Finally some more progress!!! Got bigmark's turbo tach installed, had some problems with the tach working right. He stepped right up to the plate and sent another one out asap. Will be getting that installed this coming week. I'll start another thread with step by step photos.

The tach is all well and good, but how about the turbo? Spent the day today with my friend Ron the metal master. He spent the day working on the flanges for the exhaust side of the turbo. The day. On 2 parts. Never ask a machinest to make a part for you, unless you have the patience of a saint. I must say, the pieces he made aren't fancy, but they will do the job, and are perfectly sized and cut.

While he was working on that, I was working on intercooler piping. I re-installed the hats on the ITB's, and did alot of measure 2x cut 1x to get the round to oval down pipes Ron made cut to length, and the ITB to intercooler down pipes cut and set up.

Here are a couple pics of the initial test fitting from the ITB's, and the intercooler round to oval pipes Ron made.

I also revised the lines to the puke tank, running 1 line from each head to the tank.

The next photo shows the oiling system for the turbo. To the left is the oil sending unit, and when I installed it, I added a "T" and a plug. I'll just need a 1/4" male fitting on the line to have oil to the turbo. From the Turbo, it will go to a scavenge pump, them back up and into the engine at the oil fill, where there is a fitting installed to receive the return oil line.

We also made an aluminum plate to mount on the intercooler for the blow of valve. With a VNT turbo, I'll probably not need it, but I decided to add one anyway. The subie BOV mounts up at an angle, making it impossible to close the engine lid. This plate with an angled hole drilled, will allow the BOV to mount horizontal, and the lid to close.

Now for some good stuff. Got all the piping roughed in for the left ITB. It just needs some beads added to the ends to keep the hose on, and its done. The rt side needs an extention welded onto the "J" shapped piece, as the piece is about an inch to short on the short end of the "J". Ron will be heli-arcing that tomorrow with stainless, so the joint should be pretty invisible. This winter it all comes appart for powder coating anyway.

The last pic is the intercooler and piping. Keep in mind we need to add a little length to the pipe on the left as it turns back to the ITB, add beads, and bolt it all togather for good.

I also spent some time checking the turbo and actuator, to make sure the vanes were working as expected. All checked out good, and I got it adjusted to work for this application.

To be done: finish the turbo exhaust flanges, make the header collector adaptor, mount the scavenge pump, wire it, add oil in/out, make a short exhaust pipe, lengthen the wide band wired to get the sensor further back, add a bung for the Os sensor in the exhaust pipe, add piping from the turbo to the intercooler, install the turbo tach.

Thats pretty much for the updates for now. Last week I ballasted the car and corner balanced it, got to within 4 lbs of matching cross weights. It was interesting to re-connect the sway bars, and see the difference in how you needed to set the drop links side to side when setting them with weight in the drivers seat. I made some adjustable double heim jointed links for the front and back of the car so I can set the bars for ZERO weight bearing when the car is static and ballasted.

The rest of this weekend is devoted to Mrs me, so probably not much more to add till tue/wed of next wk. My goal is to have the turbo up and running by the weekend, as there is a car show saturday and family reunion sunday I'd like to take it to. Blown, but not blown up.

Hey David,
Did you get a chance to try out that 2nd tach?

Mark

Everyone knows you can't turbo a T4, should of went with a T1.

Mark, only had saturday to get to the car, family ruled for sunday/monday. Hope to get it installed tomorrow night and see how it goes. It looks great, and your customer service has been beyond great.

JPB- you best stay hidden behind that couch lest the mighty 914T smack you down!
(although I really DID think of T1 power, lets see, lighter, alot more been there/done that to fall back on, re-build it monthly when you hit it with the boost... hmmm.. nope)

This brings up an interesting thought- patience or money, which do you have more of? When I turbo'd my ford focus, I bought a kit, it was all there, to the last nut and bolt. Got it done and on the road in one long evening after work. No kidding. This project has taken FOREVER, although I will admit to being sidetracked with auto cross, gutting to the studs and re-doing our master bathroom, (10K in materials and still counting the labor...) golf, family, summer, but still, when it takes a day just to machine up 2 flanges for the exhaust in/out, and all the thinking, ordering, fabricating, re-fitting, re-doing when a better solution presents itself, well, I can really appreciate the one box solutions offered for other cars when it comes to turbos, and actually am quite amazed that the kits offered are as cheep as they are, in the 3-5k range, when I think of all that has gone into this project.

