mattEG

So I've got a turbo project going for my 95 civic hatch, and I decided to keep a log of the project as she progresses. I originally posted this on a local civic board (civicevolutions.com) but figured I would throw it up here in case anyone was interested. Here goes!

Questions/Comments are welcome, but other people are probobly going to have far better responses then I am, so please chime in with answers too!

<u>Intro:</u>
So to give you abit of an idea why I decided to embark on this in the first place, the answer is simple. A)My stock d15b7 powered animal of a civic was slow, yes this can be contributed to driver, and driver weight, but it was still damn slow! (I couldn't keep up with Rich at Namao, and that made me sad). and B)Turbo kits are cheaper then a swap, in fact so much cheaper that I figured I would piece one together and run it until I blow the damn thing up, and then invest in a swap.

<u>Goals:</u>
I find it best to start a project with some goals in mind, this helps to keep focus and to give you a define start and finish, so here goes!

-$1000 budget
-reliable power (we're talking at least 10,000km w/ the kit on)
-No Kits (such as a used greddy or the like)
-2 month timeline from start to finish
-At least a 40 horsepower boost from stock

Now I know there is going to be a few people that say, "Cheap, fast, reliable" pick two. But I've picked all three, will the ambition kill the project? We'll have to wait and see.

<u>Timeline:</u>
06/08/04: Planning Begins

06/12/04: First Purchase!
- DSM 450CC Bluetop Injectors

06/15/04: Purchase!
- Autometer Boost Gauge

08/09/04: First Major Purchase of Parts!
- TE04H Turbo
- Log Style Stubby C-Zero turbo manifold
- Misc Charge Piping
- Caravan BOV w/ misc flanges, tubes & other bits

08/21/04: Uberdata Purchase
- 4 x AT29c256 EEPROM's
- 1 x TI74HC373IC
- 1 x 28 PIN EEPROM Socket
- 4 x 1/4 Watt 1.0K Resistor
- 2 x 0.1uF Ceramic Disc Capacitors
- Chem-wik Solder Rosin
- Simple flip-flop on/off switch

08/29/04: Chip Burner Purchased @ mcumall.com

08/30/04: Second Major Purchase
- 1G DSM Side Mount Intercooler
- Upper Charge Piping
- Pillar mounted autometer 3-gauge pod
- Misc Hoses & Fittings
- Mobil 1 10w30 Oil & Super Duper Fram Filter for install
- High temperature flat black manifold paint
- 2 x Cases of Beer for install

09/03/04: Buy Buy Buy!
- Chipped ECU w/ Uberdata
- Oil Line Fittings / Lines
- Pieces for Manual Boost Controller

09/04/04-Current: It Begins!!
- Aquired Resistor Box(thanks Mike!)
- Installation day! Go Team racecar!


<u>Parts List:</u>
This is the current list of parts that I have, whether I have them because they were lying around or someone generously donated them this is the list.

<u>Not Electronic:</u>
- DSM 450CC Bluetop Injectors
- TE04H Turbo
- Log Style Stubby C-Zero turbo manifold
- Misc Charge Piping
- Caravan BOV w/ misc flanges, tubes & other bits
- 1G DSM Side Mount Intercooler
- Upper Charge Piping
- Pillar mounted autometer 3-gauge pod
- Misc Hoses & Fittings
- Mobil 1 10w30 Oil & Super Duper Fram Filter for install
- High temperature flat black manifold paint
- 2 x Cases of Beer for install
- Oil Lines & Hoses
- Flanges for boost controller

<u>Electronic:</u>
- Boost Gauge (it has a light dammit, that makes it electronic )
- A/F Gauge (pretty light show)
- Oil Pressure Guage - To be bought - Anyone recommend a good one?
- 4 x AT29c256 EEPROM's
- 1 x TI74HC373IC
- 1 x 28 PIN EEPROM Socket
- 4 x 1/4 Watt 1.0K Resistor
- 2 x 0.1uF Ceramic Disc Capacitors
- Chem-wik Solder Rosin
- Simple flip-flop on/off switch
- Resistor Box

<u>Budget Progress:</u>
Please take into account that this budget is not finished!!! So no flaming! It will be more indepth when i get a chance to actually look up the exact prices.

