16g swap....PIA

[Fox1486]

Well to start off, I waited for UPS to deliver the oil feed line adapter that goes between the SS feed line and turbo. This was actually the only piece I was waiting on to continue. Yeah........they delivered it at 7:45pm

Took off the T25 with no problems really. Had to heat up a few nuts and bolts with a torch but then they came free (sidenote: honestly why did the stock oil feed line need TWO brackets to the block within 2 inches of each other......behind the downpipe nonetheless!!!???). I guess it all started when I tried to mate up the old water lines from the T25 to the 16g. Of course with both turbos off the car it was a little difficult to decide how the lines should bend. I ended up using two water return lines, one for the feed and one for the return on the 16g. With the compressor housing being so different, it was one of my only choices as I did not want to bend the lines and break them. I figure by adding a little more length of "vacuum hose" on the water lines they would reach no problem.

Then it came time to mounting the Evo 3 manifold on the 16g. But the bolts weren't fitting in there. Hmmmm. Take off the manifold to look at the threads. Yep..........two of the threads were all mashed up Now what am I to do?!?!? Seriously with all the time I put into porting and making sure I was good to go, the entire turbo now seemed useless. You can imagine how frustrated/pissed I was at this point. Tried to use a rethread kit. Not gonna happen. With that cast it would not bite in order to make the new thread. I came up with two options as I saw, being 12:30am and very frustrated. Either drill out the threads and put a bolt through it with a nut and washer on the bottom, or just use a smaller bolt with nut and washer. I decided to use the smaller bolt as I really didn't want to drill out the threads in case I could find a fix.

With the manifold, turbo, water lines, oil feed, and O2 housing all connected, it was time to drop it in. Slid the manifold onto the studs to line everything up. The water line placement I do not like at all. Just seems like there will be a future problem with it. The wastegate actuator seems sooooo close to the transmission mount. And this J-pipe/Hard IC piping that I picked up to go to the SMIC.........they left like ZERO room for error. Part of the pipe hits the passenger side radiator fan housing and barely has the room to match the holes on the compressor outlet. It sucks too because these are some nicely done powdercoated pieces, but i can not find out who made them!! I'm not even sure if it will have enough room with the Dejon Intake and the lower radiator hose in order to make it to the SMIC.

I guess at this point I'm really frustrated because I wanted the car to be a straight forward swap.....but I guess that's just how it goes. Nothing is just an easy fix or an easy swap. Guess I'm just looking for a little encouragement and some insight if anyone has had these problems before. I'm sure some have had these issues, but you just tend to read the tech articles and the "how tos" instead of all the horror stories.

-Fox

 

[demografik]

nobody's first turbo install is easy. sounds like you've been faced with some problems but you worked out solutions for them. congratulations, you're a dsmer

a few notes:

- the threads on the turbo thing sounds pretty crappy. did you buy the turbo used?

- water lines are different on a t25 than a 16g style turbo. you can bend the hard lines more than you think, just be careful. i like to stick a screwdriver in there and slowly bend them a little at a time. just work at it and they'll get to where you want them.

- things fit tightly in our engine bay in some areas. it's gonna happen, don't worry too much about it. the more you mess around with stuff, the more you get used to it. that mount by the WGA is actually the front torque roll mount.

 

[alice]

Fox - It is true, the more crap you do to your car, the better at figuring things you become. Thats what a DSMer is, hardcore believers that ensure these cars don't die. There is not a single job I have done (with the exception of the timing belt for the 2nd time in 2 days) that has gone a smoothly as I would have liked. Just sit on it for a bit and make sure you get it all together. And again, these bays are mad tight so somethings fit really tight. I imagine you got the 16g install kit (black coated j-pipe) and so did I. Good job on the porting and all man!! I am about to throw my 16g on this weekend unported with a full 3" exhaust and no-cat. Creep here I come but I think I have the fuel to handle it, headgasket is another thing. Either way, I wish you luck with the rest of you build (get slim fans) and I will be doing mine this weekend so we can see how that goes. You should post this up on Rochesterdsm too man because I am sure there are plenty of people there that would be willing to help a fellow DSMer out. -Jeremy

 

[turboglenn]

Welcome to the world of modding your car! (especially DSM's) A big part of the fun is having the engenuity to come up with ways to make the parts work. Nothing is "easy" on these cars when it comes to performance. The best i can tell you is learn to deal with things like these on a daily basis (and not be bothered by them) or get a chevy where they've been making parts for 25 years and everything fits perfect. Part of the fun of tuning these cars is to take things that normally wouldn 't fit (or at least seem to) and making them work.

You are mostly right..There are no "easy fixes" except a few basic parts replacement jobs on these cars. And almost NOTHING is straight forward on DSM's..like i said, that's the biggest part of the fun; making weird and coool combinations that make a ton of power and impress others, that's what will set you apart from the crowd