Greg Gordon
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Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Greg Gordon »

I thought I would put up a couple pics of a Milano Twin Turbo that's in my shop right now.

Here they are, details to follow:
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Greg Gordon
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Greg Gordon »

It's a 3 liter with JE pistons, and just over 9:1 compression and special rods. The heads have some serious porting, and the intake runners are ported out. The turbos are IHI units. The turbo manifolds and all the pipes are stainless, mostly 304 with some 409.Pretty much everything under the hood is from my shop, with the exception of exhaust pipes immediately after the turbos.

It runs really well. I have the boost set at 5psi, while I make sure everything is OK. I plan to raise it to about 7.5-10psi. This is not a kit, it's just a one of, built for a customer. It's really set up as a road racer, full RSR suspension, Gyro Disk brake setup and a 6+ gallon water/meth tank. I can't wait to have it finished, I have been driving it a little over the last couple days and it is fun!

Greg Gordon,
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GarthW
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by GarthW »

Nice photos Greg. Those turbos would spool up very well and give you great down low torque. Good clean engine bay also. Is that stainless steel pipe used for the throttle body pipes and intake...?

Are you running 3" exhaust from both turbos?

What engine management? Or running a microfueller? Anyway will wait for the details.. :P

I see its not running a large 3.0 catch can or anything like that for better breathing? Also the BOV is so farwaway from the throttle body, can have alot better performance with that moved quite abit closer. But i like what i see. Nice car Greg....can we see what she looks like from the outside as well..?
And you will have to do another in-car vid for us.. :D
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Selling 1985 GTV6.

Ecu and injectors, lightened.....plays music.
Greg Gordon
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Greg Gordon »

Hi Garth,

Yes, it is stainless for the throttle body pipe and intake. The only pipes that are not stainless are the turbo outlets, and even those are stainless after about the first 6 inches. That's a complex piece to make, and I already had it sitting here in mild steel, so I used it.

The turbo outlet pipes are 2 inches, at least after the main outlet and wastegate outlets join together. That may seem small, but it's enough. The main exhaust restriction is at the turbo inlet, it's really tight on these IHIs. They do spool fast, you can't get your foot too the floor before they start to spool up.

No microfueler. It's running SDS with coil packs and Stage 6M injectors, 48pph.

No catch can at this point, although I may add that. The breather setup in the picture doesn't work. Although there are two breathers (twice the stock capacity) the breathers themselves have check valves in them. It turns out the IHIs really hate any crank case pressure, so those breathers are out of there.

The blow off valve is located where it is entirely for packaging reasons. As far as power is concerned, of course when under boost it doesn't hurt anything. An argument could be made that it will delay turbo spool up after shifting because the air between the throttle and blow off valve has to reverse direction. In practice, it's just not a factor because these things spool so darn quick anyway. For what it's worth, most cars that ran IHI turbos from this generation didn't even have blow off valves (Callaway GTV6, Mustang SVO, Thunderbird T.C., Merkur XR4TI, etc.)

I might put up a really short video tomorrow. It's not my car, so I can't just take the thing out on a major cruise and hammer it. I can put up a picture of the outside although it's not done, another shop is doing the body. It has fender flares, side skirts (not installed yet), and will probably have special wheels. My job was just the mechanical side. Not much left to do, it actually runs really well, I just need to raise the boost, double check everything, tune it a bit, and all the normal final stuff.

Greg
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Duk »

Nice work Greg :D .
It gets pretty congested when you start adding masses of largish diameter plumbing but you've done an excellent job of building it while still allowing it to be assembled (hand and tool room) 8) .
Is this the same car that was going to have dual water to air intercoolers integrated into the inlet manifold?
How does the brake master cylinder go with heat soak? Maybe a heat shield could be good?
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Mats »

Duk wrote: How does the brake master cylinder go with heat soak? Maybe a heat shield could be good?
Definetly needs a heat shield, the 75 turbo is similar in layout and if you drive it w/o heat sheild the brakes will start to drag after a while even while cruising.

Nice build, looking forward to some charts! :)
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Greg Gordon »

Mats, DUK, No question it's going to have heat shielding for the brake booster, and some other things. I just haven't put it on yet. I don't want to put it on until everything is ironed out and I am sure I won't have to pull it off again.

It's hard to get a sense of scale in a picture, but most of that piping is pretty small. For example, the turbo's compressor inlet is 1.75". The blow off valve is sitting on a 2.5" pipe. Access to everything is pretty good. Even with the A.C. in there, the oil filter is easy to get at, all normal servicing can be done with the turbos in place.