Time for bed. Gotta get an early start to the day to make an early appearance in the garage, for more progress and pics.

Hi David, thats a nice set up!

Does anyone know what happened to the 76 914-6 with the turbo?

I was told that car was a mule car but have never found any actual info on the car.

That sure would be a neat car to document.

All kinds of updates: her is a link to the "bigmark" turbo tach install-

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=76184

and a pic of the finished product.

... now on to the good stuff. All this took place last week, thursday and friday, but I have had no time to update since then. We'll start out with the intercooler. Here are some pics of the final fitting of the pipes for the intercooler to ITB section of the system.

pic 1- test fitting right side
pic 2- test fitting right side
pic 3- test fitting left side
pic 4- test fitting left side

Moving on to other work, I re-plumbed the puke tank to have an individual line from each head into it, with the lines going up from each head, no low spots to have anything condense. I also added an elbow and fitting for the oil return from the scavenge pump. The oil supply was already stubbed in when the oil pressure sender was installed. Next is a pic of the oval to round adaptors to get from the 2" round that the ITB hats need, to the oval of the subi intercooler.

Final cuts of tubing, and the masked welder in action, adding beads to the aluminum ITB hats, intercooler adaptors, and to the mild steel IC piping. Good to have friends with skills... and now, just needs clamps.

914 Joke of the week. My friend Ron, the welder, goes into town to hunt down a flange to use to mount the turbo to the kerry hunter header collector. He stops at the one muffler shop in town, and runs into a guy who used to be on his fastpitch team, Steve. They catch up a little bit, and Steve asks Ron what he's looking for. Ron says he needs a flange to match a collector, shows him the collector, they find one thats close, just needs the mounting holes hogged out a little. Steve asks whats it for? Ron says "I'm putting a turbo on a 914 Porsche" Steve says "No, really, whats it for?"

Moral of the story: even in a town of 8000 with one muffler shop, a guy with a shaggy beard and no teeth knows you can't turbo a 914...

... what am I thinking?

Right and left sides completed!

Intercooler mounted and connected to the round to oval adaptors, connected to the ITB hats. With a VNT turbo I shouldn't really need a blow of valve, , but there was a hole in the IC for the factory valve, so now was as good a time as any to make a plate and just put a hole in it for the BOV. I have since trimmed off the plate and finished it off a little better, added some stainless bolts to class it up a little, rather than the parts box bolts in the pictures.

On to the good stuff. Think we'll have to trim off that exhaust just a bit. It should look pretty stealthy when its done. We went thru several versions of the adaptor from the turbo to the header collector. The first one kept the oil in/out of the turbo verticle, for good drainage, but the angles did not favor us, as the turbo ended up 4" off the ground. Before attaching the drain. Not good. We cut, tacked, test fit, and did it again till we had the drain no lower than the engine mounting bar. The oil comes into the turbo at a little bit of an angle, but after consulting with Corky Bell a bit, as the oil drain will be "sucked" dry by the Tildon differential pump I'll be using as a scavenge pump, being off verticle will hopefully be no big deal. Due to the nature of the center section and VNT mechanicals, clocking options for this turbo are limited.

Some close ups of the flanges we had to make, and the final product, which is designed to bolt right in where the supertrapp now resides.

Last installment for tonight- I took and hosed down the bare metal with some black grille paint to finish it off a bit.

to do list: fix oil leak at sandwich plate adaptor to oil cooler, mount the tildon pump, wire it, plumb the pump to the engine, get the hose made to go from the engine to the turbo, get more 2" tubing to make the boost line from the turbo to the intercooler, and "T" a vaccume line to the turbo to control the VNT. Per usual, its all worked out and done in my head, just gotta get in the garage and make it happen.

I just re-read the thread and see that I 2x posted some pics and info- good thing I'm not in the garage tonight... enjoy and more info as it gets done.

A few more updates- over the weekend, I swapped out the oil lines to the cooler. I just couldn't stop the leaking. Oddly enough, it was not where the fittings threaded into the sandwich plate adaptor, it was at the hose to hose barb connection. I tried several different types/brands of hose, one big clamp, 2 narrower clamps, 2 big clamps, different NPT/barb fittings, still leaked. So I got some -AN fittings for the sandwich plate end of the lines, and went to the local auto parts store for some REAL hose, with NPT on one end to connect to the oil cooler, and -AN on the other to go to the sandwich plate.

