MalcolmV8

That's great. The spoolingperformance.com seems to have nice manifolds. Great flowing design that keeps a/c and p/s. They said life time warranty too. However when ordering a manifold you have to specify a 4 or 5 bolt flange from your turbo. What is the most common? what would make most sense to go with if I do go this route?

enemy no1

Most turbos require a 4 bolt flange I believe. In fact I dont think I've personally seen any with 5 to be honest.

JDMAF

that is refering to the exhaust side... most turbos are 5 bolt, but this depends on what turbo you get... but you will more then likely be getting 5 bolt...

MalcolmV8

I don't know, I think it's referring to the exhaust manifold to turbo side because it's for the manifold, not the down pipe. Here's the link to the exact unit I'm considering.

http://www.spoolinperformance.com/sp...k4ac-p-60.html

00siboy

iTrader: (3)

well, if u know what turbo you are getting, look at that or ask whoever the seller of the turbo is.

MalcolmV8

Got some new rubber on there. Old rims were 14x5 and new are 15x6.5.
Seems to help cornering quite a lot. They weren't my first choice of rims but for the price I grabbed them.
What's the correct torque for the lug nuts? I haven't picked up a Haynes manual yet. I put them to 80 ft/lbs for now.

Before


Now

enemy no1

torque specs should be 100 ft/lbs. Those rims arnt too bad! How much did you pay for them if you dont mind me asking? What size tires did you end up getting?

You still havent gotten rid of that pin stripe??? lol That wouldve been the first thing to go if it were mine.

MalcolmV8

Rims were $82 a piece. I went with the 205/50/15 tire.
Yeah the pin stripe sucks but its still so dang cold around here. It was snowing on Monday afternoon and night and a little on Tuesday. I haven't even washed the car yet since getting it. As soon as it warms up a little I'll wash the car and then pull that pin stripe. I don't want to scratch the heck out of the paint getting it off now.

xfrankx

i guess ill try to help out a bit. my friend was a lot like you. just wanted to buy something cheap for his d series and didnt want to spend an arm and a leg. he wanted to buy an ebay kit himself until i talked him into going a bit more expensive ( still cheap compared to a lot of other setups) and he ended up being happier. the main things that fail in the ebay kits are the turbos ( mostly due to the fact that hondas run high oil pressure and it blows the seals out of the junk ebay turbos) the wastegates. ( because they have been known to stick ect..) and the manifolds ( due to design and crappy welds) ive seen a number of them be re braced and rewelded a few times over the years.

my suggestion to you would be to go with an obx setup. i have heard about a lot of people running obx turbos for long periods of time and they havent been an issue. i actually looked into getting their 35r replica for a budget build a few years back but i ended up selling the car.

a friend made 400ish on an obx top mount manifold and to my knowledge it never cracked. id go with an obx manifold, obx turbo, rc 550s or something, tial 38mm, whateve bov you wanna run but you can get a greddy cheap, buy an ic piping and dp kit with the intercooler from ebay, walbro 255 fuel pump, ebay feed and return lines, get it tuned with crome pro or another good but cheaper than hondata setup, and you are pretty much good to go.if you have 3 grand to play with that should be do able. otherwise if you insist on the ebay kit id get that swap out the w/g, and turbo for sure. the cast manifold should be ok as far as it not cracking or anything but like it was stated before the wg placement sucks. spa makes a cool cast top mount thats around 400 bucks or so thats a good alternitive to an ebay cast one. anyways good luck and ill check back to see how it went.

ps. if you run an ebay turbo run an oil restrictor to try and save the turbos life longer.

enemy no1

Those tires look like they fit real good just like I said

MalcolmV8

Thanks for the info. I looked over obx's website and their prices are very similar to spooling performance which is another one I'm looking at real hard.

I've decided not to get an ebay manifold. I really want a nice tubular one that flows well because I know as soon as I get this going I'm gonna crave more boost and want to go wild. Then I'll be upgrading parts so I might as well get the correct manifold now. I think it's real obvious from everyone's feed back a tubular manifold from ebay is short lived and I need one that allows me to keep a/c and 99% of the ebay ones do not.

I don't mind the turbo itself been from ebay because they are cheap and I will probably want to experiment with different sizes etc. I'm new to turbos and I love to tinker. Once I find something I really like I may purchase in a better quality but who knows. I also see some having good luck with their ebay turbos lasting too.

