Changing Entire Turbo Setup At Home.

[JimX]

Ok I thought I would put this in here because it's nothing to do with getting more performance out of the car, it's about doing a certain amount of work at home to save money.

This is the situation: I know how to remove my turbo and put it back on again and bleed the cooling system. However, I don't know how to make up a custom dump/front pipe, or angle-grind off the old cat and re-use it. So that means unless I am putting the exact same turbo back on in the exact same spot (and it's not a factory setup) I can't re-attach the exhaust.

What I want to do, is get a new turbo and high-mount manifold, hook up all the oil and water lines, then get the car towed to a good exhaust shop to get the dump and front pipes made up, and possibly a new cat with bolt-on flanges instead of all being welded into one piece. I'm open to suggestions for which good but cheap exhaust shop in Sydney to use too.

I'm sure I'll be able to put the new manifold and turbo on in my garage, however I'm sure I will have problems bleeding the cooling system without running the engine. Has anyone got any ideas? Would I be able to run the engine with the new turbo on even if there's no exhaust hanging off it? I'm not very confident of doing that, especially since the CO will be essenetially flooding straight into the engine bay and probably killing me slowly.

I could just skip the bleeding of the cooling system, but then I'd have to take the car to a mechanic rather than a dedicated exhaust shop so that'd limit my options. On top of that, I've read about certain mechanics who don't even bleed it properly so I'd rather it was done properly myself.

Another option I thought of was to drive it to the exhaust shop in the morning, and do the turbo swap right there and push the car into the workshop for the dump pipe fabrication. Or I could somehow work out the physical location and size of the exhaust outlet and get one made without testing it first (not a very safe choice though especially since I still need to grind off the old cat).

Any help appreciated!

[benl1981]

Or get a turbo that bolts up to a standard Dump.

Either a GCG high flow or HKS 2530 or 2535

Probably less hassle and look more stock

[SECURITY]

pm Slide

he sells t04e's with an internal gate thats good for 250rwkw. ill be getting one of these soon too.

and these are a straight bolt on.

[JimX]

It's not a factory setup, as I said in the original post. I already have a T04E with internal gate, but it has the 4 bolt GT style outlet with some sort of custom 2.5" dump into 3" front pipe which is certainly a rare combination as far as Skylines go. It's starting to wear out so I wanted it replaced before it dies completely. The cheapest and easiest option would be just to rebuild it, but I want a bit more power than it can provide and and I wanted to go to a ball bearing turbo to help reduce the lag. And besides, nothing worthwhile is ever easy

A high-flowed factory turbo would probably be the ideal option if I still had the factory dump setup in place, but since I have to change that, and I've already bought the exhaust manifold, there's little sense in going back to the factory turbo unless someone gave me one for free or something.

[Abo Bob]

Don't worry too much about the bleeding of the coolant system until after you get the car back from the exhaust shop. It's no big deal for such a short time.

[V-Spec]

get a dump made up the connect it all up and drive to the zorst shop for a lower/bottom pipe

if theres no dump it will be uber bad, have it pointing down etc

[JimX]

Hehe that'd be like having the screamer pipe constantly on. That'd be fun to do on a day when the cops are on strike, just drive around all day sounding like a racing car but only doing 30kph.

Sounds like a good plan to get the dump pipe on first anyway though, if nothing else I could start the engine up to make sure everything's working whether or not I drive it loudly like that or get it towed. Hope my climate control recirculate mode works!

[BHDave]

I'd be installing everything you can, start it up without the dump and do a quick bleed in 2 mins or so (it won't be perfect but atleast drivable). That way you know it runs.

tow it to your exhaust shop of choice and get the work done.

drive it home and bleed it properly.

What are you doing about intake piping? If it needs to be custom then you are in a bit of trouble.

[JimX]

Good point, I've already got a custom steel setup but no way will it fit to a new high mount. I was thinking of just rigging up the factory rubber intake which I still have until it gets to the workshop to have a new one made up or the old one modified. I ran my Q45 AFM with cloth tape to it before I got the adapter made up, shouldn't be a problem just for testing the car without driving. Towing is looking to be safer at this point.