MGB - Electronic Ignition

It was an unseasonably cold weekend recently. Since Oliver is in a nice warm-ish garage and Spring is supposed to be here now, I decided that I would start getting Oliver (1978 MGB) convertible-top-down, road-ready. Today's post starts us off with replacing the ignition. Like so many things with these old cars, nothing is as simple as it seems on it's surface, so this post ends without a running car. Maybe I'll get it next time. 

AccuSpark

Most folks think of "Pertronix" when they think of an electronic ignition upgrade. PerTronix makes great electronic ignition systems, for sure. I ran one on the old bus engine for a little while. I decided I would try the AccuSpark system because it was less expensive and appeared to be UK-based. The UK-based nature had me thinking that maybe it was better suited to an English motor. So, back in the Fall 2019 when I was thinking that I would be spending the winter finishing Oliver, I bought one of their kits, and put it on a shelf. Things happened, CoViD-19 blew up, the wiring in Hapy got complicated and I forgot about it... until I was cleaning my garage and found the box with the international shipping labels still attached. Jeez.

For around 70 pounds plus postage, you can order a drop-in ignition. When I did it, it ran me about $150US including shipping to the States. So, what's in the box?

- a pre-fitted electronic ignition in a 45D distributor (correct dizzy for a rubber-bumper / later model MGB)

- a distributor cap

- 4 Champion AC9C 3-prong spark plugs

- a blue ballast coil (though you can upgrade to a "Viper Dry" coil)

- a set of spark plug leads ("wires" to US folks) with a di-electric grease pouch

- you can optionally include a timing light

Preparation

It is recommended that you set your engine to top dead center (TDC) or firing position for the #1 cylinder. For most cars, the distributor could go in multiple ways, so making sure it is oriented correctly requires that you know which cylinder is ready to fire. The MGB engine is unusual in that it has a one-way-only key in the distributor drive and corresponding gear in the engine. If you try to put it in any other way it will not seat and not turn. Still, I wanted to make sure I had clear timing marks so I got a 1-15/16" socket for my 1/2" ratchet, removed the air-directing tin between the front of the engine and the rear of the radiator and turned the engine (clock-wise) until I could see the little nick on the rear of the main pulley. I aligned it with the top-most saw-tooth on the timing meter and then marked both with a dot of yellow paint. I also marked the tooth representing 15* advanced, since that is the stock amount of advance desired at idle (per the Bentley manual). This mark later turned out to be incorrect.

 

To find true TDC, I had to pull the valve cover and watch the valves move while I rotated the engine with the 1/2" ratchet. The mark that I believed was TDC was about 90* off. I found a different mark on the front (front is front) of the main pulley that was around midway between the points where the intake/exhaust valves opened. Accepting that this was the true TDC, I marked the nick with a dot of yellow.

With the replacement kit and tools on a nearby table, and the radio playing the Saturday morning KBOO shows, I was now ready for some ignition fun.

Spark Plug Remove and Inspect

My old ignition basically had not been looked at since I bought this car. Since Oliver has not had more than a couple hundred miles on him, clearly I did not drive his old system into it's current state. Frankly, it sat for a few years before I bought him, and without any servicing since, my expectation was that it needed, well... a lot. His performance had not been all that great when I bought him, and the new exhaust did not create the pick-me-up I had hoped for. So, away we go.

I started with removing the old spark plugs with a 13/16" socket. Spark plugs are a great gauge for how well your combustion has been performing: too rich, too lean, oily, too hot, etc. My findings were mixed, and odd. From firewall to fan, Plugs 4 and 3 were black, but dry, indicating that they had been burning inefficiently. Plug number 2 was black as well, but had some soot on it. Plug number 1 had a little bit of soot around the edge, but the prong was grey. So, I look at my plugs and compared them to the AutoLite Plug diagram (image posted here) to try to figure out what's going on.

Based on the mapping document here, numbers 3 and 4 are "carbon fouled", with lots of possible causes, ranging from "wrong plug" to weak ignition to mis-tuned carb, too-gentle driving or a bad choke. Neat, but at least they look like twins. I am more concerned about plugs from 1 and 2. These are fed by the same intake runner, yet they look very different. Plug 2 looks like a worse version of plugs 3 & 4, and plug 1 has a clean or normal looking ground electrode with some carbon around the edge.

