Well I guess every single one of you who said ssautochrome is crap was right. Not one day after my turbo was installed on my TL, the damn thing destroyed itself. I called around, and found out that what happened is that they balanced the turbo before it was put together which gave the shaft too much play. After a few spools, the fins caught the housing a tore off into the air filter. I now have vice grips holding the compressor side in order to stop the damn thing from spinning while I drive. Funny thing is I am stuck in Florida until I can get it fixed unless I choose to drive all the way back to Atlanta like that. I am so pissed at them. Mainly because there is no good/efficient way to reach them in an emergency like this. I need a turbo quick, like tomorrow and all I can do is email them and wait for a response. Thats right, they have no phone number(at least one that is easily accessible). I called all over to shops to see if anyone deals with them that can give me a number to call. Now it is Friday night and I am pretty much screwed. So much for school and work on Monday. All this because they were too lazy to balance the turbo correctly. And yeah yeah I know, "I get what I pay for." All I know is they better warranty this thing out and fast.

 

did you have any pics of your setup by the way?

 

I am in the process of doing that...might actually do that tomorrow since I have access to my dad's digital camera. Just finished the kit two days ago. It's fun how many people are blown away at the fact that I did this. That's what makes it all worth it.

 

that totally sucks!!

 

Yeah...it won't be that bad as long as the warranty comes through, but since it is already so hard to get in touch with them I am worried about them actually warrantying it out. I am already planning on going with a different turbo. Damn...

 

I hate to say, but I told you so.

 

Yeah, that's life though...there was no way I could afford a 1300 dollar GT35 though. I will get this thing fixed and start doing my research on another turbo...there are so many other things I want to do to the car that putting it all into a turbo is just no feasable

 

 

That sucks. My theory on mods is definately becoming "wait til you can afford the good stuff."

Sorry, hope everything works out.

 

Did you happen to talk to Allmotor_2000 or Scalbert, or BlueCLS6 before venturing out on this ?

 

That sucks.

Hope everything work out for you.

 

wow that sucks some huge balls. I hope you can get this taken care of. Can you give a link to that list you made of the cost of this setup, or at least what you've paid for it now that it's done. (minus the cost of the turbo)? I'm looking into this and want to see what some alternatives are to allmotors $6000 setup.

 

Sorry to hear about that. You're right... retail on the GT35R is ~$1400, however you can get the non ball-bearing unit for $800-900 retail I believe. Same performance just a little slower spool. Needs a little more oil to feed the journal bearings. Can't go wrong with a Garrett turbo... excellent quality

 

I hate to say it, but I'm with Ravi. If you can't afford to do it right the first time, wait. Especially when you're talking about turbos. I'm sorry but there is nothing funnier than all those blown up motor vids of kids who peiced together tubo kits.

 

I did, and read all their threads about each piece of this kit. I am not that mad about the turbo, unless they don't warranty it. I also talked to a lot of speed shops about my setup, and a few maxima guys. When I can afford it, I will go with the nice ball bearing setup. This was always just something temporary for me to learn on. Just think if I got the really expensive shit and messed up the install on that. Then I would really be kicking myself. At least now I really could care less about a turbo that is a piece of shit. This kit, being so custom, will be changed a few times before it becomes perfect. Even allmotor changed his setup. He used to have the T3/T4 hybrid and now has the GT35. Although I'm sure his hybrid was of much higher quality than mine. I will also be getting a new Wastegate and blowoff valve soon.

 

Well the pipes are easier to run for the CL-S for one, specially 6-speed. But I probably spent 1500-2000 minus turbo, WG, and BOV. Those are the cheapo things I got from SS Autochrome. Obviously DO NOT get anything from them. Maybe the stone headers; a few people have had luck with those. Get a good turbo...I am gonna try and find either a deal on a GT35 or a used one later. You might be able to get away with another 1000 dollars for a good turbo, WG, and BOV. Remember, I did everything myself, even the pipes. I suck at welding right now, so I took them to a shop and had them grind the welds down and redo them. I will be taking the pipes in in the near future to have redone in stainless steel and all tig welded. I also want aluminum IC pipes. So allmotor's setup is right on for price. With his kit you get the best of everything and he can help you out with the pipes if he doesn't already have them in the kit.

 

where are the pics?

 

getting them tonight when my dad gets back with the camera...you guys will get to see the f*%@ed up turbo.

 

Sounds like you ran out of oil-supply to the turbo... Is the mounting position okay? You can't rotate it (shaft-direction and perpendicular to it) more than 10-15 degrees, if I am not mistaken. Another problem could be metal shavings inside your exhaust piping. Did you deburr the insides of all cut bends? If some metal piece flies off, bye-bye turbo. If that is the case you are lucky only the turbo got damaged, because if you have metal pieces flying about in your intake piping... time for an engine rebuild!

 

did you get the pics?

 

Ok here are the pics...











Ok so my welds suck...It was my first time, and I had to get my local shop to redo them, but I am not dissappointed.

 

Couple of things...Oil supply was ok, I checked it without the return line connected(held a cup under the turbo) and oil was coming through fine. By rotating it do you mean clocking the turbo? I had to clock the compressor side 90 degrees cuz it was pointing the wrong way, but they explained how to do that in their instructions that came with the turbo. Metal shavings were not there, one I turned the car on without the turbo connected and reved the engine to blow out any shavings, and the my shop redid the welds and grinded everything down. As far as shavings in my intake, that is why you see the turbo apart and vise gripped. At this point I just need a new turbo. Oh, and are you saying the I can't clock the turbo? Cuz I am gonna need to do that again to get everything pointing in the right direction...can a shop do that?