<u>Budget Total:</u> $1000 Canadian

<u>Current Expenditures: $1013.70 </u>

<u>Detailed Expenditures:</u>
-Rebuilt TE04H Turbo w/ Stubby Manifold & BOV & Charge Piping: $350
-Upper Charge Piping & 1G DSM SMIC & Gauge Pod & Misc Couplers: $120
-Uberdata Components - Total: $100
-Boost Gauge: $59.99
-A/F Gauge: $0 (donated)
-DSM BlueTops x 4: $75
-EEPROM Burner: $100
-Oil Lines - $117.39
-Manual Boost Controller Parts - $17.32
-3ft Charge Pipe Coupling & Hose Clamps - $40
-Misc 2" Exhaust Pipe - $14
-Resitor Box - $20

<u>Future Expenditures:</u>
-Oil Pressure Gauge - 59.99

<u>Thanks To:</u>
I just realized that I hadn't thanked anyone for their input/parts/advice and basically allowing me to relentlessly nag them! So thanks goes out to the following, more names to come, and if you aren't on here and should be, pm me!

Just as an addendum, thanks goes out to the many many people who attended the Turbo Install day on Saturday!! You guys rule, if i miss anyone it is because I'm an idiot, but please PM me and let me know!!

cua0
drastik
Nightstalker(for parts and advice)
djshorties(advice & parts)
DrACoNuS
biggee
underground motorsports
superbeast
G-OFF
Niels

Everyone who attended on Saturday!


<u>Logs:</u>
This is where the actual logging begins! The upper sections will be updated with more when more becomes available!

<u>09/01/04:</u>
This would be the first entry! Picked up a bunch of parts last night from Andy(djshorties), much appreciated sir. Tonights todo list includes painting misc charge piping, the manifold, and prepping the garage for the build day on Saturday.

I also need to find out what kind of an oil pressure gauge i should get, mechanical or electrical? Suggestions people!

Anyway, please comment and all that good stuff! Thanks!

<u>09/02/04:</u>
Edited the budget to make it make sense
Added Thank You's Section!
Updated the budget page with some actual prices. It looks as if this may come in on budget, if not slightly above. We'll have to see how Saturday goes. I left a few things out like beer, which is an obvious related expense.

I've been looking into building a custom boost controller. Seems to be something that is definately worth looking at since it only costs like ~$10 .. If you're interested in doing the same thing, you should check out this link. Go home-depot!

The trip to the oil line place will be made tommorow, so we shall see what I end up spending. I'm going to be building the MBC tonight I believe, and I will be taking a quick drive down to Calgary in order to be sure I burn all of the regular gas out of the trusty civic.

Expect an update tonight/tommorow.

<u>09/03/04:</u>
Today was a pretty monumental day in that the number one thing that I was worried about got taken care of quite early on in the day! We sucessfully chipped my ECU and I am now running an NA baseline rom in order to test out the sucess of the install! Needless to say it started and survived the day of driving, along with that I no longer have a redline! (Good? Bad? ... I'm not sure! Hehe )

Along with the uberdata action we went out today to find the fittings and hoses I need to put together the oil line system and return system. Ended up heading to the southside Hose Headquarters location in Edmonton, but thanks to Telus and their wonderful phonebooks it was closed, but hadn't actually been removed from the new phonebook.... HOORAY!

So all the way across the city to the other Hose Headquarters location, where we were told that they in fact didn't have what I needed... Thankfully the man at Hose Headquarters was nice enough to let me know that Greg Distributers would have everything and anything I might need to slap that kit together, so off to Greg it was.

