Grant's (325GRANT) Turbo write up.

[Guest Andrew]

Grant's (325GRANT) Turbo write up.

Right then where to start… ive been accumulating parts now for Boosting my 325 - by Grant

The first thing I did was purchase the turbo. I needed to lock myself into the idea of turbo charging my car. The turbo was an IHI VF29 off a Subaru STi WRX. I got it off trade me and probably paid to much for it. After a little more research I started thinking it was going to be too small and had to make the decision whether to keep it or upgrade it. If you haven’t seen an IHI turbo before, they have a strange flange. Unlike the standard garret type its more of a triangle design so if I did keep the small IHI I would have to make the manifold to suit. Decisions decisions if I ditch the IHI and find a T3 / T4 garret it would be much easier to upgrade later, I could get a bigger one to start with, garret flange is the standard and lots of manufactures are using this style so there are lots available.

If I keep the IHI, it's small, not a common flange on bigger turbos so upgrade would be hard. However, the IHI I had was a ball bearing turbo and I couldn’t afford a ball bearing turbo of the garret type. I also figured being small it will have next to no lag and I wasn’t looking for big top end performance. Just off the mark and mid range pull.

Decision made the IHI VF29 will go on.

Next was the manifold. I went out to Steel and Tube in Petone Lower Hutt and purchased a whole lot of 45 deg and 90 deg “steam pipe†and a length of thick wall straight (about two foot long). I spent most of the nights over the next two weeks in the garage with a hacksaw and mig welder cutting and tacking. This was a pretty drawn out process because the car wasn’t here, so I could only get so far then I would have to take what I had made to the car and see if it would still fit. Towards the end of the second week I brought the car here to speed things up. Around this time I made a pattern of the turbo flange out of cardboard and gave it to the guys at pitstop to cut me a flange.

Things to consider when making a manifold; where do you want the turbo to sit? Will it be in a position where the oil will drain well? Will there be enough room around it for intercooler piping and oil drain? These things get bloody hot, so will it sit far enough away from any wiring or anything else that can melt?

I decided to go for the top mount style (mostly for wank effect haha). So I built most of the manifold to the point that all pipes were plumbed into each other, but still finished level with no# 1 exhaust port quite a lot lower then I wanted the turbo to sit.

Next I mounted the turbo in the car where I wanted it to end up by hanging it from a broom handle and built from the turbo down. It this point I decided to connect this top part of the manifold to the rest using another flange so I could just change this top part if I wanted to upgrade the turbo.

After tacking it all up I gave it to kaelib aka “smoking baby†to weld for me, my welding is crap at the best of times.

First time I tried to bolt it on I found there wasn’t enough room around the pipes to do the bolts up … allen key bolts are your friend at times like this.

Manifold done!

Next I found some ford V8 injectors on trade me for about $300 so in they went.

Here's where it gets a little tricky - Link time.

Anyone thinking of doing this would be wise to pay someone that knows what they are doing to install the link!

Because im not that clever I decided to do it myself (with a few pointers from kaelib )

So for the next two weeks I butchered my wiring loom and installed the Link. I didn’t really know if I should wire in to existing wiring or redo the lot, so to be safe (or stupid) I rewired the lot. I started with the injector wiring, this was a long process. When I finally finished my new injector loom and was standing back admiring my work, kealib turned up and didn’t like the way I had wired the injectors and pulled it all apart and made another one haha.

To be honest if you have a pretty good idea of how the electrical side of things work in your car and you follow the instructions you should be able to fudge your way through the install, but if I had to do it again, I think id pay someone.

There were a few tricky parts:

1) Igniter, I had no idea how to do this, thanks kaelib for sorting this.

2) Timing pick-ups, the triggering is different for the link from standard and I had to get some new plugs from Germany via Shelly BMW …. DON’T REUSE OLD PLUGS FOR THIS!!! .

3) Fuel pump.

4) Idle speed valve has to be two wire, standard E30 use three. I found a two wire one on an old holden at pick a part for $6.

The biggest problem was that the wiring diagram I have for my car is pretty average at best. A lot of the colour coding is wrong. The engine plug was all over the place. I had to go by colour or placing, so a lot of testing was needed. Get yourself a good test light!!!!! And remember if your using a Link most (almost all) of the signalling from (and too) the link is done via negative not positive. GO OVER EVERYTHING AT LEAST 5 TIMES BEFORE YOU TRY TO START THE CAR!!! We almost had 12 volts going into the Link via an output! I can’t stress enough how important it is to test all your work.

