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'95 Evo III - Going a little extreme

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soldave

15+ Year Contributor
737
1
Feb 17, 2008
Okinawa, Japan, Asia
Back in February I bought my 2nd early Evo, a 1995 Evo III with more issues that your average Japanese woman. Picked the car up for $500 and I thought it was just a blown headgasket, but as is often the case, as I got deeper into it I found more and more problems. Took about 4 months of work to get it fired up, on the road and marginally waterproof.

From this:
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To this:
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Once I got it running right I was pleased with it, but I like my boost and drag racing. And I'm also very aware I have a 2nd and 3rd prize trophy from drag racing events here in Okinawa, and really need a 1st to go with it. So I thought maybe I'd upgrade the turbo to something a little bigger. And then my plans got a little crazy and out of control.

So the engine I got hold of was one with about 1000 miles on it and had this spec:
-Mahle pistons
-Scat rods
-Eagle 4340 crank
-fully ported head by Motorworx Engineering
-stainless valves, FP springs and retainers
-removed balance shafts
-FP2 cams
-Fully rebuild

Plus a few other goodies:
Holset HX-40, full twin-scroll, T4 17cm turbine housing
JM Fabrications top-mount manifold
OS Giken twinplate clutch
Treadstone intercooler & custom piping
Custom downpipe
Custom exhaust
VW Scirocco radiator
Walbro 255
Blitz SBC iD boost controller
Integral knock warning setup
ECMLink

And all the trimmings. Before I can even think about putting my foot on the gas in anger though, I've got a big long build ahead of me.

Two half-days of work are done and we're well and truly getting stuck into it. First up was pulling the engine and everything around it so we can start putting new things in. The exhaust was getting changed from my whatever-it's-called (left) to a one-piece setup on the right. Much straighter, less resonators and much better flow/noise.
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Next up was getting the old engine up and out. No big problems with that and we got it all disconnected and pulled in a few hours.
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Now my car has lost its lope in the past couple of weeks and seemed to be stuttering when I put my foot down sometimes. Think I found 2 possible culprits. First off, the connected going to the cam angle sensor has one pin pretty much broken. Could have been that it wasn't making a consistent connection with the CAS which would definitely throw things out. And then I came across this when I was taking the piping off the intercooler to pull it.
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Yes, that is just the intercooler piping rusted off the rubber coupler. There was a tiny bit of the piping still inside the coupler but even before I started yanking it I could feel a big crack/hole going about halfway around. Says something that I was still making just under stock boost level even with that much of a leak.

Next up was a bit of porting work. We wanted to lower the oil pressure a bit as at full boost and higher rpms we were hitting close to 100psi on the engine before, so we set about porting the oil filter housing around the hole next to the oil check valve. This is how it looks normally:
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A drill and a couple of carbide bits and the hole was looking a little bigger.
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And then after some cleaning up it was ready to be bolted back onto the engine. Should make for much better oil flow and some lower pressures.
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I'm also going to be using a bored out throttle body so the intake manifold needed to be ported a little to make a completely smooth transition for the airflow. Again, we started by marking it up.
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A bit of porting later and we have this:
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A little more work on the car yesterday, although still no turbo in sight. Damn postal service...

Anyway, I got some stock gaskets and little things in so I could bolt up the throttle body to intake manifold, and then intake manifold to engine. So yesterday spent a few hours bolting things back on and putting plugs back in where I could. Not so exciting, but got a fair amount done.

We also managed to do some cutting into the front of the car, to make way for the intercooler to mount first, and then to do a bit of measuring with regards to radiators and clearances. First a bit of cutting...
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And then test fitting.
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As you can see, clearances are at a minimum.
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I'd love to have the fans on the backside as pullers but it's not possible. We need them on the front for clearances for the vertical front braces that we're going to make to try and strengthen the front end a little. So pushers they have to be. With a 3" exhaust going down just in front of the exhaust manifold, it gives us a little room to play with the radiator, but not much. At the moment the radiator is 1.25" thick and 24" long. We could just about manage a 1.75" thick, 26" long, 12.5" high radiator but anything more than that doesn't give us enough room. If the intercoooler moved forward (like some might think of doing) then too much would have to be cut out of the front bumper. Going to have to look for custom options for the radiator in time, but I'll see how this one goes for now.

The front crossmember has also taken an impressive hit too at some point! Will take pics later but we are thinking of 3 options with it (going from cheapest up)
1. Leave it as it is.
2. Weld a plate over the front and top of the crossmember.
3. Get a whole new crossmember made and welded in.

Will have to think about that one as it's even more expense.
 
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A few little bits done on the car yesterday. Threw in a Walbro 255 fuel pump (and managed to ruin the fuel pump assembly in the process; luckily had a spare on hand) and did a few other little bits. We also test fitted the intercooler again, checking for sizes and clearances.