We were able to find everything at Greg that we needed in terms of an oil line kit.. The return piece I was able to piece together from the generous aeroquip donations of Dad(thanks to he & jack's shop). Anyhow, Greg's has wicked free donuts for all that want a quick bite to eat!!! But they are godamn expensive to buy parts from!!! $117 for some silly SS braided -3AN hose and a few fittings, CRAZY!

Anyhow, after the whole running around Edmonton fiasco we had to run the girlfriend home(Sorry Lisa), after which we headed to Home Depot to round up the parts we were going to need to piece together a manual boost controller! After finding most of those pieces minus a ball bearing as well as a spring we headed home, only to find out that we had overlooked an important piece of the puzzle, resistors for the injectors!!!

This was quickly solved by heading to Radio Shack and seeing what they had for resistors... we ended up trying to hack together an ugly mess of different resistors, and came to the conclusion that heading to Active the next day was a far better idea.

All and all I have to say that today went pretty well, I was able to find most of everything that I needed albeit a bit on the expensive side!

<u>09/04/04:</u>
And so begins the installation! Today was definately interesting, we headed into Edmonton to Active Electronics to pick up a resistor box, and to pickup/lead the fellows that were nice enough to help us out with the install! Thanks again guys! On the way back to the shop we stopped by at River Valley cycle and picked up a 1/4" ballbearing or three for the manual boost controller! I have to say that I was impressed, they had them and gave them to us for free, thanks to the RVC guys!

On the way home we had a chance to "test" the new uberdata system.. On the NA tune it seems to work quite well.. I had a chance to find out that the speed limiter no longer limits speed, don't ask how this was done(as a side note, I hate biggee and his vtec). Anyway, we got back to the shop and got to work!

We actually ended up getting a ton of work done today in the five hours that we had to work on it. We got the turbo/manifold mounted and gasketed(yes that is a word i just made up) and everything to do with that is nicely fitted, had to make a slight notch in the radiator support in order to get the vacuum house between the wastegate and turbo to stop from kinking.

We got the injectors installed, as well as the gauges wired and mounted(minus the o2), we had a slight setback with the injectors, those studs are freakin weak, do NOT torque them more then 9 ft/lbs, luckily the parts car came to the rescue! After fixing the broken stud we got the fuel rail tightened down and all was well.

We began test mounting the intercooler on Saturday but that ended up being a Sunday thing. All of our fitting work was done, we built the T section and tefloned all that needed to be tefloned!

That was the end of Saturday's adventure! Thanks to everyone that showed up and helped! An extra thanks goes out to the guys that made the "vacuum line" run for me, you rule!

<u>09/05/04:</u>
Sunday started off rather early. Niels and I were out there to tackle what was remaining as soon as we could muster up the motivation! So at around 9AM we began hacking away at the charge piping, as well as figuring a way to mount the intercooler with drilling the least amount of holes! Steve showed up later in the morning, the extra set of hands proved to be quite helpful!

This is where having a bunch of misc scrap car parts comes in handy! I ended up using pieces of a gas tank mounting bracket from a 1990 miata to make up a nice bracket for the intercooler. This was quite the sturdy piece of metal and seemed to work well, so after we had the intercooler mounted(go self tapping screws) we realized that we were in fact two inches ahead of where we needed to be, as the outlet from the top of the intercooler was going to rub on the radiator fan housing and cause all sorts of nasty things to happen. This was resolved by another two hours of testing and measuring and fabbing all sorts of strange brackets... oh boy! Anyhow, at the end of it, we had the intercooler nicely mounted and all was well in that department.

During the mounting ordeal Niels was dilligently working on getting the resistor box wired up an ready to go. I have to say that I hate soldering so much respect to that guy for tackling what was the biggest pain in the *** of the day. He ended up getting most of it finished off, and we ended up with some very long extensions to the wires! Which isn't so bad, if i wanted to mount the resistor box in the hatch I probobly could!

