Huh... I really like that. And that Supra is badass!

 

So, I've been having an interesting issue lately. I haven't written about it because I wanted to determine the cause of the problem before pointing blame.

My second Turbonetics T3 Super 60 has failed. I've checked the oil pressure (it's phenomenal), the drain is fine, the water supply was ok. Not much else to look for on my end. After talking with the rep. from their office, I've determined a couple of things.

One, the guy I was talking to was very kind and patient with me. I appreciate that.

Two, the T3 Super 60 is no longer available in the size that was sold to me.

Three, it seems very easy to cast off a possible design flaw as "customer error".

I say this because while the rep. never told me it was something I did wrong, they will only warranty the unit one time. It's actually a great warranty if the problem was my fault, because it's a "no questions asked" warranty. But if the problem is theirs? Too bad. We'll send you another unit that will likely fail because of the same reason the first one did.

I am no engineer, but I am a thinker. If they both fail due to heat (which they admittedly did), and a competitor came out publicly and announced that they would no longer sell their small turbos in a journal bearing because of the heat and side loads on the shafts causing journal failures, then what else am I to assume when I find that Turbonetics no longer offers the very same turbo I bought? Seems odd...

 

Only in a ball bearing setup, the same as Precision. Turbonetics wouldn't comment on why they stopped producing it.

So, I decided not to get another Turbonetics, and got this little gal here.



Picked up a Turbosmart actuator to match my Race Port BOV.





I was going to polish the compressor housing, but after a few hours of grinding the casting marks off, I wasn't really getting anywhere. So I decided to color match it. I also had a buddy ceramic coat the back housing for me.






I really wanted to make sure NOT to have the same issues as the last turbo, so I've decided to ditch the turbo blanket. I've seen tons of vehicles run them with no problems, so I don't blame it for the failure. Even Turbonetics said it wasn't the problem, but the turbo cools much fast without it. It's a bit close to the master cylinder though. I'll probably fab a shield.

 

I also finally got the metric cluster installed that Nashman sent me. I love it.

Thanks Ryan! I finally have a tach. I also figured out how to modify it to accept the low voltage input from my MegaSquirt ECU. Everything works except for the odometer... Haha. Can't figure that one out.

 

Oh yeah.... I also welded the differential up.

 

It's an electrical speedo. I'm second guessing myself as to whether the wiring would be the same. It should be, as my old cluster had an odometer, but everything else on the cluster works, an I've never heard of an odometer/trip odometer just not working...

The couple write ups I found didn't mention changing anything, and the pinouts appeared to be the same from one to the other. So I'm not sure.

 

Ha! I figured out the tach. I'll find the pic and post it up. My tach works great. It's the odometer that's not working.

 

Redz...

As far as the tach mod goes. I knew that the signal that the stock ignitor sends to the tach is a high voltage spike monitored from the ground side of the ignition coil. It is actually produced by the secondary magnetic field collapse after the coil fires. Knowing that the microprocessor on the PCB for the tach can't handle the high voltage, I looked for resistors in line with the tach signal wire. There are two, both 34K ohms each.... Plus a glass diode. I determined that the best way to make the 12v square wave accepted by the processor was to try and lower the resistance of the circuit. I ended up trying a few things, slowly lowering the resistance, until I landed on adding a 7K ohm resistor in parallel to the first 34K resistor. It's funny, after I stumbled on this, I found this. I had read about the mods for the 3.4l tacoma swap and the need for the mod, but had no idea what the signal that the 3.4l ECU put out.

But it works. And I went back and raised my resistor value to 10K, still works great.

This pic was posted by user Tragic Drive over in the Yotatech forum.

 

Oh, and if you haven't already, you need to configure one of the IAC outputs to TACH. 12 volt positive.... That output will also drive the AC amplifier with no mods.

 

It resets it, I think. But it's been on all zeros since I first got it. So not sure?

I wonder if there's a way to test it to see if the motor is running...