7/8th Inch Oil Drain Line

One annoying thing about The Dog since i started going turbo was the occasional smoke from exhaust. I've tried restricting the oil supply line with custom banjo nipple bolt, installing an oil catch tank and connecting it to the turbo inlet in hopes to reduce some crankcase pressure and replacing the oil drain flange on the sump with bigger pipe with no significant success. Those steps have managed to eliminate the smoke during deceleration but that's it. Most annoying smoke problem is during idling after the engine has warmed up such as traffic light stop. I had to blip the throttle every few seconds to avoid having white thick smoke coming out from the exhaust. No fun for sure.

One last thing i could do before blaming the turbo oil seals is to enlarge the drain line and that was what i did today. My drain line initially was 5/8 inch (~16mm) and i decided to try with 7/8 (~23mm). Since finding a stainless steel braided hose with such diameter is nearly impossible in this small town of Bandar Lampung, a radiator hose was chosen as an alternative. Here's a comparison shot, left is my old steel braided line and the other is the 7/8th ID radiator hose.

I also decided to ditch the oil sump drain flange and weld the drain pipe directly to the sump. No particular reason, just because.

Here's the finished work.

Yes, that looks dangerously close to the exhaust manifold. We'll see if that radiator hose sans stainless steel braids would handle the heat.

Probably too early to tell, but after it's done, i let the car idled for 15 minutes, drove for another 15 and not a hint of smoke can be seen from the exhaust even during idling. Fingers crossed!

Proper Oil Catch Tank

The Dog has been having occasional heavy white smoke coming out of the exhaust since the turbo conversion. There could be some causes for this but i ruled out most of them already like worn piston rings or valve stem seals. What's left is the probability of inadequate oil drain line, bad turbo seals or clogged PCV line.

Since the smoking only happens occasionally and mostly during idling, bad turbo seals are unlikely as this usually happens even when cruising. What's left is now either inadequate oil drain line or clogged PCV line.

Being cheap, i used an old AC dryer bottle as my oil catch tank. Since i didn't plumb it back to the intake line, it's possible that this isn't enough to relieve the crankcase positive pressure and causing the oil not draining properly from the turbo and finally seeping out of the seals and smoking. Fortunately, i found a used Greddy oil catch tank replica at a bargain. I bought the tank and install it myself. Here it is in action.

It's not uncommon that PCV lines are run incorrectly after a turbo conversion. Most forgot that now their intake manifold will also see boost pressure and they didn't change the original PCV line. As far as i know, stock 4A-GE PCV line don't have any check valve. It just goes straight from the valve cover to the intake plenum. After a turbo conversion, you'd need at least a check valve there. You don't want any positive pressure from the boost to leak into your crankcase. This will blow your seals prematurely and, as i suspect it earlier, could cause improper oil drainage from the turbo.

If you don't want any check valve, at least you'll need to move the line going to the intake plenum to further upstream. This line should only see, at maximum, atmospheric pressure and this, on a turbocharged engine, can only be found at the compressor inlet. Thus my line goes from the valve cover straight to the catch tank and from there it goes to the compressor inlet, routing the line above the intercooler and no check valve necessary.

Did it solve the problem? Not completely but it's better now. I still have some smoke every now and then but it's noticeably less frequent. All there's left to do now is enlarge the oil drain line. It's annoying that i have to take off the oil pan just to do this but i guess there's no other way if i want to get rid off the smoke completely..

Moment of Truth

This project reached an important milestone yesterday. It was the time to see whether i'll have a functioning brand new LSD inside the RT182 Corona axle or just end up with US$1,000 worth of Cusco paper weight. Before we get to the main discussion, here's the latest situation under the hood.

That ugly strut bar you see there is custom made. I used 5mm iron strip plate and stacked two of them for the main bridge just to be sure on the strength. The strut mount uses only single layer. Cost me 10 bucks, not bad huh? Here's a view on the strut mount side.

Getting back to business, here's what kept me from doing the LSD conversion sooner.

It's unsurprisingly difficult finding LSD gear oil here in Lampung. I got those FK Pulse LSD Gear Oil in Jakarta. I'm pretty sure it's just that i haven't looked for it hard enough as with all those off road SUVs and 4-by-4s i see roaming everyday here, there's bound to be a local shop that sells LSD oils for those vehicles.

