Building Stainless Steel Outlet for Hydra HP650's

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
[NOTE: For anyone looking to purchase a metal outlet for the HP650's, @Rob09msport is working with a shop to provide an aluminum outlet to the retail market.]

This is a slow start, I know. We ran into fulfillment issues with our first stainless pipe supplier. Now moving on to order #2. We are going to build a few sets of these outlets in stainless steel. @barry@3DM is up to his eyebrows in building Ohlins setups for BMW, but I do get some of his attention when I get to where I need his assistance :). I'll just start with a few pictures from today, and we'll update this thread as we get stuff in and build.

These are being built with 1.75" OD pipe, ever so slightly oversized on the inside of that pipe vis-a-vis the 1.51" ID of the @Hydra Performance HP650 turbo outlet. If I convinced @barry@3DM, we are running a slightly oversized splayed join pipe and slip them on the 1.75" OD pipe, so the splay will be 2" 0D to 2.5" on the join side (which is correct for the FMIC hookup.) We'll use a 2.0 OD" inlet (circa 1.88" ID) because a splay inherently reduces area once the splay cuts away at the two feeder pipes. Buy going to 2" OD splay feeder pipes, we won't constrict the volume relative to the feeder pipes and the splay constriction. A few other small notes. The pipe connections at the turbo outlet will actually be a larger section of 2" OD pipe (e.g. ~1" long) swage fit to the 1.75"OD pipe. That piece of pipe will have a bead run 360° for both the outlet joins to the turbo. This allows a more natural OD transition to the turbo outlet and the ability to run the bead tool full circumference which cannot be done on the tight bend turbo connection (see how PSP does their tube bead, for instance).

We've got an N54 mule on the stand for the work. Today I pulled stock parts off the N54 long block and installed the HP650s. You can see Barry already made a jig to locate where the outlet needs to finish up.

Filippo

IMG_20190515_125203.jpg IMG_20190515_125256.jpg IMG_20190515_134703.jpg IMG_20190515_140018.jpg IMG_20190515_143011.jpg IMG_20190515_143346.jpg

IMG_20190515_143346.jpg
 
Last edited:

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
The Hydra Performance stainless heat shield is nicely done. The coolant clearance area needed a bit of clean up though, so I knocked that out in the workshop this morning. Just got the curves perfect, deburred, rounded and polished the edges.

Filippo

IMG_20190516_091851.jpg IMG_20190516_091857.jpg IMG_20190516_093003.jpg IMG_20190516_093020.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: jts1981 and Torgus

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
The other thing we are considering, working with @NoQuarter and @BQTuning, is getting the outlet design such that we can run the F01 740i intake style inlet runners, which come over the top of the motor. Dimitri has done a lot of work sorting that out (and still working some other air intake improvements on the Z4's N54 setup), and @NoQuarter has jumped in as well. For the other N54 variant cars, I don't know what it means to run the F01 740i setup ... Dimitri probably has thoughts on that. Anyway, we'll see if we can get the outlet design to clear a top-entry front turbo inlet tube. And as a side note, while E82/E89 stock turbos are clocked differently that E90, the HP650 config is E90 so this should work for all N54 cars. We plan to use the outlet on @barry@3DM's E90's as well.

Filippo

4531ca61-c200-469c-a250-0fe5f14e7ee2.jpg 554228fd-2f48-4638-9452-7cf16f5ff5d8.jpg
 

mikeseli

Corporal
May 23, 2017
138
77
0
Ride
2009 BMW 335i
Here is my 740i intake system setup for my 335i with the HP800/N53 turbo. Bottom inlets are 2.5" and black powder coated section is 2.25". I will do some testing with only the 2.5" section and see how much of a difference I see.
 

Attachments

  • 68E62EC4-AD81-48CB-8458-1C81C18F41E0.jpeg
    68E62EC4-AD81-48CB-8458-1C81C18F41E0.jpeg
    311.5 KB · Views: 286
  • Like
Reactions: fmorelli

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
Here is my 740i intake system setup
Beautiful. Exactly what I'm thinking. My other thread on CFM is based on a solution like this - how do we know we are not significantly constricted with this airbox configuration, at say 700bhp?

Filippo
 

mikeseli

Corporal
May 23, 2017
138
77
0
Ride
2009 BMW 335i
Beautiful. Exactly what I'm thinking. My other thread on CFM is based on a solution like this - how do we know we are not significantly constricted with this airbox configuration, at say 700bhp?

Filippo
That airbox is good up to 850-950cfm, which is about 560-630hp.
Once my engine is running properly, I will do test with the 2.25" piping/airbox attached vs the 2.5" bottom inlets only.
 

Panzerfaust

Lieutenant
Jul 3, 2018
637
438
0
Chicago
Ride
E92 335i
Looks excellent Fillipo, glad to see my "useless" stock outlet wasnt so useless after all! :grin:

It's very interesting to me to see the work you and Barry do while doing R&D, even if it's mostly for Z4 parts and most wont fit my car. I wish and hope you guys will make some more ongoing-project threads in the future (or now!) just because I like to geek out about this stuff lol.
 

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
Thanks Sean. We are in slow-mo as @barry@3DM has a lot of Ohlins development going on right now. But .... looks like my N54 head might go out for some improvement work soon. I'll post on that once its under way.

