Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Forced Induction I'm LIVID ... the saga begins!!!

My dad has a beautifull little stamping kit with letters and numbers just for this sort of thing. I still haven't got one, or stolen his yet, but I really need it. I find a black sharpie written on the metal after it has been cleaned off with a bit of solvent is good.
However, the king of easy marking is a white-out Pen, the type with the roller ball tip. It will mark on anything short of grease and if you clean the area first you can still see the white marks on future teardowns. White shows up great because in a car everything used is dark. lol

On the stampings that where hard to read/non-existant, I cleaned the cap off with brake clean and then used a sharpie before bagging

I have searched EVERYWHERE and I can't find what I'm looking for: I need to know the optimal exhaust pipe size for this application (3.0L Turbo). I'm leaning towards 2.25" for the up-pipe and 2.75 or 3" for the down-pipe. I want to keep it a little small on the hot side to keep the velocity up to keep the turbo spooled for quick response. I would greatly appreciate your advice/links to resources!

I have been looking at this for the wastegate solution IF I decide to NOT go external: Ultimate Internal Wastegate

Those V'Band setup's are nice, but expensive......the only other thing is that the external WG setup they have shown may be too thick as there's not a lot of room for the downpipe itself, let alone with an extra bolted on piece.

Keep in mind that I am only designing the system and tacking up the parts. From there, it will be sent to a professional for seam welding ... Once this prototype is sent back and tested extensively, I will evelauate if I want to have it reproduced. BTW, the person doing the actual welding is well known and very respected in the exhaust fabrication industry. After he gets it done, he will evaluate how much it will cost to reproduce (includes creating a jig) ... time will tell. Right now, I simply sizing things up and ordering the appropriate supplies for my "mockup", from which he will fully weld into my prototype.

You know, I almost was about to produce the crossover pipe and down pipe on a jig so that I could sell those parts for turbo kits. But there is a lot of cost and time involved.

I first approached this idea in 2003 but when I got sent to Iraq it threw me off. Then after doing design number three and sensing people out, it isn't as easy as it seems. Most people are in the $1500-$2000 dollar range TOTAL and that isn't enough for a turbo kit, even when there are more affordable pipes.
I think I have the best design right now for reproducibility, durability, and low cost. But I am holding back to see how the contour aftermarket goes. The car is getting older now and that could mean it will fade or it could end up similar to the imports and it could mean it would take off. I just don't want to risk wasting all my money investing in a potential flop that is as expensive as this.

look to other duratec engine bays for a possible cross over kit. The cougar and the Mazda 6...maybe even the Jag later on down the road as they become more affordable. I'm just spittin ideas without research or knowledge but hey...

I've not dug into the contour engine bay too far for turbo kit investigation but you do have a decent amount of freedom for external wastegate placement. It doesn't have to be right before the turbo... it can be sllit nicely at a Y a good deal earlier which might help arranging it to fit. I think the boost control setup for externals is a lot better than most internal gates. I know it's better on my WRX.

Exhaust size is a tricky business. Downpipe sizing is not really a huge deal... where it comes out of the turbo you usually want it to flare outward allowing the gasses to expand. Bigger isn't always better... but in turbo applications it usually doesn't hurt either.

The Up-pipe area is much more critical for sizing. Most people who do custom crap seem to make the up-pipe tubing way too big thinking that bigger is better. The tubing after the 3-1 is what like 2" on the contour headers and I think warmonger mentioned 2.5" which is a pretty good sizing apparenly in practice... and according to what most literature tells us. Make sure you have a smooth transition from up-pipe to turbo turbine too.