Holy cow this is the best thread! I hope in all the pictures taking and posting he forgot to wipe!

You can take you chances with ebay and cheap parts, but majority of the time they end up being crappy and cause more problems. Spend a few more dollar and get OEM parts and never look back. Odd are it will end up saving you tons of problems, headaches, and money in the long run.

Agree. But the worst thing is to rebuild and have made an error of some sort in measuring. I'd probably take it to a shop and have them check it unless you are dead positive the cylinders walls are okay. Spend a few bucks now and prevent wasting a ton down the road.

The only way to ensure that you did or didn't spin a bearing is to drop the oil pan and look at the bearings. Then you have some positive answer and can start fixing it or troubleshoot some more. You can guess all day be you have to dig in it really find the problem, its the easiest way in the end!

Check how you have the hoses connected and make sure its correct. It seems strange that you are building that much pressure and leaking that severely unless there is a major misconnection of some sort.

DSM heads can be very touchy. In my experience, when you pull a head and fix something small like that, you should always go through and replace valve guides and all that crap because little problems always turn up. Also if you don't have a tuning program it could be something random triggering...

Are you running a stock turbo because many times aftermarket turbos will cause surging and the cruise control cannot compensate for the increased airflow and boost.

Ya good luck with that. With that kinda budget you cannot properly prepare the car and run it without blowing it to pieces. If you do turbo it plan on buying a new motor or car soon after because it won't last. And not to stereotype, most male high school students do not have the self control to...

I had the BC 280's for a while on my car (turbo) and they are kinda crappy. You get what you pay for. If you are going to spend that much money on a part save a little more and get a good one. I wouldn't recommend any BC products because I have not had good results and lots of problems. For cams...

Turbo timers have been an issue of debate for a long time. There is no question that you need to let the turbo cool off after the car has been driven, even if the driving as not been wot. If you have an aftermarket turbo and you want to get some life out of it, they are essential. Basically they...

BC cams...just watch for breakup and lots of knock on the high end.

Sounds like a headache to me. If you are starting to find problems then mostly there are many more coming.

^x2. If its that severe of an rpm drop suspect crankwalk.

Do not use cheap, crappy parts on a DSM! I learned this lesson the hard way! It is worth the extra money everytime to get the good part. Arcing is not good, get some NGK plugs and only runs those with some good Magnacore wires and you'll be golden.

Take it off the car and clean the crap outta it and ensure that metal shavings are not going to be pushed into your oil, other than that it'll be cool.