hello and dumb questions

[King of Cleveland]

New here, I'm a car junkie of several varieties at once; I've had (and worked on or built) everything from rat rods to turbo cars. I'm studying the megasquirt book right now and looking for a turbo car. It may end up being a volvo but I'm a fan of these 'yota motors so I'm keeping my eyes open for the right supra project. I've got a couple of quick, probably dumb questions:

1. it doesn't seem like anyone here runs o rings. why not? It's not that expensive to have done (if you're already rebuilding the motor), and ends headgasket problems. If you blow an oringed copper headgasket you really screwed up and probably grenaded the entire motor.

2. Who's running megasquirt in a supra? anyone? any other standalone systems?


I'll mostly lurk, but I'll jump in when I've got a handle on something. I'm not supra-specific, but I know lots about building cars in general.

peace
Ryan

 

[Keros]

I think (not 100% sure) that we don't o-ring the 7M motor because the cylinders are too close together.

 

[NA86.5]

welcome

 

[Dunckel]

welcome to the forum. there are a lot of people here that can answer your questions. i am not one of them. good luck

 

[Dirgle]

I wish I had more time to give you a little better answers but it is almost bed time so I'm going to go. But I'll leave with these links that should answer your questions.

MegaSquirt:
http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13318

O-ring:
http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36592&highlight=o-ring

While it is true that cylender wall space is minimal and prohibits o-ringing, it is none the less possible and has been done. The main reason you don't see it more is because this community has adopted the Multi-Layer Steel Head gasket which doesn't accommodate o-ringing the block for proper use. You use a copper head gasket to o-ring a block, it is simply something that the community has not adopted for what ever reason. Though there is a copper head gasket that has a type of o-ring incorporated currently in development of the 7M.

http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38745&highlight=copper+headgasket

 

[King of Cleveland]

dig. pushing anything over 20psi with no orings sounds like disaster to me, but it looks like lots of guys are doing it.

Hadn't found that megasquirt thread, thanks.

Maybe a 1j in a volvo 242 on megasquirt would be fun... I was going to do a 16v 2.3l volvo b230 conversion, but the 1j just has way more impressive specs with much less fiddling. The stock bottom end on the volvo is only good to 6500 RPM and about 400 rwhp (impressive, actually, considering a stock volvo turbo is only 165hp at the flywheel). I've had a couple of 300zx turbos, no extensive mods and never over 12psi, but if I'm going to do another turbo car it's going to be a monster. It'll have to be to keep up with my V8 cars, and when the '70 dart is done that might be a neat trick.

I'll keep reading. cheers
ryan

 

[starscream5000]

dig. pushing anything over 20psi with no orings sounds like disaster to me, but it looks like lots of guys are doing it.

Indeed they do and nothing to worry about when you have everything tunned safely and put together correctly. Some on here go over 30 psi .