Twins with Twins, Anyone?

[2004LB7]

can you run a drill bit down the setscrew holes and dimple the bell where you want the gap to be and then double stack two set screw in there?

Or a tack weld in all 3 locations where the movable bell threads into the cover.

that would certainly work but if you got the gap wrong or needed to make a little adjustment after running it for a bit it would be difficult to adjust. cutting/grounding and then having to tack it again. a better solution would be something that the manufacturer can impalement that would still allow adjustment by the customer

 

[TheBac]

....or use a turbo design that doesnt need/have an adjustable bell?

 

[kidturbo]

Welding the bells in position once you get your map groove where runs best is "Suggested" by Bullseye if you call and speak to them. No where in any documents does it state, make this your #1 priority. Do it like first day, or our stuff will come loose and destroy your engine.. That's where I have a major problem.. I headed their advice, and used Marks best guess of 200-250thou map gap, grabbed the tig master, and called it fixed now. Making this whole patented adjustable bell design, a total waste of ink, paper, and brain cells...



Beside just modifying the ring land areo on the main compressor housing to better hold the threads and bell straight, they also clearanced the inside of the bell to compressor wheel by at least .030" .. Which allows the bell to spin freely "Or Fall Out" now, without touching the wheel.



That was not the case with my original design units. The first time one bell came loose and touched 2yrs back, I sent them both back to Bullseye and they clearanced the main compressor housing, and cleaned up the witness marks on the bell. IE the unit with NO WARRANTY scribbled into the housing now.. Then told me all was good. I installed air filters, which I'm guessing nobody runs on these race cover units. The bell on Port unit came loose sometime later, and even being screwed all the way in, it still touched the wheel and rest is History.



Simply enough the 500F heat of compressor housing making 50psi boost, vs the cold air flowing thru and around that pretty map ring bell, along with a junk set screw design [drilled crooked doesn't help] used to protect those precious fine threads, equals disaster within a couple minutes of actual real world operation. If you ditch the nylon tip on the set screw, it will likely mash the threads, hold the bell from spinning and accomplish the same thing I did with a tig welder.. Again making the whole design useless to anyone other than the purchaser for that particular build. I don't see an easy fix. And knowing what I know now, could have saved 20k in parts and labor, along with 6months down time going with a good old school Borg units.


End of my turbo rant. That's totally my opinion, feel free to find your own conclusion..
Next up Lift Pumps..

 

[kidturbo]

Before I get started on a company who took another decent design and screwed it up somehow, Voodoo broke 90mph on the 800hp tune in fresh water at LOTO shootout last month.

While this RPM recall was a small precursor to what was to follow the next day when I turned up the PW to the 900hp range. Problem child started spitting up again. And this time, think were not gonna have trouble finding that warp deck or cracked block issue that's been around since dyno days.

Lets just say she drank a couple bottles of BlueDevil and blew that stuff it all over the engine bay. After busting the welds on the coolant tank...

 

[kidturbo]

I hope if/when they fail that you will not have too much collateral damage. I bet they would be awesome units in a different application (maybe with the bells welded?) but it sure doesn't seem ideal in your usage.

Yes they make great power, is what's keeps em in biz. There is no real substitute for that extra 100+hp that fits this build. For drag racing, where ya can inspect the turbos between runs, probably best thing out there. But by no means are these ready for prime time. I was told the big rig challenge guys love em, but have yet to hear from any with 100 miles on one towing a real load.

Problem solved in my book. Weld em up and forget em. Done pushed em into the mid 50psi couple times last week, and they ain't blowing oil out the pipes yet. So the overall core design seems solid at these power level. Just don't waste a guys time chasing ghosts when ya know what happened on fist glance. Way too many design changes have been made over 2yrs for me to be the ONLY bloke out there who's grenaded one .

 

[kidturbo]

My latest peeve should be the NAPA industrial ignition switches which attempted to burn the boat down while I slept.. But after further review with an ohm meter, the rain water intrusion only caused a very low amperage drain across the power and crank terminals, which was enough to trigger the mini-relay in the fuse block. That in tern fired the big relay on starter. Had I wired switch directly to the starter from the key, there wasn't enough juice to pull that big relay in.. Tip of the day.

How could one know that the cranking was cause by low amperage short? Well, after replacing the stbd starter, and while washing down the port engine, at the exact time I found turbo bell laying on top of transmission, starboard engine begins rolling over outa the blue..

