turbo time

After a year and a half of turbo bliss, its time to move on.

Doug sent me home with some 1300cc DeatschWerks injectors to test. I finally got the time / clear weather to install them this morning.

I have a lot of tuning ahead of me to get these running right on my car.

The nice thing was that the PNP clips that came with my ID1000cc injectors work with the DW's. They have the exact same plug on them! So my install was very simple.

For now just some pix comparing them.

Everyone asked me how my birthday went. Well, I spent my day finishing the Civic, and troubleshooting the electrical system on the Teg. What a great way to spend a birthday...lol.

There are many details I'd like to change on the Civic's engine bay. All of them involve significant amounts of money though, so it's going to be a while.

I tweaked all of the injector wiring to do a semi tuck on it. It'll look a little cleaner with some more time, but it's good enough for now. I will spend more time on it when I get an aftermarket fuel rail. read more »

Finally got to the perty stage on this ish. Had to cut a couple corners on the intake manifold. It didn't turn out as nice as I'd like, but I'm never satisfied with anything so I digress.

Wet sanded and polished the valve cover. Man with more time and patience, I could really make that thing pop. It'd need another coat or two of paint and a little more sanding. Maybe later.

I got most of it installed on the car but Renee came downstairs and made me go to sleep before I could finish (it was 5:30am the next morning afterall)...lol

Adam took care of painting the valve cover for me at his house. Turned out a lot better than the teg's, the surface was much smoother to start with and Adam is learning the paint.

I decided to spray the spark plug cover really quick, I think it turned out pretty nice.

I got the turbo all reinstalled tonight. Had a moment where I thought things weren't going to go back together with the new manifold design... thank you MIKE (Soxfan143) for putting a flexpipe in the downpipe. Otherwise I would have been totally screwed.

Got back to sanding the intake manifold. I spent all night working with emery cloth to get as many of the deep grooves out as I could.

Received my new turbo manifold today from TSI to replace my cracked one. No time like the present, we got straight to work.

Since we had to take the car down and I have to give VIt back a manifold next weekend, work re-commenced on polishing the intake manifold. We also decided we might as well paint the valve cover since it's off the car. We have this awesome uncanny ability to compound the amount of time it should take to complete something by adding more ish to the project along the way.

I took the opportunity to take some photos of my wastegate setup as I've received many questions about that on 8thcivic.

Also took a few photos comparing the two manifolds once I got the Greddy one out. I enjoyed suspending the turbo in air with zipties. lol

It's starting to get cooler out. My compensations for air temp have started pulling the boost down a bit. The civic has been feeling a little slower so I decided to do some 3rd gear pulls. To my surprise, I don't think it's getting slower, I'm just getting used to it.

Sad.

Sludge be damned! I don't want to smell the stench of my car when I'm sitting still. Running a breather filter off the valve cover should be criminal. After a week of headaches from the awful noxious fumes, it was time for a solution. The fix? A plastic T from baxters, a 5/8" npt fitting and some hose.

Problem solved, now the only smell I get is the un-catalyzed fuel smell from the back of the car. That one I'm used to and rarely enters the cabin anyways. At some point I do need to put a true catch can back into the car, the sludge build up isn't good for the turbo.

I also upgraded to new NGK BKR9EIX spark plugs. It was time to replace them, and the 9's are 2 steps colder than stock... seems to allow me to run a smidge more timing than I did before. Still have to keep them gapped at .020" to keep the misfires away at high boost / rpm.

Mmmm, sludge. This is what happens when you don't have a catch can.

Upgraded to a 3" intake, relocated the IAT sensor to the charge pipe right before the TB, wrapped all my IC piping in armaflex...yay!

My 12 second passes

VitViper's kills