alh m-Tdi marinisation to match Mercruiser Gen1 drive

[iddhi]

ALH m-Tdi marinisation to match Mercruiser outdrive

Hi all,

i have spend a good year designing an ALH water-cooled exhaust manifold plus an bell-housing that will fit to my 82 Searay.

Idea is to turn her into a economic fishing vessel.
Made the decision because i know a guy operation a 26 feet fishing boat that is powered by a 1.7L Mercruiser Diesel (Isuzu engine), very economical and still considerably fast, around 25mph.

These sets are hard to come buy (not sold anymore) and new Mercrusier Cummins units based on the TDI are extremely expensive, around $20k.

So here we go, bell-housing has been cast in Aluminium, will be shipped to me this week, i already organized an engine side starter and matching flywheel, test stand with homemade dyno tester is almost ready to go, will fire the thing up in approx two weeks.

Decided to go for a custom 20mm shaft mechanical Dextel pump with 12mm head, more about that pump later after it first ran. I am shooting for around 100 to 120 Hp.

Questions currently on my mind:

• The engine will be Turbo charged, i am converting an SDI engine cause i had it laying around, i understand that block and pistons are identical to the TDI, but the head seems to be different, does anybody know what differs?
• Read somewhere that the SDI injectors work fine with a turbo charged engine, true?
• Since it is an extremely important indicator for marine engines (running at peak performance for hours) I will be measuring exhaust temperatures to find the ideal pump settings, did anybody measure that before on a m-Tdi or Tdi?

Will be posting pics of my project the next couple of days

 

[iddhi]

just found this Post regarding exhaust temps:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=67858

I don't have a gauge, but there's someone local with a chipped/injectored TDI who has a gauge right after the turbo.

400 F at idle.

700 - 800 F at highway cruise.

1100 F pedal to the metal at 160+ km/h.

close to what i need but i would be interested if someone adjusted an m-Tdi pump based on temperatures.

 

[iddhi]

CAD screenshots of the water cooled exhaust manifold

Here the final version of the water cooled manifold, went through different stages in the last 10 months, 3D printing sections of it and modifying again. Idea was to print the complete exhaust in PLA material (sugar based) and cast it in my backyard using the "lost PLA method". This turned out to be adventurous due to the size of the part.
Will go for standard sand casting patterns now, a friend of mine working in this industry will dedicate his CNC equipment for a couple of weekends to me.

The manifold will fit 1Z AHU and ALH Tdi's, perhaps even IDI engines.

Note the two exhaust outlets, depending on if i want to use the engine T - charged or suction only.

Section view:

here one of the earlier 3D prints, tried to use this one as a casting model therefore the wax mess.
I used wax to close small holes in the print.

Here how i got the exhaust port and screw pattern into the CAD system, old school,
good old Diesel-oil fingers on white paper.
Later i scanned the whole thing with a normal office scanner,
then scaled it in the CAD software to find the centers and location of the holes to design the exhaust on top of it.

 

[iddhi]

bellhousing CAD Screenshots

The mold pattern for this part has been finished this week,
an aluminum foundry has the mold at the moment an should deliver the cast this week, cant wait

Simulated assembly to the Gen1 Mercruiser outdrive:

Here some blurry pics of my "workingspace"

the Mercruiser Gen1 unit i am using to take measures for matching the TDI engine:

working on a adapter/damper-plate to match the Mercruiser shaft at the moment.

The Diesel will bring some "gear rattling" issues, especially at slow speeds according to what i read throughout the Net.

Will still go with the original Mercruiser adapter at the beginning to see how bad it really is.

had the engine side section hole pattern laser cut in 3/8 steel, making sure everything will match before casting, especially the starter to flywheel alignment.

 

[samuraitd]

That is awesome!

 

[VeeDubTDI]

Very cool project! Subscribed.

 

[BENCOVE]

Very Cool, looking forward to seeing the outcome!

 

[greengeeker]

Very cool project.

For your current setup, you could use an AHU manifold which moves the EGR valve away from your water-cooled exhaust manifold making things a little easier.

Here is what it looks like:

 

[iddhi]

short update, foundry informed me last week that the casting of the bell failed, they had to cast again, expecting the sample this week.
I had been busy re-designing the exhaust manifold since it would have been very challenging to tool, due to the 45 deg angle of the side outlet.
Went to 90 deg instead, straight up, will post pics of the new design soon.

Also finalized the layout of the engine dyno test bench, based on a low cost hydraulic-pump brake system, got inspired by this guy here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz6dgY56kFg

Ordered a data logger from mccdaq.com that will allow me to create data charts.

