New '07 Spec B owner possible turbo failure.. need an education

[Max Capacity]

Here's my AOS. Not sure it really has made any difference, I do not plan to add one to my Spec B.

 

 

 

[Max Capacity]

 

Let me know if you need better photo's.

[shralp]

If you're pushing lots of boost / big power then an AOS are definitely a must for engine longevity. For a stg. 2 build a (properly) functioning OEM PCV system is fine. Running a Crawford AOS in the track car, OEM PCV in my Stg. 2 VF52 daily with no issues.

[All_talk]

I don't think an AOS is necessary for a stock or mild street car. I have the IAG on my (stock) car but only because it came with a parts car and I figured it couldn't hurt... if installed/functioning properly. If you are going to do it, make sure it's going to be as good or better that the OEM setup (which is pretty good). If not you could do more harm than good.

 

For the IAG I found that I had to change the mount and raise the can as far as possible to eliminate any low spots in the drain line that would impede drain back, at least with the stock intercooler and A/C line. I also simplified the pluming and a few other small tricks.

[Bobsyouruncl]

Can you define "big boost" and "street car," I keep hearing that but wonder what a "safe threshold" might be. Crawford says that it's one of the #1 causes of ring land failure, I know there's some marketing hype there but i don't really know.

 

 

If you're pushing lots of boost / big power then an AOS are definitely a must for engine longevity. For a stg. 2 build a (properly) functioning OEM PCV system is fine. Running a Crawford AOS in the track car, OEM PCV in my Stg. 2 VF52 daily with no issues.

[shralp]

Good question, and perhaps "big boost" is a bit of a misnomer. Part of the equation is how the car is driven. The assumption is typically anyone thats putting down north of 350+ to the wheels intends to drive the car hard and is probably putting down in excess of 20+ lbs of boost to get them there. Its the amount of hard driving higher boost levels thats the X factor. While I do drive my stg 2 daily plenty spirited during a typical day, I don't beat on it lap after lap like I do my track car. If I drove like a mad man around town all day I'd run an AOS regardless of my power level but since the car just doesn't see that kind of abuse the OEM PCV system works fine.

[Bobsyouruncl]

Is that the mishimoto setup?

 

Here's my AOS. Not sure it really has made any difference, I do not plan to add one to my Spec B.

 

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[Bobsyouruncl]

I also was wondering what people use as a gasket maker for things like the cam cap bracket with the AVSC solenoids in them where there is no gasket and the oil pump

[DaveWaters]

I used permatex ultra grey. I think the FSM calls for Fujibond.

[Bobsyouruncl]

Got my heads back from the head shop. They look pretty spicy. I'm looking at getting the bulks of my parts tomorrow. I've been reading and researching so much lately I wake up dreaming about head bolts and permatex ......

[Bobsyouruncl]

Can anyone link or give me some info on priming the oil pump? Also about heat shielding or wrapping the down pipe. I've read some stuff about the heat being hard on the boot. I really don't know anything about wrapping headers and exhaust.

 

Also what's a typical break in look like?

[Max Capacity]

Is that the mishimoto setup?

 

 

No, it was a group buy on NASIOC about 11 years ago. I think it was SMG or something like that.

 

But I believe there are others out there like it.

[shralp]

Yup, depending on the spec of your DP it can be a bit closer to the pass side rubber CV than you’d like. Over time it will probably shorten the life of your boot and compromise the CV. Kinda roulette though I’ve only had this issue once over the last 12 yrs and that was in the track car. I’ve left my DP /UP unwrapped for fire safety on track and don’t feel the issue is big enough to wrap my daily

[Max Capacity]

When I started my ej257 for the first time, I did it the same way the factory does. After having the key in the "on" position for a few times prior, when it came time to final start the engine for the first time, I turned the key to run, let the fuel pump prime, gauges sweep, then started it.

 

The engine fired up just like it does everyday, three cranks and at idle. That engine has over 143,000 trouble free miles.

 

Some will use a pump type bottle sprayer to pump oil through the oil system.

 

Some will pull the spark plugs, crank the engine over for a minute, then install the plugs and start it.

 

I figured idle speed will get oil pumping faster than at cranking speed.

 

 

 

Years ago on the race Honda engine, we did the, remove the spark plugs and crank engine, until the direct oil pressure gauge should good pressure, that took over a minute of cranking.

