Hi all,
My name is Alex from D&D Turbo Santé.



My friend Pablo and me met at school (automotive tech) and we were speaking of building Miatas and putting turbos in them. That's when D&D Turbo Santé was born.

This is us :



And this is me showing a bit too much love to my cylinder head...



Long story short, we decided it would be a good idea to do it for a foundation and pretty much film our way through all the steps of the build.
We're two young guys that love working on cars and we figured, why not raise awareness for the mental health cause, which we both are familiar with and show young people it's possible to get out of their funk through doing something you love.
After the cars are finished, we plan on leaving our cold Canada and going for a 2 months roadtrip down in the States to raise funds and awareness for our cause! Exciting, I know.

Sorry, I get carried away. Back to car stuff.
We bought 2 1.8 engines, one that used to be automatic (we removed the original tranny and got a deal for it) :



and one that's manual 5 speed.



I know, the valve cover is hideous.

Here they are, tied (somewhat) to the HUGE truck we rented to go pick them up.



And here they are, you can see under their skirts

Pablo's :

Mine :

Group picture :

Say cheese?

Overal we're pretty happy with the condition of the engines by the looks of it.
Those two had about 50-60k kms on them and we're bought from a JDM store here in Montreal.
Compressin rating on Pablo's engine was a bit better than on mine, but I suspect they threw oil in the cylinders in Pab's engine before the test... the sparkplugs were full of oil.

We're not going to fiddle with them too much. Simply changing the timing belt, tensioners, waterpump, filters, plugs and wires. (We ordered most of that from 949racing.com) Our power goals for both cars are between 220-250hp at the crank.
We're just doing this so it may stand a bit of a chance against the turbos and harshness to come... Maybe it will hold, maybe it won't, but that's out of our control.
While we were at it, we decided it would be a good idea to paint our valve covers...

Here are the worn out, Japanese 1.8 valve covers... Pablo's was dirty and old and mine was cheaply painted and chipping by just looking at it.



Valve covers :

Pablo opted for a Chevrolet orange and a few coats of clear :
First coat (His paint was runny as f*ck)

and finished product :


While I chose a more subtle, low gloss-flat black thingy thing.
First coat :

Finished product :


That was our first day at our shop so bear in mind we never did something like that before.
Feel free to comment and you can follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ddturbosante and Instagram at @ddturbosante
if you want more live coverage of the projects.

Also, keep your eyes peeled as we will put out some videos about our progress, they will be in french with subtitles in english!

We're headed back there monday if memory serves me right and I can't wait to show you guys some more!

Enjoy

D&D

PS : Here's Boris, our turbo dog

 

De retour au garage,
L'enfer.

Je vais mettre des photos parce que vous aimez les photos

En premier les choses ce passaient relativement bien, on a finalisé nos valve covers. :



Ensuite on a pogné la petite roue plein de fil d'acier pour grinder nos intakes, pas pire clean.


Vous pouvez voir le côté de la tranny j'ai essayé la petite wire wheel sur ca en premier. Pablo's just being Pablo.

Ensuite on a enlevé l'air climatisé :

done.

Et voila a quoi ca ressemblait avant qu'on commence la timing job de l'enfer


Timing belt kit de 949, plugs et plug wires.


La j'ai arreté de prendre des photos. Pendant quon faisait le timing, un cam a spinné hors de sa place, j'aid efait le mauvais tensioner, la back plate a crochi... en tk... journée de merde

on a commandé ce qu'on a brisé et qu'on avait besoin de Arlington pis on est rentrés ŕ la maison.

Des fois faut savoir quand s'arreter.

 

Back again

Slow day today, didn't get much done... still waiting on parts from arlington which are taking forever
So, after all this fuckery with the timing and everything, we went and bought some clamps and other shenanigans for the job.
Also, I checked my old timing chain cover and found out it was already broken so that to order again, melted down around the crank so it's done. ffs
Here's how it sat when I started today


We struggled to get the crankshaft bolt off without it being strapped but PB penetrating oil and my 3/8 impact is just too beast for this hunk of metal.

Nothing else to do so after cleaning my throttle body, removing the waterpump and cleaning everything around that area I got to painting :

pretty much all the brackets I could remove I painted.

sprockets


So I painted all the brackets, all the pulleys but the alternators lol, some ''thing'' that holds the intake and both motor mounts... really had to kill time. Took all the bolts to the bench grinder and made them all nice and shinyyy

annnnd this piece of rubber fell off my motor mount.. nice



....




engine when I left it

Ordering the turbos and all the good stuff soon.
Had news on a 94 miata an hour away, might take a look at that tomorrow.

see ya

 

So about that 94 miata.

