One problem with the performance of this little Diesel engine in a l300 is the stock exhaust. It is long and just 2″ crushed bent piping with a standard muffler. Obviously the back pressure is high and it does not really support the breathing of the engine. Therefore using larger diameter, better bent piping and a free-flow muffler should improve the situation.
The manifold and the down pipe should be changed too, to have no bottleneck in the exhaust system. Unfortunately the muffler shop could not find the right parts. That’s why our exhaust starts actually with the stock down pipe where the new larger stainless steel pipe is welded to. No ideal, but better than nothing.
Summitracing.com had a pretty good deal on a small, round Magnaflow muffler for around $60 (p/n 10416) which I took to a local muffler shop to get the proper stainless steel piping and hangers.
To save space for future modifications (hot water tank, additional Diesel tank) as well as keeping the exhaust as short as possible we went with an side exit right in front of the driver side rear wheel.
Update:
I was not very happy with the crappy work from Quite Muffler on Kingsway. They are neither very friendly nor have they done a good job. Stay away from them!
So I sold the exhaust again and was back to the drawing board. After a few more calls with the local Hot Rod community I found Muffler Tech in Port Coquitlam. They had all the parts in stock and had no problem fabricating the tubes. Also it turned out it is the only place in Western Canada which actually does mandrel bending. Great!
After a day I picked up the van with an very well designed exhaust how I had it in mind.
p.s. They even could fix the problem with the left lower control arm and did a 4-wheel laser alignment.
This modification took quite a bit of time. Back in February I received a package from Taiwan with all the parts, but it took till last week to finish it. Mainly because I was not happy how the snorkel suppose to be connected to the air intake. First the pipe on the snorkel had a too small diameter for my taste and second the intake on the air canister was facing in the wrong direction. Either you would need to use a long hose (as it came with the set) or you need to weld a new pipe on the canister. I decided to do latter.
The air canister has now a straight 3″ stainless steel pipe on it as well as the snorkel a modified 3″ PVC adaptor from HomeDepot. Also the bottom of the snorkel is now filled with expandable construction glue which should avoid any air turbulence. The connection between snorkel and air canister is a 3″ blower rubber hose from Green Line. The brackets on the body are out of stainless steel. The van has now also an K & N long life air-filter (p/n 4810) instead of the paper filter to have extra good airflow.
So far I’m really impressed with the difference, the vehicle feels for sure more powerful and the engine temperature dropped down quite a bit too. Specially at highway speed the cold air gets really forced into the intake. One disadvantage (for now) is the regularly releasing pressure gate due the increased boost/power. Not really a problem if you just back off a bit. I’m going to fix that in the next few weeks though.
Thanks to my friends David & Jay for helping me out on this mod.
This week I removed the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) and fabricated two blocking plates. Apparently it should increase the fuel economy, reduces the wear in the engine and eliminates one possible reason of any black smoke issues (knock on wood, we don’t have them yet)
Wikipedia has also something interesting to say about this modification:
EGR deletion in diesel engines is considered justifiable by a wide range of people, including the environmentally conscious. Although deleting the EGR system results in increased NOx level hydrocarbon emissions, Particulates, Carbon monoxide and Carbon dioxide are drastically reduced. Furthermore, EGR deletion results in an increase in fuel economy as high as 25%. Exhaust gas recirculated back into the cylinders adds wear-inducing contaminants and causes an increase engine oil acidity, which can result in an inefficient, poorly running engine. The increased level of soot also creates the need for diesel particulate filters to prevent environmental contamination.
A nice side effect is to have more space in the engine for future projects as well as the best spot (pre turbo) to mount a sensor for the Pyrometer gauge. The top blocking plate is out of 1/4 inch aluminum and the bottom plate is 1/4 inch solid steel, because it’s mounted on the hot engine block.
I also cleaned all disconnected pipes and fittings from 16 years exhaust soot.
Small modification but huge driving improvement. We had already a smaller after market steering wheel on DINO and as we got DINOEVO the original, large steering wheel reminded me how much I liked a smaller one. So, I finally got around to change it today and installed a Grant “Formula GT” (P/N 773) with adaptor (P/N 3390). Taking the old steering wheel off was not a problem, even without a puller. Installing the new one needed a little bit more time and a few test runs to get it aligned with the wheels.
It feels much better now and sideways parking does not end up being an exercise anymore. Also the driver side feels already more roomier as well.
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