Terrible packaging for spending $500. Good new is you should be able to fix it as long as it didn’t stretch too much. Maybe contact the shipper and hope he had insurance in the thing

Good point, I can try to address it with them, but in reality it was the terrible packaging that did it. They cant be expected to handle it like an egg...

Sucks, but in reality its not a problem. I will surely put more dents in it... Still bothering me tho

Finally got my Wisconsin Collector's plates. Never need to be renewed. Last time I pay for plates on this car (unless I move out of WI)

Nice!! I want one too

Does this mean your limited on milage now?

Only that I can't drive it during the month of January without getting a special exemption to allow it.

But I park this thing from first salt until spring every year anyway.

rabenne said:

Only that I can't drive it during the month of January without getting a special exemption to allow it.

But I park this thing from first salt until spring every year anyway.

Click to expand...

Why jan? Tell me about these rules as its interesting to know

That's is apparently when they think you shouldn't have a collector car on the road...

Anything 20 years old and "stock appearing" can qualify. I am not 100% confident mine qualifies there, but its not like it has a body kit or something.
I plan to get one for the black car next. You also have to prove you have a daily use car other than the collector car.

I dont know much else honestly...

Got the obx oil pan. Few things I need to clean up but overall looks pretty good.

Need a 3/4" or bigger hose barb to weld to the return. It has the provisions for a factory flange so that will get welded closed while I'm at it.

Trap doors look like they might actually kinda work. Slick.

Stainless studs and serrated flange nuts to hold it on.

Are you aware you can have the HX35 turbine housings machined for the hx40 wheel? A good friend of mine had a 14cm2 hx35 housing on his hx40 and that thing saw full boost at 4500rpm on his stock six bolt with small 272’s.

Anyway, cool build you have going here, super jealous of the 3D scanning tech!

Yes, you can also machine other housings as well. The hx35 with vband out was tempting. I mainly wanted to avoid a housing with internal wg provisions. There were other options, but this one is an off the shelf oem solution that met my requirements. I reached out to a couple places about machining a housing, and by the time I bought a used housing and had it machined, the new housing was cheaper.

Who is your buddy? Does he post anything about his setup? I have been hoping to get some idea of how it has worked for others in the past...

@RWD4G63

Do you know what manifold he was running? I am super curious about this now. MF is estimating pretty impressive spool with this setup, but I am hearing full boost RPMs similar to what my 50 trim does now. Its hard to imagine so much higher of a ceiling without giving up a ton down low. The 2.3L will help on that front too..

Only a couple more weeks before the 11 week lead time has passed. I am not sure if that means they will start it soon or not. With the virus BS it may be delayed...

It was Joe Whalen, brother to John Whalen of Whalen's Speed. I snagged some pictures from him. From talking with him, boost threshold was more like ~4000rpm. A stroker will drop that considerably. Keep in mind twin scroll is very progressive and an HX40 is going to make a shit ton more power per pound of boost than a 50 trim. He actually machined the internal gate section of the turbine housing off on a mill.The manifold was a custom 1.25in Sch 10 manifold. The car was parted out and this manifold is probably sitting in someone's garage.

Thats awesome man! thanks for sharing this!

I talked with MF about milling off the outer wg provisions, just like seen here. He has done the same thing as well. I have to wonder how the weld would hold up over years of use, but otherwise its a valid solution. I wonder if he plugged the hole and ported it back to flush on the inside to avoid the minor flow interruption. I looked at doing this...

I am pretty happy with the flexibility of swapping housings as well. Between that and the saved effort I am happy with my choice.

Purchased a walbro 535lph today. F90000295. Also started a return for the 450lph... No check valve but by the numbers its better than the 525lph by a decent margin (amps/flow). My A1000 FPR has never held pressure at the rail for more than a minute or two anyway. With link I have the pump set to prime for 5 seconds at key-on. Who needs a check valve?

Walbro 535 is in the sender, but I haven't put it back in the tank yet. I have to deal with the hose that goes from the hanger to the hard line. I am going to attempt to do all this through the stock hard lines, and I damaged the existing hose during removal. I could use two adapters M14x1.5 inverted flare female to 6an male, and a short piece of 6an hose, but it seems expensive for the adapters. Ill run to the local hydraulics shop on monday and see if they have anything that can get me going.