At that point in the day it was time to start hacking on the charge piping, such began one of the most time consuming parts of the project. The piping that I got from Mike that he got from Brent happened to fit perfectly... assuming that I didn't want an intercooler! Such began the cutting, as a sort of note to self, make sure that you have a wicked hacksaw before you begin hacking on anything, as it becomes quite the pain in the *** to get all of the piping fitted up without one. Anyhow, we got the intake piece finished, which wasn't that much of a hassle, but that was the end of the day for charge piping as we had larger things to tackle!

After giving up on the charge piping for the day it became apparent that before pulling the oilpan we were going to have to do some major cleaning up of the shop. 2 hours of sweeping/vacuuming and general dicking around later we had a nice clean shop and were ready to begin working again!

After a quick break for supper we got back at it, we finished soldering up the resistor box, and began to build the hoses and such. Building hoses is definately a pain in the ***, because you need a high speed device in order to cut them without crushing the tubing and/or fraying the SS braid. Needless to say a dremel apparently doesn't have enough torque to succesfully cut the ****, so a compressed air powered saw was used.... Good idea? Not so much! Either way, we got the hosing built and were in the process of fitting the nice shiny new adapter to the back of the block when tragedy struck.

While tightening in the BSPT-NPT adapter in the previous home of the oil sending unit we had a slight problem. Apparently if you tighten the fitting with your hand you manage to exert enough force to break the fitting out of the adapter housing as it was only pressed in to begin with. This needless to say ended up killing the projected completion date, as at midnight on a Sunday there isn't really anywhere open that carries a BSPT-NPT adapter. Poo!

That setback meant that it was quitting time for the evening, and thus the end of the day.

<u>09/06/04:</u>
Monday begins! On a slightly frustrated note as we were out a BSPT-NPT adapter so there was no way we were going to finish the car that day. That being said we went to work on the charge piping, which is what ended up putting me over budget on the project, not by much, but I still ended up going over!

Anyhow, I began fabbing up the rest of the charge piping, with my trusty hacksaw in hand all was going well. Until I realized that I was going to need more charge pipe and thus more coupling hose, and that there was no way in hell that I was going to get an air filter that would fit on the end of the turbo without moving all kinds of things around.

The charge piping/coupling situation was easily solved with a quick trip to Canadian Tire and NAPA where we spent a total of about 50 bucks.. This was the straw that broke the camels back! This little expenditure is what put me over my budget! Only by a couple bucks, but thats no big deal I guess, I keep hearing from people that these sorts of delays are to be expected, but it still sucks!

Anyhow, we managed to hack together the rest of the charge piping, it looks pretty decent, albeit I think a few would argue we did it in a strange manner, I believe it worked quite well. You'll have to see the pictures to believe it, those will be up later on. Anyhow, after the charge piping was done it was time to start cleaning things up a bit.

I started off by finishing off taping up the resistor wiring and finding an appropriate place to mount the damn thing. I ended up mounting it on the side of the Drivers side strut tower, that seemed to work quite nicely as there was already a bracket in place that fit very well. Next was quite an ordeal, I had to get all of the injector wires as well as the new mess of wires to fit back in the injector shroud as they had originally... That was friggin hard! Cramming all those wires into such a little space was definately a chore! But I got it done and it looks quite nice. Next up, oil lines.

I had to fab myself a nice bracket that I could run the oil lines through and mount the T fitting (read: bent aluminium). After mounting this on the drivers side, I ran the oil lines nicely and fitted the T in its new bracket... This setup will have to be revised later on as frankly it doesn't look particularly good, but oh well.

That was pretty much all I got done on Monday, it was time for laundry before going back to work!

<u>09/07/04:</u>
Tuesday comes and goes and we've got the oil fitting back! Woo woo! Greg happily exchanged the broken fitting for one that is not so broken and so onward the project moves! Today was spent waiting for the oil fitting, and getting the downpipe fabbed correctly. I had a downpipe that Brent had whipped up, but there was no exhaust flange on it, and I didn't really feel like dumping to atmosphere, so something had to be done.