I also got the tildon differential pump (now scavenge pump) mounted. Made the bracket out of a piece of aluminum plate, drilled holes, and done. Well, 1/2 a day later done. I mounted it on the back of the trans where the brace for the factory muffler system would go. I also mounted the bracket thru the pinch bolt for the speedo angle drive, so I had 3 mounting points for the plate. I took another bolt from the box of old 914 bolts, and ground down the end to match the factory bolt, but be longer to accomidate the thickness of the plate. 4 bolts mount the pump to the plate, but be careful where you drill them, as the back of the plate contacts the back of the trans in several spots, and there is no room for the bolt/nut if your hole is in one of these spots.

Here are some pics of the pump on the car. I found key switched power in the factory harness. There is a group of 4 wires, 1 black, 1 larger black, 1 white/blue (I think) and one black/purple (tach). The larger black was the coil wire, and after testing with a meter, was found to be hot when the key was on, so I added a 20amp fuse in line, and connected to this location for power.

Couldn't fit all the pics on that last post, here is the back of the plate, showing the need to be tidy with the mounting bolts to keep it all fitting well. The ground for the pump went up to the trans ground strap bolt.

Last night I mounted the turbo, and ran the drain line from the turbo to the pump, roughed in the lines from the pump to the engine, and the oil supply to the turbo. Will add some more pics tonight. I took thursday/friday off to get this thing DONE and on the road.

Side note- shop hard for parts! I was looking for an NPT to -AN adaptor for the turbo oil line, and a 4' section of braded hose, pre built, with -AN on each end. Some of the usual big auto parts superstores (you know who they are) had such things, in the sport compact section, as nitrous bits and pieces. Would have run me 70 bucks or so, and the adaptor would have been a blingy anodized aluminim bit. At my local dirt track store, (there are plenty of dirt/clay ovals in my area) a good solid brass adaptor and 4' section of brake line with correct fittings at each end ran me, oh, $17 bucks.

Dave,

Is your turbo oil circuit seperate from the engine's oil? You say you are using the scavenge pump to PULL oil out of the turbo. I don't know much about these systems, so the "obvious" question for me is why not "PUSH" the oil through? Does that cause oil leakage into the pressure side of the compressor?

It would be best to have a small sump under the turbo to catch the drain oil. oil can back up into the pump and sit after shut down you can run the pump before starting and after shut down but the little sump is helpful in de-foaming the oil coming out of the pump and helping the priming circuit for the pump.

I have and extra one I made with 8an fittings on it if you need it.

Brian- the engine oil is pressurized, and I am tapping into that to supply the top of the turbo bearings w/oil. As these are bearings, and not a pump, gravity is the only force trying to move the oil out the bottom of the turbo once the initial pressure supplied by the engine is "used up" getting the oil into the turbo. So you're mostly right. The engine pumps the oil to the top side of the turbo, gravity drops it out the bottom, and now my scavenge pump sucks it out and sends it back to the engine. Thats why you want the oil in/out to be as close to verticle as possible, and to mount the turbo higher than the oil pan if possible. I chose this mounting system mainly to save the $$$ and effort of a custom exhaust.

Which brings me to chappy.

I have been talking with Corky Bell, author of "Maximum Boost", and he suggested a line directly to the pump, although his book shows some low mount turbos with a small sump as you suggest. His reasoning was that if with the VNT feature of the turbo, I couldn't get a verticle oil drain, the draw of the pump may be more important to keep the turbo bearings flowing well, and this design concern may overrule the conventional set up of a small sump. He noted the main purpose of the sump was to allow a drain for the oil in the line to the turbo, and in the turbo, after shut down, and that the de-foaming of the oil in the sump was a happy side benefit. I'll be trying things as they are, and I can always turn the key to "on" and let the scavenge pump run a second or 2 prior to starting the car, to suck the lines clear, and also leave the key "on" a second or 2 after shutting the motor off, again to clear the lines and allow some room for draining. Supposidly the pump is self priming, and has some crazy verticle draw, but the thought of having the de-foamed drain oil ready to enter the pump can only make is last longer, rather than to start out dry each time the car is run. I still may contact you for that little sump you made if the godfather of turbos isn't 100% correct on this one.

The wonders of a one off install never cease to amaze and confound me.

I had problems scavenging fast enough with the Tilton pump, but part of that was the Rayjay turbo I was using, after i switched to the cam driven 930 pump i didn't have any more problems.
I use the Tilton pump for my transmission cooler now.

Just let me know if you want the sump.

chappy- pm sent.

looks great!

so how do you put oil in it?