Ghetto-modified the front motor mount too. My recipe for success was:

Take one front motor mount (well used)
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And take one tube of polyurethane "Pro Caulking"
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Combine the 2 ingredients until all rubber has been covered and gaps filled with caulking. Leave for 2 days or so and then reinsert stiffer motor mount. Job's a good 'un.
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Also took another look at the front crossmember of mine and ground some of the rust off it. It's in a hell of a condition to be honest. God knows what happened to this car but it took a heck of a hit right on the front. Going to try and get another crossmember cut out of another Evo and welded into this one to add a bit more front end strength and stability.
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And my cooling concerns continue. The radiator I'm looking for ideally would be 26" long x 12.5" high x 1.75" thick, and nothing going beyond those measurements. Unfortunately, aside from getting something custom made there doesn't appear to be a lot out there. The only lead I've had on something that could possibly work is a radiator from a water-to-air intercooler setup:

Universal Water-to-Air Radiator 24x12x1

It's thin, but might possibly work with some modifications.
 
Everything looks like it's coming together nicely...but the porting on that intake manifold needs a little work. It looks like you have it clearenced well enough for the air coming through the throttle body, but man is that inlet all kind of "warped" looking from the porting. Otherwise, I'm anxious to see this thing up and running!
 
Everything looks like it's coming together nicely...but the porting on that intake manifold needs a little work. It looks like you have it clearenced well enough for the air coming through the throttle body, but man is that inlet all kind of "warped" looking from the porting. Otherwise, I'm anxious to see this thing up and running!

Might be the angle of the pictures to be honest. Not sure it's really warped - I'm no good at things like that but my buddy who did the porting is pretty handy. Should be ok until I go for the aftermarket intake anyway ;)

OK, a few little updates. Custom radiator was ordered yesterday night at 10pm from a company in Hong Kong (or maybe China). Found the company on Ebay and saw they made custom radiators. Send them a template and they seemed very knowledgeable and accommodating. Even better was when them emailed me at lunchtime today to say it was finished and would be shipped out later today! In the end I got a radiator with core dimensions 318x480x40mm and overall size should 318x640-660x40mm. All aluminium and dual pass. Not bad for $280 including express shipping. Will only know for sure the quality when I see it and then install it, but they sent me a picture and it looks nice.
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Once that comes I'll be able to start fabricating things up at the front end. Also checked the radiator fans today. I actually think my cheap Ebay fans along with this radiator and the things we're going to do have a good chance of cooling it. I also threw a thick Permacool 6" fan on the front of the oil cooler which will be permanently on to keep temps down. Don't worry - the cooler is thermostat-controlled so it's not like the oil will take longer to warm up. I am looking into the HKS oil thermostat though which opens at 75C instead of 100C; could very well help to keep temperatures right where I want them to be (at operating temps, but not much more) That little fan generates a small typhoon to be honest. Should do a great job on the oil cooler even though it's not a perfect mount.
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Also fit up the new caulked engine mount, which seemed to be a fair bit stiffer and will hopefully help against engine rocking.
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Didn't do much else but some more parts came in this week (although worryingly still no turbocharger; getting a little concerned now). The only thing really worth showing pics of is the Aerocatch hood latches. Looks a great bit of kit and am looking forward to throwing them on the car.
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As for my front crossmember, I'm considering getting a 3mm steel support cut and welded onto the top and front to add a little support to it. Tried to source another one but it was in arguably worse condition than this one. Just need to source the steel for it.

And that's about it for now. Probably doing a bit more work on it tomorrow so hopefully another update later on this weekend.
 
Completely custom made to my specs, all-aluminium radiator made and delivered to me all within 7 days. $280.

Bargain! (Providing it doesn't leak/blow up, on first use, of course).
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A little more work done on the car this weekend. I ordered a couple more bits, namely an HKS oil thermostat and new filter element for my Blitz LM air filter. Still need a battery box for the relocated battery but am still a way off that being an issue!

Still no sign of this turbo but with the radiator here it means there is work that can be done. we did some test fitting of the radiator and, despite everything in the engine bay being tighter than the proverbial 12-year old, I think it will fit. And a bonus is that we may have worked out a way to get the fans on the backside of the radiators to act as pullers and still have enough space for everything. It's all close though - take a look:
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The downpipe isn't touching the exhaust manifold at all and we still have around 3/8-1/2" space free between radiator fan and downpipe. Should still have enough room when it's heatwrapped, and the pullers make me much more confident we can keep it cool.

Just behind the radiator fans, a 5mm thick vertical aluminium beam is going to attached to 2 mounting brackets welded onto the chassis for some added stability that we may have removed when we cut out the initial beam. A couple of the seams at the front of the chassis will also be welded up when this is done for a bit of extra strength.

Finally, we cut into the engine bay underneath where the stock battery tray would normally go. This will give us room to mount the intake right down in the driver's side lower grille at the front so it gets as fresh air as possible. The only issue I can foresee would be in heavy rains it could pull in some water. So I'm probably going to get one of those air filter dry socks and see if I can get it on the filter from underneath or through the front grille. Will work something out.