L-to-R: plugs 4 to 1

These plugs may have been wrong for the engine. Spark plugs are a religion, and I have followed a relatively simple rule (that will probably frustrate / anger / enflame some people): I align the plug manufacturer country with the engine/car manufacturer country. So, I'll find NGK's for our Subaru, Bosch for Audi/VW's and Champions for US/English cars. The plugs I pulled out are single-prong NGK's; to be fair, NGK may make a perfect plug for the MG. I don't know. I can say that the AccuSpark folks (from the UK) sent me 4 Champion AC9C 3-prong plugs. MAybe they subscribe to the same flavor of spark plug religion that I do. I don't expect the plugs were the problem, but they may have been a contributor. Regardless, I gapped (0.035" per the Bentley manual) the three prongs on each plug and then installed the delivered-with-the-kit spark plugs.

Dizzy Swap

With the plugs done, I pulled the distributor cap and the lead from the coil. This created some access to the distributor mounting bolts. The prior owner installed a remote inverted oil filter unit, so the access to the front mount bolt was still a little challenging, but not impossible. Still, a little fun with an old-skool 7/16" spanner got the bolts out. Once the bolts were removed, the dizzy popped right out. I immediately settled it back in, and made a mark in the dust on the starter cover which direction the rotor was pointing. As I said above, the dizzy can only go in one way, so whichever way the rotor is pointing when you pull the cap is the only way it could be pointing. In the images I have seen on the internet, the number 1 plug is usually in the 1 o'clock position, but that is not always the case. Sometimes the dizzy gear is put in upside down so your #1 plug position is actually on the bottom. When I rotated the engine, the cap was on, and the leads had not been touched. I noted at this point, though, that the distributor rotor was pointing down and slightly to the left. When I removed the cap, the #1 lead was in that area, so I figured I would put it back together the same way. If things were 180* off, it will run, but poorly. Re-setting the leads 180* the other way would be easy to test later. I took the picture below so I could run the replacement leads the same way as they were.

old leads

With the old dizzy off, I loosened the clamp on the new one so it would move a little bit. The timing of the old set up might have been off, based on the "carboned" color of the plugs. Regardless, I want to be able to change it from the shipped-to-me state. I will clamp it tight (5/16" wrench) once the timing is verified. Satisfied that the dizzy would turn in the clamp, but only with some effort, I popped the new dizzy into place. The new mounting plate only had a single bolt hole for mounting, above and to the left, but otherwise, install was trivial. The lower bolt was the hard one to get to, so I was not going to complain. I put the now-extra bolt into the lower right hole anyway and snugged them both down tight.

Coil

The kit delivered with a new coil that corresponds to whether there is a ballast in your system. The electronics require the more powerful coil. Swapping a coil is easier than swapping a distributor, usually. In this case, because so many things leverage the mounting bolts for a ground, it is more of a juggling act than the coil swap in the old bus. I unmounted the original, and set it upright on the starter, leaving the wires attached to the various tabs. This gave me room to install the new coil and remain focused on the grounds and such. Once in place, I moved the female wire-disconnect-tipped wires from old coil to new coil.

Cap and Leads

The hard part, if you want to call it that, was over. Now, it was a simple matter of installing the leads. The prior set-up had the #1 lead around 7 o'clock. From there, they run the same way on all MG's: 1-3-4-2 anti-clockwise. The set of leads delivered with a clear dielectric grease, which is recommended on the electric connection to prevent corrosion and encourage a better current delivery. I smeared some on each end of all connections and plugged things in nice and snug. The electric connector floated around in the spark plug boot end a little bit so I made extra-sure the encased metal spark-plug end was definitely snapped on.

At this point, I would have started the engine and set the timing. Unfortunately, the turn of the key resulted in nothing. No noises, no clicks and definitely not starting. A quick glance at the voltmeter told me all I needed to know: flat battery. Awesome. So, this post got kinda long, and the resulting diagnostic did as well. So, I'll get back to Oliver next time. Thanks, as always, for following along--

Malone Tuning Stage 2

Today, I wrap up the saga of the bigger injector nozzles and the Malone Tune in the VW bus. And, finally take Hapy for a drive. But first, for my mj-friendly readers, Hapy 420; celebrate safely :) Before I get flamed, yes, I know 420 did not stem from a date. It came from a time-of-day, but that does not change the fact that people celebrate pot on the 20th of April. It does, however, explain why some folks celebrate 4:20 in the afternoon with their personal favorite intoxicant.