Turns out the guy lived 2 hours and a half away.
We started our journey at 11am and as we made our way there a wild snowstorm appeared.
Massive amounts of white **** all over the road, going into a town that is full of steep hills, nightmare.

We went and checked the car out, it was owned by a 71 year old gentleman (very sweet) and well maintained.
Over 200 000kms on it, no body damage or rust. It was buried under a foot of snow in a tempo shelter thing, we had to shovel and icepick our way in there and it was hell. a cold hell.
Anyways, picture time



on our test drive, amazing how small the car is compared to a hyundai accent hatchback.
The car had summer tires on, kept sliding all over the place. Luckily we had no accidents but saw many. Just one close call where Pablo was perpendicular to the traffic on the highway we were driving on but he managed to get it back together.
Boss.


...we bought it.

Needless to say we drove 70kmh all the way back.

here it is sleeping peacefully in a garage.


good night, I'm exhausted

 

Lots of photos. So you guys are trying to do a how-to of all this? It seems like you don't really know what you're doing but I guess you're having fun which is cool. That little '94 looks like a nice car. I'm not jealous yet though

Oh, and flat black low gloss thing is called "satin."

 

Hi and thanks for taking the time to read our thread.
The plan is the record as much material as possible and we'll do what we can... Although the timing belt video was really interesting for us, we didnt do enough research prior to doing the work nd ended up clueless haha, we started school 6 months ago and we know a lot more about suspension, brakes and electrical stuff than engines so far.
Tonight I'll put up pictures of MY car now, which is equally as interesting but different.
Next step were planning to do brakes, suspension and bracing along with the clutch work... That should be a little easier haha
Pictures to come, stay posted!

 

pictures as promised !

Here's how we picked up last friday, car was jacked on all fours, ready to go through heart surgery.
Long work, not much got done though because Pablo wanted to go out. I had to follow because he'd take my car after drinking 5 beers, I didnt drink that night so I had no choice but to leave the work behind and to follow him there.



after a bit :



I think I had just been done removing the power steering hoses and stuff. For those who wonder why the exhaust manifold is still on, blame Pablo.



Passenger side motor mount off, only have heater hoses to disconnect, tranny to unbolt and second motor mount and we're off. oh... and that shitty manifold.

and here'S how we left it



that motor couldve been out that night but hey, **** happens.

on to good news and stuff that works
i bought MY car that i'll be rebuilding.


look at this dirty little ****

to give you an idea, the car was as dirty inside as it was outside, i mean FILTHY DISGUSTING. don't wanna think about that anymore.

and here it is fresh out the car wash. thats my baby

that's a 1999 mx5, odo says 84000kms on it... which i do not trust. check engine light is on for that catalytic converter, smells like oil but pulls really hard. tranny doesnt slip for a sec, weak battery but runs strong. makes driving hella fun.

plan is ! next weekend i take the engine out and swap the head on my nb to my 94=97 block and fiddle with it a bit, then off to doing suspension work and all that good stuff.


www.facebook.com/ddturbosante
peace out ninjaz

 

What kind of turbo is on the NB?

 

Still undecided ... But size wise a gt2560.
Id like to by a ISIS replacement sr20det turbo for 300$ but im not sure of its reliability... Havent heard anything about it - its either that or the garrett $$$$

 

No you said it pulls really hard. It's got to have a turbo on it already. V8 swap?

 

No turbo, no v8, just a healthy engine

 

But it pulls really hard..
Cold side supercharger?

 

I know I just can't figure it out. There's got to be something there I'm missing.

Miscalibrated butt dyno?

 

small update today, my gaskets came in at school today, still waiting on the fuel filter and front oil seal which ill be getting tomorrow. This pretty girl works for the company that delivers me the parts I need, gotta make her come back twice at least. *douche*


pictures
pulled a **** ton of procedures and information at school, this is just half of what I printed out, the rest is at the shop.
These are straight from the shop manual, I love ALLDATA



and this is what I shouldve seen before I started the job.

 

Would have been even easier...