Next I found an intercooler, 550x230x65 again on trade me and started hacking my car apart to fit it. This was a very long winded process! The valance was off and on about 100 times. I purchased silicone joiners and reducers from the same guy on trade me (hanzhou I.L.T trading) four joiners and two reducers. Intercooler piping at this point is still exhaust tube. Two x 180deg bends and two x 90deg bends were needed. I also got some straight pipe and Jason at pitstop Petone pressed an expander thing into one end so it would fit into my intake. Again a lot of cutting and tacking then off to Kaelib for welding. At this point I found it was next to impossible to get to the bottom bolts on the valance with the intercooler in place. In the end I bent the brackets down and welded two bolts onto the chassis, so instead of going behind the piping I could go under it. (hard to explain, I can post pics if wanted)

The tricky part was next, the oil lines. The only place I could find to use for the oil feed was the oil pressure sender hole. You need all sorts of bits to do this. I purchased all my parts from a hydraulic place out Seaview Petone. Out of sender hole into bundy tube about 15mm long with a 90deg bend into a three way connector. I connected a new standard oil pressure sender to one of the ports the other went into another three way connector. One of these ports went into an oil pressure sender for a gauge so I could keep an eye on pressure, the other port went into a length of bundy tube and up to a banjo bolt for the turbo feed.

TWC = three way connector

BB = banjo bolt

--- = bundy tube

OPS = oil pressure sender

[pre]

Sender hole ----BT--------- TWC -------------------TWC---------------------BB into turbo

l |

l |

OPS OPS

[/pre]

Looks pretty easy but it really took a lot of working out.

Ok that’s oil in, now oil out.

This is the part that I stuffed up.

Really the only place you can return the oil is into the sump. YOU NEED TO RETURN THE OIL TO THE HIGHEST PART OF THE SUMP YOU CAN!!! Because the engine sits on a slant the highest part is passenger side front. This is a bit unrealistic because of fitment so aim to put your return in about the middle at the front and use braided hose so it doesn’t melt.

We then removed the sump. Because I don’t have an engine hoist of any kind I did this by undoing my engine mounts and carefully jacking up the engine. When it was about 50mm off the mounts I put spacers on top of my mounts and let the jack back down. We removed my sump and drilled and tapped it and attached a turbo oil drain.

We stuffed this up and placed it on the driver’s side lower than the oil level. Because of this the oil couldn’t drain as it should and it backed up the drain and burst through the oil seals of the turbo. We got about 30 minutes of the car running before it became a problem.

I will also be changing the tappet cover venting set up. I found that the engine was pressurizing pretty bad (oil coming out the filler cap). The pressurizing was probably magnified due to the car over boosting (another story… get a good boost gauge) but would still happen on standard boost of 10 – 12lbs.

Next were water lines. I plumbed these into the water feed from the thermostat to the throttle body. Instead of going from thermostat to throttle body it now goes thermostat into turbo, out of turbo into throttle body.

The standard head gasket was another problem that showed itself pretty early on. I will be getting a metal gasket from Ireland Engineering and would advise anyone doing this conversion to do the same. I will also be skimming to tops of my pistons to lower compression.

That’s about where im at now. Blown turbo, blown head gasket and in need of more money to finish.

There are a few things I haven’t mentioned like wiring my lamda link, knock link, adjustable boost control. I left them out because there all pretty straight forward.

I also haven’t mentioned fuel pump upgrade. This is because I haven’t done this yet, but it will be needed as the standard one can’t keep up and there’s nothing worse then not enough fuel in a turbo car.

Each time I read through this I find more things I have left out but it will have to do for now.

Hope this was some help

Please ask questions if you need help.

Grant

Wow - that doesn't integrate very nicely into the forum section.

Please read the article on the article page and click "Discuss this article in the forum" if you wish to ask a question/make comment.

Cheers

Edited August 6, 2006 by Carl

[Guest Spargo]

I'm assuming someone is going to typeset it properly? Done

Thanks for this Grant, it will be helpful for heaps of people.

Edited August 6, 2006 by Carl

[325GRANT 0]

oil feed line didnt show up to well

should look like this.

TWC = three way connector

BB = banjo bolt

--- = bundy tube

OPS = oil pressure sender

[petone 0]

Can you post up some pics of the exhaust from the turbo around the steering column (proper name escapes me), what diameter pipe is it?

