The Project Pad

Add an additional ground when trying to start. Its funny how easy it is to forget a ground which can prevent starting.

Pulled the starter and bench tested voltage drop. It was going all the way down to 4v. So, it's at the shop being rebuild at the moment.

Tacked up the Intercooler piping and the wastegate dump which I'll weld up tomorrow, and just kinda put the front end on...

You'd never know!
2020-06-17_04-58-49 by Joel Francisco

Cant believe thats the same car that had the turbo out the hood. Looks great!

Proper!!

Had an issue with my MSD starter and took it up the street to be rebuilt. They gave me a completely different core and put the nose from my old on onto it, and told me it'd be fine..

20200622_130127 by Joel Francisco
20200622_150641 by Joel Francisco

Well, now my ring gear is toast. Engine came back out and I took the tone ring off, but Clutchmasters doesn't sell only the tone ring so that'll be shipping out to them to be rebuilt. Ordered another MSD starter from Summit in the meantime and reinstalled the engine so I can address a few issues I found.

-Radiator outlet hose too close to alternator pulley, will be redoing.
-Making all the rear coolant lines out of 3/4" aluminum instead of rubber since there will be a lot of heat back there.
-Fabricating the 3" turboback

The crossover pipe is mighty close to the coolant temp sensor in the rear as well as the crank sensor. I'll see if theres enough room to relocate it to go under the car instead of behind the engine as well although I'd hate to remake it.

But yea... this sucks. I dont have the balls to goto the rebuild shop yet and tell them what happened not that I'm sure they'd care

That shop should certainly stand behind their word. That sucks all the same.

When you're redoing the coolant lines in 3/4" aluminum, what kind of connections are you using?

They didnt care. I have the new starter I ordered from Summit and the flywheel is currently at Clutchmasters hopefully getting a new tone ring if they get their heads out of their ass. But that's another story for another time.

Just using this opportunity to knock out everything so when I get it back I can reinstall the engine and start driving.

Made modifications to the lower radiator outlet, 3/4" aluminum coolant hoses in the rear (still with rubber hose to join the two), and finishing up the exhaust.

Downpipe was a pain, but is done. I have t ok run it under the front subframe; the rest of it I should be able to tackle this weekend.

2020-07-10_12-52-24 by Joel Francisco

That's a lot of pie cuts. Nice work.

Yup! The only pre fabricated part I've bought for the entire car. I didnt want to deal with making such a tight radius.

Got to the midpipe and ran out of piping. Guess I just need to make an axle back now.

Anybody else love not having a lift? Lol

20200320_071737 by Joel Francisco
20200320_072207 by Joel Francisco

Wow, looks awesome. +1 on the jack stands haha, Makes it all more impressive.

if you are stuck with that setup for a while a fun trick I used to use a lot was semi truck jackstands. It’s a little freaky at first with how high up you can get it but they’re rated for 5x the weight and the clearance is pretty wild, highlift floor jacks go a long way there. Looking forward to some sleeper videos.

Also a bummer about the starter- but looks like you weren’t surprised with the outcome. I used to always try to send out a lot of things like you did for the starter, but always ran into issues like that. For me it’s often worth taking the time to understand it myself and take the “should be ok” with a grain of salt. Even a negative experience like that can be something good for the overall project and knowledge gained in the process. With your skills here you should have no issues with that.

I've seen them used, I just dont get under it enough to justify it haha. I've been trying to not rely on other sources for most of the parts, its proven to be more costly then just doing it myself...

The rear section is done, 3" all the way back and then 2.5" for the tips. Not too shabby for my first turboback. I had the flywheel overnighted so that should be here in the a.m. when I get off work I'll pull the engine out, bolt everything back up and reinstall the engine. Looking to start it by the time I go back to work tomorrow night.

20200325_060628 by Joel Francisco
20200325_061806 by Joel Francisco

Flywheel came yesterday. Pulled the engine, installed everything, then reinstalled in the Avant. Need to finish up welding a few o2 bungs and then I can really start final assembly. Hopefully today is the day!

