The majority of the mods detailed in previous posts were all supporting mods for the end game mod: a K04 turbo. I had been contemplating a Frankenturbo, but after Spawne32's very detailed thread about the eBay K04, it made a lot more sense to go that way.....so I did. Here it is, pre-disassembly.
I opted for the upgraded Mellett CHRA.
And figured, in for a penny, in for a pound at that point, so I picked up the Mambatek wastegate, as well.
Ready to do a little turbo modification at this point.
Two of the bolts and the clamp that have to be removed in order to get to the CHRA.
Housing off.
Side by side comparison. Visibly, they honestly looked the exact same. I made sure to mark new vs old so I didn't mix them up on accident. Tactilely, however, the Melett was a little smoother. In retrospect, I don't know if I would have necessarily replaced them, but the expense wasn't that bad, and neither was swapping them out.
Now it was time for the wastegate. Pulling out the stock spring and putting in the 10 lb spring (which, for me, caused a lot of headaches until I switched to the 5lb spring on IE's recommendation) while *off* the turbo is considerably easier than doing it when *on* the turbo. Trust me, I've done it both ways *lol*.
Everything ready to go for the morning!
I forgot to order coolant, so O-Reilly's to the rescue.
I started work early in the morning on a Friday, b/c doing this during the Texas summer in a garage w/out AC wasn't going to be fun.
I followed the KO4 turbo DIY, and there were (fortunately) not too many surprises. It took me about 3 hrs to get it out. A couple of the header nuts were a bit challenging to get to, and having a swivel head/u-joint definitely helped. Side by side comparison:
New one in place:
Finished it off with an eBay-sourced turbo blanket that cost about $80.
Wrapped up everything with an oil change and coolant fill.
Now the work began, because the car was *definitely* underboosting. It wouldn't hit boost targets of the IE K04 tune no matter what I did. I ended up sending a datalog to IE, and after reviewing the logs, they suggested replacing the wg spring w/the 5 lb spring, as that was the closest to the K03 (4-5 lbs). So, the turbo had to come off the engine again, but the good thing was that the coolant/oil lines didn't have to be disconnected, which was fortunate as the lines are installed with crush washers, and I didn't have any spares. That was a 6am job, but trying to fix this issue, I had pulled the turbo so many times, I can pull it in about 45 mins, at least enough to get to the wastegate. That problem was finally resolved.
Next came the incessant oil/coolant leaks. They were coming from the turbo. I kept tightening down the lines, to the point I was afraid I was going to strip the housing. I decided to replace the crush washers, and that finally took care of those issues.
NEXT....and this was frustrating.....was when the methanol nozzle holder
https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Performa...dp/B0064RB5QQ/
blew through the silicone hose in which it inserted. As in, it had been stable for months leading up to the K04 install, when on the way to work one morning, I got on it a bit to pass some slow moving traffic, and the car immediately lost power. I limped it home, and saw the nozzle, and adapter, sitting outside the silicone hose. Temp fix was to turn off the methanol, thoroughly duct tape the hose and see if that would work. When installing the couplers for the hoses, and for the methanol, I made sure to orient everything so that if I had to do any maintenance on them, I could pop off the aftermarket fog light grilles so I could easily access things. This turned out to be a godsend, because I didn't have to remove the front bumper cover to address any of this. After the replacement hose came in, I had to figure out how to mount the methanol nozzle, so I drilled into the aluminum coupler with a bit a tad bit smaller than the nozzle and the threads caught, enabling me to screw it in. I used some thread sealer, and it's been holding for the past 10 months, no problems.
At this point, the engine mods are pretty much done. The only 2 things on the list are:
-a the installation of the ECS hard pipe kit, but since the bumper cover has to come off, I'm waiting for the new bumper cover to come out of paint and
-b wiring in the Boost Trigga so that I can run the IE 100 oct K04 file.
After both of these final things are done, I'll start testing and tuning to validate the car is performing optimally, as well as playing with different methanol nozzles to see if there's anymore power to be safely made.
I still have some other interesting parts I've acquired that I'm taking my time installing, but that I'm pretty excited about. I'm about 85% done with this build, and the last few things will definitely set the car apart and add a uniqueness to it.
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Originally Posted by whats77inaname
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