[Afterhours]

Hey seawulf, I've started my turbo install and I've noticed the oil separator (PCV assembly) really takes up a lot of space against the block. I didn't take that into consideration when I built the turbo manifold. It looks like I'll have to cut off and reposition the turbo flange to get the required clearence.

I was wondering if you left your oil separator in place or blocked it off and relocated you PCV valve. I'm just curious how you got around that problem.

 

[Seawulf]

Yeah, we left it in place and it did conflict a bit with the turbo. I'm not sure if my dad had to redesign the turbo manifold to clear it, if it didn't clear when he first tried to mount the turbo.

He did have to tap the cover with a hammer to bend it a bit to clear the wastegate when he finally mounted it though.

 

[Afterhours]

Yes, the oil separator is hitting my internal wastegate valve lever and the back of the turbine housing.
Damn it's tight back there...........:disgust: I think I'm going to use an external wastegate instead of the internal. A 35mm Tial is a better set-up than the internal wastegate and it'll also solve the clearance problem with the oil separater.

I can imagine what a ***** it would be to make any adjustments to the internal wastegate actuator rod with the limited clearence back there.

 

[Seawulf]

It's actually not that tuff. It's tight but I've taken the c-clip off the wastegate arm and changed the lenght of the rod a few times. It only takes about 10 min or so and the engine needs to be cool.

We kept the internal wastegate cause it's there already, and it's cheaper than getting another wastegate. Haven't had any boost creep but my boost is low and my downpipe and exhaust is huge.

 

[HKSCougar]

Seawulf - you fabricated your downpipe yourself, right? What type of material did you use? How'd you go about it?

 

[Seawulf]

Pardon the size but I'm too lazy to resize the pic. Here is a pic of my old and new downpipes. The new one is the bigger one.

Both flanges are just 3/8 inch steel plate cut in the shape of the turbo exhaut flange and then just regular aluminized steel exhaust pipe welded to it. When I saw what my dad did to the first one I was so upset. I didn't want that flat part where the wastegate exits and he wasn't paying attention when he took it to a exhaust place to hook it up to the regular exhaust and the guy used crimp bend 2 inch pipe to hook it up.

When I redid the new turbo I wanted 3" all the way and a hump over the wastegate exit so it would flow better. My dad had the new flange cut and had a 90* 3" bend cut and ground to fit with the right angle so it would clear the ac and power steering and he took it to a welder to weld it together after he tack welded it in place. I would have prefered a smoother hump but it's decent, especially with the overall size of my exhaust. Then I cut a bunch of small pieces of 3" straight pipe in short angles, 30*, 40*, 20*, etc... so I could make some homemade mandrel bends. Tack welded it in place and had one of my dad's students who's a good welder weld it together. Even then some of the welds on the downpipe were too big so I had to grind them down. I left most of the welds on the rest of the exhaust cause I was too lazy and tired to grind those down also.

Took like two days to do that. So it would be easily removable our local Napa guy sugested we use a standard 3" triangular header flange so hook up the downpipe to the exhaust. The downpipe was the easy part, then came the fun part, redoing the rest of the exhaust upto the stock flex pipe.

That took about a day and a half. You can see the header flange so the downpipe can be removed and the rest of the exhaust doesn't have to come out. It has since been made full 3" with a 3" flexpipe. If you have a bunch of pre bent mandrel bends you won't have to do as much welding as I did but they cost a bunch and straight pipe just costs around a buck a foot.

 

[HKSCougar]

Thanks for the info. I'm at the beginning of my turbo project so I'll be leaning on you and Afterhours for some advice, I imagine. I think Robin's already tired of me asking questions... :banghead:

 

[Afterhours]

Nah.....I'm never too tired to answer questions Liebler...........:biggrin: