Rebuild for a performance oriented 6.5

[3500_6.5]

In other progress;

The fuel supply is all mounted and hooked up. As with the wiring, I still need to install some mounts to hold the fuel line away from the exhaust and firmly in place (my lines are aluminum so I don't want them to move around and end up breaking). I rerouted the line from the fuel pump mounted on the driver side frame rail over the transmission/transfer case to the passenger side and then up from there to the fuel filter. The downpipe will be the main concern with clearances for this fuel line.

I ran a 3/8" rubber fuel line from the other side of the filter, across the front of the engine (between the coolant crossover and intake along with the fuel return line and glow plug wiring) and to the steel line on the driver side that goes down to the ip. The return line still runs down the driver side, I just moved it to where it runs all the way up the driver side frame rail, past the firewall and then across to the engine under the master cylinder.

The transmission dipstick tube was pretty easy to take care of. I just "adjusted" the bends slightly and it cleared without issue. I am going to weld a bracket onto it to hook it probably to the intake now since the original bracket is nowhere near bolting up anymore.

Since I have everything bolted up now except the turbo oil drain and downpipe, I wanted to get some oil pressure through the engine. So I took some time to do that tonight. I didn't do too much since the oil drain isn't hooked up, but I got enough pressure that the gauge moved and I had oil coming out of the turbo drain. I ordered everything I should need for the down pipe from summit today, so it should be here tomorrow. The last fitting I need for the oil drain was also ordered today. It looks like it will be here Wednesday.

With any luck, I can get the turbo angle figured out and taken care of at some point this week and then hopefully get the oil drain and exhaust hooked up. Then it's on to bleeding the fuel system and seeing if she'll run!

I'll get pictures of the fuel system tomorrow along with any other progress I get done.

 

[n8in8or]

I hate you too, Nate.

I never even gave that a thought. Probably bc I don't want to take the up pipes back off and do anymore cutting/welding to them lol. But in all actuality that is probably the best way to do it. Although, instead of turning it clockwise some, I'm thinking maybe of cutting the 3" pipe that the flange is welded to and tilting it forward slightly (mainly bc that's how I pictured doing it when I first read your post). There is limited room, but I have about 1 1/2" or so between the wastegate actuator and intake as of now. That should give enough room to clear the wiper motor and gives more clearance between the turbo and firewall. That will also keep the exhaust side straight enough to keep it fairly easy to hook up to the factory downpipe. I'll probably cut the flange off, remount the up pipes and then mock it up there to see where it needs to be mounted. Sounds easy enough.........





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Well I love you Tim, so there!

I like your plan better than mine because it will keep the downpipe angle better like you said. I have no doubt that you'll get it figured out and working well.

 

[smokymtn65]

I have seen some angled spacers would that give enough offset with out raising you to much?

 

[WarWagon]

I hate you. Lol

Hopefully saves you some damage.

I have plowed the home-brew CDR plumbing into the hood and had a Duramax fan rub after a number of miles from engine movement in the mounts. Everything flexes as you add power. The fan rubbing was from a mount failing after all kinds of hard work and biodiesel leak exposure. Full RPM full power can't be safely repeated anywhere but a dyno to check for clearance. A brake stand won't give you max engine movement. The amount of engine movement you can obtain is considerable.

All I can think of as a gotcha are a possibility of compressor vents in the turbo to prevent stalling/surging from the inner to the outer ring. I don't see why you couldn't trim it otherwise, but, be careful of a LLY GM ClusterF where the badly designed 90 degree bend caused a 4PSI restriction just before the turbo.

 

[Will L.]

Just an fyi: modern diesel (not just bio) will eat the engine mounts. It's the methanol in the fuel, so depending on your fuel supplier is the quantity. Will also eat most belt, hoses, body mounts- about anything of rubber.

 

[3500_6.5]

I'm limited on time right now, but I'll say that Nate's idea of turning the flange wouldn't have worked. Nor would my idea of just angling the flange forward. BUT! Put them both together and I think we have a winner. Thanks for the input, Nate, it looks like you saved me on this one. I'll go into more detail later.


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[n8in8or]

I'm limited on time right now, but I'll say that Nate's idea of turning the flange wouldn't have worked. Nor would my idea of just angling the flange forward. BUT! Put them both together and I think we have a winner. Thanks for the input, Nate, it looks like you saved me on this one. I'll go into more detail later.


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That's what we're all here for!

 

[Husker6.5]

"Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter!"
"Hey, you got peanut butter on my chocolate!"

 

[3500_6.5]

Sorry for the lack of updates. Been busy with little time to do much of anything on here. I finally got the truck running tonight. I've had a hell of a time getting the pump bled out. I basically spent yesterday afternoon and most of today cracking injectors and cranking the sh!t out of the truck. I've had a battery charger on it almost constantly for the last 48 hours. Finally tonight it started....

And it smokes like a freight train. I've never seen so much white/gray smoke in my life lol. My initial thought is that it is way too far retarded. It's super quiet. It's quieter than a new duramax, minus the obvious miss. I only had time to let it run for maybe 15 minutes, but it never cleared up. It wouldn't even idle at first, but once it got warm I was able to let off the throttle and it idled with a very heavy lope. I cracked all the injectors and they are all getting fuel and the miss worsened with every cracked injector line.