Luckily the belt was off, and she never powered the ECM. After digging my phone out to record this ghostly occurrence. because nobody would ever believe me, I hit the main circuit breaker on the engine to kill all power. That's when I grabbed the volt meter and went right to the ignition switch.. Cause if those pins had read Open Circuit, I was gonna jump overboard and run away fast as I possibly could...

Source: https://youtube.com/shorts/K5XcSSRIKrY

 

[kidturbo]

Looks like Voodoo will be back in Ohio for a few months. I fired up Port engine yesterday, and she purrs like a kitten. As expected. Beside some nagging lift pump issues, it's been the finest piece of rotating steel parts I've ever had the pleasure of wrenching on. Just eats everything thrown at it, blows the chunks out the tail pipes, or valley,, and begs for more.. She did develop a slight lower pan drip right before I solved the blow by issues. Just annoying enough to leave a few black drops on the white bilge paint. So she getting yanked out, a nice warm bath, and maybe a bottom end inspection. I really hate to crack a bolt on that one, but we are approaching that 100hr mark when I wanted to check the wear indicators.

For Starboard engine, "problem child", I see a bit more disassembly in it's near future. Pulled all the glow plug hole fillers, and cranked it over yesterday. She blew a little coolant out of #4 or #6 holes. Spins over fast and free. No extra oil on the stick. So betting I didn't beat it up too badly. Just enough to hopefully expose the flaw to the naked eye.. Betting it's block related, so please keep eyes open for a GOOD LML donor will clean up at +0.020 bore.

What got problem child all worked up this last time, was getting the full 15klb load dumped on by her, by her twin sister at WOT.. First day at LOTO, right off the trailer, both engines were running 100%. Then when I turned the fuel/PW up, Port side lift pump started aerating the fuel again on the next run out. To verify that's what I was seeing, had to keep boat up on plane while I pulled up the pressure PID on the dash gauges. Running both at 3/4 throttle, but Stbd was doing all the work.. When I slowed down and opened the hatch, the 7psi cap in Stbd was venting pretty good.. While temp was only 210F, I knew she was pissed.

The pisser was, I had just replaced the Edelbrock, SX, PPE, 190GPH lift pump main body assembly on Stbd engine the day before for same reasons. These pumps did me well for many years, clear back to the OG PPE boat. With built in bypass and adjustable output pressure, no return lines, they fit marine diesel builds nicely. On this setup I have them pulling thru a 10m water separator, and pushing thru a NT 1m glass core directly below the outlet. Besides a couple motor bearing failures from water intrusion, they also seem to develop an internal leak in the pump body that is impossible to find. But they sure suck air,,, from somewhere after a few months time. Leading to air locks with no start situations.

Don't know what changed over past decade, but I do know Edelbrock states "Not For Diesel Fuel Use" right on the ads now. So they obviously know the answer. But with my good luck early on, I couldn't let that goofy manufacture warning deter me.. LOL.

Then after a half dozen trips to the dock on one engine, and last weekends last minute letdown, I'm calling them officially evicted from the bilge. Not sure what's going in place yet, but these pumps done and gone.. Last job was pumping 35gallons of fuel outa the boat and into my truck. Which let me capture the main issue for everyone to review.. A little air with your fuel??

Source: https://youtube.com/shorts/rHfBxhrnTZE?feature=share

 

[LBZ]

Fuelab is my recommendation for replacement lift pumps.

 

[kidturbo]

Fuelab is my recommendation for replacement lift pumps.

Not the first perosn to suggest those.. I'm trying to avoid re-plumbing the fuel system if I can. So internal regulated is key.

However FASS sponsors an offshore race boat, gasser at that. And while at the shootout event, I hit up their sales exec thinking maybe he might have a 250 model in the truck. While he didn't have one handy, they flew in for the party,, I did learn the fuel return on their latest models is a very minimal now. So my fear of sharing a single 1/2" return line supposedly isn't an issue now. But I hear some reliability stories from techs who do lift pumps all the time.. So anything that can reliably supply 160+gph, and doesn't need a dedicated return, please feel free to share..

I could always run a mechanical in the factory waterpump hole, but prefer to stick with electrics since I wired these pumps as our fuel shut off safety also..

 

[1FastBrick]

Not the first perosn to suggest those.. I'm trying to avoid re-plumbing the fuel system if I can. So internal regulated is key.

