Madaguy 1955 Nomad Build

[ryeguy2006a]

It's been a little bit since I've updated, but soon after I got the car back together we took a family trip to the Smoky Mountains. Great trip and spending time with the family. After I got back I took the car to the first car show of the year at a local restoration shop. As usual, I forgot to take photos but I did grab one in the parking lot at the gas station right before we got home. My youngest son came with me and we had a great time. He got a cool shirt from the show too.





Then the next day I thought it would be great to take the car out to get some icecream, but the car was running very rough. Then shortly after I smelled fuel and when I lifted the hood there was fuel misting out of the turbo vband area. I shut it off immediately and then pushed it back in the garage. After spending the next week troubleshooting, chasing wires, using the Holley Diagnostic tool, and etc the only thing that I could determine is that there was a faulty spark plug wire on cylinder #6. I spent a lot of time but didn't find anything really conclusive. I swapped the wire out for another one I had and it runs fine. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on it though until it earns my trust again. Very strange. I ended up ordering a set of new MSD wires just to be on the safe side.

In the process of troubleshooting I pulled all the plugs and determined that I need to lean it out a bit and could add some more timing.



I also discovered in the process that that the downpipe had shifted slightly after a few heat cycles and I need to cut and replace the vband off the turbo. I didn't realize that there were so many different size vbands, but the one that I used was too small for the turbo which is I think why it shifted in the first place. I'll expand on that later, but that brings me up to last weekend where I attended one of my favorite events of the year; Spring Carlisle. Pictures to come soon.

Cheers,
Ryan

[JuStBlAzIN]

Any chance you have pictures of your rear ebrake connection/lines/bracket?

[ryeguy2006a]

Here's the best picture that I have.

[ryeguy2006a]

The day after I got back from Carlisle, there was a small car show right in my town, so I packed up the kids and we stopped by for an hour or so. Really cool show and great to see a lot of really nice cars. Some guy brought some high end full custom 30s street rods. All had beautiful custom interiors that were classy and not tacky. Some of them can be very interesting when they go full custom.

Cool shot of the new accessory bumper! The guy said it was NOS, but had been sitting for so long it had some chrome chipped. Not sure I believe that, but I knocked his price down significantly so I was happy.





One last thing that I forgot to mention was that when I met with Carl at the Spring Show that he gave me a decal for his car club in Sweden! So nice and I can't wait to stick it in the car.



Next up was a bit of a bummer for me as I didn't want to do the work, but it was necessary. The vband flange that I used originally when I put the car together started leaking. I believe after a few heat cycles it may have shifted. After doing some more research online, I realized that I used the wrong size. The OD of the vband flanges need to match or be very close to get the best seal. When I pulled off the charge pipe and remeasured the flanges that I have are the more standard 3.580" OD, where the turbo I have measured at 3.725". Also the flange I used was meant to be a male/female connection so it had a small sealing surface area.

Old flange:



After searching all over the internet for the "right flange", the best I could find was a SS version on eBay with a 3.75" OD flange which is much closer and I can turn it down with my lathe.



Once I received the new flange, I chucked it up and turned off the 0.025" so that they flanges match. Used my dial indicator to be sure the flange is flush with little runout.



I checked the flange several times and test fit with the turbo flange a few times. Once I was happy it was time to cut off the old flange and weld on the new one. I didn't take many pictures because I just wanted to get this done. I attempted to weld the flange on the car, but soon realized it was too much of a challenge with the TIG torch and foot pedal. I ended up just pulling off the manifold and turbo in one piece and put it on my welding table.





I was able to get about 3/4 of the way around the flange unobstructed, but the last 1/4 was a real pain. I ended up welding in many different positions, welded left handed (I'm normally right handed), tons of tungsten stick out then finally made it all the way around. My older welds were a little prettier, but these are solid and the job is done. I also had to re-wrap some of my heat wrap, which was annoying, but I didn't get a picture after it was finished. The one here is right after I finished welding.