Signals we will log are:

1. RPM
2. Foot pounds (Horse Power = Lb-foot x RPM / 5252)
3. engine temp
4. exhaust temp (maybe before and after turbo)
5. Boost pressure
6. Intake temperature (since i don't have the water-cooled inter-cooler yet)
7. Fuel intake, Liter/hour

I choose horse power over KW since i wanted to keep the setup scaled but compact. (otherwise i prefer the metric system)

KW would have required using Newton meter measures instead, thus the load cell arm would have extended one meter (3.3 feet instead of just 1). Sure i could have used a shorter arm and calculated the output accordingly buy again i wanted to keep the setup scaled so it is easy to calculate and explain to others.

So here the current project status, working on the engine mounts at the moment, the width between the steel beams and the engine height above them is exactly the same as in the boat, that way i don't have to re design the mounts.

The big blue part in the center represents the hydraulic pump.
The load cell will end up being on the other side of the engine since i mixed up the rotation at the beginning ;-)

this screenshot shows the engine bracket i am currently working on. The block size is represented without head and oil pan, will spend more time for detailing later on. For now only the outer dimensions and the hole locations were important to me.

 

[iddhi]

Hi Nick thanks for the input regarding the manifold!

 

[iddhi]

The bell casting arrived!
I am a happy camper. next step, machine surfaces and drill holes.

 

[mogly]

This is a very cool and innovative idea. Please keep us posted.

 

[jjordan11]

Indeed, very nice. That bell housing looks good. Are you going to have the foundry make a few of those?

 

[iddhi]

yes, more will be available once i figured out the whole setup.

 

[iddhi]

Short update,

i had many issues getting that exhaust tooled...... the learning curve for casting parts design is steep, had to change my design three or four times until a casting pattern could be modeled out of it, parting lines, undercuts and draft angels were the most problematic issues.

In addition i finalized the design of my portable dyno test stand. I could limit the width so it would fit through our living room door (i have the most patient wife on the face of this planet).

Had all components laser cut, will weld the unit together over the weekend and post more pics.

 

[Autopaul]

Super great project, I've been dreaming of this one, is there a reason you don't want to use tdi electronics?

Where did you get the housing made
I had thought about using the stock manifold with copper tube and thermal tape wrapped around, then monitor using egt gauge

Sometimes you can pick up those IO drive boats cheap
Although my main interest would be wake/surf boat

Props!!!

 

[iddhi]

Hi Autopaul

Wanted to start with the most basic setup first, so the engine would be a good solution for vessels that might end up in challenging situations like fishing boats and sailboats.

The ALH in itself is nearly indestructible, the only weak link after a flood in the engine compartment would be the ECU, with its connectors and sensors.
Plus, to be honest, i am a total rookie to Ecu programming....currently looking for a mentor who would teach me this art (just in case you know someone)

But you are right, for max tuning purposes on a pleasure boat an Ecu fired Tdi is the way better solution.

 

[iddhi]

first day stitching together the laser cuts. So far so good. Had some issues with the exhaust side engine mounts, position of one hole lower in reality than in my 3D data, otherwise things came together nicely.

this pic was taken in the morning

here one during the day

ready for a beer

The space between the two T-beams is equal to the space in the boat bilge. Already learned that the injection pump bracket will not fit. Need to cut of a section.

i will take care of the Dyno (hydraulic pump) section tomorrow, then start assembling the engine.

 

[Autopaul]

Super clean work! It would be nice to have the cad skills.

I can't wait to see it finished

 

[iddhi]

when i started to assemble the cylinder head i briefly checked compression without the camshaft attached and noticed ..... well that there was almost no compression. all exhaust valves leaking badly. I should have checked that out before but the guy who sold that engine to us a couple of years ago promised it was running fine. Anyway, took the head down again, luckily i did not torque the head-bolts yet and disassembled the head.
All valves -> junk, all valve seats -> junk, Valve guides junk as well.
Decided to purchase a new head and pistons. De-glazed the cylinders and assembled her back together.

Compression is fantastic now.
But the engine did not want to start.
Puffs of white smoke only... spend several evenings playing with the timing from 0.5mm to 1.8mm since i read all over the net how sensitive that is on the m-Tdis. Nothin.....
Darn i should have removed the valve-cover earlier just to find out that the pump injected into the exhaust stroke of #1 -> Rookie

I did not line up the OT mark of the camshaft pulley, just threw it on, cause this will just be my dyno test engine, well lesson learned.