The Cusco LSD i have is the RS-type and set to 2-way although i can set it to 1.5-way whenever i feel like it later. Here's the 2-way cam ring gear profile, you can see the center pin here.

and here's the 1.5-way profile.

LSD conversion is not something to be done by many of us, me including. It's a long tedious process and could easily fill up the swear jar with 50 bucks worth of small changes if done by inexperienced individual. First you need to take off the drum brakes and pull both axles out which probably have locked themselves frozen to the center diff after years of no maintenance.

Then you unbolt the center diff from the axle housing, after you drain the oil.

With the pumpkin out and the ring gear disassembled, i can finally calculate my final gear ratio directly. Here i count 11 teeth pinion.

and here's a stamp on the ring gear telling me that it's 43 teeth.

So, my final gear is 43:11 = 3.909 after all. A bit disappointed that i was right and it wasn't at least 4.1 but 3.909 should do just fine.

Next, transfer the bearings to the new LSD piece and bolt up the ring gear. You should always use a cross-pattern when fastening the ring gear bolts. In fact, always use cross-pattern anytime you can. It's just good practice. Oh if you have the retained plates for the ring gear bolts from the old diff, you can throw them away as they can't be used on Cusco's LSD. Use some thread-locks just to be safe. Why didn't i change the bearings? Well, i should have honestly but the old ones should be good for another year at least.

The mechanic fastened the bolts to 9 kg/mm using this big-ass torque wrench.

After that comes the hard part of adjusting the bearings and lash so that the pinion sits perfectly to the ring gear, preventing that dreadful whining sound.

Obligatory baller pic.

Once done, reassemble everything back. Don't forget to fill up the oil. You'll be pouring at least 1.5 liters in before it overflows from the fill hole.

Don't get too excited yet and skid like there's no tomorrow when it's done. It's advised that you do the boring figure-8 break in procedure for at least 30 minutes. It's no fun, i can tell you that. What you do is basically you find an empty space like a parking lot and do a figure-8 a few times. You'll want to accelerate in first gear on the straight part and push the clutch down when you turn as narrow as possible. Below image from Kaaz website should be clear enough.

As i said, i was pretty relieved to see that everything went smooth on the conversion. All those hours spent researching on the internet has really paid off. Everything that could go wrong, didn't. As John "Hannibal" Smith would say, "I love it when a plan comes together!"

Running Time

As my speedometer cable's missing, my odometer's not working and i have no way to control the oil change interval. Rather than finding a replacement cable, i decided to just get me one of these.

This engine-hour meter will be wired to the fuel pump terminal as this should ensure that the meter's activated only when the engine's running.

With The Dog seeing more and more stop-n-go traffic jams, changing the engine oil based on the engine operational hours, and not on the odometer, seems like a good decision. Your engine's still running although you're stuck at traffic right? After some googling, it seems 100-150 hrs is safe enough for oil change interval.

Budget Oil Catcher

Ghetto el-cheapo oil catch tank using old AC drier.

Worried About Your Size?

Worry no more! If you're like me, lost the original dipstick to your 16 valve 4A-GE and love your engine enough to worry if it's sufficiently lubricated, now you can save from having to pay up to 20 bucks just to get one from Ebay!

I currently use 4A-C's dipstick on my smallport and have suspected that it's shorter than the original. I filled 4 liters of oil to my freshly rebuilt engine and the next morning, i checked that it only wets the tip, far lower than the LOW mark.

I asked around on Toymods (seriously helpful Toyota guys there!) and got this measurement for my original smallport disptick:

- Rubber seal (where it touches the tube) to disptick tip = 326mm

- Rubber seal to Low mark = 316mm

- Rubber seal to Full mark = 292mm

For comparison, i measured my 4A-C's:

- Rubber seal to tip = 303mm

- Rubber seal to Low mark = 294mm

- Rubber seal to Full mark = 278mm

Just as i thought, it is shorter! Since i had a hard time finding anyone that sells the original dipstick, i asked the seller to just give me something longer and i'll cut to length. He gave me one for Daihatsu Taft (Rugger or Rocky for you?). It has a black T-handle unlike 4A-C's that has yellow looped handle. Cut it according to the measurement and done! Cost me only 3 bucks.