Also, please note that the fine people at blogger have notified their users that "After July 2021, your feed will still continue to work, but the automated emails to your subscribers will no longer be supported." So, if you are relying upon an email to let you know that there is a new post on one of your favorite blogs, this will no longer function starting in August.

On to chipping Hapy's TDI computer...

Malone Tuning

In the TDI world, and increasingly outside of it, Malone Tuning is kind of the hallmark for getting your ECU "chipped". For those who wish to get more out of their engine, there is a tune for practically any set up and performance target. Malone has a few tunes below the "stage 2" that I selected, which either maximize power with a completely stock set up or adjust settings for best economy. I decided that I wanted larger injectors so I could get a little more oomph, so the stage 2 is the better choice. I do not have any plans to upsize my turbo, but if I did, this tune would support it.

On the turbo, I am running a stock VNT-15. The easiest upgrade would be to find and install a VNT-17. These appear on some cars stock. The advantage of the 17 is that it can create more boost (in pounds per square inch or PSI), because everything is bigger. The downside is the turbo lag (delay in the arrival of the power) is increased, moving the powerband up the RPM's. Since the sound and vibration of the bus increases with the RPM as well, I generally try to stay below 3500RPM. The VNT-15 turbo starts to kick in around 1800, but isn't really all-there until closer to 2200. So, right now, my total band for power is around 1300RPM (2200-3500). Adding a bigger turbo will reduce that or push my top-end higher to compensate which would make for a more noisy / shaking experience. It is for this reason that I am not really considering a turbo swap. The $1000US for a turbo is, of course, a factor too. Besides, we haven't seen how bigger nozzles and a tune will affect things yet!

Ship Ship Ship Ship

projected HP and torque
increases from stage 2

The actual purchasing of a Malone tune is through "Tunezilla". For someone with a super-early TDI like mine, it is not a simple download of software, though. A pair of chips need to be swapped out. This can be done by their shop, who does this every day, or they will send you the chips to do it yourself. I decided to have them do it, and sent my ECU off to them. Less than a week later, it was back in my hands, having traveled through customs twice (Malone is in BC, Canada) and their shop. Unfortunately, FedEx international shipping was a little rough with the package and after some highly responsive tech support from Malone to diagnose, I had to send it back. Malone determined that a handful of the solder joints broke free during shipping, causing the ECU to not power up.

The symptoms were consistent: apply switched 12V power and nothing happened. No messages on the "K" line thru the OBD-II plug to my little reader, no check engine light, no glow-plug light, but there was power at and past relay 109. So, there was some power moving through the ECU (relay 109 is triggered by the ECU), just not all of it.

I sent it back and they turned it around in 2 days, finding and fixing the loose soldier joints. They super-packed it with extra puff, so we would not have a solder fail repeat. Again, about a week after I sent it to them, it was back in my hands. An aside: when I sent it the first time, FedEx said they were not delivering to that address, so I went through UPS. UPS cost twice as much. The second time I sent it, FedEx was delivering there again. So weird.

Holy Head Snap

Hapy says "lets play"

Anyway, this time when I plugged it in, I had an entirely different experience. I turned the key to "RUN" and heard the familiar "snap snap" of the relays and the dash-pod waking up. I turned the key to start and Hapy fired up immediately (bum-bum broom). He rough idled for a few seconds and then settled down at 900RPM. I cleared the codes (per Malone instructions) and then played with the go pedal. Oh, this is gonna be fun. The new injectors don't leak at all, and the pump retains prime after being left idle for days. Bigger nozzles, stage 2 tune, wrapped exhaust, oil temp and pressure gauging, fresh wiring from front to back, including a new, custom fuse/relay box, the fat-plug harness surgery... All I needed was a test drive and Hapy could be ready to rumble.

