It's been a long month :(

Well thanks to nyc roads I broke 3 of the 4 bolts that hold the turbo to the manifold and cracked the manifold. Well I decided it was time to upgrade the turbo at this time since the manifold had to come out. Fixed everything and put everything back together and then...the lines didn't match up. We tried bending them but it wasn't good enough. I said screw it and ordered steel braided lines and got them Thursday. Went to my friends shop today to finish up. For anybody doing a turbo upgrade on a SR (my motor) do yourself a favor and have the steel braided lines ahead of time so your car doesn't sit for a week. Here are the pix from today. Any question feel free to ask as its still fresh right now on my mind.

These are the lines that I needed to do the swap. They can be purchased at http://www.takamotorsports.com/ and the item number for the lines is NISX1000TB



Here is how the engine bay looks without the turbo manifold and turbo. To remove just unbolt all the necessary nuts and bolts that you see.




Here's the turbo with stock lines. These were the lines that didn't want to bolt up with the new turbo.




And here is another angle.




Here is my friend doing the light but harder stuff which includes getting the nuts under the manifold that bigger hands have trouble getting to. If you have a friend with small hands, this is where you would call him over for some drinks to entice him to help.




After bolting up all the bolts that were removed before this is what you should get. Looks basically the same as before doesn't it? Thats the point of using this turbo. It allows you to be faster while retaining a factory look.




I don't if anybody putting in a t28 had this problem before but the lower oil return tube on mine was going to hit the steering shaft so we had to customize something for it. We had a hose laying around that was the perfect diameter. We cut a piece that was the size that we needed that way we could clear the steering shaft.




Bolting everything back up posed another problem. The hotpipe was too long so we customized it by cutting it by 2.5 inches.




Here is how the hotpipe looks installed. It looks like nothing ever happened to it. Notice how almost everything under my hood is black, that is to give the impression that the motor is factory so as to not attract attention.




Remember that removing your turbo will spill all the coolant from the motor. This I cannot stress enough, please refill your motor with coolant before turning it back on.




Well after we put it together there was still an exhaust leak. I had to order a new manifold and do the process all over again. It was basically the same process so I did not take new pictures. I did however take a comparison picture of the two turbos side by side to show difference in size. You will also find 2 videos of how it was running before and after.

Here is a comparison of the old turbo versus the new turbo. Notice the difference in size. That is one of the key difference in why the turbo makes more power. Also the blades that spin inside the turbo are bigger and made with ball bearing which allow them to spin or spool faster.




Here is another angle showing the size difference between the turbos.




This is the back of the turbos.




Here is the video I made before we changed manifolds and fixed the leak. Notice the difference in sound between the two videos. That difference in sound also meant that the car was running really poor. After the fix however it was running in tip top shape.



This is how the motors sounds with the new manifold on.



I must say the car is more peppy now. Not just power wise but I guess the combination of shorter hotpipe and the little maintenance we did the car is much more responsive. Now for the good part, the car feels STRONG. The boost is set at a little bit above 8 psi and the turbo spooled up so quick. It pressed me against my seat very nicely at 8 psi that I didn't feel before with the t25 at 10 psi. I believe it is stronger than when I was pushing 12 psi high boost on the t25 also. The car is feeling great but I didn't want to push it too much just yet. Will try to get a video of my beautiful sounding compressor surge as soon as I get a chance. Stay tuned (get it?)