How to...make your own smoke pressure tester!
Discussion
How to...make yourself a smoke pressure tester.
Well I've wanted one of these for a couple of years now. So many problems with these turboed cars are caused by boost leaks, I once spent all day on an S14 and couldn't fix it. I had soapy water all over it, revving it, changed coilpacks, plugs etc. Finally took it to Greg at ProTuner who pressurised it with smoke and found a boost leak. £250. Gutted. But a smoke pressure tester costs upwards of £800.
I made one ages ago out of a fire extinguisher but it wasn't very good, so with an S14a that I suspect has a boost leak to fix I made a proper one today.
I started with a little calor gas bottle that plumbers use, some pipe, a few fittings and a road cone.
The idea is to get smoke into the gas bottle, pressurise it, and blow smoke through the cone which will fit any size boost pipe.
Smoke will be made by these, 40 second burn and around 18 cubic metres of smoke!
How to pressurise the gas bottle. I thought a female airline connection would do it, then I'd need an adapter to fill it. Like this.
The stubby fittings came free with a compressor, I have no use for them until now. The 90 degree bend is from something else but has the right threads to screw in both male fittings.
As well as getting air into the bottle I need to get the smoke bomb in too. It's an inch in diameter but a rummage through the local agricultural engineers workshop turned this up:
It's the right hand end that I want, the far right bit is male screwing in to the next female part. With a diameter of about an inch and a quater. Perfect! So I cut it off, drilled a hole in the gas bottle and welded it on, then welded an adapter for the female airline connection to screw onto:
So the lower nut is welded to the bottle, the other I can unscrew to put the lit smoke bomb in:
I pressurised it to see if it was ok so far:
It was fine. I had an old acetylene regulator knocking about which has the same threads, so we'll use that:
So now to the cone. I stuck a length of pipe through it and filled it with silicone, carefully so not to get any air bubbles:
And it works!
The regulator lets you dispense exactly the right pressure of smoke out, the bottle can either be used with the compressor connected, or you can fill it to max pressure and carry it to where you are in the paddock or wherever.
Top job, very pleased.
Well I've wanted one of these for a couple of years now. So many problems with these turboed cars are caused by boost leaks, I once spent all day on an S14 and couldn't fix it. I had soapy water all over it, revving it, changed coilpacks, plugs etc. Finally took it to Greg at ProTuner who pressurised it with smoke and found a boost leak. £250. Gutted. But a smoke pressure tester costs upwards of £800.
I made one ages ago out of a fire extinguisher but it wasn't very good, so with an S14a that I suspect has a boost leak to fix I made a proper one today.
I started with a little calor gas bottle that plumbers use, some pipe, a few fittings and a road cone.
The idea is to get smoke into the gas bottle, pressurise it, and blow smoke through the cone which will fit any size boost pipe.
Smoke will be made by these, 40 second burn and around 18 cubic metres of smoke!
How to pressurise the gas bottle. I thought a female airline connection would do it, then I'd need an adapter to fill it. Like this.
The stubby fittings came free with a compressor, I have no use for them until now. The 90 degree bend is from something else but has the right threads to screw in both male fittings.
As well as getting air into the bottle I need to get the smoke bomb in too. It's an inch in diameter but a rummage through the local agricultural engineers workshop turned this up:
It's the right hand end that I want, the far right bit is male screwing in to the next female part. With a diameter of about an inch and a quater. Perfect! So I cut it off, drilled a hole in the gas bottle and welded it on, then welded an adapter for the female airline connection to screw onto:
So the lower nut is welded to the bottle, the other I can unscrew to put the lit smoke bomb in:
I pressurised it to see if it was ok so far:
It was fine. I had an old acetylene regulator knocking about which has the same threads, so we'll use that:
So now to the cone. I stuck a length of pipe through it and filled it with silicone, carefully so not to get any air bubbles:
And it works!
The regulator lets you dispense exactly the right pressure of smoke out, the bottle can either be used with the compressor connected, or you can fill it to max pressure and carry it to where you are in the paddock or wherever.
Top job, very pleased.
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