Not so fast. It would be irresponsible to put that much new power on the road without verifying the brakes. So, before I got my "go" on, I adjusted the rear drum brakes, checked the lining on the front and confirmed I had full fluid. I switched out the system to DOT4 a couple of years ago, so the fact that he has been sitting most of the time since did not concern me as much as DOT3 would have. DOT3 absorbs moisture (bad for your fluid life) over time while DOT4 does not.

dyno curve compare
stock -v- stage 2

So.. with brakes adjusted, and all the stuff I said a paragraph ago now complete, I'm ready to test drive. We have been blessed with pleasant (20*C / upper 60*'s F) high temperatures so far this April, with many sunny skies. This makes for some perfect conditions for a test drive. While I only did the usual lap for my test, it was amazing. Somewhere along the way when I worked on the original bus dash I failed to re-connect the speedometer cable, but otherwise, everything worked very well and the brakes responded strong. As I turned onto the main road, I quickly moved through 1st and 2nd gear. When I put it in third, I really put my foot into it. I didn't floor it, but I put it pressed it pretty far down. The turbo spun up and I lost traction in my drive tires: I was burning rubber in 3rd gear, rolling at around 25mph. That'll do. Hahaha. I don't think I'll need to do anything more performance-wise, though I may replace the exhaust pipe if that will reduce exhaust gas temperature (EGT) or if the wrap destroys it. When I got back home, I felt the rear tires; they were warm, but not hot. Same goes for the rear drums. Then, I checked the wrapped exhaust which was also warm, but easily touchable.

With a consistent accelerator pedal (no more 1200 limp mode) and better visibility into the engine health, Hapy is pretty much ready for some road-tripping this Summer. Now that CoViD-19 vaccines are becoming more widespread and plentiful, Hapy's system-ready status could not arrive soon enough.

That's it for now. As I go, another reminder that Hapy turns 50 on 3-September-2021 and we will be celebrating it at LL Stub State Park. If you have nothing else to do Labor Day weekend, there are some great hiking, horse and bike trails there as well as our little birthday.

Thanks, as always, for following along--

Injector-Go-Round (Part 2)

Today, we continue and complete the efforts to get old used stock injectors from Hapy to work in Flash, and then brand new higher-performance injectors installed into Hapy. Fun with injectors starts.... now.

Injector-Go-Round

Now comes the fun part. With the wedged-nut extractor tool I mentioned in part 1 (See Injector-Go-Round Part 1), I pulled the injectors out of Hapy, Then, I pulled the old injectors out of Flash and installed Hapy's old injectors into Flash. That sentence took less than 10 seconds to type, and I feared it would take all weekend to do. It was actually fairly uneventful and quick. On Friday night, I set myself up by putting Hapy and Flash near one another, and then shooting the injectors where they enter the head with the trusty old Kroil penetrating oil. The next morning, I cleaned around the injector-to-head points, took my slap-together injector puller / slide hammer and all 8 injectors popped out with little effort. Seriously, each injector took fewer than 5 pops with the slide-hammer, and none of the "pops" had much force at all behind them. Honestly, I was being gentle because I didn't want the wedged nut to fall off the hammer. So, I held the slide between my index finger and my thumb and gently pop-pop-popped, moving the slide less than 4 inches each time with a flick of my wrist. I think the Kroil really helped, though I expect there will be some who bristle at the thought of letting some penetrating oil slip into the engine. 

I carefully arrayed the brackets, bolts and washers (excepting the one I lost) so I could re-install them in the same spots. In Hapy, I left the injectors loose, but still in their respective holes while I completed the extract on Flash, cleaned the holes and the head mating surface. Then, in one move, I pulled the injectors from Hapy, carried them across the driveway like a cat's cradle and set them into Flash's head. Ideally, I would have replaced the copper crush-washers on the injectors, but I didn't have replacements on hand, and this was the day I had to do this. *Dumb short-cut actually taking more time warning*

The install of the new-to-Flash injectors was fairly straightforward. Once the injectors were set in, I cleaned each bracket, rested it into place, and then lightly threaded the bolt through. Once I had all 4 in place, I threaded them down finger tight. I plugged in the 3rd-injector plug, set the glow-plug harness under the hard-lines and then re-connected the hard-lines to the tops of the injectors, but only barely threaded on. Once the lines are in the right spot, the compression fittings on the pump can be tightened down. Then, I wrenched down the brackets to around 10 foot-pounds (spec says ~15), snapped the glow-plug harness onto the glow-plugs and connected the return line to the injection pump.