Luckily, I just happened to have a "spare" exhaust manifold, so we cut the flange off of it and weld it onto the downpipe. This got done on Tuesday evening so Wednesday looks like the finishing day! Hopefully!

Next on the list of things to do was to fit the bumper back on and make some of the nice plastic pieces fit. This was done easier than I thought it would, and all is now back on the car. Nicely enough you can't even really tell there is an intercooler in there, so thats kind of sleeperish.

After the bumper was done I redid some of the vacuum lines with some fancy blue hose that Nathan was kind enough to donate. Its all racecar (or is that ricecar) looking now! Haha.. Either way, tommorow is looking like the day of completion, lets hope it works!

<u>09/08/04</u>
So today turned out not to be the day of completion after all! Ah well, at least we know the downpipe fits. They kind of had to guess when welding it in place, so they just tacked the flange onto the end of the downpipe to begin with that way we knew for sure that the length and fit was correct. It turned out that they guessed dead on! So if we can get this beast welded up all will be well!

Didn't really do much else today, cleaned up a mount and started gathering together the tools and such. We're going to tap the oil pan tommorow night as there wasn't much point to doing anything tonight. Until tommorow!

<u>09/09/04</u>
So today turned out to not be the final day of the install either! Once again we ran into a couple difficulties when it came to the actual finishing. First of all, they weren't able to get the downpipe finished, so its still just tacked on there, thats a Saturday thing now though.

Second of all, we had to tap the oil pan, which went relatively well, except for the fact that it is probobly the most troublesome part of the whole damn project, but it does look all bitchin! Go aircraft fittings go! Anyhow, after tapping the pan and bolting it back on we ran into what is going to be the final problem(i hope)! We realized that our nice piece of drain hose is the wrong size to fit onto the turbo as the hose was double walled stainless steel braid, so basically its a bitch to stretch, and therefore there is no way in hell it will fit. Oh well, we'll just have to scrounge and figure something out for Saturday.

We got the new adapter, I returned the one at Greg's and bought an Autometer 1/8BSPT to NPT adapter for oil pressure gauges, this one worked like a charm, although the threads are a tad bit long. Either way, I got that screwed into the block, and got the fitting nicely mounted on there, and after that we screwed the end of the SS lines onto there and its all good! So the oil lines are done, the pan is tapped, the dowpipe needs only welding, and we need to scrounge a piece of rubber house.. and we're almost done!

I've got my baseline eeprom left to slap into the ecu, and I'm honestly too lazy to do so right now. I'll do that on Friday, and then all I have to do is bolt on the downpipe and put the drain hose on, reattach the battery and start her up! Here's hoping all goes well!


<u>09/10/04</u>
So sitting here at lunch and figured I would offer up a couple helpful tips on how to (or not to) tap the oilpan. We had a bitch of a time figuring a way to drill through the damn thing without actually polluting the pan with all kinds of metal shavings. Duct tape to the rescue! Haha, once you've pulled your pan off, build yourself a nice little catch duct out of the tape! And then drill through that bitch!

To clarify, what we did was clean out the inside of the pan first of all, and then using a bit of Brakleen(godbless it) sprayed onto a paper towel cleaned the wall of the pan that we were going to drill through. After cleaning, we taped as low as possible with about a 6" piece of tape, then using alarger piece attached to the top of the first piece and built upwards. After doing that, we lined the remaining part of the pan with papertowel and drilled away.

Unfortunately when drilling you are left with all these bits of pan that can get past your super duper duct tape/paper towel combo so what you need to do is get a nice magnet out and collect up all of the metal bits you can with that. It took me about 15 minutes, but I managed to get it all cleaned out and ready to put back on.

Now i realize that probobly isn't the best or easiest way of doing it, but thats how we got it done without contaminating the pan. Any comments/suggestions are very much wanted!

Redwidow

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mattEG &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

- 2 x Cases of Beer for install

</TD></TR></TABLE>

What kinda Beer are you working with?? I used Corona helped me out with my instal....