The PTK Marauder Kit

[juno]

Well, here it is. I ordered their stock kit minus the 42 lb injectors and the Walbro pump. I decided to go with 60 lb injectors and a GT-40 pump. The head unit, waste gate and MAF should arrive next week.
First, four items this kit does not come with: Note I knew this up front, so no surprises.

Spark plugs – No problem, I just have not decided on NGK tr-6’s or Iridium plugs.

A tune – This may be a slight problem. I will have to get a mail order tune to run the car with the 60’s., which was my plan anyway. Because I am putting in the forged shortblock at the same time I need to get some miles on her first. Right now the plan is to run her on the stock injectors under no boost until I get the motor broken in. I will put the 60’s in just before I bring her to the dyno. Scott Beer is only 30-40 minutes away so I could trailer her down there but I don’t want to spoil the *****.

Instrumentation – Yeah, time for me to crap or get off the pot.! I don’t know exactly how I will do this. I plan to have an electronic boost controller (which indicates boost) , an A/F ratio, and trans temp.

Instructions – Ahh, this could be an annoyance. It would have been nice to have them. I thought they were developing some during Todd’s install, but no luck yet. I was going to create some and give them to PTK, but that is not likely to happen at this point.

This is my first turbo kit, so it is pretty intimidating when looking at all the parts. But they are really quite simple. It is just piping, no belts or anything to mess with. The good thing about the turbo kit is that you get custom headers and exhaust piping .
Here is the company line on the kit.
Dual 4 into 1 Tubular Mild Steel Headers w/ 1/2" laser Cut Header Flanges, 2 ½" Cross Over w/ Flex Connection, 3" Down Pipe that splits into Dual 2 ¼" ( Trademark ) to factory exhuast, Powder Coated Inlet Tubes, All V Band Connections, High Quality Silicone hoses w/ Aircraft Grade SS clamps.
Turbosmart 38mm Billet Wastegate, 12 psi By-Pass Valve, 3 Core Air/Air Bar & Plate Intercooler, Polished Silver or Satin Black 2000* Ceramic Coating and much more!
This kit INCLUDES a Garrett/Precision T-64E( 700hp Max Efficiently ), 42 lbs injectors, Lightning Mass Air Meter and a Walbro High Volume Fuel Pump.

I chose to upgrade the stainless hose clamps for the cold side to T-bolts (55.00 and a must do!) and get the turbo cover polished (95.00). I went with Satin black for the hot side. The cold side is polished silver.

The packaging is well done. Each coated piece is bubble wrapped carefully. The boxes containing the smaller, miscellaneous parts are well constructed. There might be a shortage of foam peanuts in Texas now. I think I literally have a full cubic yard plus now!

Carefully inspect each part:

Welds- Almost every comment I have heard about PTK is that they have as good or better welds then any other turbo kit manufacturer.
First, a little background. I have worked in Nuclear Power for over 25 years and examined thousands if not tens of thousands of welds. Just visuals, no official NDE, but I have reviewed the results of every different kind of NDE method there is on many of those welds. So my standards are a little high.
That being said, I would not accept any of these welds even on non ASME, non code piping.

But this is just a car. The cold piping looks much better then the hot piping. This is a good thing as the bright silver will distract everybody from the hot piping. The ceramic coating appears very good to me. Personally, because the cold side will catch everybody’s eye I would have preferred the welds to be perfect. It is definitely adequate, just not show quality. I really have to take a closer look at some of the other externally inter-cooled kits to make a fairer comparison.
On the hot side, the welds are cruder and a couple of the sections are slightly misformed. It is hard to fully examine a weld as they are all coated. They seem to be fine from a structural stand point, just not as pretty as I would like. After all, it is just a car. There are one or two welds that have some areas that concern me. I am going to have a neighbor go over them with me this weekend. He is an Engineer with the county and has good solid judgement.

On a good note, the coating appears fine and all the flanges appear well formed and should mate up. They are connected by mating the lips of the faces together inside a ‘V’ clamp and cranking them down.

Overall, I am disappointed in the quality of the welds. They took 18 weeks to manufacture my kit. It should be flawless. Perhaps they just rushed it in the last month, but still for the amount of time they had my money this kit should be perfect. Oh well.

