3Katz

Just an option for you - if you are happy to leave your factory gauge brightness in a set position you can simply colour in your boost gauge bulb with a nikko pen until you get the desired brightness to match your factory gauges. I did it as a temporary measure on my 4 gauges and it has been that way for over a year now...

+1 for Clint at Profile

I looked into this for my RTV but decided against it in favour of spraying water directly into the piping after the intercooler. Have a read up on water injection of you're interested, by the time your done messing with a set up to spray your cooler you might be better off doing injection. No need to plan ahead and get your cooler temp down before nailing it, water injection set up on a boost switch is on demand and pretty much set and forget.

Have a look at the Hypergear ATR45 range, they have an improved wastegate design and are available in bush or ball bearing both are water cooled and everything fits straight up. I have a Hypergear replacement turbo on my RTV ute and am happy with it. Plenty of the RB crowd use them with good results as well.

Sounds like a great project! Yes if you get alll of those items out of a wreck it "should" work. In saying that I didn't go to Ford or send it away to get it synched I went to a local tuner and it was pretty cheap to do. Yes the heater rod saga... mine was broken as well so I swapped the turbo dash in at the same time. Being the V8 ute as the base yours will look great - no poxy grey interior. I may have mislead you with the ABS module replacement, I didn't have to change the little box on the floor under the dash, I had to change the ABS unit itself - the one with the brake lines on it. This was only because of a communication problem though, there was a break in the circuit board or something. I'm guessing you're regional if there is no LPG near you so if you didn't want the hassle of towing to a tuner or Ford getting everything out of a wreck might be the way to go. If you can find someone who has just started wrecking a running car that would be the go as you know everything works. Just remember to get the key (and spare) and the door lock as well.

Hi, I did get this problem sorted but needed the help of a tuner with his software. The biggest issue we had was the ute ABS module was faulty and not permitting communication of the various components through the CANBUS system. It worked ok before I did the transplant but it didn't like the foreign components and wouldn't let the tuner talk to the system. It took ages to figure because although we suspected the ABS module, when we replaced it, it was with another faulty module... Once we put a good one in he could talk to everything it was fine and he could sync everything up. If it wasn't for the faulty ABS module I believe everything would've worked fine having swapped ICC, BCM, ign barrel and PCM from donor car, just bad luck. Is your ute a turbo conversion someone has started?

Check connections from the engine wiring harness to pcm. If it's an auto did you connect up the transmission plug? It's at the back near the engine harness plug.

Haha! kind of opposite to your avatar right? A very good explanation. If my engine could safely handle more grunt I think I would be looking at going further with a decent controller and tuning to suit. Thanks for the link

It's a BA engine so has rods made out of cooked spaghetti. 280 -300kw would be nice.

The cooler is there to remove heat from the intake charge, they'll what I can see the water inj. is doing that very well.

Thanks for your answer, I think it kind of confirms what I was thinking - to increase the power or see any real benefit you need to tune with the system switched on and pull fuel as required. My kit is very basic, I can't tell if I have a blocked jet or ruptured line so I think I'll just stick to water and use it for cooling only. I'm super happy with the kit, it works well I can't see iat but have noticed cooler exhaust temps. I reckon it was comparable on price to a decent cooler and both easier and quicker to install.

Hi, I have installed Snow Performance water/meth injection on my RTV with XR6 Turbo conversion. The reason I have installed it is because I don't want to install a larger than stock intercooler and I am using it to cool the intake charge. When I get it tuned again (currently 260kw with 2nd gear pulls, have since installed decent driveshaft and boost controller) it will be tuned without taking the water/meth into account so if I have a failure with the kit I don't toast my engine. At the moment I am just running straight water, once I have it tuned and switch the kit on what can I expect if I were to do 50/50 water meth instead? I imagine it will then be running rich with the extra fuel, will this be a problem? Flames out exhaust? Could I expect my intake charge to be significantly cooler? I would like to take it to the strip for a laugh so would do meth if it could be an advantage. What do you think?

Awesome. Thanks guys, greatly appreciated

Thanks, yes the inner diameter is what I am after, not sure if using stainless or aluminum tube yet so the outer diameter can vary - I would like to ensure the inner is the same if possible.

Hi guys, Turbo RTV running well. Getting heat soak (bullbar will be restricting airflow quite a bit) and boost spike on gear shift so I am making a piece of pipe to install in the I/c outlet piping which I can fit water injection and a boost limiting valve to. I am running the standard cooler from what I am told is off a Typhoon. Is there any difference in the outlet pipe size from a Typhoon to a normal XRT? If someone could let me know what the I/d of the outlet is that would save me pulling it off and on just to buy some pipe. Is my daily so if I could get pipe today that would be a top job for the weekend. Thanks guys

Cool, don't forget to show us some pics!

