Twin turbo Gen 3 update questions fueling AEM etc

[proedge]

Hey guys, this seems to be the most active out of all Viper forums. I posted some questions on a couple other forums and am not getting any responses. I'm hoping some of the knowledgeable folks here can help me.
To start, I have a 2005 RSI built twin turbo car, the RSI1000 kit they called it. Car appears to have been built around 2010 or so, maybe even earlier. It has Garrett GT35R turbos, Paxton fuel system, Greddy boost controller and Split Second piggy back. Car ran ok, made about 5psi of boost. I started noticing some oil smoke and also had oil in the intake pipes, so I decided to take the turbos out and have them rebuilt. That project kind of snowballed into me doing an AEM standalone, Stage 3 fuel system, braided oil and power steering lines and a catch can. I've made some videos of my progress and hopefully will be able to edit something together, to show it off if anyone is interested.
Any way, now to my questions. All the parts I got I've received virtually no instruction on how they are supposed to be installed, so I'm on my own to try to figure it out.
My original plan was to do the AEM Infinity, but by the time I got around to ordering it, AEM had discontinued it. My only option was Motec or any other system which would cost $10k+. RSI had a used AEM Series 2 and a John Reed harness laying around, so I bought that from them. I'm now working on installing it and need to resolve a few issues:

Sensors
RSI sent me a few new AEM sensors with the kit. The sensors I have are:
1. MAP Sensor Kit - does this one go in place of the factory MAP sensor? Do I remove the factory connector and use the AEM connector, leaving the factory wiring in place?
2. Fluid Pressure Sensor - I'm assuming this is an Oil Pressure Sensor? Same question as above.
3. Air Temp Sensor Kit - Does this one need to get installed into the intake piping?
4. AEM knock sensor - this is wired into the harness. I'm trying to figure out where to put the sensor itself. My car being a 2005 has two factory knock sensors under the intake. Should I replace one of them? I'm concerned that removing one of the factory sensors will trigger a CEL. I saw in another thread the poster drilled another hole under the intake to mount his knock sensor. Maybe I should do the same.
5. Coil Drivers - These look like they can be mounted on a metal plate somewhere. The way the harness is built, I can some them somewhere by the firewall. Anyone have any input as to where to mount those?

Catch Can
1. Should I remove the two fittings on the valve covers and tap the openings for the AN fittings?
2. There used to be a line that ran from the Driver Side valve cover to under the intake. Should I just block off the connection on the intake?

Fuel system
1. The kit I got from RSI came with new injectors and pig tails, with just bare ends on it. Should I simply cut off the factory ends and wire in the new ones?

If anyone has any photos of twin turbo cars and how they're set up, I would really appreciate them. It would help me see where things should go. I'm sure I'm going to have more questions as I go along, these are just the ones I've run into so far.

[Steve M]

I can't really help with the Sensors or the Fuel System - someone like Dan Lesser (Viper Specialty Performance) would be the right guy IMO, but he's not always around on here.

For the catch can, it depends on what you want to do with it. First off, what kind is it? One with a filter venting into the engine bay, or is it a closed system with lines running from the valve cover to the catch can, and then from the catch can back to the intake manifold?

I'd assume it would be one that vents to atmosphere (under the hood). If that's the case, you can run lines from one or both valve covers to the catch can, and block off any lines running to the intake manifold (which will pull a vacuum) or the air box (which provides the source of fresh air). You'd also remove any PCV valve, as the air will need to flow both ways for that type of system to work. If it is a closed catch can (no filter/vent), that's a totally different story.

As for the fittings, I'm not familiar with Gen 3s, so I don't know what's already there. On my Gen 4, there's a -10 o-ring boss fitting coming out of the passenger side valve cover. There are tons of adapters that go from -10 ORB to pretty much whatever you'd need. If you can work with what's already there, you can just look for an adapter provided there's at least some sort of baffling system to keep the oil from just pouring out under hard accel/decel/cornering. If you need to drill and tap, it would be easiest to do a pipe thread to AN adapter, but you'll need to find a suitable location to do it, and you'll also need to make sure there's baffling of some sort in place.

For the fuel system, the only thing I'd suggest is making damn sure that cutting the existing connectors off so you can splice in the new ones is your only option. Once you start hacking away at a wiring harness, there's no going back. Soldering in new connectors isn't rocket science, but that's not how it is done from the factory for a reason (the terminals are crimped).

Hopefully someone else with substantially more knowledge than me will pipe up, but there's just not a lot of traffic on this board these days.

[proedge]

Yeah I didn't want to cut any factory wiring, that's why I was hoping the fuel injectors would come with plug and play pigtails. I looked around and everyone seems to only sell bare ones.

[proedge]

and yes the catch can is the style that vents to atmosphere with 2 lines going into it. The Gen 3 engine has two fittings, one on each valve cover. I can either just clamp a hose onto them, but that wouldn't look great. But removing them would involve removing the valve covers and then pulling them out somehow and tapping the hole for the AN fitting

[Viper Specialty]

Sorry for being blunt on this one...

But why are you not contacting the companies that either made or sold the parts to you, and asking them for assistance? They made the money, they should solve the problems.

Not to mention... they are surely the only ones who know what you were actually sold and how it should lay out. This is why you work with a shop directly, unless you know exactly what you are doing.

