After doing extensive research on what to do with upgrading the turbo I decided to go with a custom one. I almost bought an FPred but didn't like the wait time or the price tag. I went with a local guy aptly named "Mike Turbo" and had the turbo rebuilt and upgraded to a "25g" for a fraction of the cost. This included a new bearings a new and bigger wheel, and a nice lil porting job. I purchased a IX MR turbo and took it to them to rebuild so i wouldn't have any downtime with my car.

After the install we turned the boost way down to be safe and will go get re-tuned in a few days. I also took the time since i had everything off the car to shine some things and spruce up some others. Heres a list of what i did along with the turbo install.

- Polished up the heat shield...used the steel wool method.
- Found and fixed 3 exhaust leaks. 1) The O2 housing had a small crack so i had it welded and fixed. 2) The cutout was missing a bolt..which we re-did and fixed. 3) The exhaust mani had a small leak...so i bought a new gasket and fixed it.
-Painted the exhaust mani black to make it a little nicer. My buddy and I did all the work and did it rather quickly and painless. Oil return line seemed to be the biggest sticking point but other than that it wasn't too bad at all.
Here are the pics:
The starter pic

Old Turbo out..

Close-up of the new 25g turbo

New painted Manifold

All hooked up and done

Heat shield in progress

Heat shield after

My baby up on jackstands

My baby's *** in the garage

The comparison pic...sorry its far away...check out the size difference though


Im gonna bring this post back to life in about a week when i go to get tuned and have my final numbers. Old setup was 336whp...ill be tuning and installing cams as well...should be over 400 with the new setup. Any ?'s are welcome. Thanks!

 

Let us know how you make out , ill be curious!

 

Hell yeah!!! Lets see the new numbers..... And have bunchez of fun!

 

Nice work! Did you use anything to scuff up the manifold before you painted it?

 

nice lokos good/

 

nice, looks good. can't wait to see some numbers.
how'd you manage to find the leaks?

 

does that 25g compressor wheel affect spool at all? not that i would think so but just curious..

 

maybe by like 500 rpms... it wont even be noticable from a dead stop after a good launch

 

You answered before i could and you are correct. No difference in spool time at all. Id say less than 500 rpms if anything.

 

I know he expects 400 out of this setup but what kind of numbers do the 25G put down??

 

nice, str8 bolt on, how come i never seen u around miami?

 

The leaks were easy to find. One was obvious being that the cutout was missing a bolt. Another one from the manifold was easy as well with the black smoke that was accumulating in a small area on the valve cover. And the last one was the O2housing ...it and a crack in it. =) Easy finds.

 

hmm im insteresteded in how much power it will make.. keep us posted.

 

Will do. I'm gonna bring the thread back to life in a week or so once i dyno. I'll be going either Thursday or Friday. I'll post a pic of the chart and my numbers as soon as Im back.

 

+1