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Project FRANKENTRUCK 2nd Gen Ram / Cummins

At some point I noticed I had a boost leak on the HX setup between the center cartridge and the compressor housing. Decided to O ring all of the cartridges to prevent that in the triples. Took it all back apart, found an O ring size that would work, ordered some and cut O ring grooves in the cartridges.
 

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Nice work. I'm a little confused by seeing the exit ports from the top turbos heading into the intake side of the third, then out to the cooler. I'm no expert on this by any means but how would the performance differ if having all three exit ports of the turbos combined to one as well as the intake sides instead of daisy chaining them?
 
You're talking to mostly non dodge guys. Maybe you could tell us why you did some of the mods you did and the advantages of them. Sounds interesting.....
The steering on Dodges is designed the saem as jeeps and is notorious for "death wobble" when something is worn, alignment is off, or geometry is changed by lifting, etc. The T steering has less affect on toe as the suspension moves.
The engine durability upgrades #1 is the "Killer Dowel Pin".
The engine vibrates differently with higher rpm or performance upgrades.
A factory pressed in dowel pin, used for alignment of the front cover, has a tendency to walk out and fall into the geartrain.
It can do anything from nothing to, breaking the timing case, to destroying the engine.
Transmissions behind these diesels were designed for 160 crank horsepower and 400lbft of torque. I knew I would be working my way through power upgrades so extensive transmission upgrades were a must.
 
Wow. That is impressive! You have skills sir.
Did you do any work to the hot side of your 351’s? Stock wastegate port on those is tiny.
Only the manifold charger. I drilled the wastegate bore until the cover barely sealed around the edges and radiused the back. I ported the Turbine inlet removing the casting junk and gasket matching it and the flange (since I made it the extension from the manifold). Beyond that the 67/76 turbine is it. I had to build a custom actuator bracket due to how I had to clock the manifold turbo. I'm running a "Turbo Tuner" to hold the gate closed until I hit a set amount of boost. Once it reaches the set point, the actuator follows at a 1:1 pressure change.. (ie if set at 40psi, when boost is 50psi the gate gets 10psi. when at 60 the gate gets 20 etc.) The atmosphere pair gates are blocked closed. I didn't make them permanent because I don't know if i will need 1st stage gating yet.
 
Nice work. I'm a little confused by seeing the exit ports from the top turbos heading into the intake side of the third, then out to the cooler. I'm no expert on this by any means but how would the performance differ if having all three exit ports of the turbos combined to one as well as the intake sides instead of daisy chaining them?
IF all 3 turbos were fed directly from the same engine exhaust it would be a parallel setup which would be the same as a giant single turbo. In Compound (or sequential) turbo setups the small manifold turbo starts spooling up and sending more air into the engine. The big (1st stage or Atmosphere) turbo is just hanging around but not making boost until it gets enough exhaust flow to get it going. Once the 1st stage starts compressing air that compressed air is feeding into the 2nd stage and it's compressed again. I am just wrapping my head around the variables. Effectively a big single turbo that can flow 120lbs/minute of air at its max would be very hard to spool until the engine was around the factory governed rpm of a 12 valve Cummins. A single He351cw might be able to make 500hp on a 12 valve but it will be at the edge of its map and the air would be less dense and hot because the turbo is at its max. Having the two stages each can be running at their best efficiency at 500hp.
The effective power band with the right set of compounds starts near stock rpm but now goes to 600 flywheel hp instead of 160hp. Pushing the factory HX I made 400+hp and 951 torque at the tire. (stock at the tire is usually around 130hp). Pushing the compounds I'm attempting to be around 800-ish. The atmosphere pair of my triples are similar in airflow to an 82mm inlet turbo. They are literally just a pair of little turbos acting like a bigger one. The advantages of this combination (in my theory anyway, is there are tons of these turbos available, they are fairly simple to rebuild, and there are a lot of upgrades available. (If I went to a 67/67 combination and add external gates around the manifold charger, I could have 1600hp worth of air available). So far it doesn't suck, but there is a lot of potential for air, exhaust, and oil leaks.

Hope this answered your question.
 
