I finished up swapping out my turbos, replacing my dv's, spark plugs, a 5bar, gt2 i'c's and a Greddy. I did all the work SOLO and in my garage at home w/out a lift.

Although I ripped my first motor out of a 70' Chevelle in 1979, I have never worked on a Pcar, much less a turbo. Having said that, a set of shop maunals, the search feature here and some emails to those who have done parts of the job certainly made it easier. In all actuality, if you are handy with a wrench, you can handle this job. Just take your time, replace all the crush washers and gaskets and make sure nothing leaks.

I ran into a few stumbling blocks, below is an accounting... By the way, the entire job took me about 36 hours..yeah I know..slow..but I was ALONE!!!

Left turbo: With the new turbo, the wg actuator was directy in the way of the bolt for the oil can. "Fashioned" an allen wrench and it went on and got tight- no leaks. Header gaskets are an absolute *****. Believe it or not, this was the hardest part of the job. The new gaskets are metal so they are rigid. There are two of them so they are difficult to line up... Then you gotta hold the header in place, line up the holes using a small screwdriver to move the gaskets into place, and get the bolts started. Such a pain that I left the right side header alone- someone had ground off the welds for me already [before I bought the car] so I figured I'd leave well enough alone.

Right turbo: How about some oil lines that the nuts simply will not budge. When the bottom oil line started turning instead of the nut, to the point where I could see a small spiral "look" in the actual aluminum line, I figured I needed another option. So on this one I left the oil can in place. The small top oil line came out fine so I only had the other 2 to deal with. After removing their bracket bolts, believe it or not there was enough room to get the old turbo out and the new one in without taking the oil can off the car. NO LEAKS!

DV's are what they are. Not a big deal, just a pain.

5bar: MIKELLY IS A GODSEND!
He has a picture laden tutorial online on the 5bar. Put my laptop on the cart and simply followed directions. Only problem I had was that the new fpr did NOT want to seat in place. So I spent a whole lot of time trying to push it in with my palm, far enough to then slide the clip into place. Suffice it to say this did NOT work. after an hour...or three because I am not a midget, I finally worked the new one in place far enough so the clip just slid in w/out any presure on the fpr. The way it is supposed to work from the outset... I guess some are just easier than others- mine would not go into place.

Greddy:
I don't know how many emails I got with Todd's instructions for the install. Either everyone is a whole lot smarter than me or most people did not do their own install. The directions would be far, far easier to understand if they said "front hose goes to X, bottom hose goes to Y and back hose goes to Z. Instead they say things like "line that runs to the drivers side then to the rubber pipe that holds the diverter valves." Unfortunately you cannot see which way that line runs with the mufflers on because it shoots straight down out of sight then makes a 90. Frustrating for me as I had no experience with vacuum lines and did not know where they all ran....and the Greddy bag is one fitting lite, but Ace Hardware had them. Finally was the routing of the harness and fpr line. Instructions were spot on- there just isn't a lot of room in the front of the engine compartment. Luckily I have a snake. If you try this with a coat hanger or something similar I think it would be frustrating.
The routing of the wires up theu where the ebrake is located was another issue for me. The instructions say there is a 1" grommet just in front of where the cables go thru up in the tunnel. I spent 30 minutes with a light looking for it and could not find the damn thing. Finally, being the slow learner that I am, I ran my hand above the drive shaft and found it. You cannot see the thing because it is directly above the shaft. But it is right there where Todd said it was.....I was getting tired at this point! I ran the wires up beind the console- I cut out the cd storage holder and had circuit city give me a scrap piece of blank abs. Made a bracket, cut the abs and mounted the Greddy. I used to on a chain of stereo shoops so this wasn't a problem. Mount is not cf, just plain old black abs, but it works and looks fine-clean mount and I can see it. I found my power source in a plug that probably went to the factory radio [replaced] that was not being used. Spliced into switched 12v and ground, put the filter in the vacuum line and put it all back together.

So, everything is done, fired up the car. I actually grabbed the fire extinguisher because of all the smoke that was coming up thru the engine bay. Then I realized I had sprayed almost a whole can of liquid wrench on the header bolts, turbo bolts, oil lines, et al and I felt a little better.