How'd you go RTVRally? Any progress?

No worries, have fun

I forgot to mention traction control. If you have a sedan the ABS unit has probably got traction control, your RTV ute won't. The turbo PCM will probably be expecting to see the sedans ABS unit. You may get some minor issues here. I didn't want traction control so I stuck with an RTV ABS unit and the tuner had to tell the the vehicle it was a non traction control car (the cluster displayed ABS and TC lights). If you were keen you could probably find some rear brake lines from a ute with TC and swap the ABS unit and the brake lines in. You would have to constantly switch TC off though which I would find annoying. It would be handy in the wet though.... An RTV with turbo AND traction control would be something different!

If your'e going to all the effort to do the engine swap and the turbo interior is in good nic I would consider swapping that in as well. The black interior looks nicer than the RTV one I reckon. I didn't realise I had slight boost control issues until I got mine tuned and I drove it sedately until I could confirm AFRs were safe. With it running rich for safety and only in 2nd gear to keep driveshaft speed down it tuned to 350hp. I now have a stronger tail shaft and an electronic boost controller so will be heading back for a touch up tune when I get a chance. I hid the boost controller in the console and have 2 boost levels - BG1 is gate pressure 7psi and BG2 is hooked up through this 'fishtail' switch and increases boost to 12.5psi. I hope to tighten up the tune and possibly increase the boost pressure if required to get around 400hp, all with a very stock looking engine bay and interior (besides gauges). Good luck with the project! You won't regret it, Ford should have offered the RTV as a turbo I reckon. Let me know if there's anything I can help with or if you'd like some better detailed pics.

There aren't any pitfalls as such, I also did auto to auto swap but I had alot of trouble getting communication through the canbus system. The turbo PCM didn't seem to be accepted by the rest of the system so I actually used the RTV PCM and had the tuner flash it with the turbo info. In the end it turned out that I had a faulty ABS unit causing the communication problem (replaced with another faulty unit which is why it was so hard to figure out!). If I was to do it again I would definitely persevere with getting the turbo PCM to work as although the RTV PCM works I don't think it has the drivers to operate the boost solenoid properly causing over boost on occasion. You will need to swap out the engine bay wiring harness which runs from the driver's footwell to (and including) the fuse box and across the front of the car finishing up near the the PCM. This will give you the required connectors for turbo system sensors. Steering rack no problem at all, I used a BF dump pipe as it's a much nicer unit than the BA twin exit cat but either should fit no problem. You won't be able to use much of the rest of the exhaust as the ute is quite different. I went twin 2.5" with straight through muffler and resonators. The diff lock is easy as well, you have a vacuum tank under the l/h from guard, you just need to T into the BOV line and source your vacuum from there. Make sure you have the check valve fitted, it's the little blue valve on the vacuum line, make sure it works correctly, my original one was leaking and would have allowed boost pressure into the vacuum tank. There are 2 vacuum solenoids mounted in front of the PCM, you'll only need 1 now as the other is for NA engine manifold shaft. Hook your remaining solenoid up to a manual switch, it's better than factory now as you can engage diff lock whenever and for however long you like. I used one of these switches but any switch will do. T into BOV line I ran the diff lock earth wire up to this LED near exh temp gauge so that I can tell once it's engaged.

Ok, sounds good! Thanks

Hi, I've almost finished my BA Turbo project and have to get myself a flash tuner. Ive heard the SCT X3 was a great unit but no longer available new, the X4 would be the next logical step but have heard that the X4 doesn't suit the old BA as well as the X3. There is some data it can't pick up or interperate? Is anyone able to help me out with more info in regards to X3 vs X4 for the BA Turbo?

Thanks Puffwagon I appreciate your help, I've played with cars a fair bit but always oldies. These electronic issues are challenging - I'm on a steep learning curve but I believe I'm getting a fairly good grasp of it as I go. I think I have just about worn out the search bar... Ralph Wiggum has helped me out in another thread so if he or any of the other guys have ideas I'd love to hear their thoughts as well. I will head over to hp tuners and do some searching there as well.

Thanks, any ideas are helpful at this stage. I've checked the brake distribution blocks and the ute has 5 brake lines coming out of it and the donor car has 6. So ute is non ABS and donor is ABS. There are electrical plugs attached so I imagine the PCM is expecting to see an ABS type unit. I can't swap it over as the brake lines are different due to IRS on sedan and live axle in the ute. There must be a way to tell the PCM it's not supposed to see a ABS type unit, what do you think?