I've seen a few people mention chrome and from what I can tell that's just to have a shop tune the car right? The reason I was looking at the Hondata s300 is because it allows me to do the tuning. Once again my love to tinker with this stuff.

So in summary what I'm thinking for start out:
Quality:
Manifold and downpipe for sure

Ebay:
Turbo
Intercooler and piping
Possibly BOV & wastegate

That should be a start.

Yes they sure do. Thanks!!

JDMAF

like said before... stay away from the ebay wastegate's they like to stick... I don't care if you want to cheap out on every other part, like you said you love to tinker, thats all well and good... but for god's sake please this is the one part that's going to save your ***. and I'm sure you would much rather tinker longer on the stock block and get decent at tuning as long as you can before swapping to another block... I fully understand your need for tinkering... And you seem to have plenty of money to throw at it, but also see why you don't just want to one and done it... I'm the same way... just don't have the money... lol

xfrankx

what he said. PLEASE get a tial or turbosmart wastegate. DO NOT USE THE EBAY ONE! its the most essential peice on your turbo setup. tinker all you want but you have one stick and you will be replacing the motor.

you can tune with crome too it doesnt have to be hondata. why do you need hondata to learn to tune? my friends all started learning to tune with uberdata. i dont even know if that stuff is still around but they were just like you. add some fuel here, take some out, ummm lets rip it and see if it pops haha.

oddly enough my friend has the 140k mi d series they learned to tune on in his car, still boosted and still running. its always the **** that you dont care if it blows up that lasts the longest.


on another note you dont need a good dp really. a 5 bolt ebay downpipe will work just fine for you. just buy the mini kit they sell with the piping BAR AND PLATE intercooler and dp. slap on a tial wg, get a decent manifold and put an oil restrictor on the turbo. hope it works out for ya. tuning is fun you should enjoy it

MalcolmV8

Sweet, good info there. OK I'll be sure and get a quality waste gate. These are the good tid bits of info I need. Makes perfect sense though because if that sucker sticks boost will just climb out of control till something goes boom.

xfrankx, I didn't realize I could tune with Chrome too. That's awesome, I'll dig a little more into that one too. Oh and my reason for saying quality downpipe was just because I assumed it needed to match the manifold design so it would fit without problems. I know a lot of the ebay kits that replied to my questions said either their manifold was to big and a/c condenser had to be removed and or their downpipe did not bend sharp enough and required removal of the a/c compressor or p/s pump etc.

Speaking of pipes I've looked around quite a bit at the external wastegate designs and the dump tube and I'm not sure where the dump tube goes to. Documentation online usually says it bypasses the turbo and then re-enters the exhaust. However when looking at pics and designs of these setups it appears to just be open to the atmosphere. Is that right? does that mean when you go under boost and the waste gate opens up it gets really really loud as you get pretty much a huge exhaust leak as it's bleeding off excess pressure?

jdmaf, cool info too man. Thanks. And no I don't have a ton of money to throw at it lol. I have a budget saved and trying to make sure I spend it wisely. Initially I was all for an ebay kit knowing it would be sub par and then upgrading pieces as I go but really that's a waste of money and while I wish the turbo was on there yesterday already I'm controlling my impulses and making sure I get some good value for money without buying trash or blowing to much money for nothing.

MalcolmV8

OK I've been reading up on chrome and following links etc. and one of interest is this page

http://www.phearable.net/tech/efibeginnerguide.html

It explains how chrome and a few others are piggy back systems that alter signals between the sensors on the engine and the computer itself. Of interest is this part

Specifically : "The bottom line: Piggy Back Controllers suck because you cannot independently adjust fuel and ignition. Any changes to fueling will produce a change in ignition too, and often this is undesirable.

If that's all true does it make sense to get one of the other non piggy back systems such as Neptune or Hondata where you can change timing independently of fuel? Also doesn't Neptune and Hondata allow you to make tuning changes on the fly without even turning off the engine? If I understand the chrome setup you have to have a Moetes chip installed and every time you tweak the code you have to shutdown, reflash the chip, fire up and check on changes. That feature alone seems to make Neptune or Hondata worth the money to me. Bare in mind I've never used any of these systems so just going by what I find in docs and info on the net.