Drift, Torque, Repeat

At this point, I test-cranked the engine to force air out of the hard-lines. There are a few ways to do this, of course, and the video I mentioned in part 1 is as good a way as any. He did the injectors in pairs while I did them one at a time, tightening the hardline at the injector end as each injector-to-hardline point spat out fuel. My one-at-a-time method moves from injector to injector based on the way they are connected to the injection pump: closest-to-the-ground one first, highest one last. My thinking is that any air in the pump will work its way up that way. By the time I was on the last injector, the engine was trying to fire.

I got that last line done, and Flash started right up. I could see some vapor puff-puff-puffing above the head, and could hear a "psst-psst-psst" noise, so I knew there was a leak. Boo helped me here, by jumping into the driver-seat and starting the engine while I looked and felt for the leak. It was around the #2 injector, but not at the hard-line mate point. It was around the injector near the head. Engine off, I grabbed a socket extension to use as a drift. I lightly smacked either side of the #2 injector bracket near the injector. Then, I re-torqued the bolt. I was surprised by how much more I could turn the bolt (like 3/4 a turn), so I repeated the process on the other 3, and continued to do this until the bolts torqued down at 15 ft-lbs and would not accept more after more drift-smacks.

This process worked very well. When we test fired it again, Flash started right up, made no funny noises (nor puffs of vaporized fuel) and ran strong during the test drive. The biggest indicator of our success was the near-immediate start the following morning and no cloud of smoke. He had been getting harder and harder to start in the morning. I now conclude that his old injectors were leaking (evidence of that was found upon their removal, as they leaked all over the paper shopping bag I set them on), and the fuel system needed to prime every morning, causing the long hard-start effort. I decided to change his oil immediately, while waiting for the delivery of the new injectors from KermaTDI.

Priming the Injection Pump

During the oil change, I discovered that the #2 injector had actually leaked at the head again during the test drive, and concluded that replacing the copper crush-washers (or injector seals) is not optional. I got a replacement set from the local parts store (not DIP, still bummed about that) and re-did the removal / install. This time, I did a pair of injectors at a time, starting with #1 and #2. Oddly enough, the injector pump lost it's prime in the few minutes the system was open this time. Half as many injectors, loosened the lines less and it still lost prime when it didn't the last time when I did all 4. Ah well; just shows that luck is a factor. With the MityVac, I applied vacuum on the low-pressure return side (no more than 7 pounds so the seals inside the pump were never in jeopardy, and more vacuum would not have tangibly sped the process) of the injection pump until fuel appeared in the MityVac collection cup. Then, I buttoned things up, cleared the hard-lines of air by cracking the connections one at a time (bottom to top, like above) until Flash started. Again, I see no puffs, but I did the #3 and #4 injector seals anyway. Fool me once. After letting Flash sit for a few days, he lost prime again.

So, I ran another round of MityVac priming and got him running. I let him sit an idle while I got a really close look at the injectors. I noticed that #1 had fuel appearing around the injector mount-point into the head. The #1 injector is unique in that it has a cap on one of the return bibs. That cap was leaking. I didn't have a real one, so I made one from low pressure hose and a bolt. This helped, so after letting Flash sit for a few days he would start, albeit roughly. Believing that the low-pressure return lines I moved from Hapy were no longer viable, I considered my options for replacement.

Hapy Injected

Once KermaTDI had the injectors set up, they FedEx'd them over with a new set of copper seals. They arrived mid-week, but with the dicey weather, I waited to until the weekend so I could have a nice big block of time. Hapy's head had been cleaned when the old ones were pulled and I had stuffed rags into the injector holes so it would stay clean. With the injectors in-hand, I could at least prepare them for install by removing the "T" fitting from Flash's old #3 injector, and moving the low-pressure return lines onto the replacement set. The kit from KermaTDI delivered with brand new low-pressure return lines so the set up of the injectors was that much easier. With the injectors set up, and a new weekend day, I followed the same process I did with Flash, except for skipping the test-start parts. I am having issues with Hapy's ECU, so this is as far as I could really get.

