ha ha well its been a while and im glad to say i have sucessfully installed my own turbo kit. it took me one weekend to fab it up and almost two years of gathering the balls to do it. this is a long post so dont read unless you want my ugly details. i have slapped a turbo on a fairly stock svt and it seems to be running great. the turbo spools at 3k ish rpm and sounds like a frigging big rig. ive gotten soooo much attention. also im using a fmic as well. the car after install was down for two weeks but is not back running.

anyways i have a few questions. cat cams has cams for the 2.5 right? well id like to get some turbo cams for my other motor im building. either that or ill just get them shipped to crane for a expensive regrind. i want adjustable.
also does it sound odd that my car isnt seeing any fuel starvation with 5psi??? to be safe ive also heard to keep a longer gap on my plugs so i dont detonate in any case is this true. anyhoo please no flames at me alot of people have flamed me in the past but i havent been here in a while asking dumb questions so please be tolerant. also any pointers....besides taking th eblower off.

parts i used are a turbonetics evo wastegate with 5psi spring, turbo xs bov, cheapo fmic, oil cath can, bunch of vacuum check valves, garrett t3/ t04b turbo. am switching to a cheapo masterpower for the time being. custom made inline fuel cooler can (which raised fuel pressure just a tad). i have not tuned the car yet nor do i have any fuel upgrades other than a bigger pump. its wierd but my af guage shows the car running rich when its boosting at 5psi and im not detonating. so im doing fine but also am not ragging on the car either. i will be adding a boost and stoich sensitive extra injector controller alone with a tuned chip.

heres a list of problems i ran into.
bad turbo. bad piston ring seal.
(symtom oil burning blowing from hot side of turbo)
bad carbon seal
(symtom oil blowing into intake.)
vacuum leaks
(symtoms bad idle and lots of lag because wastegate was open)
no place for fuse box.
(fabricated a water proof box for the fuse box to sit in upside down through a hole in the side frame. i used 16 guage hot rolled steel and welded in place)
low oil pressure
(ummmm bad turbo oil leaks???? hmmm think about it)
no place for front mount charge pipes
(resolved that problem by enlarging the existing hole in front frame rail similar to the cold air intakes that some people use. removed fender and ran plumbing around to the front. had to trim the front bumper but its definately worth it).
pics will be comming as soon as i get the engine bay nice and cleaned up. i have vac lines and oil everywhere.

Get an el-cheapo camera and take pictures.

No one cares about how clean the engine looks, lets see the pics!!!! It sounds pretty cool though, what is the power increase like with the new turbo kit?? how big is your FMIC??? Also why was it down for two weeks after the install, how long did it take you to put it all in???

Hmmm, you fabbed up your own turbo kit but don't know how to gap your plugs? Sounds like this is going to be an interesting kit. I'd definitely like to see pics.
Oh, and you DON'T want to increase your gap on the plugs because that will promote spark plug blowout. The air is denser so for the same strength spark you will want to shorten your gap and run a plug one two ranges colder depending on how much boost you are running.

do you still have your 300zx with the upgraded turbos? post pics...

I'm eagerly awaiting pictures. I would like to see some other approaches to putting turbos in these cars. Still, some of your details sound a little...interesting, particularly the plug gapping. I take it you are very creative and have some fabrication skills but didn't do any research on putting a turbo together before hand?
No problem though. I'd really like to see what you were talking about RE the fuse box and waterproofing.

I know it isn't impossible to do a front mount intercooler, but it does take some sacrificing!

Good luck with it.

Originally posted by warmonger:

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but it does take some sacrificing!

Good luck with it.

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sacrificing? can you elaborate please....