

[slo135]

Very impressive thread!!!

[sbeckman7]

excellent progress

[Captain Bondo]

Small update. 1 collector done. Lalalalala...

I converted them to vband.

Here's what the turbos look like:



Then i raped it:


weld it on:



collector:





I took me ruining one to work out a system to get the "3 leaf clover" shaped collector outlet to end up round. This is thinwall tube so there' can't really be any gaps/

I have it more or less worked out now amd the jig set up so the second one will be quick.

Need header flanges FML.

[5mall5nail5]

Hm - are you sure you want to weld to cast? Also from my experience I find it best to mate up the two V band flanges and clamp them while welding - they warp so easy otherwise.

[Captain Bondo]

The mating flange was removed for the pic of the manifold, I weld them assembled as well. It helps for sure. These are nickle plated mild steel so they aren't quite as bad, but nonetheless yeah it was importnant these stayed flat since they have the step machined in them - they can't really be machined flat afterwards if a screwup happens. They're neat vbands, they turned out good and should seal really nice!

I've never done a weld to cast that is as demanding as these will be, so I'm interested to see how it works out.

I have had a good success rate repairing cast iron parts over the years, there are some things that have to be done differently for sure. These housings welded really nice as far as cast goes, so I'm optomistic. If it fails I have a backup plan that shouldn't be too hard to implement. But I wanted to just try it for lulz.

[5mall5nail5]

Yeah you'll have to see how it holds up - that junction is about as hot as it gets in a turbo setup and welding to cast there will be interesting. I debated on welding a wastegate flange directly to the hotside of my turbo for better boost control but was convinced otherwise.

[BLACK E34 535I]

This thread is sick! Im still in college but have always dreamed of doing this and one day I will. I want to let you know, and any others who are interested that my black on black e34 535i just got totaled by a soccer mom hitting me head - on. I am parting it out so let me know if you need anything. I can send specific pics if you'd like. I also have a b&b try flow exhaust for it, and a black m5 rear bumper as well as everything else. Again sick thread Im stoked to follow it!

[bimmer fean]

Love where this is going, and I like how the zender lip look.

[535ipower]

Thats gonna be one fun 535i, good to see a fellow t-bricker tearing into an e34. Can't wait to see the outcome.