[Bobsyouruncl]

Got most of my parts, did my TGV deletes last night.

[Bobsyouruncl]

Cleaning parts and removed the barometric pressure sensor.... should be able to start assembling next week, going away for the weekend.

[Bobsyouruncl]

Been slacking... finally getting some work done on the motor.

[Bobsyouruncl]

Hey guys I tried searching around and wasn't sure so I'll ask. What coolant and do I need conditioner for OE head gaskets? Where can I get it and what kind?

[Max Capacity]

I have used Prestone for many years. Peak Global is also good to use.

 

You don't need anything else.

 

Buy it from a big box store, you can buy pre-mix or buy it straight and mix it 50/50 yourself.

[Bobsyouruncl]

I have used Prestone for many years. Peak Global is also good to use.

 

You don't need anything else.

 

Buy it from a big box store, you can buy pre-mix or buy it straight and mix it 50/50 yourself.

 

No conditioner then?

[Bobsyouruncl]

Finally got time to finish up my build.

 

I was able to fire it up last night for the first time. I Pre-oilled the turbo, cranked it over without the fuel pump fuse for a bit. It built oil pressure pretty quick so I put the fuse in and fired it. Started right up and sounded great. Ran it to thermostat opening once then shut it down. I changed the oil and went for a drive. I drove it around a bit last night and today, it runs great. No leaks, no apparent problems. I've been expecting it to go up in a dramatic ball of flame but nothing so far.

 

I ended up getting a Cobb AP and going with a tuner in town. It's on a break in tune till it's broken in. Even now with barely any boost and taking it easy I can tell it's dramatically improved over the old motor, which I suppose is to be expected. I'm pretty excited to get it broken in and tuned.

 

Final parts list:

OE short block

My old heads

Cobb AP

Grimmspeed TMIC

Grimmspeed Catted DP

Grimmspeed 3 port boost controller

Cobb 1050x injector

AEM 340 LPH fuel pump

BNR 16g

TGV deletes

Secondary air delete

Killer B oil pickup

IAG Street series AOS

ACT heavy duty performance street clutch

Cylinder 4 cooling mod

Torque solution Turbo inlet tube

 

I'm hearing that tuning is usually around 1000 miles. What are everyone's thoughts on that? My tuner told me a general but said he can't really advise me because he didn't build the motor or spec out the parts so can't really say definitively.

 

I broke the bezel on my camera a week or so ago so some of the pics are a bit blurry.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Bobsyouruncl

[KZJonny]

Nice looking build up and mods list.

 

Minus the failed turbo and resulting short block, I'm in about the same place with my LG, and confirmation bias aside, it's good seeing that someone else arrived at about the same list of things as I have in mind. Your preferred use/driving style are about the same as mine.

 

So aside from injectors, and TGV delete, which I don't think are worth it for me at the moment, given I'm not taking the engine apart you've arrived at a similar overall product.

 

Please do post some results or your thoughts overall on the improvements. At the moment, all I have to hand is a full exhaust +Cobb AP, and Spec B suspension for my wagon, but would ultimately like to go up to either VF52 or the Evo3/16g from BNR. (I read the entire BNR turbo thread, and I'm really leaning towards it, but many contributors there were more, hmmm, enthusiast, than I am so the perspective may be a little skewed towards higher performance than I need.)

 

Cheers!

[Bobsyouruncl]

It's hard to really judge the benefits of any one mod with the engine being new and so many things having been changed at one time. I can give you my opinion to date about the things I bolted on from an assembly and build perspective.

 

I can say that even with a break in tune, 0 waste gate duty cycle, and governed to 4500 the motor feels strong.

 

Things I love, IAG AOS, all the parts you need are there, the hose routing is very well thought out and intuitive. The install is ez and very clean considering how many pcv, cooling and inlet ports you have to ultimately hit. I have a friend who has a Crawford and he was disappointed with it from an install point of view. He didn't have enough fittings or hoses and had to make his own mounting bracket. The hose routing was wonky due to placement of the ports on the can. Functionally once installed he said it works fine but is disappointed in the mess of hoses in his engine bay.

 

Grimspeed TMIC. Again, well thought out design, good fitment, ease of installation and seemingly far and away an improvement over stock.

