Project 400 Update

[Greg_S]

i'll check it out this afternoon

[Ross]

I have few updates to make on this project . I'll start in chronological order...

First, Bilstein shocks & H&R springs have been fitted. The car now corners like it's on rails, I've eliminated the pitch/dive and of course it looks the part now it's lowered 30mm or thereabouts.

Next to come: fitting of the GT3071R - 034 had a turbo that had been ran-in on an engine, but was not to the customer's requirements. One service by ATP later, and a damn good offer on $$$, my resistance to the temptation broke.

[Ross]

Removal of the K24 + lines

First things first: Many thanks to Jon441cc for his willingness to lose skin and sleep while I stood around pretending to help with this part of the project!!

We started at 10.30am with the following:

-Dumped oil and coolant from engine.
-The PAS pump was removed, as was the cambelt cover, for better access.
-Driverside engine mount loosened, and the engine raised slightly for easier replacement of the turbo.
-All associated intake, turbo-IC hoses removed.
-All old coolant and oil lines removed.

These steps were taken with very little hassle - a few rusted bolts etc were about the main problem. The more awkward procedure was removal of the old turbo. This was mainly because of the tight access; once the nuts were removed from the EM we struggled to remove the studs. We ended up taking 2 studs out and levering the turbo out with the help of a big rusty screw driver and raising the engine a little more. The remaining studs were then removed with ease.

With the turbo removed, and new lines installed:

[Ross]

Fitting the new Oil + Coolant lines

As you can see above, new lines were needed for the Garrett Turbo. I used the 034motorsport kit, which came as follows:

-Coolant feed/return lines with fittings attached, including "goodyear" hose and clip for the turbo-side line (hose can be seen in the above pic, left).
-Oil inlet hose with restrictor (which doubles as an adapter to attach to the turbo) and an alloy flange with gasket and bolts, demonstrated below.
-Oil return hose with alloy flange, gasket, studs + nuts for attachment to turbo. Alloy flange, gasket + bolts supplied for attachment to block (can just be seen in pic below)

[Ross]

Fitting the new Oil + Coolant lines cont...

The most difficult part was threading the coolant line behind the cambelt - the cambelt cover and PAS pump were removed for access. The hose has ample length to be routed in front but we went for the tidy "stock" look. The easiest way was to guide it through from the turbo-side, twist to the correct orientation (i.e. ensure the turbo-side fitment is pointing toward the turbo when it's in position!) and have it held in place while tightened.

The oil return line was actually fitted after the turbo was attached; worth noting that my car had a big chunky snub-mount designed to hold an AC compressor. This was removed when we took off the old line for better access. Jon's car had a nice small aluminium one that fitted perfectly :mischeif: and I had to 'borrow' this, as the slightly chunkier flange from 034 was fouling my old mount.

The 'end result' when all the lines were connected...

[Ross]

Preparing fitment of the GT3071-R

The GT3071 was not completely ready for fitment. At about 1pm we were ready to prepare it for installation...

The pressure-side feed to the WGFV is attached to a nipple that is tapped into the coldside of the K24. There was no such attachment on the GT3071, so we went about preparing one...

Note: drilling a hole into your new turbo's compressor housing causes your blood pressure to rise. So ensure you drill and tap the correct size! Thanks to Jon's expertise, no problems here.

Tapping a new thread, into a newly drilled hole:

[Ross]

Turbo rotation

The nipple was re-used from the K24, it simply unscrews, and required a 1/8th tap

The hotside was rotated to slightly angle the lines - otherwise they would have been fouling the chassis. This in turn required a slight counter-rotation of the coldside, and required tweaking so that the turbo-IC hose was not restricted by the oil return line.

In addition, the heatshield mounting bracket had to be whacked with a big hammer, as it was slightly blocking installation of the coolant line.

Below you'll see the orientation of the centre-section and coldside; the mod for the WGFV boost signal can clearly be seen also.

[Azman]

Looking at this I had better get saving...... Ross you still using Leads or have you gone to coil packs?

[Ross]

Fitment of the turbo...

This was the difficult part - so a few tips before taking this route:

-The hotside is F***ing huge on this beast. This causes 2 issues:

1. It pushes the downpipe back about 5mm. Not such a problem, but you have issues re-connecting it to the wastegate.

2. It rests on the chassis.

-As it's such a tight fit, you'll want to fit the DP and EM studs whilst holding the turbo in place. So unless you have a pair of extra mutant arms, get a buddy or 2.
-You may need to "modify" some tools or be double-jointed to tighten the nuts; the turbo being huge and hugging the engine due to the small Rs2-EM doesn't help.

We actually fitted the 2 lower EM studs, placed the gasket on, then angled the turbo on, and screwed the top studs in and finally secured them all. I wish i had a pic of Jon's horseshoe-shaped spanner that made this a bit easier . Finally the DP studs were put in place.

Due to the DP being pushed back a little, that made quite a tight fit but gave no struggles. It got int he way a bit while fitting the turbo and it could be an idea to disconnect it underneath the car to move it right outta the way.

The heatshields had to be removed from the chassis to get the turbo to fit at all - the pic below shows the turbo pushed against the chassis:

[Ross]

@Azman - yeah, and get a new credit card too, you'll need it when you blow budget

I'm still using leads, the ignition could be a weakpoint. I'm only using a regular RS2 head-gasket as well, so compression is only slightly lower - again, a limiting factor. Though despite both of these she's still responding well, according to Mihnea. Just gotta keep a good spark in there!

[Jaap]

nice

Very nice Ross, keep up the good work

Greetz Jaap

[Ross]

At what was now getting to the end of the day, with the GT3071 now installed and a bit of contact with the chassis being the only immediately unsolvable problem, we re-attached the wastegate...

This was the problem at hand:

[Jon441cc]

I wish i had a pic of Jon's horseshoe-shaped spanner :

[Ross]

Make-shift exhaust's

We solved it with an angle-grinder, some heatwrap and a couple of clips. It did a surprisingly good job at getting me home! Now replaced with a pipe by longlife, which doesn't fit properly and is cracking my RS2-EM, and breaking at it's shoddy welds too, soon to be replaced with a flexi section.

This is definitely something not to overlook and in hindsight I shoulda had the DP made after fitting the turbo... Of course not a problem if you have an external WG pipe or a flexi-section already!

[Ross]

Intake Plumbing: The Final Hurdle

With oil, coolant added, the front of the car being put together, and some unsuspected customisation going on, we decided to feed the beast some air.

The 034 intake boot was a good fit (2.75" turbo intake) but did put shift the WGFV and DV attachments slightly to the left - I had to attach these items behind the headlight, which makes for a very cramped area back there and the WGFV can't be removed unless you take out the headlight. As a result of this relocation, a longer hose was required for the WGFV boost signal. There were no issues connecting the DV, which has been replaced with a Forge item, though the vacuum hose was a tight fit!