Thanks
Malcolm

enemy no1

I think you got the idea right when it comes to theprocedure of tuning chrome, but chrome isnt a piggyback system.

enemy no1

A lot of guys seem to run open dump tubes off the wastegates. Some have the dump tube routed back into the exhaust. I think it may just be a matter of preference.

hoffmanb16

Open Dump = alot louder.... so if your going for a sleeper build it's good but I love a loud turbo'd honda so open dump FTW! and it's easier.

xfrankx

mine dumps out right by the dp. ive had them out the front bumper before too. if you tap it back into your dp it does quiet it down a lot. im running a full exhuast now so really im not worried about the wg sound its really not that bad. i do miss the sound of open downpipe but it gets annoying for daily driving. my car is tuned on neptune right now. there are two different kinds of neptune. one requires burning a chip every time you want to change something. the other has a board that allows you to plug the laptop in to tune on the fly. the thing about that is you can get a tuner to tune with the rpf board in an ecu they have so he can tune on the street. come back to the shop, upload the tune and burn you a chip. thusly saving you time and making things easier on him.

in my personal expirence i never buy a premade downpipe. what i would do if you wanted to keep stuff like ac ect.. buy a premade or just but a flange that fits your turbo and take it to someone to fab you one up to your liking so you know it would work for your application. might cost a bit more but you get exactly what you want. especially if you wanted to put your wg into your downpipe that could all be done in one shot.

as far as tuning goes crome pro used to be the hot **** back in the day. back when people were still using uberdata and such. that seems to be old news now even kinda with the neptune it seems at least the chip version. its not to say that you need hondata or neptune ect.. for a little street setup. crome will work fine. ive had friends tune 500hp cars on crome and i had an ls turbo setup i ran for years on just an uberdata basemap we street tuned ourselves. that tune went to another persons ls turbo setup ran for another year, then went to another person who is still running it. i guess we did ok for not having a ton of expirence with it. so if you are looking for something to learn how to tune on it wouldnt be a bad idea to check crome out. pretty basic stuff but for what you are doing on a budget its really not such a bad idea

MalcolmV8

Update time:

I decided to get the turbo kit/setup offered by b00stME earlier in this thread. I've been in contact with him and I should have it in about a couple weeks.

I figured I'd get a stock baseline on the car so some buddies and I made a trip to the local track. I made a total of 9 passes Friday night and the best time I got was 16.7 @ 81.07 mph. All my runs where pretty consistently 16.8 with one or two 16.9s but then I managed to squeeze out the 16.7 lol. Kansas City is 900 some feet above sea level and we have 87 octane for regular gas.



First run of the night I was lined up with a buddies Malibu with the 3.5 V6. Rated at 205 or so HP. He spun off the line and didn't catch me so I beat him. I had to give him some smack about it and post a vid online lol. Subsequent runs he was in the 15s and beat me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGFVLwPdaeM

Then after all the fun of Friday night I decided it's time to see what's up with that tranny. So I got everything tore off on Saturday except passenger's side half shaft because the lower ball joint was stuck. I struggled with that **** for hours on Sunday. I broke two pullers on it, crushed the threads sticking out of the ball joint, cut off the tip with a grinder and re-squared it. Struggled some more with various pullers and finally got a pickle fork and beat the snot out of it and off it came. I got every last tranny bolt and mount out but the tranny is bonded to that motor lol. Man it's stuck on there good. I wiggled and fought it for a while. Hit with a hammer, pried with screw drivers etc. and finally called it a night and went in. Tomorrow I should have it off and get it opened up and see what's wrong with that second gear.

enemy no1

Dude, your 60ft is as bad as mine lol. Dont feel bad, its not that easy getting traction with fwd especially on street tires.

MalcolmV8

lol yeah it's real bad. It just spun or wheel hopped off the line. My buddies where laughing saying they could pull better 60 foots on their bicycles lol. I think the best 60 foot of the night was a 2.4. Some sticky tires are definitely in order to cure that. Maybe later in the year, not in the budget right now

enemy no1

From what I've heard, 2.0-2.1 60ft times can be made on regular street tires, but requires a certain technique and some practice..

xfrankx

ive seen worse 60fts. my friend had a worse one in his ek a few years back with a stock d series too. some seat time you will get the feel for how to get it out of the start without spinning. just takes some time.

MalcolmV8

Yeah I imagine some seat time and practice will do it. Getting the right amount of slip on the clutch without spinning the tires would have done much better too. I think I got to aggressive each time and ended up spinning the tires.