INSTALLING THE TRIPLES
I figured it would require much less bending over the fender if I could swap everything from the manifold out as an assembly.
I had to make the intercooler charge pipe, plumb the turbo oil feed & drain lines, and make a downpipe to connect to my existing 5" exhaust.
I rigged up an extra long arm for my engine hoist to give me the reach I needed and started to work.IMG_20221201_204536766_HDR.jpg
 
All truck pullers must have a means to kill the engine in case of engine runaway. The way P Pumps are designed plungers move up and down inside cylinders (barrels). Throttle on a P pump engine is accomplished when a rack moves with the throttle and governor to rotate the barrels. That exposes ports to different area of a helix which changes the effective stroke of the plunger, and varies the amount of fuel injected per stroke. Fuel lubricates and cools the plunger & barrel, which are an extremely close fit together. If any dirt gets in the fuel pump or if a plunger seizes to a barrel, you will lose that one cylinder, but the other 5 will be running at whatever throttle position it stuck in. The rack can't move the others back because of the one that seized. The governor is now out of the equation. If it stuck wide open and the engine made 600hp, you would have a 500hp runaway with rpm's going to infinity. The only way to kill the engine is starve it for air or fuel. Fuel would take too long. Pullers use air shutdowns. I found a 3-1/2" diameter aluminum throttle body from a Hemi in a junk yard. I hacked it up, welded a V band flange to it, and mounted it to my intake. I tried several mounting versions to make it fit under the hood, and have a straight cable pull to close it. I wound up modifying an IMG_20230507_171853787_HDR.jpgIMG_20230507_180121590.jpgIMG_20230511_175140172_HDR.jpgIMG_20230605_162028686_HDR.jpgintake elbow off of a 24 valve Cummins, and fabricating the rest.
 
All truck pullers must have a means to kill the engine in case of engine runaway. The way P Pumps are designed plungers move up and down inside cylinders (barrels). Throttle on a P pump engine is accomplished when a rack moves with the throttle and governor to rotate the barrels. That exposes ports to different area of a helix which changes the effective stroke of the plunger, and varies the amount of fuel injected per stroke. Fuel lubricates and cools the plunger & barrel, which are an extremely close fit together. If any dirt gets in the fuel pump or if a plunger seizes to a barrel, you will lose that one cylinder, but the other 5 will be running at whatever throttle position it stuck in. The rack can't move the others back because of the one that seized. The governor is now out of the equation. If it stuck wide open and the engine made 600hp, you would have a 500hp runaway with rpm's going to infinity. The only way to kill the engine is starve it for air or fuel. Fuel would take too long. Pullers use air shutdowns. I found a 3-1/2" diameter aluminum throttle body from a Hemi in a junk yard. I hacked it up, welded a V band flange to it, and mounted it to my intake. I tried several mounting versions to make it fit under the hood, and have a straight cable pull to close it. I wound up modifying an View attachment 82295View attachment 82296View attachment 82297View attachment 82298intake elbow off of a 24 valve Cummins, and fabricating the rest.
Neat idea using a throttle body, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done that way before. Very cool!
 
Nice build.

Couple of suggestions/comments about it:

You need to "finish" the intake and feed those turbo's some COLD AIR! The hot underhood air intake for em, well, you may as well throw one turbo away because compressing hot vs. cold intake air is wasting a turbo. It's all fun watching fluid boil under the hood when the OEM's screw it up. Like on a LLY Duramax choking on it's own hot underhood air, but, at 500F intercooler temp it stops you pretty quick in places you don't want to stop in. Then famously you get passed by a stock 1st gen towing... Like the LLY owner who sued GM over their POS LLY overheater after being passed by a 1st gen towing when theirs overheat shutdown on em - again.

The air shut off at full boost... You are dealing with like 10 times the pressure ~100 psi not the ~14 psi that gasoline Hemi throttle part was engineered for. Boost likely gets stupid high during a run away as well. You will be lucky if it doesn't simply shear it off and shit it out the exhaust with the accompanying carnage. I was going to say test it, but No, that's asking for carnage. They ask for serious coin for air shutoffs because they need to work. When they don't you can get a Deepwater Horizon type of disaster. At the minimum reconsider the design PSI of the parts you are using and maybe look to other proven designs.
 
I will agree with the hot air intake- but the shut off-nah. I worked around them in the oil/fuel industry to see many. They really are basic like that physically. Usually spring loaded with a cable release. Or the automated ones that use an electric solenoid and a komputer to monitor rpm and auto fire.