 

cool

 

Interesting set up...

 

WTF - i see nothing

 

dude...is it me or does that downpipe hang really low? you're going to like hit that thing on every speedbump

 

what are you using for engine management, fuel etc?

 

I could see how you would think that, and in building it I didn't care about that stuff as long as it drove normally...but, I lucked out and it doesn't hit anything...I have gone over speed bumps and speed humps(the ones you can go faster over)

 

I have the E-manage installed, and per allmotor's setup I am going with the add. 750cc injector. I will be getting a FMU soon...Probably the comptech one since most of the people here use it, and know about it. Sounds like I can run low boost on the stock injectors with the FMU.

 

I just saw the pictures. I don't want to sound like a jerk (and I probably will...) but I hope you did not pay more than $200 for that piping! That down-pipe is only ~2" and the feedpipe also hangs down about 5" under the car. The IC piping comes out of the bumper and the welds are horrible. If that's the downpipe going 'under' the front cross-member, you are asking for trouble. It's already too small to accomodate the flow for this motor - you will have very bad detonation due to back-pressure and the resultant heat build-up.

I am really sorry, but you need to re-think this whole exercise before putting more money into it. You have an ~30K (new) car and you are having some muffler-shop type of work done to it - its a crime!

I am off to Japan next week, but PM me when I get back... let me try to help you out a bit.

 

By the way, where are you getting the oil-feed from?!? That doesn't look like its T'd off the oil pressure switch?!? The oil-pressure switch is the only place where you get constant oil pressure. The other place near the VTEC oil-switch has very low pressure when VTEC is off.

 

Try this number for SSAutoChrome

919-866-1925

I used a few years ago when I bought my headers from them.

You are right, this number was not easy to find!

 

Couple questions while looking at the pics... where is the blow-off valve located? And the wastgate and intercooler too, can't really tell from the pics. Turbine housing looks pretty large, what size is the turbo again? I say good effort... if it weren't for people like you trying things out, nothing cool would even get done so good job. Just needs some tweaking, but a good start. I'm sure you're learning a lot doing it too...

 

Ok...Allmotor, you are absolutely right...the pipes were misc. bends from my local muffler shop. I paid maybe 220 for all of it...(mild steel). The welds suck because I did a crappy job and my local shop did the best they could the grind the welds down and redo it...they put in about 12 hours in one day just for that...kick ass shop...the down pipe is fine, I don't hit anything. I plan on getting stainless steel exhaust pipe w/ TIG welds and Aluminum IC piping pretty soon. This was just some temporary piping that I could mock up the template with. Now I can go back and have it made a lot cheaper.

As far as the oil feed, I think I did tap it where you are talking about. I couldn't find nor reach the place that you teed at. If this is an insufficient place to tap, please give me details on where to tap it, and what size fitting will screw in there. For now it doesn't matter because the turbo is inopperable.

BlueCL, it is a T3/T04E turbo...wg is right under the turbo, bov is on the IC piping within 18" from the throttle body, and the IC itself is right there behind the bumper...it's black, so you can't really tell it is there.

Oh, and thanks juice for the number...I will try it Monday

 

Hey, I wasn't trying to slam you... its just that before you spend more money again, think everything through. As Blue said, its a great effort, but you might as well learn from mistakes or good ideas that other folks have made or have.

On the auto-tranny, you have to remove the pass-side axle to get to the oil-pressure switch.

 

Uh Oh...let me get the manual out for this one...I am gonna recheck the oil pressure at the turbo to see if I am ok...wouldn't oil running at a good pace (at idle) out of the turbo oil outlet mean good pressure? If not then I guess the axle is coming out! Yippeeee


Oh, and I forgot to mention that all my exhaust pipes are 2.5"...are you saying that I should be running bigger (like 3") for the downpipe?

 

Still need to know about that oil pressure...

But, I wanted to let you guys know that I FINALLY got through to SSautochrome. In the end I was satified. They are very good to deal with and the guy I spoke with was understanding of the situation and helpful immediately. Short of the long, I am getting a new turbo at the end of this week.

He is also sending me a new BOV to try. (the 50mm one) Not sure if I will use it or not, but I will try it and see if it doesn't leak. It seems that I may need to adjust the tension in my current BOV cuz it doesn't close very fast...the only thing is that if I add tension, the thing doesn't go ppfffffssssstttt when I rev it, only when I let off the gas on the highway at High RPMs and at least 50% throttle. Maybe it's not supposed to blowoff loud for my low boost application?

 

if the kit works out good in the end with the new turbo your getting. How much would the entire kit cost?

 

I am talking with a company now to manufacture the pipes so I can sell a kit with turbo, wg, bov, y-pipe, downpipe, and manifolds. I will keep you guys updated, but that kit might go for around 1600-1700...still in the works though.

 

if you could get a turbo kit set up for that cheap or even for like $2500 I'd buy it right off the bat. not sure what kind of modifications it would need for a first gen CL though.

perhaps just set up a turo kit with and without the turbo so people could choose their turbo for whatever type of application they are looking for? maybe i shouldn't start talking about this till their is more info and you get yours up and running without blowing your engine. :P jk.