Only had a couple of hours this weekend, but I cut about 3/4 of an inch off the down pipe and changed the lower angle going back towards the starting motor:



Also, I got a nice shot of the cross pipe from the drivers side to the turbo:

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This week I can get the pipe welded up, put the boost gauge in, tweak the clutch cable mount and get the electric fan wired up. That's the plan, anyways.

 

I have the same kit from HP. I only bought the hot side.

Not that your asking, but thought these may help.
Here are a couple things I found on my car (91 coupe) with my kit.

1) If running a K member you may need to trim/notch the bracket of the K member where it mounts to the frame rail to clear the header.(I ran the car for about 2 months before is noticed it).

2) The cross over is close to the steering rack boot on the driver side. I melted my steering rack boot and had the wrap the down pipe for about 4 inches to help. The down side to this is if you have any blow by from the dip stick your header wrap with catch fire (personal experience the wrap is still covered in extinguisher powder)

3) I also trimmed the driver side lower radiator tube (where it inters the radiator) to clear the cross over pipe about 1-1.5 inches (this was also recommended from Nathan at HP)

4) I tied up my plug boots to the fuel rails to keep tension on them because mine would come close to the header on the passenger side.

5) The drain for the turbo had to be at a correct angle because I only ran a 8an line. I should have run a 10an. At first the turbo backed up a little with oil. I run a sway bar and routing is a little pain. I cut a hole in my inner finder liner to get the angle right.

6) I was told from Nathan at HP that the 94-95 clutch cable was the one to use because it was longer and could be moved out of the way of driver header.

You may have a handle on these points already. If so no worries. I spent some frustrating time on my car finding these problems.

 

Cool!

Thanks for the info -- I noticed that we have nearly the same kit. I'm always willing to take advantage of somebody elses experience, especially in your case because your car runs and mine doesn't yet. I'm nearly there with regard to fitting in the exhaust, probably one more weekend before I get it going. Things seem to be fitting OK, so let me answer in order:

1) I've got a stock k-member and the headers seem to clear OK. I'll check again.

2) I'll figure out some sort of heat shield on the cross over tube. I didn't figure that the steering boot would be an issue. I'll shield that, it's better than burning it to a crisp.

3) I noticed the lower radiator hose and I think I've got enough clearance. I've got to tweak the upper radiator hose, too.

4) I've got wire looms that work pretty well at keeping the plug wires away from the headers. That was an issue with my hooker long tubes, too.

5) I used a 12 AN fitting and hose, so I should be OK. The drain doesn't have any low spots, it turned out pretty well. (I'll post up a picture)

6) I'm making up a clutch cable bracket that's the same idea as the stock one but about three inches longer. It shouldn't be that hard and it looks like it will work. I have an aftermarket adjustable cable, but it is for the '88 not the '94-'95. If it burns up I'll get the longer one, but I thought I'd give what I've got a try.

Again, many thanks for the heads up on this stuff. It will save me a lot of time futzing with it.

 

Got some time in this weekend, got the exhaust out to the point where I can get it hooked to the mufflers. The y-pipe doesn't fit right, but that has been the case with everything after the turbine exit on this one.

But the Jegs exhaust clamps worked pretty well here and sealed up better than I thought they would:

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I also picked up a contour v6 fan, but it is really close to the exhaust. I probably should have used a single larger fan, but this one was thin and if I mount it lower it should be far enough away that it won't burn out the motor. Maybe...

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The exhaust pipe came out about in the right spot, but I'll need to futz with the connections to get it right. I may wind up taking it to a local guy with a tube bender who can do it in about half an hour.

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Thanks for the heads up on the drivers side exhaust, redhoss, it is close and I'll need to make some sort of heat shield for it:


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Also got the boost gauge mounted and wired up, and some other wiring out of the way. If I get the fan mounted down far enough from the exhaust, the fan relay wiring to the FAST box done and a quick fluids change, it should be ready to fire.