[proedge]

I have been contacting RSI, but they haven't been as helpful as I would hope. I also contacted John Reed, and he did help a bit. I don't expect him to drop everything and help me, as the harness I have is something that they made a long time ago. I was hoping someone on the boards might have some knowledge, but I guess I will just need to figure it out myself

[DEMO MAN]

2. Fluid Pressure Sensor - I'm assuming this is an Oil Pressure Sensor? Same question as above.
3. Air Temp Sensor Kit - Does this one need to get installed into the intake piping?

As to ( 2. ) I would think that's a sensor that would need to be in the cooling system, typically it looks for pressure increase to indicate that you have lifted a head/blown a head gasket and now boost is entering the cooling system so that engine management system can protect the engine from additional damage.

Regarding ( 3. ) it should be in cold side piping just before the throttle body and obviously is looking at IATs, again to protect the engine.

I'm not familiar with your engine management system and some are fairly basic whereas others are very sophisticated as to what they are capable of managing. I do believe if you don't have experience that some of that work needs to be done by a shop that does. Hope some of this helps. David

[proedge]

The only way for me to gain experience is to figure it out and do it myself. I know most people's go to answer is "take it to a shop who knows what they're doing". I would rather do it myself and know it's done right. I thought my questions were fairly straight forward, but I guess most people here go with the "take it to a shop" option.
Even if I wanted to take it to a shop, I don't have anyone local here who knows Vipers. Most shops here work on either imports or Mustangs and Corvettes.

[TrackAire]

The only way for me to gain experience is to figure it out and do it myself. I know most people's go to answer is "take it to a shop who knows what they're doing". I would rather do it myself and know it's done right. I thought my questions were fairly straight forward, but I guess most people here go with the "take it to a shop" option.
Even if I wanted to take it to a shop, I don't have anyone local here who knows Vipers. Most shops here work on either imports or Mustangs and Corvettes.

Although I understand that you want to do it yourself so you know it's done right, you really have a challenge because of the mixture of parts you have bought, wiring harness, fuel pumps etc. These are probably left overs from other builds or project cars that have been parted out. Nothing is going to be plug and play since most of the shops selling the stuff have no idea of how to install it on a Viper platform. This isn't an LS engine....just about every turbo system I've seen in Vipers is unique, no two are alike and most of the low buck units end up having issues.

But I will say that you are way ahead of the curve because you actually received parts from RSI that you paid for.

[13COBRA]

Although I understand that you want to do it yourself so you know it's done right, you really have a challenge because of the mixture of parts you have bought, wiring harness, fuel pumps etc. These are probably left overs from other builds or project cars that have been parted out. Nothing is going to be plug and play since most of the shops selling the stuff have no idea of how to install it on a Viper platform. This isn't an LS engine....just about every turbo system I've seen in Vipers is unique, no two are alike and most of the low buck units end up having issues.

But I will say that you are way ahead of the curve because you actually received parts from RSI that you paid for.

This x's 1,000,000.

[proedge]

Yes it definitely took a while to get the fuel kit. I ordered it at the end of November, didn't see it till the end of January...

[proedge]

Some updates... getting there slowly but surely. Still have some confusion about the knock sensors. The wiring harness I got has a knock sensor wired directly into it. I'm assuming it was originally made for a 2003/2004 car, which didn't have factory knock sensors. I reached out to RSI, they told me to remove one of the factory knock sensors and use the one that came with the AEM wiring in it's place. I'm hoping that will work. I was contemplating leaving the factory knock sensors in place and drilling a third hole somewhere and installing the AEM knock sensor there. Any thoughts on this?

[proedge]

- New injector pigtails installed. Tried to make them look as factory as possible.
- Turbos are back in.
- Wiring harness installed
- RSI power steering pressure lines installed

[proedge]

Well I ended up switching my car over to Link. The local tuner could not get the AEM running either, and I didn't feel like spending $2-3k on diagnosis and ending up in the same place I was.

We went with the Link Storm X ECU. We were able to reuse all the same sensors, simply had to change over the connectors on the piggyback harness.

The tuner got the car running after about 20 mins of playing with the settings.


Got it on the dyno, car made 690whp on wastegates, running 94 octane. I told him to put a couple of pounds of boost into it, but stop at 750whp. Car made exactly 750whp at about 7.5psi.

Since I'm assuming the internals are stock in my engine, I did not want to push my luck. He did tell me that the "1000cc" injectors I got from RSI are almost maxxed out, as they are currently at 80% duty cycle. He thinks they are only 550cc, not 1000 as promised. I spoke to RSI, they are going to send another set of injectors out. My initial plan was to have large enough injectors in the car to be able to run E85. I would also need to add a flex fuel sensor from Link. I'm now not sure if it's worth doing, as the current motor is essentially maxxed out on pump gas. I guess it would probably make 750whp on fewer psi and run a bit cooler, which would help with longevity. What are your thoughts? Is it worth adding E85?


My next question is how do I get more power out of it. I saw Roe Racing sells a forged bottom end kit with stock size rods and pistons for about $3700. They claim it's good for 1000whp, which is I think as high as I would want to go with this car. Would this be the most cost effective option? I've read other cars go with custom cranks, cams, new heads, etc. but those engines cost a fortune to build.


So, if I got the forged bottom end kit from Roe, switched it to E85, it should make a fairly reliable 1,000whp and not cost too much to build. What are your guys' thoughts?