20200326_031021 by Joel Francisco
20200326_032325 by Joel Francisco
20200326_034545 by Joel Francisco
20200326_202816 by Joel Francisco

Always good lunchtime content! The exhaust came out sick, wish you made some for the 20vs

By the way read this and spread the knowledge - make sure that is blocked, watch some YouTube videos and you’ll thank me lol after you watch them, yikes!

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/co ... ack-stands

Oh yea, the ol' Harbor Freight nut bustin' jackstands! I think it's also funny that the replacements they were giving out for the originally discovered defect units are also defective!

I've had these bad boys for almost 10 years and they're still going strong; I personally don't see myself taking them back anytime soon, but as always I will continue to spread the knowledge for others!

I've considered making 5-10 of them. It'd be roughly $600 for the catback, but I'd need a 20v URS to create a jig off of, or at least a stock exhaust system... It's back there in my mind!

I wasn't able to get the car started today for what I think is the crank sensor. Nothing has changed wiring wise, and when cranking the tach doesn't move. My only iffy thing is that I'm not getting any fault codes with VCDS for anything starting/running related..

2020-07-17_07-46-12 by Joel Francisco

Did you check if the new flywheel came with a timing pin? Sometimes they don't.

I had installed the cam lock bar and wanted to make sure the timing pin was visible on the flywheel. In order to remove the crossover I had to take off the cam sensor.

By accident I didnt reinstall it before I went to start the car and behold it fired right up; but something wasnt right. Both cam chain tensioner pads on the driverside broke and upon inspection moved the intake cam 90° advanced. (The ECU saw this and wouldn't start the car, with it unplugged it didnt see it so it thought it was good to start.)

The middle 4 intake valves are toast, but everything else is good. I pulled apart the passengerside out of curiosity and one of the pads was broken as well, but luckily didnt lose timing.

Everything all together was ~$300 including the valve installation tool so not too bad...

20200718_231742 by Joel Francisco
20200718_231710 by Joel Francisco
20200719_143343 by Joel Francisco
20200719_143326 by Joel Francisco
2020-07-20_06-07-50 by Joel Francisco

Ouch. Luckily not too dear, but powerful enough to serve as a potent reminder to the rest of us. I appreciate your honesty in posting your mistake, and hope it helps others.

Keep on keepin' on, this project is really gathering steam.

I don't think I ever mentioned it, but when I was on the old top mount setup, the car started making that horrible noise/died/wouldnt start. That's when I pulled the engine to make the current setup.

I'm almost positive that that's when the car jumped timing. I really should've done the guides when I replaced the timing belt, but I was lazy and this is where they let go.

Me:
-Buys 105,xxx mile engine off Craigslist
-installs it in URs with stupid top mount
-Drives it for 500 miles
-Tensioner Guides break

As you said, a powerful lesson/reminder to always do a thorough inspect on any engine bought second hand, and that even just replacing the timing belt/accessories isn't enough sometimes.

Very glad I left the cam sensor unplugged, I would've been chasing this no start for another month!

Still waiting on some valves and stuff, but I installed the aerocatch hoodpins and redid the coolant fan relay wiring harness today.

2020-07-26_08-33-17 by Joel Francisco

Damn, I've been non stop all day.. installed the intake valves this morning and presses hard today. She's running really good..

20200411_234839 by Joel Francisco
20200413_011417 by Joel Francisco
20200413_023006 by Joel Francisco

Nice job on staying motivated and pushing through the hurdles as they come up. It sounds and looks really good.

Thanks dude! I'm really hoping that that's the last of the big stuff for now. I bled the coolant and took it for a nice short drive and never saw anything over 180F so its on its way to being a daily!

2020-08-05_06-33-50 by Joel Francisco, on Flickr

So epic!

vt10vt wrote:So epic!

No kidding. The development of this project is astronomical.

Thanks guys! I've been driving the crap out of it, about 500 miles so far and no hiccups. I just couldn't be happier with how everything turned out; I mean I could, but it's only related to engine bay area that'll be polished overtime.


2020-08-08_12-22-37 by Joel Francisco
2020-08-09_07-50-12 by Joel Francisco

I've been pedaling it to stay out of boost.. the HPX MAF is neither tuned in or even scaled for that matter. Also limited to about 4000rpm, but even with 1/4 throttle input the car hauls.