Upgraded turbo installed

[greezmunky]

Had some money to burn so I decided it was time to upgrade the turbo. The old t3-50 worked fined with the stock code but with the upgrades piling up I was finding that it was inadequate for 14-15 psi of boost in the higher rpm range. Did some research and opted to have my old turbo rebuilt with a t3 super 60 compressor wheel, keeping the .48 turbine. 12 hours of blood, sweat, tears, and a couple hundred bucks in new tools later I finally got the old turbo off



While I was at it, I installed new plug wires, replaced the leaking cam end o-ring, installed msd dis coils, replaced the air filter, and did quite a bit of cleaning. I also discovered that the shift linkage bolts were all loose (1 was ready to fall out) which I tightened up and lubed all of the joints. The intake side cam o-ring was badly worn and had made a huge mess behind and under the chargecooler.

I picked Innovative Turbo in simi valley, ca to rebuild my turbo. Justin was very straight forward on the phone and also gave me the best price around. Unfortumately I sent my turbo right before labor day so it took almost 2 weeks before my turbo was ready to be shipped. The finished product was worth the wait



The entire exhaust side of the turbo including wastegate flap and turbine wheel were given a beautiful high temp coating. All of the hardware is brand new, all of the threads were tapped, and the backplate was replaced with an attractive anodized blue piece. They also sent back every single part that was replaced along with the turbo.

Took me about 6 hours to reinstall the turbo. I took the time to replace the horrible stud / nut setup that lotus used to mount the turbo to the manifold with brand new steel hardware. I also gave the downpipe a nice red ceramic finish since surface rust had really aged the metal. Every nut and bolt was replaced with new hardware.



I used red loctite on the manifold bolts and blue loctite everywhere else. I drowned the manifold bolts in what was left of the red loctite. The downpipe paint hadn't had a chance to cure yet and became a little scratched during install. I'll have to go back and touch this up later. I wired everything back up today and she fired on the first crank (good girl!). Once the toxic death cloud of multiple solvents and fluids had burned off I took a look and outside of a slight leak from the oil return everything looks real good. I used some black high temp silicone on the oil return and will let it sit tonight to see if it worked.

Tomorrow I'm going to tie everything up and take it for some test runs. I plan to leave the boost solenoid out of the loop for now and use and old greddy bleed type boost controller while I do some of my initial test runs.

Many more pics here http://espritbuilder.com/gallery/Lotus-Esprit-Project




>> Edited by greezmunky on Saturday 24th September 01:51

[cross-eyed-twit]

Hi Greezmunky, I noticed your gear linkages were loose. I had mine replaced (the rose jointed ends anyway) a little while back and was reliably informed that they should be protected with little rubber boots as the heat from the exhaust dries them, they get covered in sh1te and they wear causing gear change problems. These boots are only the size of the end of your thumb but with a little lube in them are supposed to last forever (almost) and really should have been fitted in the factory, but hey.
Anyway, if you haven't got them i recommend you get some, they can be got from this guy
[e-mail]
(where i had the work done)
but I expect they are available all over the place.
unfortunately i don't have a picture

Regards
Dom

Oh, nice turbo by the way.
:-)


>> Edited by cross-eyed-twit on Saturday 24th September 08:27

[kylie]

Hey nice work!! How did the test runs go with the turbo?

Its funny how when you get in there to fix something and go dam I will just replace that, tighten this, clean that and before you know it the 1 hr job turns into a massive can of worms. Two days later and a whole bunch more work has been done!!