I'll describe the test-drive once I have Hapy buttoned back up. Between then and now, I need to get his ECU sorted but at least the exhaust is back on. There's never a shortage of things to do. Couldn't be Hapy-er.

Thanks, as always, for following along.

Exhaust Wrap

In my last post, I wrote about removing the bumper and exhaust in order to install a tow hitch. While I had the exhaust out, I figured I would apply the exhaust wrap I had sitting in my garage. Exhaust wrap is one of those religion things that gets some folks all fired up, so we'll go there first.

Why Exhaust Wrap Rocks

I'll start with why so many people think exhaust wrap is a good idea. Exhaust wrap is basically a fiberglass cloth. Like the fiberglass insulation in your house, this wrap holds the heat inside your header or pipes. This is supposed to bring specific benefits. First, the higher heat inside the pipe is supposed to help the exhaust gasses exit the tail pipe faster. I don't know where there is research proving that, but let's assume that there is some. The folks at CoolIt seem to believe it. The folks who do ceramic coatings do too.

Second, by keeping the heat inside the pipe, it is not escaping into your engine compartment. This reduces overall heat, making your intake air cooler, and I suppose, in theory, making everything in the engine compartment a little happier, and operate a little cooler. In the case of Hapy, the engine compartment is located under the rear-most third of the bed. So, any heat that builds inside the compartment eventually radiates up into the main cabin. In the Summer, when we are driving in the Central Oregon high-desert, the main cabin gets pretty hot without the extra heat from the engine. So, it is for this reason that I am exploring the exhaust wrap.

Why Exhaust Wrap Sucks

For every positive, there is a negative. The counter-argument to the holding the heat inside the pipe is that if you apply too much insulated wrap (or any at all, according to some), you could contain too much heat and damage your header or exhaust pipe. That would be bad, especially if there isn't any real research to prove that higher temperature exhaust gasses travel faster. My Google-fu may not be working these days as all my efforts to find hard evidence were fruitless. I did, however, find this image that shows a crack or split in a pipe that appears to have been previously wrapped, and it was posted by someone who does ceramic coatings, so s/he probably knows a few things about heat management.

The second big negative for exhaust wrap is that the exhaust wraps absorb moisture and cause your exhaust to rust out. This might be true, but I would think that the outside of a correctly installed exhaust wrap is still going to be over 100*C when in use, causing any moisture to vaporize. I suspect that the real cause of the destroyed exhaust is overly-aggressive wrapping causing too much heat to be held in, destroying the pipe. Many fellow internet'ers have shot their wrap with exhaust paint afterwards to prevent water absorption. That will not prevent moisture appearing between the wrap and the pipe during cool-down if the ambient air is below the dew point (like it is here in NW Oregon practically every night). For that, I would expect that standard exhaust paint on the pipes before applying the wrap would suffice.

The last negative could be the heat being held in, and rather than helping exhaust gasses escape (and reducing Exhaust Gas Temp -EGT at the head), the trapped heat actually increases EGT. I have not been able to find research to demonstrate this, however. Quite the contrary, actually. So, this is probably not a thing, but I felt it was still worth mentioning.

Where I Landed

My searching for evidence of the viability of applying exhaust wrap to a turbo-charged diesel engine has actually pointed in the direction of doing it. Many large truck owners running Cummins turbo diesels wrap the turbo as well as the downpipe straight to and past the catalytic converter. Some owners painted the wrap with exhaust paint to protect it against the risk of water absorption. Overall, the consensus appears to be that it is a pain to do, but worth doing if you are okay with putting in the time: the temps in the engine compartment feel lower, the engines seem to be running as well or a little better. The cost-to-value to pay someone else to do it, however, isn't there. It may not even be worth your own time, depending on your reason for considering it and how much you intend to do. In my case, the heat radiating into the main cabin is sufficient reason for me to look for ways to contain some heat. I wanted a larger bore exhaust (2.5" versus 2") when this one was built, so if the exhaust starts to fail because of the wrap, I will have (a) proven these can cause damage and (b) forced my way into the bigger exhaust I wanted. So, even though this may cause my exhaust pipe to fail, I am doing it anyway because I just want to know.

