Dual to Single Turbo Conversion

[worldisgrand]

Hey Everybody. I haven't been on here for quite some time now due to civilian job, bought house, military training, and wife and 3 kids. I have come back to you with a project that I am now in the process of starting and hopefully completing over the next couple of months. You may have already guessed it from the Subject Line of this post. Converting the TT setup to a Single setup. Now I know some of you may try to convince me that dual turbos are better or give me some scientific equations that show it is not the best way to get air into the motor or the cheapest. That's fine and all, but I want to be a little different. I may not be original in my thinking and doing, but I have always liked the thought of putting a larger single turbo on these motors.

Cause:
This past summer as I was driving the car down the highway with my buddy behind me in his BMW, I decided to smash the gas pedal and as I was doing so, the exhaust started to smoke really really really really badly. Bad enough that the motorcycles that I was passing were no longer visible in my mirrors or my buddy whom was right behind me. Got the car home and after testing for compression on Cylinder 1 it is giving me a big 0 reading. The car isn’t over-heating and was running smoothly up until that point. That was the last straw. I have since decided to rip into it and convert. Going to take the heads to my engine shop and have them take a look and see what they can find out. I am also trying to make everything a little easier to work on, make room, and simplify it as well.

Mods I already have:
Blitz Boost Controller
Running 16lbs of boost on stock turbos for the past 4 or 5 years now with no issues to the turbos or motor
ARP main and head studs
Dual Intake with supporting Z1 Dual Intake Tune
555/615 CC injectors
FMIC
BOV's
Downpipes
Testpipes
Full Exhaust

Things I was planning on replacing before the conversion:
Turbos
Intercooler piping
Throttle bodies
BOVs

The conversion is going to be sized closely to my buddies setup that he has on his BMW M3 with the 3.2 Liter inline 6. He is running a single turbo setup on his and it is a beast all around. I know they are different motors, but the displacements are very similar, so I am going to use the stats on his turbo setup as a starting point on mine. Similar sized turbo and piping.

Things I'm going to change:
Single Intake
HK35 turbo (I will be starting with this one, but may down grade or upgrade depending on how it reacts to the other mods)
Single exhaust with dual tips to keep balance in the looks of the rear.
Large FMIC
3 inch intercooler piping until it splits right before the throttle bodies or convert to single throttle body from an RB series motor.
Turbo is going to be placed in the location where the A/C compressor used to be.
I also have a single intake tune from Z1 that I will be using as well. (I will be getting a full tune when all is working properly)
I will be connecting the exhaust manifolds by going between the engine block and the firewall.
Sequential BOV

Another guy on here a couple years ago did a similar setup on his and I would like to use it as a reference. I have already tried the search function and have had no luck locating it so far. If anyone else has seen it or remembers it I would greatly appreciate a link to it or a hint as to what the title is.

Please by all means hit me up with your questions or comments on this.

Hope I didn’t bore you too much. Thanks for reading!

[DCaff300ZX]

No reason to rain on your parade with my own thoughts and opinions, guys should always do what THEY want.
Looks like a good year ahead as there's been what, 3 or 4 new projects pop up?
Congrats and keep us posted!

[Nismovs]

I think Matt still has some of his single turbo set up left off of Bane since he is going LS now. I would get in touch with him about parts

[Ace2cool]

Sounds like a cool project for sure. I can't recall a single setup in the compressor location. Only single turbo I know of is a guy on facebook with a single rear mount on his N/A, and I'm positive that car is minutes from blowing up at any moment, so I'm not sure I'd use him as an authority on single turbo setups. I remember seeing the guy with the supercharger in place of the compressor, but that's it...

[Nismovs]

1320 has a video of a single turbo z32 with the turbo up front. Showed the location for a few seconds in the video. Best place for a single would be the battery area like Matt's setup. That's where I'd put mine If I ever built a single turbo Z

[Ace2cool]

Oh, also, welcome back! I've also recently returned, haha. Seems like some of the old peeps are coming out of the woodwork, lol.

[worldisgrand]

With spring coming around, I think we are all excited to be able to cruise with the cars. I still haven't gotten any large amounts of snow here in southern Indiana, I'd still be driving the car if it weren't for the engine trouble.

As for the setup I'm thinking of, it has been about two years since I saw the post last might be even longer. The guy involved mounted a turbo at the compressor location and ran the exhaust to connect the exhaust manifold together between the engine block and fire wall. He was using a flex pipe to connect the two sides. Had the whole operation running from what I can remember of it.

[worldisgrand]

Well.....

This weekend has been a real eye opener for me. Firstly I took apart the entire engine down to the bare block. Needless to say, this is what I found was causing me my issue.

This piston some how got a piston ring into a location it should not have. I admit this was probably my fault, but I didn't have any issues with it when I put the pistons in the first time, rather didn't realize I did.

This is the reason why I got the big 0 psi for cylinder 1.



I took the bare block, crank, heads, and rods to the motor shop in our town and had them take a look. They informed me that the cylinders are now going to be getting bored out .040 due to some cylinder damage. I am getting all new pistons and rings, keeping rods, new rod bearings, checking valves for any damage, clean and tank everything, and having them then put the bottom half back together.

Needless to say, the single turbo setup is now on the back burner with as much money as I am having to put towards getting the motor up and running. So instead I bought:
New exhaust manifolds
Going to make custom intercooler piping
New T28 turbos to upgrade from the T25's that I currently have.
New HKS sequential BOV's
New head gaskets
New timing belt (I replace everything less than 20,000 miles ago, but I am not liking the timing belt I currently have, better safe than sorry)
Everything else will stay the same as far as the motor is concerned.
New Rear sub frame bushings, mine are starting to ooze their liquids

A friend of mine is hooking me up with a manual conversion that he is keeping an eye on. Which I would rather have than an automatic any day of the week.

I have done a wire tuck on the front and moved the relay box from the driver front fender to under the driver head light. And its just as easily accessible. Redid the exhaust a while back and when I took out the old piping I found that it was restricting the air flow down to 1.75 inches in some places from s*** welding. I am glad to report that it is a solid 2.5 all the way back, and the mufflers have been tucked under for a better look with less sticking out.

A little bit of work ahead of me on this, but she is worth it.

Can't wait till she looks like this again! The vinyl is still in really good shape considering I put it on back in 2009 or 2010.

[Ace2cool]

Well, sucks that happened, but it's a good excuse to bore and go for big power, right?

[worldisgrand]

To my pleasure today, Santa came late or early depending on which year you consider yourself currently in and brought me these:

My mistress is now going to be able to Blow me better with time. Pun intended.

[Ace2cool]

Gates! Great stuff. One of the only ones I'd trust over OEM.

[worldisgrand]

These came on Thursday for me:

NISMO Head Gaskets


Rear Sub Frame Bushings


Just ordered:
Oil Pressure Sensor
SouthBend Stage 3 Endurance Clutch
Lightweight Racing Fly Wheel

[worldisgrand]

These items came in today for me:

Southbend Stage 3 Endurance Clutch

Exhaust Manifolds


I still have a lightweight F1 Chromolly flywheel coming as well.

Just need to wait till block gets done and the fun really begins.

[grayman_TT]

Found this article on a single conversion. I remember seeing this car, it pulled hard. Not sure where it is now. He did have it for sale a few years ago.

introduction-the-black-sheep-t209193.ht ... troduction black sheep

Dyno vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2m3FUtkjsI