Turbo Installation on my 2001 Integra GSR
Friday, October 18, 2002
Started the turbo install tonight. My goal was to get the intank fuel pump installed and tested (I used a Walbro GSS342 intank pump). I got that done and a little more work also. The intank was fairly simple. Basically followed the instructions provided with the pump. The tricky part was getting the pump back into the gas tank, took me a little bit to figure that out. I managed to get some of the fuel system stuff done too.
Saturday, October 19, 2002
Saturday was an interesting day. I had a (motorcycle) track day in the morning and I ended up lowsiding (I munched) on my 2nd lap because of dirt and cold tires. Luckily I just took a nice slide about 30ft across the track in my leathers as I watched my bike slide off into the dirt. Bike was ok and so was I, so I got to finish riding the rest of the morning. Once I got home Erik and I set out for parts. We spent about 3 hours out trying to find the right bolts and nuts needed for the turbo, downpipe, manifold, etc. I should have done this stuff last week, oh well. FYI, the bolts that you need to use to bolt the dp onto the Garrett exhaust housing are M8-1.25 metric bolts. I can't remember the exact length, about 1/2" to 3/4" should work. I found them at a local Ace Hardware store, Checker Auto had a small supply of them too. The bolts to bolt the turbo to the manifold are standard bolts. I can't remember the exact size right now, I just took my turbo and manifold into a Home Depot and sized up the right bolts. Once we got back we worked on the fuel system some more. The AN lines and fittings were tricky at first but we got them to work. We also spent a lot of time trying to figure out the resistor box and injector wiring. Not to mention problems with a pos soldering gun I had (I eventually went and bought a new one to finish the soldering jobs). Since we spent most of the day visiting all the local hardware stores we didn't get to start on any of the fun stuff. The fuel system was done, but my return line was leaking :( The SS line inner diameter is just a little bigger than the stock return hard line outer diameter, so it doesn't fit that well. My Earls Econo fit wouldn't clamp it tight enough. When I would turn the key to pressurize the fuel system it would spit fuel out of the return line right where the SS line joined the stock hard line. I called it a night at that point and planned to fix the fuel return line problem in the morning. Check all the fuel system pics out below:
Sunday, October 20, 2002
First job this morning was to fix the fuel return line. I went to the local Checker Auto to get some hose clamps small enough to clamp my SS line onto the hard line. If you have any idea where the stock return line comes into the engine bay (from the gas tank), you know how hard it is to get to. It took me what seemed like forever to finally get two hose clamps on this SS line. Once I got it clamped down I went to test it again by pressurizing the fuel system. No leaks this time, but my FPR was only showing 20psi of fuel pressure. So, I cranked the pressure up to about 43-44psi and still no leaks. Sometime I will try to see if there is a better solution to this, I'm thinking a -4an line from the FPR to the return hard line. That should provide a better seal... Next step was the intercooler. Off with the bumper and the foam thingy. The first thing I had to do was move this stupid AC line that protruded into the intercooler's living space. I bent the tube ghetto style but was able to get it back and out of the way. One bend is kind of kinked a little bit but not enough hinder AC performance, I hope...
Monday, October 21, 2002
Well, today began with removing some more stuff to get the turbo to actually fit in the engine bay. Finished notching the block and chopping the crap out of my fan housing and the fan blades. In the process I managed to puncture my damn radiator too, ugh. Note: try to take your fans out and cut them while out of the car! I did not do it this way and paid the price for being a dumbass :P
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Lets see, didn't do a whole lot of work tonight. I pulled out the radiator fans to finish chopping up the blades. I practically have no fan blades left now *shrug* Someday I'll upgrade to FAL fans and a Fluidyne radiator :P. I also tried patching the radiator hole I created the other night. I used some solder to try and seal the thing, it holds water but I'm not sure it will hold under pressure when the car is running. Guess I'll have to wait and see. I also got the oil return line marked on the oil pan and assembled the line itself. I may have to redo the line though, the fittings don't quite line up the way I think they will need to line up. The plan is to do the intercooler piping Wednesday then send that off along with my oilpan to get welded up. If things go right I will have that stuff back by the weekend and I should be good to go.
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Another night with limited time to work. I got the oil pan dropped and drilled the hole for the oil return line. A couple friends also made it over to help out in coordinating the intercooler piping. I got a new u-bend also to use for the upper charge pipe and the compressor exit pipe. Should work out pretty good. I was able to cut the two sections for that piping but ran out of time for now. Tomorrow night I'm hoping to get the intercooler piping in and test fitted. Then it's off to the welder this weekend to get everything welded up and ready to go. Only have a few pics from tonight, here are a couple.
Thursday, October 24, 2002
I was able to finish most of the intercooler piping tonight. Toughest thing to do so far. Especially cutting the pipes by hand with a hacksaw. If you have access to a sawsall (reciprocating saw) I highly suggest using that to cut the IC pipes. I've still got to finish the upper charge pipe which means a couple more bends and cuts. I'm think I might be able to finish that Friday night. Which means I should be able to get it to the welder on Saturday hopefully and finally start to get everything installed for good :) I was also not confident in my radiator patching job. I took a small screw driver and chipped at the solder and the crap fell right off *sigh* Back to Ace Hardware, I found this sweet patching epoxy compound stuff that starts off like a clay then hardens like a rock after a while. I used that stuff and crammed the small hole in the radiator full of it and built a nice covering over the hole area. This should do the trick, it better, the damn package it came in says it's good for patching radiators :) Here are a couple pics...
Friday, October 25, 2002
Finally done with the intercooler piping! Talk about a pain in my ass. Very time consuming trying to get the piping all lined up correctly. Not to mention I had to make a ton of cuts before getting it all worked out. It should come out good though after it's all welded up tomorrow. I got the manifold tapped for the EGT probe tonight too. So all in all I made some good progress tonight. I'm still planning on cranking the car over for the first time this weekend. I think the rest of the install should be downhill from here on out.
Saturday, October 26, 2002
Today was a looong day. Drove up to Mark's in the morning so I could take my things that needed to be welded to his welder. While the stuff was getting welded we went to a dyno day nearby and ran his '01 Turbo Integra Type-R. It put down 286whp un-tuned! Word. Here are some pics of the all the stuff after getting it welded up. Turned out really nice.
Sunday, October 27, 2002
Sunday was the day for finishing touches. Erik helped out and pretty much took care of figuring out the wiring for my boost and EGT gauges. It was pretty time consuming going through the Helms and finding where all the appropriate wires were. But we got done and the gauges work great. For the boost gauge we had to run a vacuum line (which I T'd off my FPR vacuum) into the cabin from the engine bay. The EGT also needed the probes sensor line fed through into the cabin. We used the large grommet which is on the driver side right next to the brake master cylinder. It was a pain to pull out but we were able to easily run the lines for the gauges through there. The Hondata was also installed in the interior, obviously. Erik took care of that too. Simply take out the stock ecu and pull the harness, hook up the OBDI -> OBDII harness, stick in the Hondata prepped ecu, and then plug in the Hondata. Here are a few pics from those installations.
