379/1000 First Start ....Build Log

[broxma]

Having been several weeks since any updates, I'll start with the skinny.

The Evo 8 ECU is now installed, EvoScan is working well. I flashed a modded rom for my 2G mas and the car has been running pleasantly for several weeks now. It needs the wideband and Boost gauge install which is going to happen as soon as I build the plate for it this weekend.

I had to replace the front struts. The ones that came with the car were very bouncy and I wasn't happy I left them. Thanks to that guy who sold them to me on the cheap, they worked great.

I fixed the sole oil leak at the oil filter housing line. So far, no more leaks but the dipstick is blowing out now.

The motor has about 400 miles on the rebuild so I figure it's about time to really make some magic. I bought the AGP 3147 off these forums here. It arrived looking brand new, so I set about getting a manifold and Wastegate for it.

Turbo mounted to the manifold. If it looks like an Ebay (AMK?) manifold that is because it is. I am going to run SS rods from the head flang to the turbo flange like my DNP Evo Manifold. This one, actually, pretty nice. The welds are TIG obviously, but clearly hand welded, which is ehh, but they look good, good penetration, it even came with SS studs and lock nuts, the studs even have a wrench spot. The Flange was already tapped for the studs.

The whole turbo setup. That is an Autoteq Wastegate. Not my first choice but I did some looking. It is unfortunately 38mm and the manifold is setup for 35 so I'll have to either weld a new flange on or open this one up a bit, no big deal.

I cleaned these up. I decided, I am putting these on the color they are. The Motif of my car is basically green and gray so I am going to enamel the MITSUBISHI in green and leave them gray. The brackets are already on order and should be here soon. Of course I need some shoes to go over these big boys so...

I refinished my Evo 9 Wheels. These were originally on my Evo but since I bought the drag DR-31's for it, I had these laying around. The previous owner had rattle canned them black and did a pretty bad job. I bought 7 cans of Paint stripper and over the course of two days ended up with these. The paint stripper actually took the black and the factory paint off which I don't mind. I like the new look. I'll just throw either some clear on them or just wax the machined surface. Tires are going to be Riken (Yes you heard right, they are rebadged Michelins without a warranty, don't waste your money) 235 45 r17. They are Z-rated and can be had about 76.00 a corner.

Plans are to get the turbo and Intercooler on well before the Mitsu Shootout in June and have some time to tune the thing. I am pulling the FIC 1050's from my Evo and putting stocker back on it since the wife will be running it at or just above stock boost levels. I'll need more overhead with the bigger turbo and may consider switching to E85 if I can get a station within 10 miles of my house.

The Evo MAF will go on with the turbo/IC so I can reset the MAF settings to stock on the ECU. Big fan of this since the 2G setting are not quite clear and I don't have a MAF Adder table on my rom.

That is all. I will update the Evo 8 ECU thread in the how to as I am able. As always, any questions about anything you see, PM and I'll try and answer. The Turbo and IC install will have a full write up even though it isn't going to be a do it at home project. I figure maybe someone will like to see how custom stuff gets done in case they think doing that type of work is "easy".

/brox

 

[Chim55117]

Things are looking good! I'm glad that turbo went to good use with someone else, it was just sitting in my room, doing nothing! Keep us updated!

 

[524of1000]

So when do we see the write up on that wicked cool turbo you've installed there, buddy /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif lol

 

[broxma]

Soon enough. I gotta get it all together.

/brox

 

I don't think I ever looked @ this thread before. WOW!!! This is turning out really nice, great job.

 

[broxma]

Alright, here we go. Turbo, AGP3147. Manifold, Ebay. Other stuff, non-existent. Time to start making a modifyin'.

So we take the day and figure, time to get the turbo on the car. All in one day, plans are get the turbo, manifold, wastegate, o2 housing and Evo MAF installed. Seems simple enough considering I have all of those parts except the O2 housing and I do have an Ace in the hole, Jason, one of the finest welders anywhere. Also, all pictures were phone pics since I forgot my camera but Steve did a pretty good job with em.

That's him doing his thing. He is kind of like The Stig in that you never see his face because it is hidden behind his welding helmet all the time.

