tommis85

Thanks Chris, yeh it's been a bit of a bumpy journey. A drive would be good but

^^ Either you're a f**king cop or ur retarded. Which one of the two is it?

Yep and you're dead right with the ebc and tweakage. See how I go on the weekend

Yeh Don, once I'm sure I have my "lazy turbos" sorted out she'll be going back for a re-tune...

Yeh you have to be careful with over-tightening the actuator rods. It's a fine balance between keeping the gates shut as long as possible AND, letting the gate open SMOOTHLY when target boost level is nearing. You don't want the gate being strained open and then suddenly snapping open - it'll cause all sorts of top end dramas. I guess it's a simple matter of applying more and more pre-load with these particular turbos till you get a nice steep power curve and making sure you don't continue to tighten up the rod once optimum curve has been achieved. Alternatively one could get stronger actuators and pair it up with electronic boost control. Yep, mine can definitely be wound so far in that the gate won't open at all...hoewever, it would be impossible to get the actuator rods back on because you simply cannot reach down there properly You'd have to hook them up to a compressor or something! But I don't really want to run 30 pounds right now

Thanks! This has been most helpful and had great success this morning! I drove around with actuator lines disconnected and there was a massive gain - much bigger than that from the new cat. I'm going to add a couple more mm's of preload like you suggest and should gain even more! Exciting stuff....I guess it's off for a re-tune after that. Funny though, because I thought my actuators would have been strong enough. I had the same stuff happen with my 33 N1 turbos! Will also test the pressures asap and adjust the rods to suit (if there is a difference)

Well the thing is that I'm already running quite firm actuators that are 15.6psi I think. But I guess the problem lies where the actuators crack. I'll add a little bit more preload to them and see what happens eh? Maybe that fella in the link who picked up the 900rpm was running very soft actuators?

Arent they like a float bearing turbo or is that the 8cm ones?

Yes it was stupidly hard choosing between the -7 and -9 units! I came very close to buying -7's and only changed to -9's because peeps say that they give a little bit more up top? Like, they don't run out of puff too early etc. How do yours perform??

That's exactly it. I guess it's all up to the tune now...need to get that fuel in down low to make more....fumes, and consequently more boost and power. Everyone seems to be saying 16 to 18 pounds by 4000rpm. So what turbos did you end up going for? The -5's are quite a top end turbo right? The have a much bigger A/R than the -9s?

Yeh I've been thinking about doing that

Yeh well that's just it - I did about 3-4 months of reading and emailing random peeps to see what these buggers will be like. I guess there's only one way to find out and that's a re-tune now that there's a better cat and everything has been checked for leaks.

That's about right Well, the new cat is in and I've also straightened out a portion of the exhaust with a dead straight pipe. She feels like they come on a bit sooner....am hoping that I don't regret not going for a set of -7's. (I'm a sucker for response as you may have guessed)

Haha I hope there'll be some sort of discount - but doubt it. These fellas were pretty quick to charge me for everything single little thing they did. Even things that took 15mins were billed out as a full hour of work. Not sure if I really want to go back there to be honest. Did try it out with entire exhaust dropped and there was a difference so she's booked in tomorrow for new hi-flow cat. I don't think I've ever heard such insane turbine spool before

Ah ok, yeh I can imagine. It would have to be as awesome as putting in new coil overs or something like that! Only problem is that I don't really have a spare $1500 to throw at it...may have to do it later down the track. Sounds pretty nasty with your sump!

You're quite right about that - but that would cost a bit eh? I dare say those gears would cost as much as gearbox upgrade gears, so around $800 to $1000ea?

Hey, I'm located in Toowoomba....can the internals be easily exchanged?

Hi all, It looks like that a couple hours on the dyno were the straw that broke the camel's back....my front diff. On the way back from tuning the diff was emitting horrible sounds and after inspections it turns out we have a severely worn set of gears in it. The crown gear is missing all it's heat coating and well, is very worn down. Looks like a wrong batch of oil was used that was thin as water. My mechanic in town has located one mob that has some 2nd hand diff innards for sale but with quite a price tag attached. Do any of you guys know where else I could get some from, short of me putting up a WTB ad? Also, I take it that I could you gears from a 32? ....I have done a bit of "googling" but have mainly been coming across UK threads. Thanks for your time gents PS - car is currently in rear wheel drive "mode" with front prop shaft removed to save the diff from locking up completely or something horrid like that.

Yeh tuner didn't know much about my turbos...didn't even know -9's existed in the 2860 range Mainly does bigger turbos and singles. She's obviously gonna need a re-tune once exhaust has been rectified (provided that's the only problem and it's not something more sinister etc etc)

Haha offcourse not. I've been talking to the tuner about this...about how much margin there would be for this. I basically plan on just giving it a gentle tap because I'll know right away if it's had an effect - that's how poor it's performance is right now. Then I'll be booking it in with the local exhaust mob to get a proper hi flowing cat put in place, along with a larger internal dia canon

I'm assuming you mean "no" problems there...are you referring to the split dumps? 40kw hey? Yeh I need to gain at least that much....really hoping to make close to 300kw to make all the money spent worth while!

Wow those are even more awesome figures! Ok, well tomorrow I'll drop the exhaust and see what she's like and post it up on here. Yeh 10psi+ seems like a massive restriction - I'd probably have something like this too. But yes, we shall find out tomorrow. Thanks for all your replies so far - most helpful in a time of great frustration!

Ah ok - that's the divided opinions right there haha Ah the swap isn't too bad - I've gotten it down to about 1 day's solid work now but don't really want to do it again! Those are some nice figures by the way - you must have an excellent tune! Yeh at this stage I'm just going to drop the cat and cat-back out to see if there's any difference. If there is, it's new cat and new tune time ;-)

Oh I see....well that's the thing - I've been reading about peeps who swear by them and then others who're fans of the bell mouth style ones which are what you're using (I think). So did you have a set of -9's before you went to the -5's? Keen to hear more about these xforce dumps and why they're not that good...I'd be happy to swap them over or even put my stock R33 GTR ones back on (I know people make decent figures on these too and also use them as upgrades on the R32's)

Haha I've fired it up a couple times off the dumps while doing turbo swaps....it is quite deafening in the shed