We 'Canter'ed to the tip.

[jemfly]

Hi everyone,

I've just joined the forum and it is brilliant! You've all got some really interesting and valuable information to impart and it is really appreciated by 'newbies' like me.

I've recently purchased a 2004 NPS with the 4HE1 turbocharged, intercooled engine. The truck has 126 000 km on the clock with a Duratray heavy duty aluminium trayback. It is an ex-electricity utility truck, judging from its appearance. In the future (not too distant I hope!) a conversion to camping rig is planned, but at the moment I'm having to use the truck for some highway, even interstate trips a few times a year, and general dirt road, or dirt track four wheel driving.

I'm wondering in a fairly general way, whether anyone has had experience with, or knowledge of IMPROVING POWER OUTPUT on this engine. Has anyone upgraded their turbo installation or in particular, modified the factory unit for increased boost pressure? Is such a modification possible or even advisable? I'm interested in anyone's experience as I don't know of a particular company that gives this sort of advice and I'd like to have a bit more 'oomph' with a loaded truck (GVM 6000 kg) and possibly towing a trailer up to the 9500 GVCM rating. It seems to run out of 'puff' on the hills - it gets there, but seems slow - hence my questions.

Any info or advice would be much appreciated!

[Amesz00]

Hi everyone,

I've just joined the forum and it is brilliant! You've all got some really interesting and valuable information to impart and it is really appreciated by 'newbies' like me.

I've recently purchased a 2004 NPS with the 4HE1 turbocharged, intercooled engine. The truck has 126 000 km on the clock with a Duratray heavy duty aluminium trayback. It is an ex-electricity utility truck, judging from its appearance. In the future (not too distant I hope!) a conversion to camping rig is planned, but at the moment I'm having to use the truck for some highway, even interstate trips a few times a year, and general dirt road, or dirt track four wheel driving.

I'm wondering in a fairly general way, whether anyone has had experience with, or knowledge of IMPROVING POWER OUTPUT on this engine. Has anyone upgraded their turbo installation or in particular, modified the factory unit for increased boost pressure? Is such a modification possible or even advisable? I'm interested in anyone's experience as I don't know of a particular company that gives this sort of advice and I'd like to have a bit more 'oomph' with a loaded truck (GVM 6000 kg) and possibly towing a trailer up to the 9500 GVCM rating. It seems to run out of 'puff' on the hills - it gets there, but seems slow - hence my questions.

Any info or advice would be much appreciated!

Hi Jemfly, welcome to the forum!

i dont have any experience on that engine, only on the canter 3.9L equivelant. but the problems and letdowns are pretty much the same across both vehicles.
definetly, the very 1st thing to do is lose the stock exhaust. on my canter i had it done in 3" from the exhaust brake back, i specifically wanted straight pipe (no muffler), but performance wouldnt be affected by a straight-thru hot-dog muffler.
theres really no point doing anything until you've done this at least. i later on found a 3.5" brake and had the exhaust done up the the stock dump pipe, but it didnt make quite as much difference as id hoped. probly brought the exhaust temps down a bit though.
next point is intake, though this is certainly not as crucial. in fact i never actually got around to doing the intake on mine.
you can also add a couple of psi boost to it by means of a boost controller fitted in the wategate line, these are usually around $100 for a half decent one. this should make it burn its fuel a little better and maybe run a bit more efficient (+ cooler exhaust temps), but wont make any major difference to power.
all these things serve to minimize the power LOSS, but to make MORE power, it needs a bigger bang, which means it needs more fuel. Being an 04 engine it will be electronic, so the best bet is to chip it.
i ran a DPchip in mine, + the exhaust and went from 10 to 17psi boost. it went well. not as well as it could, the chip was set fairly conservatively, but much better than a standard truck.
hope this helps a bit.

PS so as not to hijack AussieIron's thread, this should probly be moved to its own thread, but let the moderators take care of that
Andrew

[jemfly]

Hi Andrew

Thanks a heap for all of your information. Great to get some understanding of what is involved and the effect of those changes. I'll look into exhaust modifications first.
The boost controller sounds helpful - do you recommend any particular manufacturer(s)?
The engine is actually the one just before the electronically controlled one - I wanted this as it avoided the higher cost, greater complexity, electronics etc that might be problematical in a very remote or difficult to repair situation. So chipping is out, alas! I guess that, in some ways, this will limit the extent of possible power increases, but as you say, there's other things that can be done.

As far as the thread goes, being new to the forum, I didn't do quite the right thing, but wasn't entirely sure of how to go about it!! I might see if I get any responses and if not, I'll start a new thread.

Thanks again for your good advice - very much appreciate it!

Jeremy

[Aussie Iron]

Just a short video of one of the stream crossing up along the track. Taken by my niece with her I-pod, looks like it was held sideways- but it's here. .