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I drove a Charger Scat Pack a couple months back at my local Ford dealer when my Explorer was in the shop. I fell in love with that thing. Everything about it. I wanted to buy it! But, as of right now I'm not in the position to do so. January 2019 I'll be in a better position.
On Friday, I got most of my parts in and I started working on the car on Saturday.
Installed my solid metal APR bipipe after getting all the necessary o-rings & hoses - one thing that's GREAT about the solid metal unit is you don't have to worry about a silicon boot popping off under boost, it's bolted directly to the throttle body and looks gangster AF:
Also, installed my 3 BAR MAP sensor. The OEM MAP sensor doesn't read accurately over 20psi - this one accurately reads up to 43psi.
I also replaced my N75 valve. This is essentially the OEM electronic boost controller that regulates boost pressure by opening / closing the wastegates.
I was having some really bad overboost issues once I crossed over 15 psi. I'm able to hold up to around 18 PSI until my ignition system (coil packs / spark plug / gapping) is the limitation. I have a plan of action .. just need to gap my plugs even closer and / or replace coil packs if it's a particular cylinder misfiring.
Old:
New (installed):
I also installed a 3" aluminum flared coupler to extend my driverside IC hose a bit. Worked like a charm .. haven't popped a hose off after quite a few 15+ psi pulls
Do you think I used enough t-clamps?
Car is running fan-fucking-tastic.
Once my ignition is sorted, I can finally start doing WOT pulls and log. SO CLOSE!
Car looks sick. Love those wheels. Please either keep those or the OE B5 S4 wheels and nothing else.
Great and kudos for sticking with it, you're a better man than me for that.
Thanks Sam!
I see light at the end of the tunnel .. I'm hoping another 5-10 hours until the car is fully tuned for 91. Once that's good to go and assuming there are no other issues, I am ready to hit E85 which = moh powaaah.
I ran out of time, but I did a quick 15 psi pull on the way home last night. If I go WOT, the car will want to do 24 psi and unfortunately, my ignition system cannot keep up with it and simply sputters / starts misfiring
After being through everything ... I'm kind of reluctant to recommend anybody buying a B5 unless they have the same goal in mind / willing to put in the work.
I couldn't imagine taking my car to a shop every time it had something wrong with it, let alone paying a shop to build it.
FYI - shops charge $2500 just to pull and reinstall the motor ... that's not even the man hours to install all the upgrades or tune it. Parts on top of that will be another $7500-$10000 if it's purchased brand new and done "right".
After being through everything ... I'm kind of reluctant to recommend anybody buying a B5 unless they have the same goal in mind / willing to put in the work.
I couldn't imagine taking my car to a shop every time it had something wrong with it, let alone paying a shop to build it.
FYI - shops charge $2500 just to pull and reinstall the motor ... that's not even the man hours to install all the upgrades or tune it. Parts on top of that will be another $7500-$10000 if it's purchased brand new and done "right".
No thanks
I am sure the shop gives out frequent motor puller discounts to B5 customers.
I watched some of those ecs and das auto vids and they swear that the 3.0T(SC) is the most reliable of the lot including the 8 and the 2.0T.
They didn't mention the 2.7 to avoid passing out from fear.
For the first time in 5 months, the ETH FO is boosting and not misfiring ... finally .
I had a decent amount of time work on the car this weekend, mainly troubleshooting why my car's boost would spike to 25 psi uncontrollably. Normally in a situation like this, you would pressure test the intake side of your car to identify where you're leaking from ...
At the end of the day, I regret buying china turbo inlets because their fitment is total dog shit and it makes pressure testing the car impossible due to them being a bit leaky. They will hold some pressure, but not 20 psi
Last resort is smoke testing. A friend of mine bought a DIY built one for $150 and let me borrow it... coolest fucking thing in the world.
After a few minutes dumping smoke into my car's intake system, it revealed that one of my banjo bolts holding on one of the vacuum / reference lines to the compressor side of the driverside turbo had backed off. To the naked eye, the bolt looks snug ... but I could see smoke pouring out of it. Simple fix. I had to sacrifice a stubby 13mm wrench but hey, totally worth it
First drive was good, it was holding boost but misfiring on cylinder 6 ... changed out the coilpack and she's golden. Yesterday in the afternoon it was spiking 23 psi and tapering to 20, right where I'm supposed to be.
I took the car out last night to dinner and recorded a few WOT pulls, car is now boosting less ... so maybe the bolt is backing off again or maybe I am leaking from somewhere else. There's definitely a lot more turbo noise than there's supposed to be
Soooo... is it even possible to have high boost on this thing for more than 5 miles, without any issues? Put Loctite on every single nut, bolt, washer, stud, grommet, whatever, you can find!!!
Soooo... is it even possible to have high boost on this thing for more than 5 miles, without any issues? Put Loctite on every single nut, bolt, washer, stud, grommet, whatever, you can find!!!
Funny thing is, the bolt that backed off is the one I used slightly thicker copper crushwashers on .. I cranked it down pretty good (as much as I'd like, anyhow) .. I do not want to overtighten because they're a banjo bolt.
I've already sheared one when the motor was out of the car ... if I did the same thing with the motor in the car, I would need to pull it... a 4th time.
I'm going to smoke test it tomorrow and see if anything comes out of that location again. If not, on to the next leak
Originally Posted by TacoBello
and I mean, if you ever get tired of chasing gremlins on the B5 platform, there's always this very bad decision you can make:
03-08-2018, 05:59 PM
Gotta stay under 28k.
.