 

Moved the fan down about two inches so the bottom of the fan lines up with the bottom the radiator, and the clearance is sufficient, I think, to run OK.

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That, and I tweaked the stock bracket that locates the clutch cable, and mounted it on a header bolt. Hopefully it will not heat up too much, but if it does I'll get one from the 94 up.

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The car fired up fine and is pretty quiet even with the open exhaust. It's a lot quieter than it was with open headers. Still got a few things to button up, and I'll take it to the exhaust shop to get the last of the pipes bent up.

 

Well, I moved one of the lines from the power steering, and it fell off in my hands. After taking another look, it had been leaking from a couple of spots for a while, so I took it out:

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The rack from Jegs came in, so I cleaned up the residue from the old rack and put in the manual one:

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The linkage from Jegs is nice -- has thick joints with almost no slop at all.

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I measured the distances from the mounting bolt to the edge of the tie rods on both sides, so I should be able to get it close enough to get to the alignment shop, or at least put it on the trailer and take it where it needs to go. I've got a pulley from the old air pump eliminator that I put in the place of the power steering pump. I needed a 68 inch belt, but that was about it. Nose should go on tomorrow, with any luck.

 

I did a quick approximate alignment by putting a couple of 20" pieces of flat stock against the brake hubs, then making sure the distance was the same front to back:

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Then measure:

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The suspension is all the way down, but this should be close enough to get to the alignment shop.

 

I took the door off, since I had the fender liners off and I could get to the bolts:

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then replaced the plastic garbage bushings with bronze ones:

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Needed to trim the nose in a couple of places to fit the intercooler and intercooler piping:

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Then got the nose back on and the door back where it was supposed to be:

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Next up is putting the inner fender liners back in and getting to the exhaust shop. It's not too loud with open exhaust out of the turbo -- with mufflers hooked up it should be really quiet.

 

Lookin good, you are getting close!

 

Getting there. I hooked the fan relay trigger into the FAST box, put the inner fender liners in after getting the rest of the bolts in for the nose. Got it down and washed off the mange from the three months on jack stands:

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It's fairly sleepy looking. I was thinking of tinting the rear window so you can't see the roll bar from outside as easily. You can see it from the back:

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Get the exhaust hooked up and the car inspected tomorrow. About two months after I'd planned to get on the road, but now the tuning stuff starts. I figure about two weeks of putting around town and I'll hit the dyno in Concord, NH with a buddy who wants to see what his supercharger did for him. I'll post up the results.

 

""The contour fan""

I ran one of these fans and kept burning up relays. The relays would either stick open or closed. I was going to have to use a stock starter relay but changed fans.

One other thing.

The driver side header will loosen up on you over time. I burnt out two gaskets all ready. I am looking to add a support from the bottom of the turbo to the engine. I also had to use small head bolts so I could get more leverage to tighten down with clearance of the header tubes.

Just an FYI. For my car and some friends cars that have gone mid to low tens with the STOCK BLOCK set up. A good SFI damper is the a big factor. We have ruined two motors with the factory damper coming apart with only reeving the motors to about 6000-6200rpm. I shift mine at 5800rpm to make it live as long a possible.

Great progress. You will make some good power and have a blast driving it on the street. I like the sleeper idea.

 

Thanks for the info Redhoss. That will save me a lot of hassle.

I've got a 40 amp relay driving the Contour fan now but I don't have many hours on it. It will probably crap out. I have both fans pulling off the single relay, the factory setup was fubar'd when I picked it up. A 3.8 v6 Taurus fan is also supposed to drop in, and it is a single which may fit better and not pull as much current. It is probably cheaper to pick up a Taurus fan than it is to get the factory relay from Ford, but I'll see how it goes.

I used ARP 12 point bolts on the headers and I was able to crank them down, but I'll check them after a while to see if they stay where they are supposed to. A support on the bottom of the turbo would help, but damned if I know how to fit one in there.

