Re-installing turbo -- damn Subaru!

[John M]

Just wanted to rant for a bit...

 

Subaru's intake hose design SUCKS. Oh, it's a model of efficiency with all those hoses connecting to the main intake, all hidden under the manifold, but it makes it impossible to get the hose back onto the damn turbo. Can you disconnect any of the "feeder" hoses to make it easier? Hell no! You can't reach any of them because of their location under the manifold. Thanks to their presence, you can move the hose maybe 1/2 an inch forward and aft, not nearly enough to get it to slide on the turbo inlet.

 

Ahh, so what if we attach the intake hose before bolting the turbo in place (stupid, but plausable). Nope, no dice there. The freakin' oil drain hose is a huge PITA to connect then. It's barely long enough to reach and just flexible enough to resist allowing the drain line to go inside it using anything except a head-on approach. Don't even get me started on how in the hell am I supposed to get pliers onto that clamp afterwards!

 

So here's where I am now: The turbo's oil drain line is in place -- I think. I've checked it from above and below, with a flashlight, and it may be in the right place. The turbo is held onto the up pipe/bracket with one nut for now until everything is in place. The intake hose is fubared; it'll be a miracle if it ever slides back onto the turbo inlet. It's too "mushy" at the opening to be an easy fit onto the turbo. If I manage to do all that, it'll be trivial to connect the remaining oil & water lines.

 

I've done turbos on a lot of cars; this is maybe my 17th-18th turbo swap. This one is by far the worst. Subaru's design on how the turbo mounts to the up pipe & bracket is good (though I am left with a pile of heat shields with no clue how/if they will reinstall) but the rest of their design needs major improvement. It's ridiculous that it'd be easier to remove the entire intake manifold just to put the intake hose onto the turbo.

 

Now it'll be a few more days while my back recovers before I can try it again. Of course, by then our weather will be back to "cold & rainy". Yay me!

[VTGT]

Did you install a stock vf40?

[sgt]

Couple tips

1. You are supposed to remove the intake manifold

2. Keep the drain hose on the turbo and replace the lower clamp with a worm drive.

 

If you want any more suggestions, feel free to PM me.

[Boostjunkie]

While it is not easy to get the inlet hose back on with the manifold in place it can be done. You will need a liberal application of elbow grease and curse words to make it work though!

 

It's really not that bad though. For the oil drain line, keep the rubber hose on the barb coming off the turbo and make sure the little spring clip is on the upper part of it. Then just slide the turbo down and the rubber hose will pop right on to the barb on the car. Get under the car and slide the little spring clip down and make sure it is behind the bead.

[wichitalegacy]

I have f'd with the inlet several times and It gets easier every time. One of the biggest pita is the recirc hose to which I got rid of and made my own out of aluminum. I have the perrin inlet and when I put in on I have to first put a little oil in the inside and second I take out all of the bolts holding the intake down but I dont take it off. This will give you a little more space to fit ( and cut up ) your hands. Good luck.

[sgt]

A pick set works wonders

[fweasel]

A pick set works wonders

ding ding ding!

[John M]

Did you install a stock vf40?

 

Yep, just replacing what broke for now. I'm not going to spend the big bucks on the current bolt-on options. If I'm going to drop that kind of coin, it'll be on a WRX-fittment turbo and a FMIC. The cost is almost the same and the benefits are huge.

 

Anyway, thanks for all the input guys. While I was under the hood yesterday I thought about what Boostjunkie suggested re: doing the oil return line connection at the lower point from under the car. Yesterday I ended up using the upper one, with a zip tie holding the clamp in the "open" position while I inserted the turbo. It looks like it's in there. Now all I have to do is cut the tie and it'll spring closed.

 

Today I'll do that, plus finish "convincing" the intake hose to go back on the turbo inlet. I don't really have a hurry -- the DP I ordered looks like it'll be at least another week or two so the car's stuck 'till then.

[Jedi Pimp]

I put the Perrin inlet on and I will never do that again. It took me forever to get that thing on the turbo inlet and then to get the BOV hose back on. I ended up using grease on the hose to get it to slide on the turbo inlet that was the only way.

[MarcusDubya77]

I need to subscribe for when I do a Turbo Swap...good tips

[LittleBlueGT]

I need to subscribe for when I do a Turbo Swap...good tips

 

Yep.

 

Good tips, keep them coming.

 

 

What is a pic set?

[rc0032]

It looks like this and is often called a cotter pin removal tool.

 

http://www.motorboating.com/motorboat/images/magazine/2006/052006/ht_how8_450x151.jpg

 

+1 on it being a big PITA.

Here is the PN after you rip it 14459AA60 - Duct assembly (IC to throttle body tube)

[John M]

Well, I was able to cut the wire tie I had holding the oil drain clamp and it looks like it's on there properly. Today I got the intake pipe back on without having to remove anything else.

 

The rest looks easy. I'm waiting until I can cut down the bolt I used to plug the EGT sensor hole in the UP ( M12 x 1.25 pitch if anybody needs one). Then it's a simple matter of reconnecting the coolant lines and oil supply -- all thankfully within easy reach.

 

Now I'll wait some more on the Invidia catted DP. Maybe it'll arrive in the next 2-3 weeks. The day it arrives I'll have my car back on the road. I'll use the downtime to do more work on my ECU map.