However FASS sponsors an offshore race boat, gasser at that. And while at the shootout event, I hit up their sales exec thinking maybe he might have a 250 model in the truck. While he didn't have one handy, they flew in for the party,, I did learn the fuel return on their latest models is a very minimal now. So my fear of sharing a single 1/2" return line supposedly isn't an issue now. But I hear some reliability stories from techs who do lift pumps all the time.. So anything that can reliably supply 160+gph, and doesn't need a dedicated return, please feel free to share..

I could always run a mechanical in the factory waterpump hole, but prefer to stick with electrics since I wired these pumps as our fuel shut off safety also..

Why not use those pumps like Kennedy Diesel uses? Supposedly John said they flow 3+ GPM which should be at least 180 GPH.

 

[kidturbo]

Why not use those pumps like Kennedy Diesel uses? Supposedly John said they flow 3+ GPM which should be at least 180 GPH.

Let me know what they are. Interested in anything that fit the bill.

Both engines probably be out this weekend. Time to crack these puppies open and see what they look like at 100hrs.

 

[corneredge]

Let me know what they are. Interested in anything that fit the bill.

Both engines probably be out this weekend. Time to crack these puppies open and see what they look like at 100hrs.

I run these on my lmm duraburb. A set of these twin pumps might work well for you, I'd call John Kennedy to discuss first to make sure. Nice thing about them, if they fail you can still suck fuel through them to get home and they are silent.

Pumps Only – Kennedy Diesel

www.kennedydiesel.com

 

[1FastBrick]

Let me know what they are. Interested in anything that fit the bill.

Both engines probably be out this weekend. Time to crack these puppies open and see what they look like at 100hrs.

Pumps Only – Kennedy Diesel

www.kennedydiesel.com

Can't believe you haven't seen these. It's A magnetically coupled centrifugal pump. Some other company sells them too. I forget who actually makes the pump but there is a repair kit and you just swap the guts. It's a real simple design and its Flow through so your not dumping a bunch of return fuel or creating air.

 

[kidturbo]

Those are pretty sweet looking pumps. Never thought about magnetic drive also working as a pressure regulator.. If I recall, the mechanical lift on the 12mm is pretty capable of keeping up by itself.

 

[Bdsankey]

Those are pretty sweet looking pumps. Never thought about magnetic drive also working as a pressure regulator.. If I recall, the mechanical lift on the 12mm is pretty capable of keeping up by itself.

That's a very valid point, I didn't think of that either until you said it. They seem like nice pumps, I just hope John isn't taking a turn in terms of his CS.

 

[PureHybrid]

All I can say is that I do not recommend his controller. Had one go bad probably 6 months after initial install and he warranted it for me. The replacement went bad after a couple years. For some reason they would short out and stay on even with the key off, probably what ended up frying the one pump I had to replace a few years ago. His controller is a cool idea but its on a std relay now. Jon pretty much said pound sand on replacing the pump at that point, but it was a cheap fix. They've been on the truck since 2011

 

[TheBac]

Could someone of Kid's acumen create a more robust controller himself?

IIRC, those pumps are Laing D5 strong pumps with custom tops. Ive got a couple in the garage, never found the time to install them.

 

[1FastBrick]

Could someone of Kid's acumen create a more robust controller himself?

IIRC, those pumps are Laing D5 strong pumps with custom tops. Ive got a couple in the garage, never found the time to install them.

I couldn't remember who made the pump. I know Dieselfuelfilterkits.com sold through Throttle Up LLC used the same ones but the tops were generic.

 

[Cougar281]

All I can say is that I do not recommend his controller. Had one go bad probably 6 months after initial install and he warranted it for me. The replacement went bad after a couple years. For some reason they would short out and stay on even with the key off, probably what ended up frying the one pump I had to replace a few years ago. His controller is a cool idea but its on a std relay now. Jon pretty much said pound sand on replacing the pump at that point, but it was a cheap fix. They've been on the truck since 2011

I have twin Kennedy lift pumps, with his controller, that I've had for a darn long time... Over a decade, minimum. All are still working as intended.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

 

[LBZ]

I ran the blue Kennedy pump as a single for awhile then upgraded to a FASS and used it as a slip tank transfer pump. They are lackluster as far as performance goes IMO but will work ok for the daily driver.