Hmmm well I'm a microelectronics engineer by day; don't know much about ME simulations ;)

I'll think on the brace for a bit. Do we have any OEM examples of braces?

In other news my turbo rebuild continues to throw me curve balls.
Ever seen this bolt pattern on a t25/t28 thrust bearing? The standard t25 thrust bearing is on top:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/aw...c=w514-h913-no

<p>Did you build your manifold with the AHP tig?</p>

Indeed, all welds in this thread were done with the AHP. There are some aluminum shots somewhere in here.

Just between you and me, everything was done with the thing plugged into 120v. :party:

<p>Fuck. Yes. I'm buying this as soon as my first paycheck comes. 120v is perfect.</p>

This roll bar thing is almost complete. Just need to get the diagonal brace tacked.
My plan for now is to make bolt in door bars that will connect to plates welded into the rocker panel and main hoop.

The jd2 bender is awesome.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xN...=w1280-h720-no

Full size template is the only way :)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/50...=w1280-h720-no

1 of the 1E10 mockups
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Sq...=w1280-h720-no

Copied the hard dog feet
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pN...I=w514-h913-no

Getting close
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Uc...=w1280-h720-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/8O...=w1280-h720-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/m6...A=w514-h913-no

Fitment is as close as possible to the softop metal bits. It actually contacts the fabric a little. While sitting in my normal spot there's about 3" of clearance from my noggin to the bars.

I got close to just plopping the unpainted roll bar in there and calling it, but I decided to take my time and get my door bar mount points welded in. I did get it painted last night and will re-start the awful experience of shoehorning this thing in tonight. The main hoop legs contracted about 1" after welding, but I think I got that taken care of with a 2x4 and a bottle jack.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/k3...=w1280-h720-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/hU...=w1280-h720-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nm...=w1280-h720-no

These should make door bar installation/removal an easy task. I'm going to weld a receiver in the rocker sill area like blackbird does.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/h1...0=w514-h913-no

[LL][/LL]Looking good. I like how you did the door bar mounts.

Oh I plan on plagiarizing your turbo manifold to the best of my abilities, hope you don't mind :bowrofl:

^^^ Thanks! Feel free to use anything on my thread. Let me know if you want the angles on my collector and whatnot.

I finally finished off the roll bar and door bars. That was a lot of work... $1400 from blackbird fabworx is a pretty good deal!

I welded in receiver plates into the door sills:
A word of caution: The seam on the sill is glued with some tar substance that explodes when it gets hot. I don't recommend welding that seam with a tig, maybe a mig with flux core wire in it instead. I only have a tig at the moment and that section involved a lot of tungsten grinding...
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/br...0=w903-h677-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/HU...w=w903-h677-no

Then I welded a shoe to mount to the plates:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/BE...0=w903-h677-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/B3...4=w903-h677-no
Sweet
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ag...Y=w903-h677-no
All done
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/G6...U=w903-h677-no

Haven't gotten around to making my finish panels fit...
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/UL...M=w903-h677-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/te...Q=w903-h677-no

All in all I'm pretty happy with the end result. It's actually not all that bad getting in and out of the car. The only thing I didn't think about is that my manual window handles now collide with the door bar. I'll probably just shorten them an inch.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pZ...U=w903-h677-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/7G...o=w903-h677-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2D...c=w903-h677-no

Well my oil cooler is mounted... barely. The unit itself fits fine, but the fittings are HUGE and will be right at the bottom of my bumper. The lines may get reworked, I may even just buy the 12 row... I also had to remove the plastic fender braces so there's still some more work to do to get the lines protected and the fender back to braced.

Bracketry
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ft...k=w514-h913-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/PR...A=w514-h913-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/bv...=w1280-h720-no

Ducts are from RPW. They were formed with a heatgun and attached with double sided tape. The duct on the driver side is to feed my airbox; more on that later.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ru...=w1280-h720-no

Uh, harness bar?

Damn. Now I need to build door bars. What kind of bends did you put in yours.

I'd need harnesses for that :likecat:
Really though I do have a plan for a bar once I get to that phase of the project. I'm going to weld receivers onto the seat belt towers and make a removable bar that will look a lot like my door bars. This car will stay a soft top and a glass rear window is a must have for me personally. I *think* I can make the harness bar work from the seat belt towers and retain my glass window.
That project will likely involve seat mounting/etc. so its on hold for now.

They're about 15 degrees. Any shop with a bender should be able to do them in 15 minutes for whatever that is in labor (beer?). If you were in NM I'd do it for free.

In other news I decided to stop being dumb and ordered the 90 deg npt to an fittings. My lines will at least be well contained within the bumper plastic. This also freed up enough space to use the stock fender bracing. I'm just going to beef up the little connecting bars and call it good.

Soooo while I was waiting for parts to show up I decided to take a little (40 mile) walk near Santa Fe:
Oh New Mexico... :likecat:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X.../P8220879.JPG?

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-n.../P8210780.JPG?

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u.../P8210768.JPG?

Once my walkabout was done I got back to the car.
I'm really not sure how effective this will be but I figured I'd give it a try. The elbow is tacked in 4 spots then the gaps are filled with aluminum tape.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Q...30_161251.jpg?

The 90 degree fittings give plenty of clearance from the bottom of the bumper; apparently I didn't get a shot with the bumper on hmmmm.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-j...02_230136.jpg?

I used some flexible spa hose stuff to make a ducting of sorts to get the oil lines into the engine bay. Its working out great:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i...02_230337.jpg?

The intake plumbs into this box that I made out of scraps of sheet metal... This is all temporary as the turbo will be going in within a month or so. I also cut some corners and just tacked the intake together and finished it with aluminum tape. Seems to be just fine.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...06_205607.jpg?

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-V...06_205758.jpg?

The overall results with the new oil cooler and air box have been reallllly good. I still don't have an oil temp gauge, but with the addition of the cooler and switching to rotella t6, my oil pressure has almost doubled under heavy loads... Makes me wish I had done this sooner...

The intake box seems to be really effective as well. I let everything heatsoak while standing still to a good 120F and within a mile of my house my MAT's were already at ambient.

Now I just need injectors and a fuel pump; then I really won't have any excuses not to bolt the turbo on...

Google's been letting me down lately...
Pics fixed?

Between google messing up their photo service and this sites rehosting going down.....
The key was to use picasa web albums which apparently still exists and to add a ? at the end of my image path.

Nope.

Pics should be fixed.
Kitty approved
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-q...08_212901.jpg?

Back at it.... Had a lot of home projects to do the last few months that really got in the way of my car time. Other than my terrible autozone alternator already dying (and outputting 18v :eggplant: ), the car has been doing really great.

It seems that google fixed their image hosting since I posted last. (hopefully)

Finished off my manifold the other night:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k...16_230225.jpg?

And started on my downpipe :)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4...16_230251.jpg?

There's a good bit of room to work with.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X...16_234610.jpg?

Why did you use pie cuts instead of a mandrel bend

Ehh a bunch of reasons:
-welding practice
-the radius is actually pretty tight
-bend is 105 degrees
-didn't feel like buying expensive mandrel bends that might not fit
-I like caterpillars

I would guess he could not find a mandrel bend that was tight enough.