Time For Some Upgrades

[QWK32]

I moved the number plate and cut out a bit of the plastic behind - will put up a photo tomorrow.

yeah i was looking at doing that but because of how the number plate piece comes down, cutting it out would leave a big rectangle hole it the bottom part of the front bar.

Edited October 22, 2009 by QWK32

[Stagea_Neo]

I've been looking to get the stealth cooler myself, still umming & arrring about it though.

Also have a dayz bar which i put on about a month ago, so airflow & that number plate mount is in the back of my mind.

Would having a slimline front plate help expose a bit more surface area, even though it would be minimal?

Do you think its possible to mount the cooler a bit lower so more of the cooler is exposed and the lower pipe work hidden as

much as it can be behind the lower lip?

Or would this cause the pipe work to be a couple inches short of where it meets the standard pipes near the airbox?

Edited October 23, 2009 by Stagea_Neo

[QWK32]

no you could mount it down lower. i originally had it down lower but the bottom return pipe was hanging out the bottom of the front bar. i didn't want it sitting any lower than the front bar so i lifted it up a bit.

i think the better option as far as exposed intercooler fins goes would have been the style where the pipe comes in under the battery tray and across the top of the engine fan. but then that raises issues with cutting a hole under the batter tray and the FMIC also looses it "stealth" look, with shinny pipes standing out in the engine bay.

i might see if i can get it any lower another time, so the return pipe is just sitting lower than the front bar, i have to take the front bar back off again as some of the sections i cut out are still a bit close. one thing is you have to take a fair bit out of the front bar. i just used a large and a small stanley knife, they worked ok to cut the front bar out to suit the intercooler. also you cant fit the stock mesh back on, you have to cut the mount points off for these as they foul on the intercooler.

Edited October 23, 2009 by QWK32

[Stagea_Neo]

Cheers for the info Josh.

[SCHSLYF]

hmmm if you could mount the intercooler up the other way so the pipe runs above the cooler like on the evo rather than under it you would have more surface area exposed and not have the proble of the pipe being lower than the front bar.

[pyro-ns]

one thing is you have to take a fair bit out of the front bar. i just used a large and a small stanley knife, they worked ok to cut the front bar out to suit the intercooler. also you cant fit the stock mesh back on, you have to cut the mount points off for these as they foul on the intercooler.

[QWK32]

hmmm if you could mount the intercooler up the other way so the pipe runs above the cooler like on the evo rather than under it you would have more surface area exposed and not have the proble of the pipe being lower than the front bar.

i think you'd run into trouble with the reo and supports running the pipe up the top.

[SCHSLYF]

i think you'd run into trouble with the reo and supports running the pipe up the top.

probably but you could probably change the pipework. i wasnt saying do it i was just saying that if it could run the same way teh evo did it would allow for the cooler to sit a bit lower and not have to worry about having intercooler pipes running under it, at a very low level.

[QWK32]

New rims for the stagea, picked them up and fitted this morning, thanks to darrinspencer. Now it just needs to be lowered

some pics:

[QWK32]

Installed a new set of 600cc Deatschwerks injectors today. apart from having to pull almost everything off the intake manifold to be able to get the the fuel rail and injectors everything went fairly smoothly. i was happy that i managed to get them in without splitting the intake manifold, i really didn't want to stuff around doing that.

the Deatschwerks injectors were about 2.5-3mm longer on the mounting faces than the original ones so i had to space the fuel rail off 3mm at the two mounting points. even though the injector looked physically different to the oem ones, the electrical plugs were exactly the same as well as the o-ring size. they were supplied with a spacer to make them fit into the rail properly but the stock injector clips could not be used as the injector bodies were different.

once i had it all back together, i chucked the wideband on and connected up with the Nistune ecu. i was really happy with how easy it was to get Nistune to run the larger injectors. it was as easy as telling the tuning software the old injector size and the new injector size, it does the rest for you with the exception of the injector latency which needed to be set to the new injectors. Started up first time, idled perfectly smooth, the wideband confirmed all was good. warmed it up and went for a drive keeping a close eye on afr's. it behaves just as it did with the oem injectors, really rich on boost from about 4500 onwards, anything under that was perfect. i'll look at pulling some fuel out of the top of the map to a more acceptable level during the week.

not long to go, 2 weeks till the turbo upgrade hope everything goes smoothly with that aswell.

pic of the Deatschwerks 600cc.

Edited November 15, 2009 by QWK32

[QWK32]

Z32 MAF is in. I think its probably one of the easiest aftermarket mods to install that has a real benefit when chasing power. Its the same physical size and share the same airbox/pod mounting holes as the stock AFM. plug is different but only requires you to cut of the standard plug and solder on a new one. 3 soldered connections to be made on the S2 stagea loom. Heatshrink/seal it up and its good to go.