I know many cars have a heat shield of some kind on underside of their hood (bonnet for my UK readers). I may explore that whether this exhaust wrap experiment pans out or not. Truth told, with all the other changes going on (ECU chip and new injectors with bigger nozzles) I will probably not be able to separate out the impact of the exhaust wrap.... unless the wrap causes the pipe to fail.

Applying

Some manufacturers and some folks on the web describe soaking the exhaust wrap in water before applying it. I think the theory is that getting the wrap wet for application ensures that it gets super-tight on the pipes. Sounds plausible. So, I pull out this long roll of exhaust wrap and I can tell right away there is way more than I need. But, how to figure out how much you need without just doing it? So, I started applying the wrap as tightly as I could, twisting it tighter every time I went around. I made sure my overlap was no more than 1/4" (manufacturer directions) and in about 20 minutes I had my exhaust wrapped from the plate that mounts to the turbo to the leading edge of my muffler. But, its dry. I asked myself: should I unwrap what I just did to get the wrap soaking wet and then try to get it on even tighter? That seemed silly. Besides, some manufacturers (Design Engineering, the folks who made the wrap I was using) clearly state that soaking it in water to install is unnecessary. So, I left it as-is. I put on a pair of stainless steel cable ties (from Harbor Freight) at the muffler end, where the wrapping stopped. I cinched down the end near the turbo with only one, making sure to put the clip nowhere near where fingers might catch during install. 

Clear Coat

Once the wrap was on, I really liked how the pipe looked. Before, it was plain looking. The black high-temp VHT paint had chipped off in spots, leaving bare silver steel showing. With the wrap, it looked like it was now dressed in tweed. Suddenly, it had some class. Sure, the inevitable small oil leak or kicked up gravel from the road will savage this tweed outfit eventually. So, to delay that, I bought and shot it with some clear exhaust paint. I didn't know they even sold it, but for $12US at AutoZone, I found it among all the assorted colors. The additional upside to shooting clear is that I didn't need complete deep coverage for it to look good, or look the same. Folks who shoot black or a color match for their engine need to apply multiple coats to cover up the tan/tweed. I shot liberally, but there was no way to know how well it covered because the tweed still looks like, well, tweed.

I will need to keep an eye on how much oil appears on the wrap, however. The pipe was a little grimy before. I know that I have a recurring issue with oil leaking from the turbo-charged air near the rear of the engine. This is very close to where the exhaust is. I may have just created a big towel for the oil to soak into.... a towel around a very hot exhaust pipe. Truth-be-told, this experiment may end fairly soon if I see oil leak evidence on the wrap.

Exhaust Installed

closed hanger

I let the clear coat cure overnight, and re-installed the exhaust after work the next day. As I did, I noted and changed a few things. First, I paid handsomely for a "custom" exhaust however many years ago. The muffler they used can be found on the internet for $18US today, which tells me the quality chosen back then. The plain steel pipe has 3 90* turns in it before the muffler and a 90* turn afterwards through a crappy tailpipe. When I decide to revisit this, I will not be going to Ed's Mufflers again (looks like that location is gone anyway). Ironically, I went to them because I thought they would do something better than Midas or Meineke. Midas built a custom dual exhaust on my old '78 F250 20+ years ago that was way better than this. Lesson learned.

Anyway, one of the other disappointments of the install was that they welded the body-side of the exhaust hanger closed, so the rubber bit could never be replaced. Not the best plan. After wrestling this exhaust in and out around that a few times, it continues to be a reminder that Ed's didn't do what I asked. 

The exhaust attaches to the turbo with 1 13mm nut and 2 13mm bolts. In the past, I would wrestle the rear hanger on first. This time, it popped on without gymnastics, almost like it knew it was approaching its final days. Then, I hung the exhaust on the one stud and rotated the exhaust until one of the bolts slid through. Finger tighten, torque etc. Everything fit fine (nothing touching, but close) with the tow hitch in place. Of course, now I need to remove the hitch so I can attach the bumper correctly. But, that's another post.

Thanks, as always, for following along.