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@97audia4 Your handle looks awfully familiar. Are you on MNAudi?
Always been 97aduai4 since the vwvortex days. Stems from buying my first b5 a4 at age 15 with savings i had a grocery store and rebuilding the suspension and motor .
You can drop the KC S300 turbine wheel (for van turbo) right into your turbo and continue using the Riffraff 4+4 compressor wheel or upgrade to the KC 6/6 wheel with extended tips that comes with the S300 Balanced Assembly ($450). No downpipe mods needed.
If you opt to replace the whole turbo, you’ll need a different downpipe.
The vans (and OBS trucks) are definitely more of a challenge to control EGT when adding more power because of no CAC (‘intercooler’). I would consider adding the Hydra with custom tuning (Andrew Arthur!) and see where you are with that. Then change turbo up if you need to.
The 1.15 exhaust housing was in part to compensate for no CAC and helps by reducing back pressure through the turbo. I’ve built a few trucks that are 400-500HP and used the ‘van turbo’ as an inexpensive turbo that can get the job done without the high EBP deltas we’d see with stock SuperDuty .84 exhaust housing. The large deltas (boost to EBP) put excessive lateral loads on the turbo shaft and cause excessive wear and short service life for the journal bearings, etc.
The S300-style turbine wheel is HUGE compared to the stock turbine wheel. This is in effect a bigger sail that makes better use of the air moving out of the combustion chamber. The van turbine wheel is already a little different (bigger) than SD wheel, so I think an S300-style wheel in a van turbo might be even more of an improvement than we see in the trucks with stock turbos.
I’m anxious to see what you decide and what WE learn from it!! Good luck and thanks for sharing your journey!!
Here’s the KC ‘balanced assembly’ next to a stock SD assembly. You can see the ‘extended tips’ on that KC assembly have the ability to move a lot more air. Especially at 50k rpm or whatever these things spin!!
I appreciate the tech info and picture comparison . Ill order the balanced assembly and go from there. Hydra tunes on heavy tune seems to be what I want. There is one more eaca harescramble then ill be done for the off road season and can get to work on the van.
Glad it’s been working out well for you. If I remember this thread correctly you had some extra pains while getting this thing up to speed.
Being too lazy to read back through the thread… didn’t you install a billet wheel or KC balanced assembly?
If that’s the case, I wonder if you should just try the Hydra first? You may be surprised with the results.
Hydra should cause you no issues as long as the PCM is properly cleaned and the chip is securely fastened. I have no experience with it on a van but the process should be the same.
If you still plan on a KC turbo upgrade then maybe consider talking to KC direct. Riffraff is an excellent resource for us and well trusted. The reason I suggest this is KC may have a workaround for a van that Clay isn’t aware of.
Jason Its been a long racing season with lots of ups and downs, from replacing motors after a 25 hour drive to utah to hitting vegas motor speedway and having and oil filter seal fail at 135 locking the rear tire and breaking a few ribs and a pinky finger . Drove to Portland Oregon after and realized finger was blue and almost had to taken off but they saved it. The van has been perfect since I replaced the radiator in April this year and I would hate to **** with it really.
Hydra is the hardware. There are many ‘tuners’ that write the software or ‘tunes’. I recommend customized tunes from Andrew Arthur.
Agree, Hydra is just the hardware. But there’s no reason to pay for custom tuning before trying out the free PHP library that is included in the purchase of the Hydra. This is what many will call “Hydra tuning.” I find PHP tuning to be very good on the 2 trucks I’ve ran it on.
I was unsure about the black plastic case being around the PCM in the van, but The Finlander sorted that out for us above. Regarding the "old" and "new" method of installing a Hydra chip, go with the new method as described below in a post by Y2KW57.
I have used the new method at least once (maybe twice) helping local 7.3L friends install a Hydra chip. It is a much more secure and reliable method of installing the chip.
I was unsure about the black plastic case being around the PCM in the van, but The Finlander sorted that out for us above. Regarding the "old" and "new" method of installing a Hydra chip, go with the new method as described below in a post by Y2KW57.
I have used the new method at least once (maybe twice) helping local 7.3L friends install a Hydra chip. It is a much more secure and reliable method of installing the chip.
That looks like a much secure method.
Van is going in to get the body lifted off the frame next month so Ill do this in the warm shop and not 5 degrees in Pa it is right now.
Little update on the rabbit hole I am currently going down. Started in December low on coolant one morning, didn't see any leaks, went out to the woods for a ride and came back home no issues until I parked and came out later to a huge puddle of coolant. Ordered a new gates pump, temp sensor, hoses, thermostat, oil cooler reseal kit, fan clutch. Pulled the rad and realized it was busted already, end tank blew out. Ordering an aluminum one, also noticed power steering fluid leaking off the bottom of the pump, cant tell if its the line or pump so I ordered both.
Also it looks like the HPOP cover is leaking in the front, is that just RTV or is that an O Ring I cant buy?
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