I'm running a Romac damper, though it looks pretty crappy right now it has an SFI number on it. The clutch, pressure plate and flywheel are all SFI, too, but I'm running a factory bell housing so no going below 11.50 until I get a SFI housing. New England Dragway was pretty easy going until a couple of articles appeared in Hot Rod Magazine where guys were running fast -- around 9.50's at 145 or so -- with minimal safety stuff. And then they told them that "Epping is my home track" and every idiot and their uncle came in and wanted to run 200 mph sitting on a milk crate. At that point they got very particular and wouldn't let anything go that wasn't 100% by the IHRA rules (though they switched to NHRA last year, they are still picky). I can't blame them, really. So I'll dial it back and have a good time until I get what I need to run in the 10.50 range. But it should be a hoot driving around on the street.

 

Factory relay or use the factory replacement from Advance auto or a parts store cheaper. That should work.

Keep us posted.

 

Some updates...


First off, I am learning how to use a FAST system and that you've got to load the file into the ECU in order for it to be saved. I hit some pretty severe knock and shoved one of these:

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So I replaced them with a set of cometic 0.075 gaskets which should drop the compression to less than 9:1. While the parts were getting there, I had the exhaust housing and down pipe coated because I didn't want them to rot. The new high temp jet hot stuff has kind of a frankenstein/computer programmer greenish tint to it. It seems pretty robust but it isn't the nicest to look at:

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I also did a boost leak test which found a coupe of problem areas. For example, my throttle body leaks out the bottom of the housing:

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Finally, I replaced the double fan with a single one out of a v6 mustang I found in a local boneyard:

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It fits better than the double fan if I flip it, and the temp hasn't gone above 185 (when I turn on the fan). It's thermostatted at 180, reads 183 while moving so I figure it's close enough. The exhaust turned out to be pretty quiet for what it is, and I'm going to try to hit a dyno next week or so to get some numbers. At 6 psi it wakes up pretty nice -- feels a lot stronger than it did on a 120 shot. I'm planning on running around 10 to 12 psi eventually, but for now between 6 and 8 is fine until I get the bugs out. Cold start isn't that great yet, but once it's warmed up it runs pretty well.

 

I like it!
Sub'd

 

nice build, simple and designed. What size down pipe and exhaust system you running?

 

The downpipe is 3.5 inches through to about the end of the front row of seats, then it splits into two 3 inch pipes. I found some nice transitions from Jegs that go from 3 to 2.5, then into the mufflers and over the axles at 2.5 inches. It is pretty quiet -- it was louder with the headers. On the freeway the turbo kills all the drone, but I can hear the whining from the Tremec box in 5th gear.

 

Got to the dyno today, too:

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Made about four pulls, and kept it at 7 psi. I just wanted to get the air/fuel straightened out. It was lean up top:

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So I fattened up things from 4000 up, and at 11.5:1 it made 436 hp at 5700 and 488 ft-lbs at 3700 with 23 degrees of spark. The boost was all in by 2700 which was surprising for a t-76 journal bearing turbo, but the exhaust housing is a 0.81, so that spools it faster:

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With 500 ft-lbs at the wheels in a 3050 lb car, it is fun on the street. It made about the same numbers it made with a 120 shot, but I never run out of bottle. Next is a joe-p boost controller. I should be able to run 10-12 psi and keep the block in one piece.

 

Well, the boost control worked, I had enough fuel to run 10.9:1 at 9 psi, but it looks as though something has let go...

20 psi of oil pressure when cold, zero oil pressure when warm. Ran great at 9 psi, but it was definitely hurt, so out it comes:

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I couldn't see anything obvious, though there were a few metal shavings from where I installed the drain back. There is a hairline crack underneath the rear main here:

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So, instead of getting another factory block and going down the same road, I picked up this:

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Crank and rods get balanced this week. Hopefully have everything in over Thanksgiving week.