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I'm thinking I'll go the welding route. I suppose if it gets screwed up worse then I'll find a subframe. I really need to learn how to weld... For now I'll probably rope a friend in.
I hate having good momentum on a project like this and then getting tripped up by something unexpected. I might do the driver side bushings while I contemplate.
Thankfully the next autocross is a couple weeks out and the car can sit on the stands as long as I need.
@Gee Emm No tape on the OD of the bushings for me. Just on the inner sleeves in the rear. We'll see what happens/ed to the tape if I ever put sphericals in the car.
Well, it appears my concerns around the health of my turbo were well-founded. I was going to take the car to my buddies to weld up the alignment bolt holes that were torn/drilled out, but it appears that my turbo has died.
Bushings arrived, so I wanted to tear into that project
I got home from a trip and took the car to go hang out and see how the autocross event was going.
Car starts making a horrible noise which I later diagnosed to be an exhaust manifold gasket. Not completely sure if that was a correct diagnosis, but one exhaust bolt had backed out.
Installed bushings
Took the car back out with re-torqued exhaust manifold bolts and still heard noise from the turbo
For what it's worth, I have no idea how old this turbo is. Given the rest of the kit, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the original turbo that came with the kit in the early 2000's. It hasn't been on my car super long, but I also haven't been super kind to it (ignition retard launch control and the such).
My current thinking is to grab a Pulsar GTX2860 clone with the 0.64 AR housing. I'm hoping this won't hurt spool too much and allow me to hit ~300 HP without running the turbo at 100% all the time. I figure I'll move to a 6 speed and 3.6 at some point, which I think will pair nicely with the power range of that turbo.
Ooof! That’s a helluva noise. Pouring out a cup of 15w40 for the dead homie.
Interested to hear what you think of the Pulsar 2860 G2 after coming off the 2560. I personally don’t think I’d mind the tradeoff of a marginal drop in spool (I think that’s what’s been quoted re: 2560r vs GTX2860) for higher power capacity.
I'll be posting on here as soon as it's on the car. Unfortunately the turbo is out of stock for another week or so. With shipping, I'm guessing the car will be down for a month.
I'm going for the 0.64 AR housing, and hoping that it give similar spool to the 2560. I've heard similar things about the 2560 vs 2860 Gen 2. It sounds like the spool difference is marginal.
When I get the 2560 off the car I'm hoping to get the serial number and get an idea of how old it is (not sure if that's a reasonable task). I figure if that turbo was 15+ years old then a fresh turbo with newer tech should be better in almost every way.
I hadn't really thought about it, but I don't think there's any risk of oil contamination. The turbo still spins freely and I only put a couple miles on it limping it home. I'll have to do some research on the internals of a turbo to see if that is something I should be worried about. I do have a magnetic oil plug, so between that and the oil filter (which only has 500-1000 miles on it) I'm not too worried about it.
When I get the turbo off (should be in the next couple days) I'll check all the lines that I can. I think if anything I'd be worried about metal shavings getting into/through the intercooler, but again, I think I caught it before anything too catastrophic happened.
A few more photos from finishing up the bushings. I decided against installing grease fittings and covered the holes in the control arms with aluminum tape in an attempt to keep contaminants out. I'm not sure how well this will hold up, but I've used this tape in some exposed locations before and it's held up.
I also replaced a handful of dust boots on the car. I got universal boots from Energy Suspension. OEM ones were around $15 each.
For the tie rod ends (which I believe are the same size as the UCA ball joint) I used part number 9.13101G which were $8 for 2.
For the LCA Ball joint I used part number 9.13130G, which were $4 for 2.
These boots don't have the metal ring to press them onto the joint, these basically just slip down and press seal a bit below where the original boot would clip on. I'm not sure how well they'll seal the grease in, but they seem like they'll do a decent enough job of keeping the dirt out. Likely I'll go through and replace them all at some point, but for now I figure this is better than torn OEM boots.
A few more photos from finishing up the bushings. I decided against installing grease fittings and covered the holes in the control arms with aluminum tape in an attempt to keep contaminants out. I'm not sure how well this will hold up, but I've used this tape in some exposed locations before and it's held up.