DUK, at one point I was considering using a water/air intercooler in the manifold, yes, this is that same car. However I abandon that plan due to the excess complexity and possibility of problems. That and it would have made the car very difficult to work on. That current intercooler/coupler kit is an off the shelf item in my shop, I have used it before and it works very well. It involves minimal cutting of the car, flows well, and cools well.

Greg
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by GarthW »

Hey Greg, how much HP does this little beast have??
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Greg Gordon »

I don't know yet. I have not dynoed it or turned the boost over 5psi. When I get home in a few weeks I should be able to finish it up and take it to the dyno.

Right now I am in Swindon England. There sure are a lot of newer Alfas here. The 156 is beautiful in person.

Greg
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Typhoon90 »

My Volvo runs an electric shutter valve on the PCV system right at the turbo elbow attachment, could be worth looking at for that setup. Just have the ecu shut it at say 2" vacuum or run a simple vacuum switch to earth it or similar.
Also on my Volvo, I had issues with the PCV system being overwhelmed at high boost (older engine) so I run a separate atmospheric vent with a filter and a long length of hose (to allow oil vapours to condense out), with a 4 psi pressure valve in that line.
It's absolutely eliminated the weeping seals issues I had.

Regards, Andrew.
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Greg Gordon »

Just a quick update. I have driven the car about 50 miles, it has an acceptable but not great exhaust system on it for now. I have cranked it up to about 8psi. I haven't messed with the fuel yet, but according to the wide band sensor it's darn close to optimal anyway.

The car is dang fast. Even before the turbos spool up, it's quick due to relatively high compression, ported heads, SDS and headers. When the turbos come on it will always break traction in first, even with decent Yokahama tires and a good 47% LSD. The car will outrun the turbos in first gear, meaning it won't get full boost in first (unless it's very heavily loaded or going up a steep hill). Even though the turbos spool fast, the engine gets to redline so fast it just doesn't get up to full boost in first. It's not a problem though since first gear is traction limited anyway. In all the other gears it gets full boost pretty quickly.

I am very happy with it. It runs great and it's fast. At this point I have to retorque the heads, and check the valve adjustment. The only problem is an inoperative flow sensor for the water injection. The water injection works perfectly, but for some reason the flow sensor doesn't put out a signal. It doesn't look like I will get to the dyno before I have to go back to work, but at least the car will be done before I go.

Greg
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by xrad »

NICE work!

interesting 'T' approach of compressor outlets just before the 'aftercooler' any reason why not a 'y'?
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Duk »

xrad wrote:NICE work!

interesting 'T' approach of compressor outlets just before the 'aftercooler' any reason why not a 'y'?

There are no such things as 'aftercoolers' on engines. It is a misinterpretation from applying industrial air compressor terminology to automotive applications.
An 'aftercooler' is a heat exchanger that cools the discharge air 'after' the final compression stage and that air goes on to do its work.
An 'intercooler' is used between the primary and secondary (and 3rd) stages of increasing the density of the air.
There for, a turbo or supercharger raises the density of the air before the final stage, the cylinder's compression stroke.
An 'aftercooler' by industrial air compressor speak and application, would cool the gas between the exhaust valve and the turbine housing. Obviously that would defeat the purpose and never happens.
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by gran turismo »

Greg,

That really is a nice job!

It looks like it was a pain to route that passenger side compressor outlet pipe over and merge it with the drivers side pipe at the intercooler inlet. That longer pipe with bends will produce more pressure loss, take longer to compress, and the passenger side turbo will have to work a bit harder to produce the same boost pressure at the intercooler inlet.

If you could rotate the compressor housing so the outlet points at the intake plenum then you could get rid of the u-turn at the outlet. Also X-rad's idea about a y merge or lateral merge of the two compressor outlets would help.

I don't really know how much this would help but maybe you could get closer to full boost in 1st. :wink: Then all you need is some wider, stickier tires since the car already has the fender flares. :D

Are the heads ported per Jim K's book?

Jeff
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Re: Milano Twin Turbo

Post by Greg Gordon »

xrad: It is a "Y", it's hard to see, but look closely in the first picture and you can see it.

Duk: In a technical sense I am sure you correct, especially in the modern world and from certain backgrounds. However, since we have posters from all over the planet, and from different backgrounds, I think we can safely use the terms intercooler and aftercooler interchangeably on this thread. On WW2 U.S. aircraft the term intercooler was used to refer to a heat exchanger between the turbocharger and the supercharger. The term aftercooler was used for the heat exchanger between the turbo or supercharger and the engine. I don't want to get too off topic here, this car only has one charge cooler so what we call it can't really cause any confusion.
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