The official turbo build thread.

[PiercedE30]

Titties. That is all.

[So Live]

Thanks man! It is a lot of work! Itll be great when its done though.

So im in the process of getting an order together with Pat at BMA. Hes the man and he gives good prices if you talk to him directly. So im getting all the tensioners and a full bottom end gasket kit from him. Ill paint the front timing cover and the oil filter housing and the oil pan while i have it all off. Maybe ill paint the valve cover too cause i have a gasket for that in my trunk haha. So all the gaskets in the motor will be new at this point and ill make it all look a little nicer at the same time so its a good thing.

Any suggestions for a paint scheme for these 3 parts? i think i want the pan to be bright silver but idk yet.

So seeing i get the parts from him, ill go home this weekend and try to get this thing on the road. All i NEED to do is get the whole timing situation done, clean the charge pipes and then get the fuel system mounted.

Probably wont be done cause i want to wrap the downpipe and paint the charge piping too before its all buttoned up but it would be nice to ride around a little bit.

Oh and i got the o2 sensor finally!

[ejnight]

Nice job. That is a lot of work.

[So Live]

Thanks alot dude! Its really gratifying when other people think all the work ive been doing all by my self is cool stuff.

:)

[4ce30]

Awesome build! I plan on having some sort of OBDI swapped e30 Boosted one day! But this is real dope..

-Brandon

[So Live]

Hahaha, exactly the way i was seeing it. haha.

I would have loved to bought a 666 mani but i dont have the money. So far ive spent $2700 total and thats including two MS boards and a few parts im not going to use. $1500 on a manifold just didnt seem logical for what i wanted to spend on everything else.

So today i took the time to ditch all the brackets and studs im never going to use and paint the engine bay :) It took a while but itll be worth it in my mind. Painted it with semi gloss black hi heat stuff. I didnt take the time to really smooth out all the imperfections but its not a show car so i dont really mind.

Got the gauges all hooked up but they seem a little finikey. They glow white in the day time (w/o the headlights on) and amber at night (with the lights on). Sometimes, the boost gauge wont light amber when the lights are turned on. Then while i was taking pics w/ the headlights on i noticed if you touch the brakes, the water temp, oil temp and oil pressure turn on white. hmmmmmmmm. i have some more work to do. Its weird because all the gauges get switched 12v and lights on 12v from the same sources.

Pics:


So fresh...


It really doesnt look as bad as it seems:
lights off

Lights on


Good stuff. Im really excited. Oh i found out the DA kicks ass for sanding down the welding slag on the piping and i think my dad came up with a pretty cool solution for cleaning the insides of the charge pipes.

[golde30]

too bad you didnt run the 666fab m50 turbo manifold, i wanted to see that baby mounted in an e30. looks like yer making really good progress though, and who cares if the welds are ugly, just wrap it all with black header wrap!

[So Live]

J im aware. I plan on changing the oil after about 20 minutes and then after a few hundred miles just to make sure everything is clean. I got a rude awakening of that today...

Pierced, Im using the stock ecu for now with a BEGI FMU. I want boost. MS is another project in itself that i dont want to deal with at the moment.

So today i got some stuff done. Turns out getting the oil pan out in the car is pretty difficult. Oh well. So the pan came out and the 12an bung got welded in (thanks Jon Volk!)

So i got everything out and the bung welded in. I came back and noticed a big black plastic thing on the ground. Hmmmm whats that.... the tensioner for the fucking oil chain. SICKKKKKK... so the pan went back on temporarily with like 5 bolts. i remounted the subframe so i could put the motor back down off my super G-code hoist system (dad lent out the real hoist :( ) And that was the end of that.

So i took the HUGE set back to clean up the garage and start fresh mentally. I was trying to get this thing done way too quickly. If it wasnt the first time turboing a car and if i bought a manifold it would have been a different story.

I finished welding the whole wastegate apparatus and went over all the charge piping. Also added little tube fitting thingys for the ICV and the diverter valve on the throttle side charge pipe. I got the turbo inlet pipe welded up finally.

Time for pics:
Oh balls:


Complimentary bottom end shot:


The Hoist:


This SOB was dirtyyyyy:


Charge pipe tube thingys:


uhmmmmm...


Tomoro ill pressure check all the charge pipes and exhaust and maybe paint the charge pipes. Maybe ill wrap the downpipe but idk if i want to do that yet.

Cheers!

[PiercedE30]

Wait, why are you using a MAF?

[Jroc81]

everything looks awesome bro but dont forget that cars, esp 20 year old turbo'ed ones require maintenance, and you need to be able to get to things to fix them. It's no fun having to rip into your turbo set up to perform valve jobs timing jobs, oil changes, replace water pumps etc.

[So Live]

Haha thanks guys.

J, im hopein its the dirty30?!?!?!

Updates for today.

Got the intake all figured out. All the vac lines are run. Got the fuel system hooked up. Also got the gauge sender wires into the cabin and all the grounds for the senders hooked up and squared away. Got the 30Lb injectors in and the intake mani and fuel rail stuff is all installed. Also got the waste gate plumbing off the manifold and into the exhaust tacked. Also got the MAF wires extended so i can do the draw through set up.

Tomoro ill hopefully get all the pipe work finalized. Jon Volk is welding the fitting on my oil pan. My fathers getting a super trick oil drain fitting made up :)

Unfortunately my o2 sensor is seeming to be a huge pain in the ass. Apparently AEM doesnt use the one i have any more or something. The only place i found that sells it is in austraila!!!!! Turns out saturn and GM use the same sensor though. I ordered one from a saturn place in PA. Well see what happens.

Im kinda planning on getting it all squared away tomro but i cant tune shit with out wideband :(

Oh well. Pics:



Tools of the trade:


oil:


Very unconventional WG:




Reasoning behind that is if it were under the manifold where i wanted to put it, i wouldnt be able to get the down pipe out of the car. I figured that should work alright and with the whole thing in header wrap it wont look too bad.

[Farbin Kaiber]

When you get this thing all dialed in it's gonna be skunky.

[Jroc81]

You snake Chris, no wonder I haven't seen you around. That build should be dope. Can you guess what my daily is these days?

[So Live]

So today i got a late start (3pm) but i made up fro it by just getting inside (130am) haha

Im kinda bummed out about my o2 sensor being the wrong one. It really might be the part thats gonna keep me from getting this thing done by weds or thurs.

So today i finished the exhaust, Figured out the intake, made an oil distribution block for the two sensors and the turbo feed. Roughly mounted the BEGI and got the lines figured out. New seals in the intake manifold and while it was off, i JB welded the ICV and other little vac fittings in the manifold (supposedly a problem area). Made a little custom fitting for water temp at the head too. Also made a date with Jon Volk on Tuesday to get my oil pan fitting welded up.

Pics:












Tomorows another day...

[golde30]

niiiice. i want to turbo my s50 some day....some day.