Filippo
 

Panzerfaust

Lieutenant
Jul 3, 2018
637
438
0
Chicago
Ride
E92 335i
My pleasure! I'm just excited that I got to contribute something towards new development (no matter how small) for the N54 that will actually come to fruition since the BL guys didnt end up switching to the coils I showed them, for one reason or another.

I know Barry is up to his nose in suspension work and R&D, I've tried gleaning some info from him and did get some advice on my drag setup thankfully, but I'm still pumped to see how his Ohlins project turns out.

You should also definitely post a thread of the entire process of your head work, you're going the hand porting route right? I'd love to see a comparison between your end result vs CNC vs N53 even if you just have to use overlays from other's tests if you dont have access to all of the above. For now my head will stay stock even when my cams go in, but I know at some point my head will end up coming off and when it does I might as well get porting done to quell my anal retentive need for having everything i can done at once.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fmorelli

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
Alright ... like this would be real embarrassing if I didn't know most of you have suffered these kinds of things. So I started this thread in mid-May thinking we were about to rock-n-roll. Then everything went nowhere. Our first order for tubing went radio silent. I went to Guatemala, in the meantime, came back and Barry had been beating his head on an order going nowhere. So we recalibrated, and placed order #2. It also had some items on hold for a few weeks. In the middle of all this, order #1 parts show up six weeks after the fact, sans any dialog EVER from the vendor in spite of calls and emails. Go figure. Order #2 gets delayed beyond the expected time. In the middle of that, I order more hardware under the auspice of soon arrival. Needless to say the final shipment arrived today, photo below. The rest of the tubing and other supplies are already sitting at Barry's shop. Quality of the TIG welds in the splay collectors is top notch.

My expectation is that Barry and I will begin building these outlets next week.

Filippo

p.s. Red/white/blue table cloth because, you know, "Murica.

29201
 

Rob09msport

Major
Oct 28, 2017
1,929
664
0
Monroe CT
Ride
09 335i msport le mans 18 x5
Im guessing you didnt bend yourself cause stainless not as easy as aluminum right? I do think that will be the way to go what diameter are you going cause I want to give heads up , at high airflow I get a natural resonance at exactly baloon deflating pitch lmao. I chased a non existant boost leak for 2 wks and I have concluded either my filters cant handle the flow without noise or the air is just making noise . I am going to try inverted filters for increase in flow and see if it stops otherwise I think I need to take apart outlets and tweak install somehow to change things . It makes me wonder if it could be side effect of going 1.75 though.
 

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
Tubing will be cut and welded like a tubular custom header. strange on the noise of their variations. Not sure what to tell you about that, but I hope you figure it out soon!

Filippo
 

Rob09msport

Major
Oct 28, 2017
1,929
664
0
Monroe CT
Ride
09 335i msport le mans 18 x5
It's only at specific rpm and boosts levels so if filter doesnt stop I am going to try clamping lead to pipe to see if I can alter the natural resonant frequency. If that works I will be able to figure sonething out otherwise I'll have to investigate further.
 

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
@barry@3DM and I finally got underway on this project, after nearly two months of chasing down tubing. Ridiculous I know. The first vendor, long-time and reputable in the market, went radio silent and we had given up on ever seeing supplies. Order with a second reputable bender got us all but one set of parts which got delayed twice. Along with a bead roller, TIG welder, a fresh tank of argon gas, we were to go.

29372


We spent a lot of time doing mock-up, and also comparing what we had with the factory outlet rout. The front mount gave us the location of the factory aluminum outlet, where it ends and connects to the long factory bellow. This is 1.75" OD tubing for the main runners. 2.0" OD to fab the transition points to the turbo, and 2.0" to 2.5" OD merge collector to ensure no volume decrease in the merge area.

29373


29374


29375


29376


We were most concerned about getting the front side of the outlet in a good place, since the most complication exists there. We used 2.5" radius on-center 180º bend sections to create the turbo connection pipes. Mock up took a while. At first we had some concerns about solving any of this elegantly with the tubing we had. But once we started cutting pipe, it became clear that we could probably get everything fit the way we wanted.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: jts1981

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
Here are a few fabrication photos. We used a bead roller, not just for the silicone connections at the turbos and mid waist, but also for sizing joins at different diameter tubing, so we could get clean seams with butt welds, to minimize any internal pipe interference. Typical approach was to locate the 90º angle of cut on the pipe (so we have a round hole, not oval), cut on the horizontal bandsaw, true faces up on the lathe, and weld.

The turbo-side connecting pieces were a bit of work. We put a bead on 2.0" OD tube so we had a nice mating to the turbo. That was then cut off, long enough to hold a clamp behind the bead. We then flared a piece of 1.75" OD tubing to where it had a 2" bead. That but was then cut and trued on the lathe, making a transition section that could allow us to go from the radius tube @ 1.75" to the 2" connector.

Here's the bead roller in action.

29377



29378


Horizontal bandsaw slicing and dicing.

29379


Truing up faces

29380



29381
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jeffman and jts1981

fmorelli

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Aug 11, 2017
3,748
3,592
0
57
Virginia
Ride
E89 Z4 35i, F10 535d
Here are the end pieces going together. Sorry for many pictures, but I thought some might find this interesting to see. Hopefully the step-by-step makes the approach clear. To create the connectors, they are fully TIG welded. Pretty clean inside, but easy to take a dremel and smooth any small irregularities. In the end we are looking for a nice, smooth transition.

29382



29383


29385


29386


29389


29390


29392


29393



29394