 

Grimspeed down pipe cuz it's shiny and sexy.

 

The rest of it I assume doesn't stand out one way or another from and install perspective. Maybe the injectors cuz they have plug and play plug extenders which make it vastly easier to route cables.

 

I'm don't think I mentioned that I used KSTech block off plates for my air delete and tgv deletes. They were simple and inexpensive and seem to function well.

 

The clutch I bought from the friend with the Crawford AOS, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse and it seems like a good clutch. I obviously haven't pounded on a it yet. It has great quick engagement and feels solid. The pedal feel is stiffer and is taking some getting used to along with a much lower engagement point. It has a 300-500 mile break in and after 100 miles feels much more forgiving. I went to a braided release cylinder hydraulic line from the stock rubber one and don't know how much that did to change the pedal feel.

 

I like the torque solution inlet hose. It seems to fit well and have good port placement. I had a heck of a time finding fittings locally in town to adapt from 1/2" on the inlet to 1/8" and 1/4" for the purge solenoid and boost controller. I like that it deleted the pcv valve sensor to inlet port because for my purposes with the IAG AOS that port is redundant anyways. I was able to completely delete the pcv hard pipe from the back of the intake, simplifying and decluttering that section.

 

I'm not sure if any other boost controllers are this way but the way the grimmspeed mounts up above the inlet puts the ports going to the turbo facing away, and the port for the inlet facing toward the turbo. This makes the hoses unnecessarily long and requires them to loop back to where they are intended to be installed. It's not a huge deal but seems wonky to me.

 

Nothing else really stands out. I do like the AP, the cost to entry is high but it seems like a very useful and streamlined tool.

 

The parts I decided to upgrade were either in need of doing so based on their condition, or to support the turbo I landed on, so that it might achieve it's full potential. My other criteria for selection was future scalability on hard to replace parts should I ever choose to change the turbo in the future. Thus the over sized injectors and fuel pump.

 

If I were you and you have the budget I would seriously consider doing the injectors and tgv's "while your at it." If you're changing turbo, exhaust, and intercooler it's really not much to pull the manifold. A few wires and hoses need to be disconnected and the whole thing pops out fairly painlessly. If I had the budget and wasn't a cheapskate I would just buy the tgv's from IAG and make it easy. It took me like 4-5 solid hours of non stop grinding to port mine out myself. I like trying things myself so it was kinda neat, the ports turned out very good and close to the ports on the heads with no oversizing in the TGV. But once in my life is enough and if I did it again I'd probably buy some.

 

I too read the entire turbo thread, and the second one that was an extension of the first. I can't speak to their quality or power potential compared to others but someone highly suggested to me that I buy a different brand. I think that thread is slightly mis leading in that it describes the turbo in terms of a time with there were really no other direct bolt on turbos in existence for these cars aside from the original IHI turbos. From what I understand that is not the case now and there a quite a few other options that may be more desirable these days. I was told that any turbo that "needs" an aftermarket oil feed line is prone to early failure and or is to sensitive to be reliable for long term use. I read a few threads about people using some other turbos and having them fail twice then bolting on a blouch and going back to stock oiling and having zero issues. I was also told that they don't perform quite as well as some of the more "modern" offerings of the same class. So based on that I went back and forth about what to do. I had already ordered and received my turbo and kind of wished I would have spent a bit more time getting educated on the subject before buying. The turbo that was recommended to me was the blouch 380xt which I believe is a similar 16g with td05 turbine. I even called Brian and asked him his opinion about it and what a return might look like... He wasn't too happy stating that the cars are inherently hard on turbos and there's no reason not to run an auxiliary line. I wondered about all the recorded BNR failures in the thread and Brian said that he hasn't had one come back since he had people switch to the sandwich plate feed location.

 

You can imagine, me being ignorant, all this being anecdotal at best, with longevity being my base goal, I was pretty torn as to what to do. This actually delayed my build for about a week debating with myself and looking around at turbo availability. What ultimately decided me was the fact that the blouch was 8 weeks out on back order and I wasn't waiting that long. I also reasoned that whether or not BNR turbos are "too sensitive" many of the failures were on engines that had a previous failure and were never rebuilt, or were rebuilt without replacing certain necessary parts, or were improperly maintained. I thought that if what Brian said was true, about not getting any turbos returned since the sandwich plate oil solution, then at worst it mitigates the potential for failures from not rebuilding or rebuilding poorly, and poor maintenance. And at best it's a dramatic improvement over the stock oiling supply. So I said screw it and threw it on. I've only driven 130 miles and not seen much boost but I can tell it's going to be quite a dramatic improvement over stock and I won't be disappointed. My only real concern at this point is longevity.