My initial impression of the kit is that it is designed for racing, not looks. It is not bad looking at all but if you are looking for OEM appearance and a show car, this is not the kit for you. It cetainly doesn't look like Zach's beauty! Maybe I can do something with it after the install.
Others who have this kit and similar ones say it has some very serious grunt though. The testing should prove it. :D

I did not take a picture of the intercooler as it was nicely packaged and I don't want to screw it up. I will get a picture of it later as well as better pictures of individual pieces. If there is something specific you want to see, let me know.
HOT PIPING
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/HotPiping.jpg

COLD PIPING
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/ColdPiping.jpg

Headers
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/headers.jpg

Hardware

http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/Hardware.jpg

Twin Fans
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/TwinFans.jpg

[ctrlraven]

I myself am leaning towards going turbo just to be one of the different guys out their also. Please keep us updated as I would love to see how the install comes along and see what I am up against when I do one. Good idea about getting your neighbor to check those welds. I installed a turbo on one of my cars a few years ago and one of the welds didn't sit right with me but pressure and heat tested the piping and it was fine....2 months down the road the weld cracked as I was driving on the highway and lost all boost, I thought I had complete lost the engine.

[KillJoy]

For what I can tell from the pics, this is a Single Turbo kit.....correct?

Which side does the Turbo hook up to? Or, do the Header join into one Collector, then to the Turbo, then to duals?

KillJoy

[juno]

Yep she's a single.

The headers go to that dually looking 3" pipe with the flex thingy in it which goes to the turbo head thingy which exhausts to one of those other 3" thingy's which connects to the 3" Y down pipe thingy that splits into two 2-1/4 thingy's and goes to the stock exhaust. Well, thast's my best guess at this point anyway. I just hope I can connect all those thingy's somehow. :D

I think I would have preferred it to split into two 2-1/2's and done a full 2-1/2" custom exhaust, but this is the stocker kit. I will test as is.



For what I can tell from the pics, this is a Single Turbo kit.....correct?

Which side does the Turbo hook up to? Or, do the Header join into one Collector, then to the Turbo, then to duals?

KillJoy

[MarauderTJA]

Extremely impressive kit Juno:up: . I cannot wait to see it all tuned and completed in your car. Should make for some seriously interesting drag racing at MV IV with your new motor and turbo boost. Man are we all going to have fun at Gainesville.:D

[sabtaj1]

that kit has a ton of thingy's!!! LOL

[David Morton]

Extremely impressive kit Juno:up: . I cannot wait to see it all tuned and completed in your car. Should make for some seriously interesting drag racing at MV IV with your new motor and turbo boost. Man are we all going to have fun at Gainesville.:DGainseville? That's quite a hop from Orlando. Is the strip at Bithlo no longer there?

[juno]

OK, some more progress. I did not get much done over the weekend due to a severe stomach virus, but I did do a mock-up on the old motor to make sure I had everything.

The engine stand prevented a perfect connection to the headers, so I hung everything with some small line.

I was short one 2-1/4" v-clamp. They made my left side exhaust connection in two pieces, but forgot the extra clamp.

Also, they use 2-1/4 clamps on the 2-1/2 in header outlets. I do not like it. They are hard to get on and leave a 3/4-1 " gap when tightened. You can see it on the cross over picture, upper left. I pulled that header off just to ensure I could make up the connection.

Edit: The flow path is through the headers and down into two 2-1/2" crossovers (with flex connection) into a 3" line to the inlet of the turbine. The exaust exits via a 3" pipe into two 2-1/4" pipes to the stock exhaust flanges (no cats).

Front
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/Turbofrontshotsmall.jpg

Left Side

http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/LeftSidesmall.jpg

Rear
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/Rearsmall.jpg

Crossover

http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/Crossoverpipesmall.jpg

[TooManyFords]

Who's fan kit came with it? Does is still run variable speed or connect to the factory harness?

John

[juno]

Who's fan kit came with it? Does is still run variable speed or connect to the factory harness?

John

No, the fan kit is pretty sad. It is a two seperate fans with independent plugs that do not hook up to the controller. It does not fit the radiator either. I am going to carve out the stock shroud and mold the new fans into it. I will have to splice the controller into the new fans. I forgot to get some pics of it next to the stocker.

[MarauderTJA]

Your progress is impressive Juno. I wish I was that far along with my motor:mad: . Soon though, very soon:cool: .

[shakes_26]

better idea, get the fans and the oem shroud, find a good sheetmetal fabricator aand have him/her make you up soemthing decent looking.