Obligatory picture to avoid making this a text-only post.

Nearly There

Got the engine running again finally. Since pictures worth more than thousands of words (or i'm too lazy to write), here are some progress shots with minimum amount of words in between.

ARP flywheel bolts

Turbo oil drain flange on sump

ARP head studs and 4A-GZE 8.9 CR slugs

ARP head stud protrusion. This is why some need to shave one of the studs as it fouls the distributor shaft. Obviously not this one as i took photo of the wrong side.

Considered leaving the timing belt cover off but put it back on to be safe.

Last shot before turbo conversion the next day. Notice the oil drain line is only ziptied near the strut tower.

The next day, after running the engine for a day and ensuring the rebuild was successful, turbo conversion was started. Oil sandwich adapter went in first. Only one out of four outlets was used.

HKS copy cast iron manifold with gasket cut out from a soda can. Cheap and refreshing, indeed.

The very minimum space at the back of the turbo with downpipe flange off. Gotta move some wiring to protect them from the heat.

Oil lines plugged in and this is the final shot of the day.

The next day which was yesterday, exhaust was fully redone. The initial plan was only to fabricate the downpipe and connect it to the existing exhaust but after quick reconsider, decided to ditch the whole system and put 2-inch pipes front to rear. Only 2-inch? Well, the turbo downpipe flange output is that diameter, i'm merely following. No use in going bigger, yes? The flexible joint was welded to the downpipe and only one tiny muffler was used. The rest of it was 2-inch piping and elbow joints to allow going over-axle. Oxygen sensor bung was installed on the same location as the original piping. Didn't take many photos that day, sorry.

Finally, just today, i installed an SPST switch on the bootloader jumper header on my Megasquirt. I did this to ease flashing firmwares later without having to open the MS case anymore. I'm currently focusing on finding the correct values to go into the kpafactor and barofactor inc files as i'm going to use the 4A-GZE map sensor which is not directly supported by the original MS1-Extra firmware i'm using.

Check and Recheck

The parts for the overhaul just arrived yesterday after dad helped me bought them in Jakarta. I can't even find a gasket kit here! These are the part numbers for future reference.

Piston ring set is for .50 overbore. Also it's confirmed that high-comp rings will fit 8.9 4A-GZE pistons. The ring gap from the top to bottom is 1.2, 1.5 and 2.8mm. Meanwhile bigports should be 1.5-1.5-2.8 and 20 valves should be 1.2-1.5-3.0. Don't quote me on this. I bought a thermostat just to see if my engine likes it as i wasn't using one and it took forever to warm-up.

Aisin makes OEM pumps so even if the box doesn't say "Toyota", it's all good.

On a side note, do your research before you order anything online. Check and recheck your order before you make the payment. Don't expect the seller to know what he's selling. Weeks ago, I asked specifically to the seller for a "4A-GE 16v oil filter sandwich adapter". I refrained from checking myself the thread size on the oil filter although i know there are different sizes for different manufacturer. I got sent an M18x1.5 retaining nut and surprise.. surprise.. it didn't fit.

A simple Google search tells me that i should be getting a 3/4 UNF 16 thread size instead. Should've done it earlier. Since sending the adapter plate back would delay the overhaul progress, thanks to 3/4 UNF being a larger diameter than M18, the nut was rethreaded on a lathe to the correct size so now it fits.

Second Overhaul Update

Resleeving's done with nice cross-hatch finish, bore size matched to the 4A-GZE slugs.

By guessing the actual turbo position, the turbo was clocked and the provisions for locating the wastegate actuator were made. A new bolt hole was threaded and a simple bridging plate was cut so that both holes on the actuator flange can be used. Hope the actuator won't hit the cam cover.

Since i bought the wrong oil line kit, only some parts can be used (take note: T3/T4 oil line kit is useless for TD04). The supposedly turbo drain flange is now positioned on the oil pan instead and a new drain pipe for the turbo was fabricated. The nuts for the flange bolts were welded inside. This position should be above the oil level, no?

Whether it will leak oil or not, we shall see later.