 

From what I understand the BNR 16g is marginally "better" then the vf52. I have read that the vf52 falls off more at high rpm and can have a tendency to boost creep. I know nothing about the jmp rebuilds but have heard they are better than a stock vf52. Based on what you're saying you probably wouldn't care and would be happy with what you get either way.

 

Once.i get to the appropriate mileage I will bring the car to the Dyno to get tuned and post Dyno numbers.

[KZJonny]

Thank for the all-around assessment of the upgrades and parts. I think I am on a much tighter budget than you are, this being my 'summer + weekends' car. I daily an Outback, so I'm principally trying to make this a bit more fun to take on road trips and the occasional foray along some of the twisty back roads we have around where I live.

 

So, if I do ever have the manifold off, I'll consider the TGV delete + injectors for sure, but at the moment, I don't *think* that will really help or hurt me with the power levels I'm looking for.

 

Also, some good insight into the turbo discussion. I realize that the BNR is a little bit older design by now, and at least based of a stock VF40 housing by and large, so perhaps some of the newer offering are a little better? I have to admit that the price is part of what is attractive to me. It's not a whole lot more than a rebuilt and rebalanced VF52 from a reputable turbo builder, but you are getting and all-new turbo + components for roughly the same $.

 

I wrote JMP, but haven't heard back yet, so I don't know how he compares? As far as Blouch vs BnR, I have certainly heard good things about Blouch, but given the specs on the 380xt vs Evo3/16g, I'm not sure where the extra $500 USD is going? Yeah, it comes with a billet wheel and new fittings, but that seems like rather a large premium for a car I am hoping will make 250-275 whp? I'd love to buy Canadian since that is *way* easier for shipping and returns and the like, but the only really reputable turbo builder around me doesn't do anything smaller than an 18g in their 'custom' turbo housing, and having them rebuild a VF series is nearly the same price as the BnR..... *sigh*

 

Like you, I'm chasing something to add a little to the car, but am putting long service life and reliability ahead of all-out power. Partly why I like the idea of a turbo with the more proven MHI bearing set vs the IHI stuff, but stepping back and thinking about it, I don't suspect I'll be pushing terribly hard on it too often, so perhaps it's all a moot point. Aaaaaanyay, we all gotta make our own decisions at the end of it, and all that, just sort of musing about options..

 

I look forward to seeing those dyno results posted. My car is actually only at around 95K miles (152k kms), so while it isn't a freshie engine like you've got, it's also not super tired out for an '05. I'm sure the uprated TMIC/charge air cooler and fuelling especially, will give you some advantage over me, but it would also give me an idea what a car with a similar list of improvement might reliably get, and if I even need to go that far.

[Bobsyouruncl]

Ya my "budget" was 2k.....at some point I just started handing out my credit card and closing my eyes.....I was a bit of a captive audience though. It was either rebuild or sell the car.

 

From what I understand you can easily make more power with the blouch over bnr and some say it's a much more durable piece that is fine on stock oiling. Depending who you are that may be worth the price of entry. I would have bought one and either sold or sent back the bnr if I could have. Not because I think the bnr is crap but more for piece of.mind. I have questions about it that I can't find answers for and I have read and heard nothing but good about the blouch. Its a moot point now tho. I don't love the oiling setup simply because of the routing. I would try some different hose setups to make it more clean or give me a different route but it would take a lot of fiddling and wasn't that critical at the end.

 

It sounds like to me you would be happy with whatever setup you choose. And are you really gonna get any one of these turbos, assuming they don't fail, and wish you hadnt? Unless you have them side by side to compare how would you know much of a felt difference one way or the other. The car will be so freshened up you will be happy either way. I would pick the best specs for your goals and budget and just put my head down and go with it. If Brian is right and changing the oiling is a net benefit regardless if whatever turbo you buy, then great. If the other guys are right and it means my turbo is oversensitive but I accounted for it with a new oil line, then great I hope it doesn't blow up anytime soon.