 

update time for you negative and pessimist fools.

been working short intervals on the car and thursday night we gave it a good push.
Today was just gonna be a breeze so here's what happened



it's out, broke a few hoses, connectors and stuff but it's part of the job.
Also, some more parts came in

so thats, timing belt kit, plug wires, plugs, oil fiter, fuel filter, headgasket, throttle body gasket, valve cover gasket, intake gasket, front crank oil seal and waterpump.
Still waiting on all the timing covers and gaskets and some more bits and bobs to put the engines together ( mine only, pablo's just getting refreshed)

Mostly working on Pablo's car lately, mine's still on the road plus I'm waiting for some more parts to really get into it. (Plus pablo wanted to do his car first, so i'll know what not to do on my car ) His car is just a nightmare to work on, it's full of that rust treatment stuff which is like thick, black oil. It's everywhere. I hate it


After some fiddling around,


naked

Pablo left with some chick so I had the whole garage to myself after that and this guy looking at me


Since im planning on putting the head of my NB on this block I figured why not get to it now..
Removed the head rather easily.. 3/8 impact works wonders
Still wondering if I have to switch my CAS from my NA block to my NB... I'll check it out.

Anyways here it is when I got done.


Looks fairly decent, it's dirty but no damage to the cylinders or the pistons...
Shot some 20/50 in there, wrapped in up in bubble wrap

nothing can to get in there now

Heres the transvestite, ive been trying to clean it up a bit.

family ppicture

transvestite after surgery

inside



my engine's anus


so after that my engine was pretty much done until I drive my Miata all the way back up to the garage... so I decided to take a look at the other engine we just pulled
other than a **** ton of greasy anti rust **** all over the place, the transmission seemed fine


these are so light

and after that, everything lines up!


next up, dropping everything under the NA, pulling the engine off my NB and making the swippidy swap swap

 

Love the shop (jealous of that) and you seem to be doing a good job of filling it up. What's the story there? Renting it?

I'm confident your how-to videos will be entertaining even if not all that informative.

 

thanks a lot for the feedback!
the shop has been lent to us by the owner of the building. We explained our project, that it is about doing what you love to help others in need and he fell in love with our project.
We have the shop until the 1st of july and that is when our cars have to be diddly done.

 

Our first video is OUT ! Check it out here : https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...type=2&theater


My NB is back in the shed for a lonnnng time now. BEWARE

I had just started, only removed the airbox
I had a really hard time removing the exhaust and heater hoses. But luckily for me, my mechanic friend gave me a little trick.
I used a little 90 deg angle o ring pick to go between the hose and the copper pipe to break em loose and I was able to get em out.
as for the exhaust manifold, i only had 12 point 14 mm sockets and I would be stripping the nuts. no bueno.

Never saw a TB that clean out of a car.

other than that, Pablo's removing the suspension.
sorry for the **** picture

here's how it was left that day.

because racecar.

 

I worked about 6 hours doing various things that day, cleaning the shop was a bitch.

so first step was cleaning that dirty *** interior the owner left me.
I found socks, wet rags, solid kleenexes, an old scarf, fries, smarties you ******* name it. disgusting *****.
clean

other news, i managed to get the crank gear off... with a prybar

fast forward

BAM


no more engine, inspection time. Let's see if that engine really has 84 000km

as you can see, my gamble paid off. My car was a bit rough around the edges on the outside but the engine is neat. I like neat.

Next up : the head swap on my 94=97 block

4 engines, 3 trannys, 2 miatas, 1 project

my two engines are the one closest to the camera, the other far back are pablos (duh)

what the shop looked like



pablo got his roof and trim off


i prepared my trunk to get shot up with undercoating as it was getting a bit rusty. so grinding, sanding, priming

and who said miatas were small cars?



the nb's spark plugs

out of the head that looked like this


then proceded to remove my roof


had to look up some information on how to remove this bitch, didnt do it that day when I found out the dash only came out in one piece


brought some pieces to sandblast at school



****

most recently now,
got lost on the way to buy this


this weekend was a marathon, I slept at the garage, ate at the garage... **** I even slept in the miata.

so a marathon, yes. My goal was to strip out the interior as fast as possible to paint it and get it over with to I can move on to under the car

the shop was getting a bit messy and disorganized so I decided to buy a few box of ziploc bags and take some time to label everything out so I wont get lost anymore.

in the order of things ;

-organisation session (with cleaning of the shop and moving parts around so it takes less space.)
-engine assembly (which meant switching my cas from my old block to the 99 head, putting on the new waterpump, changing the front crank seal, brand new oil filter, removing ppower steering and clutch assembly and torquing all the head bolts)
-removing drive shaft, grinding, sanding, priming and undercoating
-sanding trunk, priming and undercoating
-removing all the interior metal panels (fuel tank and lines etc)
-Painting all panels flat black
-wrapping back of car with plastic sheets
-removing dash to remove carpet
-cleaning inside of car

NOW, i got stuck at 12:30 pm looking at two huge sheets of isolation or something that STUCK to the floor and I know it takes heat and something else to remove... I just forgot it.
so I left the shop after almost 48 hours of work with little sleep and made the hour long drive back home.