A heart with no chassis; the Turbo 10hp Briggs & Stratton. Aka Timebomb.(56K beware!)
I know mdb mentioned my project a few times, but rather than derail the "intro" thread, I thought I would showcase the whole thing here where I have the room for pictures, commentary, and feedback. You all seem to like old stuff, weird stuff, and going fast, so I'll share my old, weird, and hopefully fast engine.
I usually have time to let my mind wander and my interest in fast cars led to interest in powerful engines. Putting time + interest together, I got the idea to turbocharge a lawntractor engine. I already had the engine from a Montgomery Ward tractor and a small spare IHI turbo from a DIY turbine engine project.This was the original idea circa 2001-2002:
I wanted to squeeze every last drop of power out while spending as little as possible, so I studied some on old school flathead porting techniques and went nuts on the Briggs. I didn't have any fuel parts or plan at this point:
Oh yeah, and some DIY titanium retainers:
I wanted to be able to intercool it, so a draw-through carb setup was out. That left the options to a blow-through carb or EFI. Since they both needed nearly the same fuel system components, I decided on EFI. I and had the idea to retrofit a system from an '89-90 Nissan 240SX:
After literally weeks of intense research, it became clear the the Nissan JECS system was going to be a tuning nightmare for something this far removed from the original 2.4L engine. It can be chipped and tuned for a car just fine, but not this; I would be in uncharted territory. After several months of tinkering with and studying electronics, I broke down and bought a MegaSquirt EFI computer kit(assembly required).
I already knew my "small" IHI turbo was far too big for what I wanted to do, so I started looking for the smallest one I could afford. After a few months of searching, I scored this little Garrett GT-15(far left, IHI right):
I had to build custom flanges for everything. Luckily I was working in a machine shop at the time.
Preliminary turbo header made out of pie-cut 1" steel water pipe:
Preliminary intake manifold:
Soldered fuel rail and Nissan regulator:
Modified Ford in-tank EFI fuel pump.:
Billet aluminum turbo oil drain I hacked up over a lunch break:
Mockup:
Setup as it stood when I first started the engine:
At first startup I had a Honda XR600 carb I was using as the throttlebody. Since then I picked up a pair of EFI throttle bodies from a Suzuki street bike. The intake design has turned out to be a POS, so I'm redoing that right now.
I'll cut this a little short(?!) since it's pushing 1am here. Questions, comments, and recommendations are welcome. Hopefully I put this in the right forum.
I know mdb mentioned my project a few times, but rather than derail the "intro" thread, I thought I would showcase the whole thing here where I have the room for pictures, commentary, and feedback. You all seem to like old stuff, weird stuff, and going fast, so I'll share my old, weird, and hopefully fast engine.
I usually have time to let my mind wander and my interest in fast cars led to interest in powerful engines. Putting time + interest together, I got the idea to turbocharge a lawntractor engine. I already had the engine from a Montgomery Ward tractor and a small spare IHI turbo from a DIY turbine engine project.This was the original idea circa 2001-2002:
I wanted to squeeze every last drop of power out while spending as little as possible, so I studied some on old school flathead porting techniques and went nuts on the Briggs. I didn't have any fuel parts or plan at this point:
Oh yeah, and some DIY titanium retainers:
I wanted to be able to intercool it, so a draw-through carb setup was out. That left the options to a blow-through carb or EFI. Since they both needed nearly the same fuel system components, I decided on EFI. I and had the idea to retrofit a system from an '89-90 Nissan 240SX:
After literally weeks of intense research, it became clear the the Nissan JECS system was going to be a tuning nightmare for something this far removed from the original 2.4L engine. It can be chipped and tuned for a car just fine, but not this; I would be in uncharted territory. After several months of tinkering with and studying electronics, I broke down and bought a MegaSquirt EFI computer kit(assembly required).
I already knew my "small" IHI turbo was far too big for what I wanted to do, so I started looking for the smallest one I could afford. After a few months of searching, I scored this little Garrett GT-15(far left, IHI right):
I had to build custom flanges for everything. Luckily I was working in a machine shop at the time.
Preliminary turbo header made out of pie-cut 1" steel water pipe:
Preliminary intake manifold:
Soldered fuel rail and Nissan regulator:
Modified Ford in-tank EFI fuel pump.:
Billet aluminum turbo oil drain I hacked up over a lunch break:
Mockup:
Setup as it stood when I first started the engine:
At first startup I had a Honda XR600 carb I was using as the throttlebody. Since then I picked up a pair of EFI throttle bodies from a Suzuki street bike. The intake design has turned out to be a POS, so I'm redoing that right now.
I'll cut this a little short(?!) since it's pushing 1am here. Questions, comments, and recommendations are welcome. Hopefully I put this in the right forum.
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