I was planning on waiting for a little bit before sharing, but I'm so excited that I thought I would post this up now. I just received an early Christmas present to myself today.


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I've been working towards doing this for about 6 years, and it's finally going to happen thanks to Utah TSX and Utah Type S for the initial research in their thread and the recommendation of STS turbo.

Now that I've got the turbo kit in my possession, the next step is getting an appointment setup to get it installed. I've reached out to a local shop that does mainly honda/acura tuning and I'm waiting to hear back from them about an estimate and a time. It's going to be tough waiting, but I'm hoping to get it installed in december. I'll keep this thread updated with the progression.

 

Merry Christmas, the wait is the worst, very excited to see this

 

Congrats on your purchase man! It would be interesting to see how it turns out for you!

 

Yes, waiting is the worst! I'm supposed to get a call back from the shop tomorrow but I want to call them right now and make them work on it over thanksgiving. I want this installed so bad.

 

how much? and please make details installation notes

 

congrats bro im glad our thread helped you. cant wait to see the end results.
be sure to post lots and lots of pictures.

 

Need more turbo pictures, is it a Comp turbo ? what coating is on the turbine housing is it Ruske coating ? and what size turbine wheel ?

 

The universal kit which included a bunch of piping and fittings, oil scavenge pump, oil pump failure alarm, turbo heat shield, BOV, wastegate and the turbo was 3600 including shipping.

I had to source my own intercooler, fuel pump, injectors and flashpro. I'll get as many pics as I can get. The only hindrance will be that I'm not going to be at the shop for the whole install. (unless they let me, I would love to watch it get installed)

I'll get some more turbo pics up tomorrow. It's an STS GT-35 journal bearing turbo good for 750HP with a ceramic coated .58 A/R turbine.

 

Good luck and hope it all goes well. Keep us posted

 

Merry Christmas! Excited to see this happen! It's an idea that's been kicked around a lot on here, very interested in the results.

 

Very exciting! More pics. Also if you can't stick around for the install see if the shop will take some pics for you

 

Ive flirted with this idea myself

 

Very nice. Other options are always good to explore.

Hope things go smoothly for you.

 

As much as I admire your enthusiasm, I don't recommend doing this. You've waited 6 years, another few days isn't going to hurt.

 

He wasn't being serious anyway.

 

He is serious, PUT THE TURKEY DOWN AND GET THIS DONE, LOL

 

Here's a pic of the intercooler and more of the turbo. I haven't heard back from the shop yet, but I figure since it's Thanksgiving week they're probably at home with their families. I'm going to wait till Monday to start bugging them

 

What all was included in the universal kit? I figured:

Turbo
Intercooler
Wastegate
Blow off valve
oil pump

Does it also include the:

turbo flange
intake piping

Do they give you any kind of generic straps to mount the turbo or must that all be custom fabbed?

I look forward to seeing your progress. Do you already have a Hondata? Don't forget that - it's the MOST important part!

 

The turbo is a china turbo sts had made for themselves. Buddy used to work there. They have TONS of failures if the boost is raised over 8 psi. IT was hit or miss though with those china turbo's. Some would last and others tanked. They later found it was the balancing in some and the bearings in others. Personally would have gone the comp turbo oiless route. I installed an oiless turbo in a m coupe and it is not driven much, but he has about 3000 miles on it with 2 track days and still going strong.

 

The kit included everything I need to install the turbo except for the intercooler, fuel injectors, fuel pump and engine management(flashpro). I have all of those parts along with boost and A/F guages and I also got the Hondata traction control to go along with the flashpro.

The universal kit included a lot of u bend and 90 degree bent pipes, some straight pipe and the fittings and silicone connectors, there will have to be some custom fabbing to go from the turbo to the intercooler and from the intercooler to the intake but that should be about all of the custom fabbing necessary.

 

^ whoa whoa whoa how did u get hondata traction control to work?

 

Well, I haven't gotten it installed yet, but on the hondata traction control page, it lists the 07-08 TL as compatible. Traction Control

When I talked to the shop about getting it installed, they researched it and are going to install it.

Has it not worked in TL's before?

 

^ i haven't seen it install on a TL with Flashpro. Mostly seen them on RSX-s with K-pro

 

Hondata traction control on a remote mount turbo TL, nice!. Seems like a no brainer for a turbo FWD car.