I got it all installed and tightened back down and no leaks! I took the car out for a quick rip around the block. Still makes 8psi and once the new exhaust wrap burned off it was back to normal. While it was off I also installed a new set of MSD spark plug wires. Glad that it's back together and running great again. I grabbed this shot in the driveway. One of my new favorites.



This past weekend I found myself with a free morning and realized it was a Cars and Coffee morning, so I bribed the boys with some Dunkin breakfast sandwiches and we headed out. It's about 40 miles round trip and the car ran great. I had to take some time to reflect as I was driving it just how much work I've done over the last few years. The front suspension feels great with the sway bar and dialed alignment. Engine/trans/rear end all work so nicely together and just cruise 65-70 on the highway so smoothly. After I got home there were a few photos posted on the FB group so I grabbed them. One of my older son is really cool with his mullet between the two patina cars at the show.







Love this photo.



I had a great time and talked with a lot of cool people. One of the best things that happened was when we were walking around looking at the other cars and I noticed a really nice Lamborghini. I said it to both of my boys and my older son freaked out a little and then my younger son (6 yo) says "Oh wow, did you see there's an old Jeep too!" :-P

Thanks,
Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

I haven't had much to update as I've only been driving the car and attending some car shows/cruise in's. Last weekend I decided to take my car on a longer cruise. I have a buddy in Richmond, VA that we'd been discussing meeting up at the cars and coffee near him and this was the weekend. I got the interior cleaned up a little bit and my youngest son decided to make the trip with me. It was about an hour and a half drive there and about 150 miles round trip. Like a dummy, I got so busy looking at the other cars that I forgot to grab a picture of mine next to my buddies 1968 Biscayne. Only picture I got was this really nice 1999 Skyline.







Last weekend was the longest drive since adding the turbo and I had no issues overall, but something I do need to look into. Car ran great at 75-80 mph on the highway, but I looked down and noticed that the engine temps had started to creep up around 198-200. I read a while ago that without a hood baffle, that it can cause overheating issues since the air can bypass the radiator and go up and over the radiator support. I had to remove the baffle to center mount the radiator, so I'm hoping that is the culprit. I did buy a new replacement baffle from the Carlisle show I was at, but before I cut up the new one, I thought I'd cut up the old one since it was pretty rusty. The cuts were pretty crude, but the profile is spot on. If this works like I'm hoping, I'll use this as a template for the new piece I have and attempt to make it look factory with the bead rolling and rolled lip.





Met a friend of a friend at the cruise in who had a really nice turbo'd 87 C10 who gave me a tip about how my wastegate and BOV were plumbed up and how I could make it better. I had both Tee'd together with a manifold vacuum source which worked ok, but he said that the wastegate should see a pre-throttlebody boost reference so that the wastegate doesn't see any vacuum. The BOV is what needs to see the vacuum source so it can open. I had seen where that was an option for many and my turbo had an untapped boss. So I drilled it out and tapped for 1/8" NPT.







It only took me about an hour to pull the turbo housing off, drill/tap the port, then reinstall with new nylon hoses. I figured, it was worth a shot since I'm still very new to turbocharging. When I found a safe spot, I gave it WOT and when I glanced down the boost gauge said 9.5 lbs which is about 2 lbs. higher than before. Not only did it go higher, it seemed to build boost sooner and at a lower rpm. With a light load it was seeing positive boost pressure around 2300 rpms. The BOV was also more responsive and not as "lazy". It seemed to snap on rather than a longer whoosh. Overall, I'd say that was a nice win and a pretty quick/cheap way to gain ~40 hp! With that trip I'm about 500 miles on the car so far, and need at least 700 more to hit my goal of rolling the odometer over to 50k miles.

I've had a few bites on the car and one serious offer, but was lower than I'd sell the car for. If he decides to buy the car I'll probably sell it to him, but if he turns it down I'll probably pull it off the market. It's really fun to drive and I don't "need" to build a garage right now. I just know it will take me many years to save up for one and I'm not extremely patient.