No, the fan kit is pretty sad. It is a two seperate fans with independent plugs that do not hook up to the controller. It does not fit the radiator either. I am going to carve out the stock shroud and mold the new fans into it. I will have to splice the controller into the new fans. I forgot to get some pics of it next to the stocker.

[juno]

better idea, get the fans and the oem shroud, find a good sheetmetal fabricator aand have him/her make you up soemthing decent looking.

Do you know someone?

[shakes_26]

I get little stuff done at work, they wouldn't have time to do something that size.

Sheetmetal fabricator shop, there's a fabricator shop around the corner from my house, I've been meaning to stop by there and see what kind of work they do. Otherwise yellow pages....or we could get the Harbor freight brake and seam roller, some aluma braze and go with that.

[cyclone03]

Before you start tearing up the fan shroud,see if you can make it work by turning it upside down.

[shakes_26]

Jay,

SUmmit carries premade sheetmetal shrouds for single or twin fans, this might be the easiest and cheapest way to go ($99). If the dimensions are don't suit you, maybe you can check with a local fab shop.

[stryker]

Well, here it is. I ordered their stock kit minus the 42 lb injectors and the Walbro pump. I decided to go with 60 lb injectors and a GT-40 pump. The head unit, waste gate and MAF should arrive next week.
First, four items this kit does not come with: Note I knew this up front, so no surprises.

Spark plugs – No problem, I just have not decided on NGK tr-6’s or Iridium plugs.

A tune – This may be a slight problem. I will have to get a mail order tune to run the car with the 60’s., which was my plan anyway. Because I am putting in the forged shortblock at the same time I need to get some miles on her first. Right now the plan is to run her on the stock injectors under no boost until I get the motor broken in. I will put the 60’s in just before I bring her to the dyno. Scott Beer is only 30-40 minutes away so I could trailer her down there but I don’t want to spoil the *****.

Instrumentation – Yeah, time for me to crap or get off the pot.! I don’t know exactly how I will do this. I plan to have an electronic boost controller (which indicates boost) , an A/F ratio, and trans temp.

Instructions – Ahh, this could be an annoyance. It would have been nice to have them. I thought they were developing some during Todd’s install, but no luck yet. I was going to create some and give them to PTK, but that is not likely to happen at this point.

This is my first turbo kit, so it is pretty intimidating when looking at all the parts. But they are really quite simple. It is just piping, no belts or anything to mess with. The good thing about the turbo kit is that you get custom headers and exhaust piping .
Here is the company line on the kit.
Dual 4 into 1 Tubular Mild Steel Headers w/ 1/2" laser Cut Header Flanges, 2 ½" Cross Over w/ Flex Connection, 3" Down Pipe that splits into Dual 2 ¼" ( Trademark ) to factory exhuast, Powder Coated Inlet Tubes, All V Band Connections, High Quality Silicone hoses w/ Aircraft Grade SS clamps.
Turbosmart 38mm Billet Wastegate, 12 psi By-Pass Valve, 3 Core Air/Air Bar & Plate Intercooler, Polished Silver or Satin Black 2000* Ceramic Coating and much more!
This kit INCLUDES a Garrett/Precision T-64E( 700hp Max Efficiently ), 42 lbs injectors, Lightning Mass Air Meter and a Walbro High Volume Fuel Pump.

I chose to upgrade the stainless hose clamps for the cold side to T-bolts (55.00 and a must do!) and get the turbo cover polished (95.00). I went with Satin black for the hot side. The cold side is polished silver.

The packaging is well done. Each coated piece is bubble wrapped carefully. The boxes containing the smaller, miscellaneous parts are well constructed. There might be a shortage of foam peanuts in Texas now. I think I literally have a full cubic yard plus now!

Carefully inspect each part:

Welds- Almost every comment I have heard about PTK is that they have as good or better welds then any other turbo kit manufacturer.
First, a little background. I have worked in Nuclear Power for over 25 years and examined thousands if not tens of thousands of welds. Just visuals, no official NDE, but I have reviewed the results of every different kind of NDE method there is on many of those welds. So my standards are a little high.
That being said, I would not accept any of these welds even on non ASME, non code piping.

