Time Is Ticking Away 1

Last thing I said was that turbocharging would wait until 2012… but I’ve ditched that.  It’s happening… but with only 6 weeks until the first auto-x, I feel like the rush is on.  It really shouldn’t be a problem assembling everything and making the car look like it’s turbocharged, the concern is getting it running to a point where I’m comfortable pushing it.  As per my original plan, it will be a low boost set up, non-intercooled and running the original ECU.  With 6 or 7psi, the hope is to make 170whp.  It will be non-intercooled to minimize the length of the intake tract with the hope of enabling the Air Flow Meter to work a little better.  Yes… I will be opening it up and and turning gears.  I have some 305cc/min injectors to go with it.

My budget to do all this was originally $600… and up to this point I’ve spent money as follows.

$100 – S13 T25 Turbocharger
$110 – CX Racing HKS clone manifold
$60 – Turbo plumbing (water and oil lines)
$50 – Oil filter sandwich plate for oil feed
$50 – Supra 305cc/min injectors
$200 – Innovate Wideband 02

For a total of $570.  It seemed to me when I started that making a downpipe and inlet pipe would be cheap if I did the work myself… but I was quite wrong.  Mandrel bends and silicone elbows are quite expensive.  My shopping cart at mandrel-bends.com is currently $350 with a $150 shipping quote… not that it’s a prohibitive amount.  It’s just surprising and disappointing how absurdly expensive the locally available Vibrant parts are.

On the other fronts, tires are mounted.  My A3C’s are just as bad ass as the A3E’s (i.e. not at all IYO).  Engine is back in.  Dash is re-assembled and the front half of the cockpit is stitch welded.  Tranny should go back in today, bleed the brakes, foll fenders for wider rubber and finish stitch welding the car while I wait for the intake parts to arrive/sort themselves out.  Certain areas of the back half of the chassis are REALLY coming apart, and hammering/forming will be required to get things to line up again so welding can be done.  I’ll take some pics.