So problem number 1, The manifold fit, the wastegate port didn't. The position of the wastegate mounted to the manifold put it somewhere about 1/4 the way inside the power steering pump. This would not do, so time to modify the manifold.

You can see the likelihood of any wastegate going in that spot left between the manifold and the PS pump is nil. So we have to modify the thing both for angle and pitch.

Problem 2, I have no fitting for the oil pressure port on the head. No problem, off to the lathe.

I did have some steel an-pipe thread fittings, so I milled the pipe thread side down and tapped it for the head port. I don't recall the thread pitch but it was common.

Problem 3, No oil return flange. Not a problem, Steve, here is some aluminum, go make me this flange.
Problem 4, Steve has never been around any of this equipment. Solution 1, Steve better be a fast learner.

So the turbo didn't come with an oil return flange which didn't matter since it would need to be custom anyway. I wanted to use a -10 AN line out the turbo to the last few inches of the factory hardline. Steve and Rick rubbed out the template off the bottom of the turbo and grabbed a piece of 1" aluminum.

Steve at the drill press, it was his first time.

Steve at the band saw. Again, first time.

And Steve with his finished product, three cheers for Steve. Now we have a oil return flange, but wait, The bolt holes are too tall and I can't bolt it on....off to the mill!!

I took care of this part. Threw it on the mill and cut down the are over the bolt holes. Steve tapped it for the 45 degree adapter and it was good to go.

Our finished return flange.

So the AGP turbo uses a 4 bolt flange which we didn't have. We used a round piece of steel and drilled the holes to make the flange and then set about making the downturn to the DP. We had to consider the distance of the O2 housing to the oil filter as I didn't want to remove the DP everytime I change the filter.

Here is the original mockup. The 2.5" radius were not enough to get us where we needed to be, so we sectioned the bend and welded it back together. It was still smooth, especially on the long side radius and maintained diameter.

More of the same.

By this time, after much trial and error, Jason had managed to get the wastegate to fit. We hacked the flange off and did a multi angle cut on the small extension to angle it forward and down. It cleared the PS pump but about 1/2" or so. Again, had to be careful with the direction since it had to face down towards the O2 housing.

This is a slightly better picture without the turbo installed. Wastegate, mission accomplished. Onto the return pipe.

We had a small problem here. Everything had to bolt on, without interfering with anything else, and had to seal. Originally everything looked fine, but the tacks holding everything together weren't enough and the metal warped about 1/4 inch out, which we discovered during install. I cut the center of the wastegate return pipe and increased the length and pitch to get it back in place. Problem solved.

The finished product. Custom 2.5" 4 bolt turbo outlet to DSM 2 bolt DP with 38mm wastegate return. Someone go ahead and price just that one custom part for me so that people can understand what paying someone to do this for you would cost. I estimated 300.00 at least.

Intake pipe. Simple. Take 2 bends, weld them together. No problem.

The oil return (-10 hose) wouldn't fit over the bottom section of the factory hard line, so I made a small steel adapter. It had the same ID as the hardline, but smaller OD, so the hose could fit over. I notched the end with the lathe to allow the hose to grip and bored it out after I milled it down on the lathe as well.

I'll wrap it up in the next post. Stay Tuned.

/brox

 

[broxma]

These are more random pictures with some explanation. Enjoy.

Rick putting the tight on the manifold bolts.

Mounting the O2 housing. You can see the finished oil return flange here.

Starting on the O2 housing, We had just got the flanges made I think. Yes, that's me.

Rock, eating pizza and holding the DP. Multi-tasking, workin' it, feelin' the flow.

For the un-initiated, this, is a band saw. Steve and Rick were amazed by all these large metal machines.

So much so, he took two pictures.

Turbo finally mounted, few other things in. I think we are still working on the O2 in this picture.

And, the wrap.

This is the intake side. full 3" aluminum intake pipe, mounted to the Evo MAF. Jason had a MAF adapter with little plugs on it that worked well. I still need to solder it in, but it's holding fine right now.

The finished setup in all it's phone camera glory.

And since I think it needed a little clarity, I just went down and took these pictures with my Camera.

You can see the hotside IC pipe is run along the bottom.

Here is where the hotside IC pipe goes between the radiator and the frame. Once the new core is made, this pipe will be moved out around the frame through a hole cut in the front metal. Ignore the nasty bumper, it's getting refinished too.