But this is just a car. The cold piping looks much better then the hot piping. This is a good thing as the bright silver will distract everybody from the hot piping. The ceramic coating appears very good to me. Personally, because the cold side will catch everybody’s eye I would have preferred the welds to be perfect. It is definitely adequate, just not show quality. I really have to take a closer look at some of the other externally inter-cooled kits to make a fairer comparison.
On the hot side, the welds are cruder and a couple of the sections are slightly misformed. It is hard to fully examine a weld as they are all coated. They seem to be fine from a structural stand point, just not as pretty as I would like. After all, it is just a car. There are one or two welds that have some areas that concern me. I am going to have a neighbor go over them with me this weekend. He is an Engineer with the county and has good solid judgement.

On a good note, the coating appears fine and all the flanges appear well formed and should mate up. They are connected by mating the lips of the faces together inside a ‘V’ clamp and cranking them down.

Overall, I am disappointed in the quality of the welds. They took 18 weeks to manufacture my kit. It should be flawless. Perhaps they just rushed it in the last month, but still for the amount of time they had my money this kit should be perfect. Oh well.

My initial impression of the kit is that it is designed for racing, not looks. It is not bad looking at all but if you are looking for OEM appearance and a show car, this is not the kit for you. It cetainly doesn't look like Zach's beauty! Maybe I can do something with it after the install.
Others who have this kit and similar ones say it has some very serious grunt though. The testing should prove it. :D

I did not take a picture of the intercooler as it was nicely packaged and I don't want to screw it up. I will get a picture of it later as well as better pictures of individual pieces. If there is something specific you want to see, let me know.
HOT PIPING
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/HotPiping.jpg

COLD PIPING
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/ColdPiping.jpg

Headers
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/headers.jpg

Hardware

http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/Hardware.jpg

Twin Fans
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/showcase/files/3/8/6/8/TwinFans.jpg
:eek: What in the name of allmighty is all that crap and for ?


STRYKER.

[juno]

Marc,
Great idea! I am going to get the measuring stick out and see what I can come up with.


Jay,

SUmmit carries premade sheetmetal shrouds for single or twin fans, this might be the easiest and cheapest way to go ($99). If the dimensions are don't suit you, maybe you can check with a local fab shop.

[juno]

Just to use a little hot air to push some cold air.


:eek: What in the name of allmighty is all that crap and for ?


STRYKER.

[TooManyFords]

Marc,
Great idea! I am going to get the measuring stick out and see what I can come up with.

I have the number and a contact @ Griffin (Thanks MartyO!) but let me know if you find something that fits stock with twin fans elsewhere...

$99 is a lot better than custom from Griffin!!!

John

[SergntMac]

Nice presentation, Juno, bravo!

[KillJoy]

:bump:

What be the status on this project???

KillJoy

[juno]

I'm getting closer everyday!!!!

I have to finish wiring in the meziere water pump, boost controller, aem wide band o2, fuel pressure stuff, top off some fluids and crank her.

Now if these silly Christmas parties would stop getting in the way.....

:beer: :xtree: :beer: :xtree:

[Loco1234]

ya Im curious about that as well....?
hows is it going?

[Vortech347]

Awesome, Enjoy a steady diet of LS1's and other blue ovals. :)

[Raudermaster]

I can't wait to see juno's car when it's done. Must post a video.

[juno]

So.. I fired her up last evening and had a leak on the passenger side valve cover. Took a while to fix it as it turned out to be an issue with the powder coating.

Fired it up again today and drove the baby a few miles, light on the pedal with an eye on the boost gage keeping it to minus 1 as I still have the stock MAF and injectors. It is nice to drive her again!!
One annoying issue is that the bolt on the steering knuckle scrapes the header when I turn. I sent pics to Dalton at PTK, but have not heard anything yet.
I have a few start up problems:
Bad idler pulley
Volt meter pegged ( i put in one to match the new oil pressure gage)
Coolant bleeding issues.

Not bad considering I swapped the heads to a new forged block, custom oil pan, windage tray, MMR pump, Meziere pump, new twin fans, rear cooling kit,PHP spacer. new gages (volt, oil, fuel wide band O2, Electronic boost control) oh yeah, the whole turbo kit. :D
Thanks to all of you for the help on all the stuff others have done before!!!

And a few q's:

My oil pressure reads 75 cold and 23-25 warm idle. OK???
My A/F reads 14.5 -15 with the NA tune and stock injectors and MAF. Is that normal for an NA tune?
Hopefully I can get some of these annoyances ironed out and get to the tuner soon!!!!