Remember on the swivel butterfly style- yes half of it is fighting the pressure but that same pressure helps the other half for a net zero.
 
I too agree with the hot air intake. as for the throttle shutoff, even at normal running conditions, make sure that cable / butterfly setup has a latch or some sort of quick release lock on it. I would be afraid of getting into it and just the air flow alone trying to pull itself shut causing all kinds of drama.

going off from WW said on the crazy boost during a runaway, would it be feasible to do a double cable system and have a sort of "jake brake" or exhaust diverter similar to stopping the exhaust flowing to the exhaust side of the turbines too? so when you have to use it, you can close both the exhaust and intake essentially killing the boost going to the intake butterfly at the same time while you choke off the air to the intake?
 
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I was thinking the bolts seeing the load and/or the shaft seeing the load of 100+psi and inertia vs. ability to simply close it.
Yeah makes sense, the shaft may not be able to handle that kind of pressure. The flapper also should probably not be bolted to the downstream side of that shaft, I could definitely see those two little screws just popping off and the plate getting sucked into the intake.
 
On the intake- have you thought of Banks?
My understanding is that his flow the best.
I like the looks and dual supply opening of the Banks cast units. I'd have to cut it up to add the emergency shut-off. I may go to cutting off the intake shelf and build one with an integrated shutoff. One thing I don't like about those is you have to remove the fuel lines to adjust the valves because of the way the custom lines route over them.
 
Nice build.

Couple of suggestions/comments about it:

You need to "finish" the intake and feed those turbo's some COLD AIR! The hot underhood air intake for em, well, you may as well throw one turbo away because compressing hot vs. cold intake air is wasting a turbo. It's all fun watching fluid boil under the hood when the OEM's screw it up. Like on a LLY Duramax choking on it's own hot underhood air, but, at 500F intercooler temp it stops you pretty quick in places you don't want to stop in. Then famously you get passed by a stock 1st gen towing... Like the LLY owner who sued GM over their POS LLY overheater after being passed by a 1st gen towing when theirs overheat shutdown on em - again.

The air shut off at full boost... You are dealing with like 10 times the pressure ~100 psi not the ~14 psi that gasoline Hemi throttle part was engineered for. Boost likely gets stupid high during a run away as well. You will be lucky if it doesn't simply shear it off and shit it out the exhaust with the accompanying carnage. I was going to say test it, but No, that's asking for carnage. They ask for serious coin for air shutoffs because they need to work. When they don't you can get a Deepwater Horizon type of disaster. At the minimum reconsider the design PSI of the parts you are using and maybe look to other proven designs.
I like the way you think, and appreciate the feedback.
I have actually thought about both of your comments.
I have a ram air hood scoop in the works that will mount just in front of the filters.

On the emergency shutoff, my thinking is if the shaft broke, or the throttle plate did shear completely off, the engine would likely eat screws and bits but hopefully the big stuff would lodge in the elbow it is mounted. If not, a major overhaul is in order for sure.... Forced even bigger upgrades??
 
I too agree with the hot air intake. as for the throttle shutoff, even at normal running conditions, make sure that cable / butterfly setup has a latch or some sort of quick release lock on it. I would be afraid of getting into it and just the air flow alone trying to pull itself shut causing all kinds of drama.

going off from WW said on the crazy boost during a runaway, would it be feasible to do a double cable system and have a sort of "jake brake" or exhaust diverter similar to stopping the exhaust flowing to the exhaust side of the turbines too? so when you have to use it, you can close both the exhaust and intake essentially killing the boost going to the intake butterfly at the same time while you choke off the air to the intake?
This site has a lot of real thinkers!
Thanks everyone!
I oversimplified the "Hold Open" with a sturdy cable bracket and a small wire tie to hold the cable in the open position. If i get in a panic situation to kill it, A good tug will break the wire tie. I did a simulated shutdown with it not running and the zip tie broke relatively easily. I keep a bunch in the console in case I want to use it as an anti theft device. They can get it to turn over and maybe even try to start but it won't go anywhere. lol.

Exhaust brake and Intake shutdown would kill it in a hurry, but might be pretty complex.
Diesel Tractor pull guys use air shutoff, so I went with that.
 
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