Drove it around w/ boost all the way down and car made .8bar on the upgraded wg springs just like it was supposed to. Marek volunteered to help me set up the Greddy but I fell asleep before I was supposed to call him. It is raining today but hopefully I can get the Greddy dialed in. I have a driftbox and tomorrow [if it dries up] I will make a few runs and send the data to Scott.

It is killing me not to be able to go out and run the crap out of it right now, but I think the waiting will definitely be worth it!

I cannot think of anything I would have done differently- but it would have shaved off several hours of "learning" if I had someone with me who had done it before. You spend 30 minutes trying to do something, then try it with your other hand turned backwards and presto, it works right away. The learning curve was the most time consuming part of the whole job. But now it is done and I can say I did it myself.....

 

Great job! So are you the one who will be doing the installation writeup for the Greddy? And regarding the header gaskets being a pain...you mean the round gasket between the header and turbo, not the header to engine gasket correct? I have been an advocate of reusing those damn things despite the vehement protest of some.

 

The ones that killed me were the header to block gaskets. The round turbo ones I got into place by getting the turbo mounted to the header, then sliding the gasket up into place [there is room between the three bolts]. Using a small screwdriver, I slid it up and into the groove. With a little pressure from the header, the gaskets made an audible snap and the header slid up tight. I had new ones but reused the old ones when I changed my mufflers a while back and they did not leak!

And yeah, I could add to that Greddy install writeup! No disrespect intended...that writeup is perfect. Having said that, being one with zero prior knowledge, it was difficult for me to get my arms around it. To me anyway, it seemed like it was written for guys who actually "knew what they were doing," and I definitely would not put myself in that group!

 

The header to block gasket is layered stainless steel. Unlike gaskets made of other materials, it can be reused without header leaks (unless damaged).

If you add info to the instructions to make it easier for someone to do the installation, then you have benefitted the novice and expert alike. In the scientific world, this is considered a compliment to the original author.

 

The round crush ring gaskets (header to turbo, turbo to exhuast) can be aided by
little dabs of silicone to hold them in place while you bolt things together.

Great write up,

MK

 

Thanks for the great write up!

 

Kudos for the effort. Helpful write up. Looking forward to the report when you get her dialed in... A

 

Wow. Just played with it a little. Got the boost up to .93 and had to quit as it is wet and I was scared schittless. The car is scary fast down here- can't wait to see 1.1 then 1.2+ on 100 ocatne.

For anyone wandering about the seat of the pants feel, I can say that coming from Upsolute, dv's and Fabspeed, which was fun and fast, and this thing even not at 100% boost, is almost scary in comparison. The power and torque are both violent and instantaneous. I cannot even compare it to the Upsolute as the differences are just too great to even put into words.

It is amazing that you can transform a fast car into a monster with only boltons you can do in your garage. Todd Knighton and Protomotive are definitely on my Christmas card list! I know I bugged Todd with emails and to his credit he has the patience of Jobe, methodically answering and explaining every question I asked of him. I really cannot say enough about him, his company, his ethics and his character. He is truly one of the good guys out there, not to mention a tuning genius. There are a lot of good tuners who are sponsors here-no disrespect intended- but you cannot go wrong with Protomotive. Period.

 

Tom, that is awesome, man. It's exciting to see this project coming together!

 

Congrats the added power is addicting. Where you located in NC?

 

manager, call and we can compare butt dynos 713-854-0669

 

Steve- THANK YOU bro.....I couldn't have done it without you!

996twin- Thanks! I am in Hickory

Paulie- I'll give you a shout after the market closes if you'l be around--- 1 hour!

Thanks guys,
Tom.

 

congrats!!...that setup is truly scary fast ... have fun and be sure to run 100/104oct at anything above 1.1ba.... i speak from experience

tim

 

Very nice that you did the install yourself. Congrats on the DIY and the upgrades!

I went from a flash and exhaust to k24/18g and it is a night and day difference.

 

VERY cool that you did it yourself.......nice job!