More updates- I'm so close now I can feel the boost- Took today and tomorrow off to get this project DONE, but have a horrible cold, so work and mental processing are progressing at about 50% efficency...

Today got alot of small things buttoned up. Here are some pics of oil lines being installed from the oil sending unit to the turbo.

When I had the motor out for the SDS install, I added a short nipple and "T" fitting to the oil pressure/temp sender, with a plug in the "T" for future use with the turbo.

Next is the line connected.

Next is the line going thru the back engine tin, and back to the turbo. There will be hose zip tied around the braded line where it touches anything to protect the hose and whatever it touches. The vaccume line to the VNT actuator will end up sharing the same hole and grommet, so I zip tied the hoses togather in front and in back of the grommet, to prevent any in/out motion.

Here's a couple money shots for you- turbo, air cleaner, and tildon pump all installed and ready to go. I suspect I'll be re-doing the turbo drain, as it looks a little lame, but it is no lower than the engine mounting bar. I expect when the car is on the ground, you'll never see anything, except a factory looking little pea shooter exhaust.

One more of the install. I plan to build a 1/2 round shield for the air cleaner. There are a couple of threaded inserts on the turbo, and the shield will just need a couple tabs to easily mount and protect the air cleaner a bit more.

A few more install shots, working on the oil lines.

First shot shows the oil supply and vaccume lines to the left, the oil return to the right. Before drilling and putting the line in, I ran a temp line to the oil fill tower, and fired her up! After a the longest 60 seconds ever, oil started flowing! I check under the car, no leaks, so it seems I have a system to the turbo and back. Tomorrow I will be tapping a 3/8 barbed fitting into the oil fill tower, and will use this as the location for the return oil. And yes, I will be careful NOT to get any shavings into the oil system.

When I finished for the day, pic 3 was showing in our back yard. Surely a good sign.

Tomorrow- need plugs 1 heat range cooler, make template for final boost line, from turbo to engine area, tap and install the oil return line, new dipstick, re-install intercooler, hook up the SDS, and go for a ride.

Beautiful!
Minimal cutting, fits great, I want one. So this is a kit, right? You're gonna hook us all up for cheap with a group buy, right?
I agree the oil drain looks less than ideal, and a fatter exhaust pipe out back would increase coolness.

Turbo update. Nothing but hurt. Will post more pics later.

http://forum.mnautox.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7777

That stinks, I'd check the turbo over really well before deciding it's toast. Look for blades scraping the housings and any internal contact. ANY bearing noises or not perfectly smooth spots while turning would be highly suspect!

I'd also pressure test both intake and exhaust systems for ANY leaks - plug up the ends and use some soapy water or Snoop on the joints - like looking for leaks in a tire. You should be able to spot any leaks right away.

OTOH, TD04's are plentiful and cheap. Many guys upgrading their WRX's to bigger units sell their stock ones cheap.
Flanges are also easy to come by - Outback (who for some reason just changed their name to "Outfront") has inexpensive bare steel flanges for inlet and outlet sides:
http://www.outfrontmotorsports.com/homepage.htm

And these guys make a trick discharge flange for better wastegate and exhaust flow (shown in the attached pic):
http://www.ztspeedandfab.com/index.htm

oil out the exhaust usually means that the seals in the turbo are bad. You mentioned that your initial cold oil pressure is about 60psi, with about 45psi as normal running...way too much for the turbo seals. you should think about adding a reducer to your oil feed line just before the turbo...
great project! i'll be slappin a turbo on mine one day. still working on the MS.

TURBO 914 LIVES!!!

Round 2 with a wrx turbo is a success so far. Got it installed this afternoon/evening, and test fired in the garage. No spewing oil, no odd noises. To bad its cold and snowing in WI or there'd be a road test ot report on.

Will add pics and more details sunday pm.

That rocks! You are going to have to post some video!!!!

That's great news David!
Looking at an earlier post up the page a bit, it was mentioned about having too much oil going to the turbo. In the FWIW dept. I noted that on my WRX/TD04 and VF10 turbos the oil input banjo bolt has very small feed holes coming out the sides of the bolt - looks like it would certainly restrict oil flow to the turbo a bit (but not pressure). I switched to all AN fittings on my turbo but kept that special banjo bolt for the restricted orifice.

I'd like to see a pic of how your oil drain is plumbed. I've got to come up with something different thatn the OEM drain for that and haven't come across any aftermarket alternatives.
Jeff

i am on a hunger strike until we get some video : )

that is some nice work!