There would be too much explaining to do to cover all the work we did. It took almost 12 hours to complete and would have been upwards of 1000.00 to have someone else do it for me, at least. Thanks for looking and as always, any questions, I'll be glad to answer.

/brox

 

[Chim55117]

I'm really glad to see the AGP go to good use! Let me know how it goes! What is left before it will start?

 

[524of1000]

Oh it runs. It runs /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif

 

Amazing work guys /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/applause.gif

 

[solidviper89]

We had no choice but to finish or we wouldn't be able to drive home, talk about motivation. Get it done, and do it right. That day was an awesome learning experience! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[broxma]

It actually runs quite well. Part of the problem with the setup before was the 2G MAF scalings were wrong in the Evo ECU, so at low airflow, the car would hesitate badly, so much you could feel it bog and kick. It wasn't knock, I logged the car and never saw more than 2 counts of knock which isn't even enough to pull timing, so it had to be the MAF. I knew I wanted to get the Evo MAF working so I could simply reflash the factory settings, which is exactly what I did. Right before we left, I reflashed the car, and took it out....running better than ever, and strong. The problem I have now is, I have not gauge one installed in the car. The wastegate is supposed to come with an 11 pound spring which even if it is off by a factor of 2, the car will handle it. I have not gone full throttle out to 8 grand yet, but WOT up to 6-7K feels amazing. I am slowly getting used to needing the car to be above 4000 RPM to build any boost.

The next step I am taking is to get the new tires, Evo wheels and 3KGT brakes on. Then I will install the WBo2, Boost gauge etc, and start to tune it out. The first test of the car will be June 20th at the Mitsubishi Shootout. I will be happy if it gets into the 12's honestly which I think is a reasonable goal.

/brox

 

[twonineseven]

I know this is a little too late but... when i mounted my custom IC on #297 I made a bracket from a 12in piece of angle iron from Lowes for like $8.00. It worked really well and allowed for me to keep my oil cooler in a good position, but i did remove the PS line and just looped it at the top. And when I painted it, it looked really nice as well. Just a thought if anyone didnt want to add hood pins.

 

[broxma]

The current IC is just an Evo IC hanging by the pipes. The new IC is going to be a custom piece. API core, custom tanks, inlet divertor, all the stuff that should be on an IC. The pipes will be reworked and the cold side pipe will be finished in full 2.5" aluminum. It will be bolted by welded plates to the vertical members around the radiator.

I may throw a boost gauge on it tonight and find out what kind of boost I am getting since I have no idea.

/brox

 

What are you using for a rear sway bar? I never did find a pic or mention of it after the section on the rear subframe waaay back on page 1.

 

[broxma]

Stock bar is back there now but I found a 1G AWD 26mm bar at the junkyard with poly bushing the other day. I bought it for 9 dollars.

/brox

 

If I was a lesser person I would hate you right now

 

[broxma]

Since I essentially have a running log here of things I figured I'd put this in.

379 has gone down. Not due to the motor mind you. I took Anne up to the Texas Shootout last weekend knowing two things. One my tranny was leaking a bit and two, the tranny had no second gear. I wasn't really concerned about these things since I was planning on getting a new tranny soon anyway, so I figured I'd run the snot out of it without much concern. Fast forward to today, the tranny case has cracked open putting all the tranny fluid on the driveway. So until I sell the Evo, 379 will be down. I'll be selling the Evo and using a part of the profit for a new tranny and transfer case plus an Evo interior. I may try and get a transfer case under warranty from the deal since I put the odds that the transfer case recall was never done to the car at about 50%.

FYI, at 11 psi with no second gear and a bog to a stop off the line I managed a 14.6 at 100. I was unable to get any tune on the car before I went and couldn't find the load range for the launch control. Once the new transmission and T-case come in, I'll be taking the car to a proper dyno.

/brox

 

[381gvr4]

I have an extra case if that helps??? I built my tranny in 381 with the help of John at TRE. When you get him on the phone, he is a open book of knowledge and loves to share it!

 

[524of1000]

if we can get her to turn over you can drive Ugly Betty till Raggedy Anne's up and running /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif I'm still fairly positive it's the starter.