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I decided to mess with another one of my legacy turbos while we're waiting on the AVCS cam wrench for the race car. We put a WRX turbo, STi bypass valve, FCD, and a methanol kit on my daily driver. It currently has a custom 3" exhaust, clutch, and no PS or AC.

It's on stock ecu, injectors, maf, fuel pump etc. so I decided to do something a little different. With some tuning on a progressive controller I got it fueled up to 19 psi using a 1300cc meth nozzle. After around 9-10 psi it wasn't adding any more fuel so I just added meth to keep the lamda target I wanted. The car was super torquey and fun to drive. It was spinning my the azenis on the front in second gear, but the turbo started pushing oil yesterday heavily after only 3 days of fun and now it's slow to spool and doesn't have the flow it did before. It crapped out while I was doing a pull with an Evo for comparison.

That's why I love having a bunch of these around...so we can push the limit on things. I'll probably throw a VF series turbo on it next time so it holds up better. The stock charge pipe was nice and cool to the touch even at 19psi with that much methanol so that part of the test went well. BTW I had race gas in it the whole time since I knew it wouldn't be so easy to dial the methanol accurately and I wasn't sure how evenly it would distribute.

I'll just drive it easy for a bit until I feel like messing with it some more.

-Mike

An STi came in for a lot of work yesterday including a swap to an FP Green and the owner offered me his stock turbo. I'll probably throw that on tomorrow.

wow, wish I got free turbos

Yeah me too - Mike, did you just blow up a 16G? Or just a TD04?

Edit: If you've got a couple Subaru 16Gs sitting around could I get one of those cheap?

I didn't get it free, but I got a good enough deal. We had already ported the wastegate outlet on it so I shouldn't have any creep. I had a stock TD04L off an 05 WRX on it the past few days. The seal seems to have just let go. There is no play on the shaft. Now I'm putting a VF39 off a 05 sti on. We're putting a new coolant temp sensor and thermometer in too. Hopefully that will cure my horrible cold running and persistant knock sensor code despite using a new knock sensor. If not we'll throw another ecu in and if that doesn't work we'll start testing all the wiring. We're throwing an oil feed line in from my race car in case this one is gunked up and restricting flow to the turbo too.

I do have brand new FP evo 3 16g's in stock that bolt onto WRX/STi etc. but on a LGT you'd need to use a silicone 90 deg. bend like I am on the inlet. I'm not trying to sell anything on here though as I'm pretty sure that's against the rules... I just wanted to share some of the things we're testing on my cars.

-Mike

Gotcha. The Evo 16Gs have the proper turbine bolt patterns? The compressor side doesn't matter near as much to me.

I dont need a turbo anytime soon but I was thinking if you had a bunch of 16g's lying around that you got for free, maybe I could pick one up cheep. I do have two more essesses here that will need upgraded turbos at some point, as I've only got one VF36 setup. Nevermind

Yea Mitsu makes subaru bolt on housings now.

Well I got the vf39 on my daily yesterday and tuned the meth kit again. I just raced a friend in a stock 06 STi and we're almost dead even from 30-100 mph. I had 93 in the tank this time. I won one and he won one just based on the jump. At 90 mph the STi started pulling on me a little. With a second stage of methanol and a little more boost I'll be able to take stock STis reliably. I'm pretty happy with the results considering how low budget this setup is.

For the record my beater has a 3" turboback exhaust, VF39 and stock sti bypass valve, and the meth kit with my custom tuning on it.

-Mike

which meth kit are you using and are you using meth or the windex method

bump for answeres

Sorry guys. I'm glad you bumped this or I wouldn't have seen it. I added a second meth nozzle right after that so I'm flowing quite a bit now and I've been running 18-19 psi every day on the VF39 with 93 octane. No issues other than my ACT heavy duty clutch can't hold the torque and I'm waiting on a 6 puck disc to replace it.

I'm using a Coolingmist Stage 2 progressive meth kit with straight methanol (the real thing). It's the basic kit except I use a 1 gallon reservoir instead of the 2 qt. and of course the second meth nozzle.