Wow, this is a cool post. I just noticed it now, I read it all the way through from page 1 to here and I am glad you got the problems figured out and am really looking forward to seeing some video footage (with sound) and see how the car works and performs, this is cool! Congrats!! Please show us more, very cool thread, thanks!

Jamie

This may take a while, so get comfy.

Recap: Ever since I turbo'd my Ford Focus I wanted to do the 914. Phase one was to get some ITB's (from Jake) and SDS fuel injection (direct from the SDS guys in Canada) and get that all working. I sizes the ITB's for a 2316 as I thought I might like to build one some day, so they're a little big for my current 2.0. The 2.0 is a slightly warmed over motor built by Brad Mayeur, with euro P/C's, and a little head shaving to up the CR, stock cam and valve sizes. Kerry Hunter exhaust.

I picked up a VNT turbo from a VW TDI. The turbo I put on the Focus was a VNT, but by a company called "Aerocharger" which has gone out of business. The new turbo was a Garrett. My thinking was, the TDI is a 1.8, mine is a 2.0. The TDI revs to around 4500, the stock cam'd 914 dies off at around 5-5200. After picking up the ebay gem of a turbo, I finally found a compressor map for it. Not the best match for the pressure ratios I would be running, but it was paid for, and maybe the VNT features would broaden the operating range of the turbo, and it would work out all right.

Early October 2007 I got it all set up, custom making flanges, piping, mounts. I had thought about pre-lubing the bearings, pulling the fuel pump fuse, turning the motor over w/the starter to prime everything, but in all the research I did, I never once saw anyone make a big deal of pre-lubing. After years of research, planning, I was at my moment of victory! Rather than wait another 5 minutes, I turned the key, let it idle a while, and took a test drive. After a short bit the turbo was screaming, sounding more like a mad dremel tool than a turbo. There was oil out the tail pipe. There was virtually no boost, no matter how I set the vane controller for the VNT system.

I think I fried the seals/bearings.

I put the supertrapp back on, and finished the auto cross season. A crushing blow, enough was enough.

For the month of November I searched and researched turbos, and even picked up a junk turbo off a late 80's subie, (for free) but it was so rusted togather I couldn't get the hot and cold side housings off the center section to clock it to work for me. Studying compressor maps, I decided the stock WRX turbo, a TD04-13G would be a good match, so I joined some subie boards and looked for a low mileage take off. Turbo secured, I went ebay shopping for flanges and other bits needed.

Now we're up to the present, and on to the pictures-

First is a photo of the turbo, after clocking the center section. This is a process by which you basically take both compressor housings, exhaust and cold side, off the turbo, rotate the center section as you need it to be for oil flow in /out of the bearings, and put it all back togather. Except that in an orientation other than the OEM, the waste gate actuator will not line up with the waste gate. Hmmmm.... I found that the SRT Neon had a wastegate actuator that would start to open at 5psi, and be fully open by 7psi. The stock WRX actuator worked at higher pressures, and I wanted to start out small with psi. As a bonus, the SRT actuator had an odd bend in it, that just might work for me. Well, it did, thanks to Ebay.

The next pic is the adaptor to join the turbo and the exhaust header. Initially I thought I could just weld the header flange, a triangle shape, to the turbo flange, an odd trapizoid shape, and bolt things up. Looked like it would work. Didn't. There was all kinds of turbo housing/collector issues that prevented getting the right bolts thru. We were going to have to do alot work to tap and stud the flanges to make it all work. And to top it all off, I didn't get the flanges lined up right before welding, so the whole turbo was slanted when we tried to test fit it. Hmmmm... back to the muffler shop to look for more ideas. We thought an extention of 1 1/2" would move the turbo back under the factory exhaust heat shield. Steve at the muffler shop suggested a flaired end to the extention, then we could rotate the turbo any which way we needed. Genuis. Thus was born the flange adaptor.

Next pic is the adaptor installed.

Next pic is the turbo, looking at the exhaust side. I still need to make the exhaust pipe, which will be an "L" shape, with a tab to mount it where the super trapp was mounted to the chassis on a slightly flexable mount. This will help support the turbo, so all the weight of the turbo is not on the head bolts.

Next pic is the turbo from below, and the last pic of this section is the turbo and tildon scavenge pump, viewing from the cold side of the turbo. I still need to get an air cleaner over the compressor inlet.