[CHRISPY]

What happened to your stock turbo John?

 

Cheers

Chris

[sutter2k]

You should try a turbo swap on a B5 S4....

[hogmeat]

How about a D6 L2? I heard those are hard. Especially with the zpx72 engine! Gawd!

[fweasel]

You should try a turbo swap on a B5 S4....

Z32 300ZX, the list goes on...

[2005garnetGT]

I do believe they take the cake for stupidest turbo mounting location ever.

You should try a turbo swap on a B5 S4....

[TDC Tuning]

what works best for me is sliding the inlet hose on first with the turbo@ an angle

then, reaching behind and under to guide the drain hose on top of the drain tube

push forward and down with your LEFT arm and use teh right hand to guide her onto the studs.

 

I have gotten ALOT of turbos on this way

 

the other opeion if you have an aftetrmarket up

is to install the turbo WO the studs in (slides right on ) 0

then thread in the studs from the top using the nut to nut () method

untill they are seated and proceede from there

[John M]

Wow, I can't believe I didn't think of the "studless UP" approach. The ebay UP I have uses "keyed" studs, meaning I can drive them with the right socket without having to use the "nut to nut" () method. That would have made the install a breeze. Gonna use it next time for sure!

 

As for the Audi turbo swap, I've never owned one but if it's where the front end has to hinge open, yeah, that's worse. The 300ZX is also worse than the Subaru because almost anything you do requires removing the engine.

 

CHRISPY -

 

Not sure exactly what killed my stock turbo but I have to assume it was the ~ 120 mile drive with the vac T disconnected (blew off during a road trip). I drove carefully but I guess the turbo overspun trying to reach boost and it died a few days later. The UP cat was intact and there were no other issues to cause failure. It blew during normal highway cruising.

[John M]

Just bringing this back up to reiterate: DAMN SUBARU for the worst design ever for turbo plumbing.

 

Finally got the downpipe - this is 3 months without my car. Finally installed it. Installed the TMIC, filled the fluids, went for a test drive.

 

The damn oil drain pipe is leaking. This means I get to take everything off and do it again. Joy!

 

Oh, and those "keyed" studs on the up pipe? USELESS! No socket in the world will fit them. It's easy to use a crescent wrench when the UP is out of the car but you can forget it once you're in there.

 

I swear - there isn't much keeping me from driving this smoking shitbox to a dealer and trading on something new. I used to complain about getting the oil drain back on a DSM turbo but at least you can reach the damn thing. Subaru hides theirs behind various brackets and puts a clamp where you can't get anything on it.

 

I'm going to try making it work from under the car. I'll do anything to not have to re-do all the other work -- my back just can't take it two days in a row.

[John M]

Ok, so it's not so horrible after all. I think I've got everything fixed. What was it, you may ask?

 

Well, it wasn't the oil drain line.

 

It wasn't a nicked valve cover (thankfully).

 

I noticed that oil was on the front of the engine. It can't get there from the drain line. Oil was on top of the engine -- can't get there either. The oil looked much darker than I expected new synthetic to look after 3 miles. Then I saw the cause.

 

Are you ready? It was ..... nothing! That's right -- there was absolutely nothing wrong. At this point you may be thinking "well where did all that oil come from then?"

 

When I removed the stock turbo, I noticed that not much oil drained from the pan. I assumed it got burnt when the turbo shaft seized. Well, apparently it instead went into whatever the largest hose is that connects to the intake pipe -- it looks like the BOV return hose but could be PCV maybe? Either way, it came loose from the intake hose during my turbo install and dumped a good bit of oil onto the top of the engine. It found various ways to reach the ground and burned whenever it hit the exhaust.

 

So there you have it. Just a little leftover oil that spilled on the engine. The dipstick still reads "full" so the oil had to be from before the turbo swap.

 

Who says I have a temper?

[vodoo-chile]

So, how does it feel? Are you going to start doeing some EM on it now? And was the DP worth the wait?

 

Kyle

[John M]

Well, I can't compare it fairly since I spent 3 months driving my 14 year old fullsize truck. I can say that when I went WOT the first time, I discovered I had a loose hose on the MBC and when it hit 20 psi the car moved like it never had before! It was low rpms though, and I got out of it. It's back at 17 now and is still quite satisifying.

 

The extra hit it had before will have me testing 18-20 psi for say 3-4k rpm when I buy a different boost solenoid and go back to ECU-controlled boost. The fuel system and turbo should be able to support it in those rpms and it could provide a nice low-end boost, even if short lived.

 

I drove for about an hour last night and almost everything has burned off. There's still some smell but no more visible smoke. Dipstick shows full.

 

I've already loaded the custom tune too. Bumped rev limiter to 7150 so I won't hit it by accident in 1st. Also: removed top speed limiter and open/closed loop delay, tweaked the open/closed loop parameters, used AVCS map from the OS ECU map as well as their fuel table. For timing, I converted the OS map's base and adaptive maps into one "low det" map, meaning as long as the ECU is happy it'll use the timings from the advance map but if it sees problems it goes back to stock conservative fueling.

[Jon in CT]

For timing, I converted the OS map's base and adaptive maps into one "low det" map, meaning as long as the ECU is happy it'll use the timings from the advance map but if it sees problems it goes back to stock conservative fueling.

I don't think those ignition maps work the way you think they do. Good luck with the timing.