But that's where I'm at now. Tomorrow I am going to go get new batteries and hopefully get some time to mess with it more. I think I am about maxed on the pump adjustment, but I'll try to move it as far as I can. I doubt that will be enough to make much of a difference, so I'll probably jump the cold advance as well to see if it affects it. If it does, then I know it's the timing. Worst case, if it is timing, I'm pulling the front of the engine back apart and moving the pump gear a tooth more advanced.

Again, limited on time, I'll try to make some time to get some pictures posted and more of the final install details up.


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[Will L.]

Yeah, if all 8 cracked open caused same miss, then sounds like timing to me. Gubmint conspiracy is always a possibility too...

 

[3500_6.5]

That's about what my truck looked like. Minus the lava show at the end lol.


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[3500_6.5]

This morning I had a bit of time while I was waiting on the propane guy to come set a tank in at my house, so I messed with my truck some. The pump did still have a little bit of adjustment left, so I maxed it out. Then I jumped the cold advance. No more freight train. It's sounds a little more like a 6.5 should now too. It does still have a slight haze while running, so it definitely needs to go more. Hopefully I will get some time to try and advance the ip gear a tooth at some point in the next day or so. That *should* get me where I need to be and then I can fine tune with the pump adjustment.


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[3500_6.5]

So here's my update for the turbo clearance issue:

As stated, originally looking at the turbo and how it was sitting, I thought (thanks to Nate's suggestion) just tilting the turbo forward some would allow it to easily clear the wiper motor. I figured that there was enough room to tilt the turbo forward about an inch without the wastegate hitting anything. One inch at the bottom of the turbo should equate to over an inch at the top, which would be plenty of clearance....


The adjustment was made by cutting the up pipe just below the turbo flange. Since my welding skills aren't exactly great, I didn't want to just cut the flange completely off and the try to adjust, hold and then butt weld it back together. I knew I would have a hard time getting it where I wanted and then getting my welds good enough to seal. So instead, I took my chop saw and cut about 2/3 of the way through. It's still a butt weld, but now the last 1/3 is at least holding everything in place, which would make it easier to adjust and weld. I then took my grinder and took material off of each side of the cut to allow me to pull the pipe together on the front side. This allowed me to get the angle I needed and could put it back on the truck and install the turbo, all without having to try to weld anything beforehand. This saved on probably countless tack welds/rewelds and cuts that probably would have ruined the piping.

After several trial fits and adjustments, it became clear that I was quickly running out of forward adjustment and was still too close to the wiper motor. Apparently I needed a lot more than an inch at the bottom to clear it at the top. So then I thought about Nates suggestion of twisting the turbo. Since the wastegate was now lower and at a different angle, I had more twisting room without the wastegate hitting the intake. So I added some twist to it and that solved it. So now the turbo is leaning further forward and the intake is facing further forward while the exhaust is facing backwards more, but with the forward tilt, it was still far enough forward that it really didn't make the exhaust anymore difficult to make. So with some clockwise adjustment and forward tilt, the turbo sits nicely. It is a snug fit at the front with the wastegate and some of the wiring, but there is enough clearance for the wastegate to move freely without anything interfering with it.

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[3500_6.5]

I thought I got more pictures of the up pipe and the turbo during the modifications, but apparently not. I will try to get some later when I pull the pump to adjust the pump gear.


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[WarWagon]

Is this a known pump? Have you run it on the other engine? What do you have for a timing set and is it new? Advancing a tooth makes me suspect the cam is also off. However I bought a wonky pump that needed 1/4" of advance on install to run properly.

 

[3500_6.5]

Is this a known pump? Have you run it on the other engine? What do you have for a timing set and is it new? Advancing a tooth makes me suspect the cam is also off. However I bought a wonky pump that needed 1/4" of advance on install to run properly.

This is the pump that was on my other engine. The modified marine db2. The cam is off, I had to use the offset key to set the icl on the cam, which put the pump out of time. You were the one who reminded me before that I would have to adjust the pump to counteract any cam timing changes. That's how long this thread has been going on lol.

I didn't take your advice and adjust the pump gear bc I was hoping I could adjust the pump enough to get it back where it needed to be. My thought was that I would rather be too far retarded than too far advanced on an initial start up. Less of a chance of damaging it with the retarded timing was my logic. I went back and forth on whether or not to just move it the tooth while it was easy to get to, but in the end I left it. In hind site, that was a really stupid decision...


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[WarWagon]

For sure know the long project feeling...

 

[ak diesel driver]

Heck I thought that was normal time and Nate's just really fast ​

 

[3500_6.5]

Someone please correct me if I am mistaken, but in my head I see moving the ip gear one tooth counter clockwise to advance it one tooth, correct? The pump gets turned to the driver side, or clockwise, to advance, so that would be the same as moving the top of the gear to the passenger side, or counter clockwise. Right??


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[3500_6.5]

Heck I thought that was normal time and Nate's just really fast ​

I think Nate actually finishes his projects before he even starts a topic on said project. That way he can make it look like he's really fast, but in all reality he is just as slow as the rest of us.


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