After twenty years playing will all kind of car-brands, i still struggle to understand VW's logic on not using woodruff keys, to my opinion it is completely retarded and nothing but a greedy attempt to save a few cents per car in parts, machining and assembly (working for an automotive supplier i know that they indeed calculate like that).

Anyway, after i set the pump @ 1.4mm before 1OT it started right up and ran beautifully after spitting out a huge i mean huuuuge cloud of black smoke. Guess the engine was flooded with unburned Diesel from trying and trying.

I will spend more time for fine-tuning the engine on the weekend and i will put some time into the Dyno setup.

Received a GT22 Turbocharger i gonna use, pictures later.

The exhaust casting is still delayed, seems to be very challenging to cast complex aluminum parts, i am working with a small foundry that might lack the skills.

Here how one half of the exhaust patter looks like:

here the failed casting:

We will try to cast it in iron now, perhaps i will try brass as well, the foundry told me that iron is much easier to cast due to its higher weight and temperature.

Updates will follow

 

[2many diesels]

My wife won't let me work on engines in the house any more. Should have removed the parts from the dishwasher before she got home....duh.

 

[iddhi]

My wife won't let me work on engines in the house any more. Should have removed the parts from the dishwasher before she got home....duh.

Well, i just got a temporary permit.
Not sure how long that's going to last.

 

[vanbcguy]

The "no woodruff key" in the cam pulley is due to the need for a very fine adjustment that can't be done with a key. They used one on all the gasser engines based on the same block. For once it definitely was not a cost cutting measure, in fact it likely cost them more as it requires a more complex cam pulley and camshaft.

Likewise with the injection pump - that's a Bosch thing though, non-vw applications with two piece pullies like the ALH also run with no key.

As far as timing goes, what pump are you running? My Rover pump needs to be at about 1.40mm. I got my hands on a timing light pulse adapter to verify my static timing, works great.

 

[JaysinSpaceman]

That casting looks to be a very hard pour. Lots of stuff that the material has to flow around and you also have very thin sections, the combination of the two together would make it very challenging. Good luck with the next tries. I give you kudos for even attempting a project this demanding.

Thanx for posting it up.
Jaysin

 

[iddhi]

The "no woodruff key" in the cam pulley is due to the need for a very fine adjustment that can't be done with a key. They used one on all the gasser engines based on the same block. For once it definitely was not a cost cutting measure, in fact it likely cost them more as it requires a more complex cam pulley and camshaft.

Read that argument before but i am not convinced.
Many fine tuned high-end engines with much longer timing belts use woodruffs, Lexus LS400 for example.
Others would use the VW solution if it was that good.
Plus, when VW first started doing that on gasser engines they where far away from being a the high level maker they are now, back then VW tried to manufacture a cheap as possible car, VW was on the edge of extinction. Another example those darn plates that have been used to adjust valve clearance, nothing but a lame, low end cost saving measure.

 

[iddhi]

in fact it likely cost them more as it requires a more complex cam pulley and camshaft.

Sorry forgot to ask, why is a camshaft an pulley more complex due to the missing woodruff key?

I am running my at 1.4mm as well, looks fine so far, just a bit of white smoke, need to work on the fine-tuning over the weekend.

 

[iddhi]

That casting looks to be a very hard pour. Lots of stuff that the material has to flow around and you also have very thin sections, the combination of the two together would make it very challenging. Good luck with the next tries. I give you kudos for even attempting a project this demanding.

Thanx for posting it up.
Jaysin

Agreed, pattern maker was convinced it would work, remarked that we can easily add channels to the thin sections later on to help the material flow.

Guess that will be necessary ;-)

 

[vanbcguy]

The cam pulley is more complex as it requires a machined tapered hole rather than just a round hole with a woodruff key. The cam needs a big lump of metal on the end machined to match. If they could have simplified things and avoided all of that they would have, like they did on the ABA for instance. Pretty sure the 1.8 gassers used a key as well.

 

[iddhi]

you are right, the gassers had keys. Not sure what i was remembering, some Audi application perhaps.

 

[8v-of-fury]

I have been mulling around a twin M-TDI marine setup for years... Nice setup your running!

I was not going to use a water cooled exhaust however for my ideas. It is a good measure, but there are boats (way old) that didn't have it. I was gonna add water to the exhaust, post turbo however.

The way I see it, running sea water as coolant (20-24C) and with an Air-to-Water inter cooler and having the oil-to-water cooler as well.... this thing would run the coolest it has ever run. I was also thinking of running HUGE water cooled turbo's as well.. It would run so cool it wouldn't even be funny lol!

I dig it, I will likely never get around to it, so I will live vicariously.