David, it's nice to see you are using the oil sump i made... I love your Zork tube, i picked up a flange and some pipe so i can build one for when i want to shake up the town....

This week i plan on bringing my car up to the shop for them to check out the leaks, then i can start tearing it apart again....

More pics- here are some of the oiling system, there have been plenty of questions about that. I have been consulting with Corky Bell of the Bell engineering group, Inc. He seemed to think the oil pressure of the system was not a problem with this "old school" turbo, but that if I were going with a newer style ball bearing turbo we might need to be a little more careful. Good enough for Corky, good enough for me.

The current configuration, which will be changing, uses a catch can supplied by one of our members who has built a monster turbo'd orange 6cyl. Wonder who that is... The catch can hangs to low. In reality, its no lower than the engine bar, but is hangs below the valance, and the oil return line is low also. Not that I go 4 wheeling with this car, but if I went off at an auto cross, or plugged a cone just the wrong way, I could rip it appart.

Mr. Bell to the rescue again. He seemed to think the catch can would not be needed on a smaller turbo at lower rpms (its not like the stock motor will spin to 7k rpms or anything) such as this one, and advised me that going direct from the turbo oil outlet to the scavenge pump should work fine. So I will be revising the oiling system to do just that, with a very short drain off the turbo, a 90 degree turn right under the turbo, and then attach a line straight to the scavenge pump.

On to the pics-

First is the back of the car, and what you can see, and not see relative to the turbo system. My hopes are to tuck it all up under the car, so all you see is a slightly larger exhaust pipe.

Next is a close up of the back of the car. The current oiling return system is a little low.

Pic of the catch can, which will be going away.

Here is the catch can and pump.

Close up of the drain from the turbo. I'll unclamp the catch can, remove the hose, and braze on a 90 degree fitting to get the oil line tucked up under the car a little better. Better for looks as well as safety- keeping it all attached should I go farming with the car at an auto cross.

Where does the air go after it enters the turbo? Here's the route:

out of the turbo, up past the starter
thru the back engine tin
into the engine area
up to the intercooler
to the left and right ITB's.

There is a puller style fan coming that will be mounted to the back of the intercooler, and can be turned on/off by the SDS system based on boost present in the system. I plan to also wire in an "always on" switch for auto cross.

Remaining to be done?

Lots.

Add the puller fan to the intercooler. Re-do oil return system. Fabricate exhaust pipe. Plus whatever else I come across to improve.

***** BLING QUESTION*****

Should I take the intercooler piping in the engine area out, and:

rattle can it black
rattle can it silver
powder coat it black
powder coat it silver
leave it metal and spray a clear coat to prevent rust

Now just a few more pics of the beast-
(the back end looks high as it has been in the air alot, and not driven to settle the springs back down)

Lastly for tonight- there have been requestd for a video- I'm not going to take this car out into the salt bath that is Wisconsin roads in the winter. I did shoot a 15 sec or so vid of the turbo spining, around 12mb, (forgot to switch camera to "you tube" mode), but I have no idea how to post it. If some one can handle this, PM me your email addy, and I'll try to send you a copy.

I agree that oil can is to low, ditch it. The reason i ran my intake through the trunk was so i could get my turbo up high so it would drain and had clearance.
I do like the fact you still have your trunk. Nice work.....

Dave, All looks good. I would say your oil return setup is your weak point if you have one. My oil return on my Civic was the area I had problems with. When I originally tapped the line I wasn't thinking and ended up tapping in to the pan beneath the oil level and it ended up scaring me into a new pan that I tapped above the oil level. I see you have had a little help from the boys at H-T.com....I have been a member there for years and I can attest....there is a lot of knowledge to be had there. If you get frustrated with your oil setup, I would suggest getting ahold of the guys at Squires Turbo Systems. They have a lot of experience dealing with low mounted turbo's and are hella nice guys to deal with! They are probably going to hook me up with a turbo for my Sequoia in the future! (....errr hopefully!!!! ) I think from the looks of things, once you get it going, you can ditch the catch can and rubber line with hose clamps and go with some SS braided lines and AN fittings. Then you should be able to flog the crap out of it without worrying about them lines. High pressure or low pressure, most rubber return lines end up leaking and cracking.

As far as the tubes go, that is personal preference...although they would look cool body color! I have never really agreed with coating the intercooler with anything...so I hope you leave that bare!

I really hope for the best with this setup! Turbocharged engines are near and dear to my heart.....if they were closer to my wallet, I would be happier...

Crazy cool!!!!!

This will be fun to tune