[KillJoy]

My oil pressure reads 75 cold and 23-25 warm idle. OK???


:up:

KillJoy

[merc]

Really happy to see you on the road again. :beer:

[FordNut]

So.. I fired her up last evening and had a leak on the passenger side valve cover. Took a while to fix it as it turned out to be an issue with the powder coating.

Fired it up again today and drove the baby a few miles, light on the pedal with an eye on the boost gage keeping it to minus 1 as I still have the stock MAF and injectors. It is nice to drive her again!!
One annoying issue is that the bolt on the steering knuckle scrapes the header when I turn. I sent pics to Dalton at PTK, but have not heard anything yet.
I have a few start up problems:
Bad idler pulley
Volt meter pegged ( i put in one to match the new oil pressure gage)
Coolant bleeding issues.

Not bad considering I swapped the heads to a new forged block, custom oil pan, windage tray, MMR pump, Meziere pump, new twin fans, rear cooling kit,PHP spacer. new gages (volt, oil, fuel wide band O2, Electronic boost control) oh yeah, the whole turbo kit. :D
Thanks to all of you for the help on all the stuff others have done before!!!

And a few q's:

My oil pressure reads 75 cold and 23-25 warm idle. OK???
My A/F reads 14.5 -15 with the NA tune and stock injectors and MAF. Is that normal for an NA tune?
Hopefully I can get some of these annoyances ironed out and get to the tuner soon!!!!
Great news...
Answers:
OP readings sound normal.
AFR should be 15.5-15 during cruise, it is operating in closed loop mode. In WOT mode, it will go to whatever is programmed into the tune instead of using the O2 sensors to adjust for 14.7

[Loco1234]

VERY VERY nice....

can't wait to hear the kinks are worked out and she sitting atop a dyno...

Near saw a HP or TQ curve from a turbo marauder....
should be enlighting....

Best a luck....

[MarauderTJA]

So.. I fired her up last evening and had a leak on the passenger side valve cover. Took a while to fix it as it turned out to be an issue with the powder coating.

Fired it up again today and drove the baby a few miles, light on the pedal with an eye on the boost gage keeping it to minus 1 as I still have the stock MAF and injectors. It is nice to drive her again!!
One annoying issue is that the bolt on the steering knuckle scrapes the header when I turn. I sent pics to Dalton at PTK, but have not heard anything yet.
I have a few start up problems:
Bad idler pulley
Volt meter pegged ( i put in one to match the new oil pressure gage)
Coolant bleeding issues.

Not bad considering I swapped the heads to a new forged block, custom oil pan, windage tray, MMR pump, Meziere pump, new twin fans, rear cooling kit,PHP spacer. new gages (volt, oil, fuel wide band O2, Electronic boost control) oh yeah, the whole turbo kit. :D
Thanks to all of you for the help on all the stuff others have done before!!!

And a few q's:

My oil pressure reads 75 cold and 23-25 warm idle. OK???
My A/F reads 14.5 -15 with the NA tune and stock injectors and MAF. Is that normal for an NA tune?
Hopefully I can get some of these annoyances ironed out and get to the tuner soon!!!!


Glad to hear you have your beast finally fired up Jay:up:. You will prbably run across a few more little problems along the way which is typical when you do what few have ever done. You'll get it all worked out I'm sure. Can't wait to see your baby in person as well as it on the track this coming year.:beer:

[jimlam56]

Good news Jay!
Looking forward to seeing and hearing your new beast!
Jim

[Bradley G]

looking foward to your progress juno.
I'm sure it felt good to hear her run again.

[juno]

Thanks guys!!!

A few more tribulations, I had a bad thermostat,. I had three and tested them all three times.
160 - opened at 165 -170
180 - opened at 190 plus
Stocker 185 did not start to open until 210+:eek::eek:

I put the 160 in and everyting is fine. Did a few trips around town last nite and took her on the highway this morning. Did a ten mile strech at 90 with a top stretch at 100 and AC on max. That was at about 1/4" of throttle with no boost. I would have gone faster but I was too busy looking at all the gages and there were too many Sunday drivers blocking the left lane. Still have to talk to my tuner and get the 60's and 90mm MAF in for tuning.
I still have to chase down the pulley noises and another noise.
I contacted PTK about the header/steering knuckle contact issue thursday and sent pics. I still have not heard anything back. Not very good customer service!!!