I'd be keen to come have a look when I'm home in a couple of weeks?

Sounds sweet so far though.

Edited August 7, 2006 by petone

[Grant 4]

Great write up, and great all round effort.

My hats off to you.

Cheers

Grant (the other one)

[325GRANT 0]

Can you post up some pics of the exhaust from the turbo around the steering column (proper name escapes me), what diameter pipe is it?

I'd be keen to come have a look when I'm home in a couple of weeks?

Sounds sweet so far though.

downpipe is 3 inch and is very close to both steering column and manifold. ill take some photos when its not raining.

give me a call when your back.

[Assault 0]

Nice write up I can see that being very handy in the near future.

One point though, the water lines running to the throttle body are not really needed as New Zealand temperatures dont get low enough to cause a problem with the throttle body. The water is only going through it to warm it up on very cold days.

When I last changed my throttle body (non-bmw) I just bypassed the throttlebody all together.

Also in regards to water cooling the turbo, it has minimal effect on the operating temperatures of the turbo, so much so that I have been told by the turbo guru that you dont need it at all. It infact only assists in cooling down of the turbo once you have finished thrashing it in a sort of effort to eliminate turbo timing. If you are diligent with the warming down of your turbo engine you should not need water lines running to the turbo.

In effect you could save some money in this region, all be it small amounts but a few hundred dollars in hoses and fittings is significant.

[325GRANT 0]

standard hose from thermostat to TD is perfect shape to go to turbo. only needed hose from turbo to TD. cost around $7.

but you are rite you dont need it.

[petone 0]

I thought the water cooling was more for the sake of the oil than the turbo? Basically you can go longer between oil changes, keeps oil temps down etc.

[325GRANT 0]

just checked with Corky (Bell) and mike is dead right. water jacket around bearing is to keep oil temp down as it passes through turbo and probably extends turbo life by X2.

[E30stz 0]

Attn Will from Kerikeri, yes YOU! .. would you quit hogging the LSD's . Bad luck grant. thanks bye.

Edited August 15, 2006 by E30stz

[325GRANT 0]

Attn Will from Kerikeri, yes YOU! .. would you quit hogging the LSD's . Bad luck grant. thanks bye.

haha

yeah who is Will from Kerikeri??? he came in with 17 seconds to go and nicked them

i thought it was Bravo so i stopped bidding, didnt want to just drive the price up.

[E30stz 0]

its Will aka Topless. No doubt about it.

Edited August 15, 2006 by E30stz

[mops 4]

so how is it going grant ?

dude, i sent you few pm's but the pm service on sis sitte must be playing up...

[bravo 34]

I didn't even know they were up dammit! Good price there William. Although I'd have done the same as Grant- no use pushing the price up - just means less beer money.

[smokenbaby 0]

I jumped in to bid for Grant as he was away from his comp. We talked about a fair price and low in behold, we were raped at the 12th hour.

Sent a nice little TXT to show my disapproval and had no reply.

That is helping all fellow Bimmersport members ain't it???

[will 169]

Attn Will from Kerikeri, yes YOU! .. would you quit hogging the LSD's . Bad luck grant. thanks bye.

Who died and made you god you little creep? You should make sure of your facts BEFORE you start shouting your wiseass mouth off, both on trademe and here on the forum.

As for you smokenbaby, so should you, and keep your smartarse texts to yourself in future.

FACTS.... I bid on that auction BEFORE Grant did, I placed the second bid on that auction, and I made reserve at $150. I in fact got raped by Grant and his merry little band of wankers. But I didn't complain or send stupid texts or get on the forum and berate others. I was away on course at the time, returned friday evening, and got my brother to put an autobid on as I couldn't get to a computer. I had no idea at the time who was bidding, and didn't care as I wanted those diffs, esp the 2.94 ratio one, for my project car. Didn't really want the 3.64 ratio and would probably have offered it to bimmersport members but now I will keep it and it will go into my Cab.

So have a good day and I'm out of here.

Will

[bravo 34]

I htink Andy's comment was tongue-in-cheek will, but as for the rest - ahmen.

[325GRANT 0]

chill there Will from Kerikeri, i cant speak for my "merry little band of wankers" but i dont think anybody's being serious here. its the whole nature of trade me to sweep in at the last minute and screw the other people over. i do it haha. if i really wanted the LSD's i could have kept bidding but i decided not to go over $540.