Oh, one last thing. I got my aluminum bushings for the shifter forks so I threw those on too. Tightened up the shifter even more and well worth the little cost it was.
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And that's about it for now. Think welding and strengthening next weekend, and maybe even getting the radiator and intercooler mounted properly, if we're lucky.
 
Could you possibly PM me the name of the company on ebay who built the radiator? I would be interested in something like that for that price. Everything looks like it's coming along well!
 
A couple of people have them, although I don't think it's the simplest thing in the world to get hold of one in the States.
 
The early Evos aren't that much, at least not here. I got mine for $500 although the engine was blown and to be honest the body was in worse shape than I thought (see the crossmember above) but they are a good, cost effective way of keeping up with the GT-Rs around here ;)

At least mine will be if the turbo ever gets here!
 
Good news - I got a HX40! Bad news, it's not mine. Many thanks to my buddy Chris though for lending me his for test fitting purposes until mine gets here. It's actually the 19cm turbine housing as opposed to my ordered 17cm, so it's a tiny bit bigger than mine, but should give me a good idea of it all. Pretty mixed news with everything to be honest

As it stands, the 19cm housing didn't fit onto the manifold. The compressor housing was hitting the head when it was about 1cm off hitting the manifold flange. Even if this 17cm housing was over 1cm smaller on the engine side, there's no way we'd get a turbo blanket in there too. When we spaced the manifold out with washers though it did fit just about though, so I'm contacting JM Fabriactions again to see if they'll sell me a straight 1/2" exhaust manifold flange with some longer studs. Road Race Engineering also sell the flanges, but only their mild steel one is in stock. I've seen a couple on Ebay too that I'm contacting the sellers about. It will make the front clearances between the downpipe and the radiator fans even closer, but it's what we're going to have to do.

The other minor potential issue with the Holset on there is... is the bonnet/hood gonna close?! I don't even want to think about that at the moment as it seems so far away, but I think I might have to cut into the bottom part of the driver's side grille on it for it to fit.

We made some cuts on the downpipe too to get it to fit but am waiting for the v-band to come in so we can actually get that fitted up closer to the turbo. The initial v-band setup the supplier sent me didn't have the male-female lips on the inner of the flanges so am not sure it would seal that well.

Now the more perceptive of you will have noticed that those are, yes, XS Power 38mm wastegates on there, and I know you're going to scream about how wrong that is. But you guys try what I'm doing with the budget I have available! So here's the deal with them; I knew I would be taking a bit of a gamble but I don't have any internal organs left to sell for genuine parts, and trying to sell off the girlfriend's daughter so early into a relationship seemed like it might cause a rift between us. So I got these ones. Has the gamble paid off? Well when changing out the springs for the 1bar springs I did look at the diaphragms and they looked like they'd been pushed down a little in the wrong way, and might not make a perfect seal. But, I have contacted them about it, and 2 genuine Tial diaphragms go right into this and would cost only $100, so I'd still be saving money going this way :)

But with those wastegates on we were able to plan out wastegate exits. Basically they are going to go right into the front of the wheel well on either side, well clear of the wheel (I don't plan to be at full boost on full steering lock anyway; if I am I've got more pressing issues to think about). They are sized up and cut, and will be welded today so they can be fitted.

So my turbo is still not here, but there are things we can do in the meantime now to get on with things. Man this isn't an easy project by any means...

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It's a pain in the ass build is what it is, but thanks!
 
Only ever slightly considered the EvoX turbine. Since the build was being planned it was only ever a HX40
 
78 days and still no turbo:( But what else is new. Got a few little bits ordered today. Some welds were done on the wastegate pipes and cuts made for the welder to do a few more bits. The wastegate exits are actually gonna be coming out right at the front of the wheel wells. Have checked for clearances and the tyres won't hit or anything, and nothing too important should be in danger of melting(!).

Got the thermostat housing cut from the flange, rotated and then welded back into place so it won't hit the turbo compressor housing. And we cut the first part of the radiator piping to test fit it all. It's all pretty snug to say the least, but touch wood it should all fit.
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And I finally plumbed in and secured my Sard fuel pressure regulator. Interesting point to note. The Sard comes with a port for attaching a gauge to, but the port is 1/8"BSPT thread type. The vast majority of pressure gauges, from the States at least, are 1/8"NPT type, and so won't go in. A little tapping of the regulator though and it's all secured and ready for action.
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Oh, and we looked at a few angles today and the hood isn't going to close with this turbo on. A minor inconvenience and one that seems a lifetime away at the moment but will have to be addressed. Might have to have it modified by the metal guy who's doing the welding work on my car to incorporate a Mitsubishi Eclipse-esque bulge to it. Something like this:
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Lots of things to do before that though...
 
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Nice....thanks for sharing...$500 is a steal, specially for here (not there)!!!!!!!! Good luck with the car.
 
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