SlowTeg

Ya thanks for the tips man, that's kind of what I was thinking too. Closer to the center of gravity and the center section is better than farther away. Ideally the brace would be on the turbine housing but it's a little too tight. It's interesting the MSM turbo miata uses a cast hole in the turbine housing for its brace. Nice when it's designed from the factory that way. Clearly Mazda thought it was necessary and the MSM turbo sits much closer to the block. Here's a shot I grabbed from the interweb. You can see the threaded boss cast into the turbine housing for support on the bottom. On the topic of downpipe bracing. Yours was quite fancy/elaborate. Is there any reason I can't just weld on the OEM downpipe bracket to the Kraken downpipe? I will get a picture of what I mean later.


Thx man. Ya I try to provide useful info to others who may go down the same path. I figure why not, glad it helped you out!

SlowTeg

So I made some progress, not as much as I would've liked but steady moving along. Hopefully the car will be running in the next 2 weeks. So I got some wiring done. The old OEM map sensor by the passenger side was reused for the fuel pressure sensor. I cut off the wires and crimped on new pins and installed the corresponding plug for the Honeywell pressure sensor. I also extended the wires for the IAT and crimped new pins for the GM IAT plug. I'm sort of a rookie doing nice harnesses/wiring, but got nice unshielded crimp connectors with a ratcheting crimp tool, heatshrink w/ glue inside, and braided cover for the wiring. I didn't take pictures of it but maybe I will in another post for anyone who is new to wiring. I've crimped weather pack pins before (you need a specific crimper) but it's been a while. I wired up the kan gauge, switches, and water pressure light. Now it works and is easily turned off w/ the switch. Wiring is almost done, I just need to wire up the oil temp and oil pressure sensors and the configure everything in the ECU.




Also, I got the oil cooler mounted and almost done. I just need to shorten the lines and I'm waiting on a 90 for the -10an line for one connection to the cooler. I used 1/8" steel bar and I'm pretty happy how it turned out. I made two brackets (one you can't see on the bottom), and modified some brackets that came w/ the kit for 3 mounts total. It's rock solid. It's been a while since I've welded, and the first bracket was fugly because I didn't do a practice piece first, but it should hold fine. I usually have a larger piece of sheetmetal I put on my workbench to weld with but it walked off so I had a pretty pathetic welding station, but it worked. Yes, I probably should've rounded off the brackets but it's more time I don't have but I got em primed and painted.





For the turbo bracket to the block it's a pretty simple setup. I used 3/16" bar I had and made a bracket for the block. That's the bracket in the picture above. For the bracket off the turbo I'm using 1/8" steel bar, and I just ordered an adjustable rod with heim joints on the ends. The distance I measured from the bracket off the block to the turbo is 6". The welds ain't the prettiest but they should be strong. The MIG welder I have is only running off a 20amp circuit and thus didn't have settings for 3/16" (I think 8 gauge?). I just heated it up well with a heat gun before welding and looks like I got good penetration. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out and the brackets are almost inline with each other. I will round off the ends of these brackets with the band saw before painting them. Which brings me to the point about a band saw. Man I love that thing! I have always hated trying to make nice cuts with cutoff wheels and dare I say it's actually a joy cutting metal and fabbing things with the band saw. I have a cheap bauer portable one w/ a big stand that can be used like a chop saw or a stationary band saw.





With the R theory water neck piece there is plenty of room now around the turbo for the brace. I'm happy I opted to just take my time and make these pieces rather than just rushing it. I know I'd be kicking my own *** if I didn't just get it done right the first time. I still need to do some final trimming to the brackets but I'll probably wait till I get the adjustable rod just to be sure.




Now one question for anyone, is there any reason you can't just weld a simple L bracket onto the downpipe? I saw @Midtenn had some fancy brackets that went around the whole downpipe but I was just thinking of welding on some simple brackets. Here's a really bad picture of the oem bracket that bolts to the tranny. Heck I was thinking of just welding that to the dp.


Once this last order from summit comes I should have everything I need to get the car running.