Setting it up in nistune is just like the injectors, select to operation of change MAF, select Z32 from the list and it adjust the maps for you. i cant say if that is all you have to do on stock injectors, but i have 600cc's installed and Nistune's adjustment were still on the lean side. 17:1 afr on first start Played with the values and got it down to a good 14.3:1 ratio on idle, open loop. also my fuel maps which i had got down to a nice 12:1 ratio across the map on load are back up into the 10's high in the rpm/load points, i'll pull them back over the next couple of days

[kidafa]

Looking good mate.....

Been on the rollers?

[QWK32]

Not yet Chris. I'm installing the new turbo in a weeks time, so it will go on the rollers after that. Just been doing street tuning to get all the AFR's to an acceptable level, and i can tell you just by doing that the car performs a hell of a lot better, has alot more torque, and i even noticed that the gear changes get alot smoother and faster with the better AFR's.

[QWK32]

the turbo upgrade has started today. only started working on it this afternoon but have managed to remove the entire stock turbo setup. i have to shoot into my brothers work in the morning to remove a broken stud on the manifold, where the turbo bolts on, of coarse there had to be atleast one troublesome stud

just from a test fit up i'm going to be using a 16mm spacer plate and gaskets to space the GT35 off the stock turbo enough to clear the comp cover hitting the manifold. should have some pics up of the install tomorrow when i hopefully have it all fitted up ready to get the exhaust mods done the following day.

[QWK32]

its all in and done with the exception of a few small details. overall took me 3 days from start to finish, and that was only putting in like 4-5 hours a day into it. the turbo fits nicely on the stock manifold with a 16mm spacer. exhaust took about 1 hour to finish off and then we made up a custom stainless inlet pipe so i could run the bov return line and oil breather line to it.

bits i will be working on just to finish it off, make up some stainless intercooler pipes as the stock ones aren't really suited, even though we made them work. a bit of heat sheilding around the turbo area, just for some piece of mind that nothing will melt. and some more silicone joiners in the right sizes. also i need to get a different bov as the stock one it blowing open under full boost, 1bar. at the moment i've had blocked the stocker off until i can get a good aftermarket plumb back.

i had to pull some timing out and adjust the fuel maps so i could get a safe tune to drive on, i only need it like this till i get the tune finished on the dyno, which hopefully will be in a few weeks.

how does it go? well, it really hauls ass now. if your a fan of full boost at 2000rpm this turbo isn't for you. it starts building a noticable boost level around 3000rpm and around 3800rpm its under full scream. boost comes on hard and fast and is held through gear changes. just putting around town just cruising i dont really see much more than a couple of psi and so far i dont really miss not have full boost down low. put your foot down while doing 60kph, it drops back to 2nd and takes off, before you know it your doing 120kph. if i'm not paying attention when in tiptronic mode rev limit creeps up real fast when on full boost.

here's some pics of the engine bay. just need to finish a couple more things throughout the next couple of weeks.

and one of the turbo sitting snugly on the stock manifold.

Edited December 3, 2009 by QWK32

[kidafa]

Looking good josh!

Bet the dyno sheet and tune will be entertaining.

When your making shielding for ur turbz, do me a favour and make one for ur pod

[QWK32]

Looking good josh!

Bet the dyno sheet and tune will be entertaining.

When your making shielding for ur turbz, do me a favour and make one for ur pod

i have one for the pod. just gotta put it back on

[kidafa]

good man

[GoldZilla]

the turbo upgrade has started today. only started working on it this afternoon but have managed to remove the entire stock turbo setup. i have to shoot into my brothers work in the morning to remove a broken stud on the manifold, where the turbo bolts on, of coarse there had to be atleast one troublesome stud

just from a test fit up i'm going to be using a 16mm spacer plate and gaskets to space the GT35 off the stock turbo enough to clear the comp cover hitting the manifold. should have some pics up of the install tomorrow when i hopefully have it all fitted up ready to get the exhaust mods done the following day.

Broken studs are fairly common on RB engines, Josh, especially where the exhaust manifold bolts onto the head. Seeing as the turbo end is more prone to a lot of heat cycling (extremely high temps when driven, then generally low temps when at idle or not being driven), then I'm not surprised that a few studs were broken there too. I've known about two broken studs on my exhaust manifold for quite some time (mine are at the usual spots at each end of the head, near cylinders 1 and 6), but I haven't done anything about them yet.

[QWK32]

Broken studs are fairly common on RB engines, Josh, especially where the exhaust manifold bolts onto the head. Seeing as the turbo end is more prone to a lot of heat cycling (extremely high temps when driven, then generally low temps when at idle or not being driven), then I'm not surprised that a few studs were broken there too. I've known about two broken studs on my exhaust manifold for quite some time (mine are at the usual spots at each end of the head, near cylinders 1 and 6), but I haven't done anything about them yet.

Yeah I thought I was pritty lucky to get away with only the one. I did an exhaust manifold gasket on the old R32, and to add to the 3 studs that were already broken off I snapped 3 more off while undoing them. Drilling them out of the head was a real pain.

I did notice that while undoing the studs on the manifold/head of the stagea, that the nuts were a little loose on cylinder 1. Which was the source of the kettle boiling noise while on boost lol.