I also stuck the 1650cc injectors in, and started dialing in the idle. I started adding fuel to bring the WB to 14.7, but AFRatioEst was at about 12.5:1??? So I scratched my head and started looking under the hood. I noticed an exhaust leak coming from between the o2 housing and the turbine housing... that's probably messing with WB... Go to check the bolts, and yep, one is snapped off in the turbine housing.

Now I cant decide if I want to try to deal with it, or just yank the whole manifold, turbo and o2 housing as an assembly, in prep for the MF manifold coming soon. I spoke to Matt from MF last week, and he confirmed it likely wont be much longer before he starts making it. He is going to do a modified version of the small runner T4 manifold, with t3 flange and transitions. The style will be more similar to the t4 manifold as far as runner paths and dual wastegates, but will help me get the most out of the t3 housings I found, and potentially the 18cm2 in the future.

{As a bonus, the 1000cc hi-z injectors I pulled out are a direct swap for the EVO X after removing the top hats and going with a different bottom o-ring configuration. They could be useful in my quest to see how little needs to be upgraded to max out the stock turbo on e85. Injectors were a given, and these are basically new after such a brief stint on this car.}

It's finally all coming together, and I am nearly ready to do the head work/swap. I am considering sticking to the 6 bolt head and just dropping the cams/springs/rets in and degreeing them in-car. I am somewhat reluctant to split a head off an engine that's been bolted together successfully for so damn long (assembled in 2007). Just dropping in the cams and springs should do the trick. Oh yes, and a shiny kiggly HLA regulator.

You can degree cams with the motor still in the car?

TK's9d2TSi said:

You can degree cams with the motor still in the car?

Click to expand...

It wont be easy, or fun, but yes, you can...

Matt from Morrison Fab dropped me an email update today with a sweet pic of the collector he put together for the manifold (hope he doesnt mind me sharing it). Damn he can weld like a mofo...

He also said they are putting a write-up out tomorrow regarding small runner vs larger running manifolds... so I'm excited to see what they share. Usually good objective info from those folks.

Thats their twin scroll divorced collector if i remember rightly. Ment to make good power going this route

That’s art right there. Gorgeous

TK's9d2TSi said:

You can degree cams with the motor still in the car?

Click to expand...

there's a vid on you tube of someone doing it on a 2g, but no solid lifter. Guessing bleed down at that point? Also can you actually check valve clearance?

I certainly dont know why it wouldn't work, but I'll have the opportunity to find that out soon. I'm planning on sticking a pair of solid lifters in with some weak springs. For a degree wheel I am using a magnetic one that sticks to the front of the fluidampr. It should work out to be able to get the cams degreed and check valve clearance. I'm sure it wont be easy, but I think it can work.

Bobby, hes actually doing a t3 flanged manifold with the t4 style runners and wg config. He had to adjust their jigs for this one. Super excited to have a piece that so much time, effort, and skill went into... I have been rocking a knock-off turbonetics cast manifold for a decade, I cant wait to get this one there!

TK, I said the same thing. Functional artwork...

Be sure to check out their article!

Holy crap, this is amazing stuff. I wish I was that good at ... well, anything...



Looks like the collector should have some pretty uninterrupted flow on its way into the turbine housing!!

Got some practice on the tig today. Got the GIANT oil drain barb welded to the oil pan.

.875" ID. Holset requires 19mm or about .75". Its just a gravity drain, so bigger shouldn't hurt, right?

Pan still needs checked for leaks, so I will plug off the oil return and the temp sensor bung, and fill it with water, and let it sit. Hopefully it's good to go, but if not, I am heading back to my buddy's shop to mess with the valve cover fittings tomorrow anyway, so ill just bird terd some filler wherever she's leaking.

I have a big list of ally crap that needs welded, so I will probably get more practice.




I welded the bolt holes shut from the outside, but I didn't get a pic. It looks a little bit better that way.