 

^ I agree, as soon as I saw videos of turbo'd civics just mashing the pedal down and traction control keeping the wheels from uselessly spinning I knew that's what I wanted on my TL when I boosted it.

Hell, even on a non boosted TL I've had times when the wheels spun a little too much when I launched hard, of course that was back when I was running no-season tires instead of summers...

 

Is the TL's traction control inoperative with the flash pro? It seems like the factory TC would be much more effective than an aftermarket unit at reducing wheel spin and sencing loss of control.

I run with TC on all the time with the turbo and it works well. I am running wider tires so there is not much tire spin unless I'm trying to overwhelm the tires.

 

From what I've read, Hondata traction control is better than the stock tc, it allows for the customization of how much slip to allow. I'm going to get it installed since I already bought the unit, I'll give a review of it in the TL once I've gotten everything installed.

I couldn't wait till Monday to hear from the shop so I called them today, good thing too because they only had one opening for December 8th, otherwise they're booked out through March. Looks like I'll be turbocharged by mid December!

 

please let us know what you think of the traction control.
this would definitely be a mod on my list if it works out.

looks like you lucked out getting your car in when you did. i would hate to have to sit on a kit like that until march. knowing what it could be doing instead

and a little bit of advice for the guys at the shop, when we were planning on doing a remote mount. the only way we see to run the charge pipe was to basically follow the shift cable over the steering gear and transmission and use a dual pass intercooler with an inlet and outlet on the same side.

 

I'll definitely let you know about the traction control. The stuff I've read on the civic forums is positive, and the videos are what sold me initially.

I would've had to find somewhere else to get it installed, I couldn't sit on the kit for that long. It's bad enough braving to wait the 10 days as it is...

I'll make sure to tell the guys at the shop about routing the charge pipe, although the intercooler I bought has the inlet and outlet on opposite ends so I hope they can make that one work. Worst case I'll buy a different intercooler...

 

this wait aint all that bad trust me the bad one is when the install happens
ive been down for bout 3 weeks now an im gonna be down till about christmas.
and to make things worse.... im stuck driving this abomination

 

Aww yeah... Hot wheels there lol.

Off topic question - I notice there is no grass - is the entire yard like that, or just the side? I assume for water conservation, correct? It always amazes me with the difference in land(hard)scaping across the country.=, all due to water availability.

 

That is a brutal wait, in a terrible car... I'm counting on not having to go three weeks without my TL, mostly because I can't afford to pay for three weeks of labor cost, plus it shouldn't take three weeks to install the rear mount turbo, I'm hoping it'll be a week at most.

 

no thats just a little spot on the side of the house. My dad doesnt want me parking in the drive way cause the grand am is a leaky sob.
the rest of the yard is grass

 

yeah they will probably have 1 or 2 guys working on it around the clock so I doubt they will take that long.
Did they give you a quote?

 

They were guessing somewhere in the ballpark of 5-6k with tuning. I was told that they are guessing on the high side because they haven't done this on a TL before.

 

Im guessing the TL is your daily. Are you trying to get as many ponies out of the turbo as possible or are you going for a more manageable everyday setup

 

The TL is my daily driver. I'm shooting for the 400-450whp mark. I believe I remember reading in a previous turbo thread that the stock torque converter had problems with getting any power beyond 450 to the wheels.

I did research an aftermarket torque converter through level 10, but if I'm going to upgrade the torque converter for more hp, I think I have to upgrade the transmission and engine internals.

That'll have to be a project for another time (or when my engine blows up...) but it would be fun to go for some big turbo numbers at some point.

 

Any plans to run E85 or will this just be on pump gas? methanol/water injection?

 

I'm going to be running off of 92 octane for now. When I researched E85, the nearest station that sold it is 23 miles from my house. I don't have plans for methanol/water injection right now. I'm not going to go over 10-12psi of boost at this time, if and when I do I'll be sure to get a methanol/water injection system.

 

10k to turbo your automatic TL. damn!!! i mean i'm impressed but there is a limit on how much $$$$ makes sense. it's your money and i'm in for results but the money you paid STS WITHOUT intercooler injectors ect ect. and they gave you a china turbo??? i feel like that price is a little crazy. GL