I have posted elsewhere that using those holes for (8mm) zerks has two effects - helps secure the bushing, allows for greasing as/when required, and seals the holes.
That tape is pretty durable and is the 'quick and dirty' fix, and in truth I doub ANY sealing of the hole is actually necessary, but that is what I did for my poly/bronze.
Change of plans for the turbo. @Watterson02 was selling his old 2560R for a good price so I scooped that up. I'm hoping that allows me to get back up and running with minimal changes to my setup. Without a trans/diff swap I think the 2560 will still be plenty of power. If I get a 6 speed/3.6 installed this winter then maybe I'll grab the 2860 like I had planned.
Hopefully the car will be back up and running by next week with patched alignment holes and I'll get to see how those new bushings feel.
The weird thing is that I have a good friend who's been autocrossing a 2560 at 17 PSI for years and his 5 Speed is still holding up. I believe he said it was around 270 horse. He drives the **** out of that car on Hoosiers with no issues.
I feel like I keep seeing people who are either blowing 6 speeds at 300 HP or below, or running way more power on them with no issues. Maybe they're just more of a dice roll.
Regardless, yeah, I'm stoked that deal popped up. I'm also really interested to see how the new 2560 compares to the old one. The old one wasn't giving me the numbers I expected, so I'm curious if it has been tired this whole time.
Didn't get too many photos this weekend, but the new turbo is on the car. It was more of a project than I expected (so much for bolt on). The old turbo didn't have a bolt on flange, which caused the new turbos compressor outlet to sit ~1" higher than the old one which put my intercooler piping to high. Trimmed the IC piping a bit and have a silicone elbow on order. Hopefully that gets everything lined up like before.
The new turbo also had a 2.5" compressor inlet compared to the old 2" inlet. I want to move to a larger air filter as well, so I am playing around with intake elbow options.
The new turbo was smoking when I first fired the car up to bleed the coolant. More than just greasy fingerprints burning off. I let the car cool down, realized a couple compressor side bolts were loose from clocking the turbo, lowered the car off the stands and fired it back up. No smoke at that point. I doubt it was those loose bolts. I'm thinking the oil drain line was backing up due to the nose of the car being so high off the ground. I've had the car on some steep hills and never noticed any burning, so I'm going to keep my eye on that one.
It'll probably take the next couple days to get everything put back together completely, but for now I can at least move it around.
I also noticed that the turbine wheel on the old turbo was contacting the housing very slightly. I think this one's going to have the CHRA swapped or rebuilt for a friends Lemon's project.
Whatever you end up doing for the air filter, I hope to god you never get rid of the canned corn wrapper. Words can't express how much I love that.
Interested to see what you end up doing with the air filter/tubing. My turbo location basically allows me to run the filter straight ahead or use a 90* bend and deal with the air filter rubbing up against the driver side headlight motor. I chose the latter and am tired of it lol.
Unfortunately I pulled the corn wrapper off after the photo for fear of it getting sucked into the turbo. I would love to run it. I suppose it wouldn't be hard to source another can if I changed my mind (I eat too much corn).
I'm cobbling it together, but as far as the intake goes the current plan is to run a 90 degree elbow. I previously had the 45 and intended to do the same with the larger piping/filter. That did not fit, but it looks like the 45 should be about right.
I ordered a 2.5->3" 90 degree elbow and plan to run a filter with a ~3" flange. I don't want to buy another filter after this one, so I'm trying to get a setup that will allow me to just change the elbow going forward. I think my current filter is too small (2" flange and very short/narrow).
I'm going to try using the KN filter I had from when the car was NA, which is significantly bigger (pictured with the corn). Once I see what that looks like I'll figure out next steps.
You're doing it wrong using the Golden Sweet Corn can.
If you watch "Sarah -n- Tuned" YouTube videos, you'd know that you SHOULD be using a Baked Beans, Kidney Beans, Black Beans or 3 Bean Mix tin can if you want to "Give it the beans!"
05-29-2024, 02:32 PM
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