Cheers,
Ryan

[dhutton]

I’m amazed by what you accomplish while having a full time job and a family.

[ryeguy2006a]

Thanks Don. I've been trying to involve my kids in the little projects I'm doing. Maybe it'll rub off someday.

I finally got around to installing the dial a boost function on my car. I had all the parts, but needed to wire it up and re-route some of the boost lines to the car. First step was to figure out where I wanted to physically mount the MAC valve that made sense so that it is away from the engine heat, but also so that the lines could cleanly route to the wastegate. After a few different iterations in my head, I finally decided to build a bracket off of the coil pack mount. I made the first piece out of cardboard, then upsized the dimensions and transferred it to some scrap aluminum plate that I had. I left a lot of extra material on the piece once I got the holes drilled to fine tune the placement and appearance of the piece.



I had originally thought the valve would be rotated a different way, but decided that this looks better and will make routing a bit easier as well.



Here's the bracket after I trimmed it down and reshaped the corners.



Little paint and hardware. I added a 150 GT metri-pack connector for serviceability.





Here's the final installed pictures.



After I finished up the plumbing side of the house, I updated the tune for the new AEM dial input and the MAC valve output. I was running short on time so I found piece of scrap angle aluminum that would work to hold the dial temporarily to test the functionality. I do like the way the bracket turned out and may shape it a bit more and use it to add the line lock button.



After some bench testing it and everything checked out, I decided to take it down the road to see what happens. The dial worked just like it should. At the first position it was exactly like it was before. Made right around 9psi without anything added to the dome. I turned the dial to 1/4 and it made just shy of 10psi, then I slowly worked my way up to 2/3 turn and it was making around 11.5psi. When I turned it all the way up it didn't make any difference in the boost level, so I backed it back to 2/3 turn.



You can definitely feel the difference when the boost kicks in, but to be honest it was less than what I was expecting it to make. I was thinking with the dial all the way up it would be somewhere in the 16-18 range. I'm thinking that the car has a lot of back pressure from the 3" exhaust and Walker Quietflow muffler. A buddy suggested to run it without a muffler to "test" and I think that will be my next step. I've actually been meaning to add a v-band to my muffler and this may be a good opportunity to do that and test for backpressure.

Cheers,
Ryan

[thedugan]

Great work on the Nomad. The dial a boost bracket scares me that you will cut your leg on it. Looks to be right where your leg and knee would hit the dash.

[grendel]

I just read this, start to here.

Good work man.

[ryeguy2006a]

As they say, all good things come to an end and I've parted ways with my 1955 Nomad project about two weeks ago. I had a ton of fun and learned so much from this car. I really enjoyed the fabrication and being able to bring life back to a car that may have never seen the road again. A guy from Tulsa, OK bought the car and is fixing the roof and will pickup where I left off. He loved what I did to the car so far, so hopefully he'll take it to the next level.









While it may seem fast, I saw this car posted about a month and half ago but couldn't buy it until my car officially sold. I reached out when my car sold and was finally able to get out to see the car earlier this week. I brought cash and was ready to buy if we could make a deal. I made my offer and brought the car home with me the same day. It's a 1966 Chevelle with just about everything done to it that I'd want to do to a car. It's already LS swapped with a cammed 6.0, T56 and 8.8 rear.





Have a great weekend everyone!

[dontlifttoshift]

8.8 rear.

I'm curious how that was done.

[ryeguy2006a]

The car was advertised with a 9", but when I went to look at it the rear diff cover was clearly an 8.8. Upon further research the car has a bunch of SSM, Southside Machine Performance parts including an 8.8 swap kit that they sell. It uses a "bridge" that creates the upper mounts. It's interesting, but seems to be done well.

[Cryptonomad]

Hey Rye, been i while since i've been around, but I see you moved into one of my Sunday cruise loops. Hope to see you around with the Chevelle. still not many LS swaps around here..