This did require custom tuning I did on the coolingmist control unit (included with that kit). Everyone that's had a ride in it has been pretty shocked. I think that's mainly due to the way torque hits, but it pulls pretty well up top too.

-Mike

Little update. After xmas I bumped the boost up to 21 psi and I've left it there. Still running great with no intercooler.

We just put my diamond coil in and the car runs better than ever. Thanks blackbart!

Neat stuff, man

With an FP Green and some more airflow I found the limit of the stock plastic intake elbow that goes down to the compressor inlet. At 22 psi it got sucked in hard enough to crush it. I'm using a silicone one temporarily which gets sucked flat causing me to suddenly lose power up top, but it's only temporary until we rework the whole intake system.

Update: I turned the boost down to 17 psi or so and the silicone intake is holding up for the meantime til I get to make something new.

One of my coolant hoses split and the car overheated this morning so I have to fix that first. Hopefully the engine and head gaskets are okay. She's an old girl and it seems the hoses are due for replacement.

I forgot to mention...the FP Green fit mint. We didn't have to grind the bellhousing like we usually do to clear the compressor cover on the later cars. We just had to cut a new piece of hose for the coolant return line because the stock one barely reached and it was going to be a problem.

We used a silicone 90 degree bend to the inlet. I just need to get a metal coil to reinforce it so it won't collapse over 21 psi.

The Ultimate Racing external gate uppipe and dump tube for tial 38mm wastegate also fit perfectly. We didn't have to move or modify anything to install it. Needless to say my car sounds pretty angry now when I hit full boost.

-Mike

mike what FCD are you using?

still unintercooled?

where did you find an elbow that would fit in that tight space. i tried an silicone elbow for a vf39 and there wasnt enough space the radius was too big.

pics???

MRT FCD.

No intercooler still.

I haven't posted pics since we're intentionally "rigging" this setup together to work with as many stock or free/extremely low cost parts as possible. It's definitely not the best way or the way we normally do things, but I wanted to push certain limits and see what happens. Normally we'd just fabricate something out of metal, but for now I've kept the stock intake system back to the elbow that goes in the turbo. No cone filter or anything. At some point I'll just get sick of it, tear it all out and replace everything, but I figured board members would like to know what they can throw together easily.

I have hundreds of couplers at my shop. If you want the bend I used for this turbo I have more of them. You just need to trim it down like I did.

I'll give you a little shot that shows the inlet.


And here's a shot of the dump from up top:


-Mike

Here's a little sound clip:
http://innovativetuningdl.com/video/LegacyDumpSound.mp4

Ahhhhh.......whatda thay call that? Poetry in motion. How much for the coupler?

Unfortunately silicone bends like that aren't cheap. 2.25 diameter 90 degree bend is 50 bucks shipped. You can get one or two straight through couplers out of what's left of it though. The legs off the bend are really long.

could you put a big metal spring like thing in it to keep it from collapsing?

I tried to get one but couldn't find the size. This morning I finally had a little time to mess with it. We just slash cut a pipe and inserted it in the hose so as much as possible of the hose is reinforced and now it doesn't budge.

I tuned it up to 21 psi on the Green a little while ago and finally maxed out the stock injectors. We did add a walbro in tank 255 pump last week, but the fuel system was still otherwise stock.

I have NA rails and 740cc injectors here and I'll put them in soon when I have a couple hours to spare.

At 21 psi on the FP Green needless to say the car feels pretty good. The turbo is coming to life and I'm thinking I'll end up leaving it around 24 psi for daily driving on 93+meth once the bigger injectors go in. Still no IC and my EGTs are totally in check.

-Mike

Innovative Tuning wrote:Unfortunately silicone bends like that aren't cheap. 2.25 diameter 90 degree bend is 50 bucks shipped. You can get one or two straight through couplers out of what's left of it though. The legs off the bend are really long.

If people are looking for silicone hoses at reasonable prices, check out www.siliconeintakes.com
I get bends from $9.99, and reducer bends for ~$15. They have t-bolts for $2.60/ea. All great stuff - the silicone parts have no printing either... nice IMO.

I am of no affiliation, just thought they are good deals (and sorta local, well CO anyway)