Laser's $100 Project Thread

[JET]

Now that you mention it I think I did ghetto fab that for Andy. His flex section died and he wanted something quick and dirty. It works though :D

[asshanson]

Down to $0 again with the exhaust manifold and o2 housing? Wonder how much pickup you'll see with those plus an exhaust?

[Kracka]

Yup, its down to around $0 now with your exhaust manifold and o2 housing, but I think those combined with some at-home porting of the turbo exhaust housing and the turboback exhaust should yield some great gains!

Thanks again for the good deal Andrew!

[asshanson]

Yea no problem, it'll be worth the new knowledge and $ savings of having you street tune my car.

[scheides]

Well, I took all the pics, so I'll post them up for S2kracka!

Wow, we went to town on this thing today. This morning, tear down. Took off stock manifold, 6cm turbine housing, o2 housing, and everything else inbetween. Chris picked up a 2G Exhaust manifold and a cheap SS o2 housing off of slowboy (andrew, not the a'holes in indiana or whatever) for $30, using the remaining $30 in this $100 fund.

For those young'ins out there, here's what the stock 1G manifold looks like (going into the turbo):
http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3243.sized.jpg

We cleaned up the 'new' 2G manifold a bit and ported it a bit extra. Here's what it looks like up to the same 7cm gasket:

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3244.sized.jpg

Looking down the throat of the turbine housing, we saw this mess:
http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3252.sized.jpg

Ugh....so Hughes looks up on my shelf and spies a little jem that I've been waiting throw away for a while, it has literally been in the trash 2-3 times and each time I take it back out, throw it up on a shelf....I guess for this day! I owed chris lunch, and he decided this would be a fair trade instead, a fully ported 7cm turibine housing:

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3245.sized.jpg

It was a little rough, so we cleaned it up and Hughes put a little further porting magic onto it:
http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3249.sized.jpg

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3250.sized.jpg

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3253.sized.jpg

Then stuck it all together with the o2 housing:

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3246.sized.jpg

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3247.sized.jpg

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3248.sized.jpg

[scheides]

The turbine wheel was a little chewed up, probably from some of that massive carbon build-up on the stock turbine housing chipping off and getting stuck around the outside of the blades :(

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3256.sized.jpg

Everything all buttoned up:
http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3261.sized.jpg

[scheides]

Now the best part! Tim's donation to the project, a cheap but free-flowing 3" turbo-back exhaust. This was on one of Nash's old 1G's, and we were worried it would not fit well because he was running such a big turbo....but it fit like a freaking glove!

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3266.sized.jpg

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3265.sized.jpg

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3264.sized.jpg

And the best part, this exhaust totally fits this car:

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3263.sized.jpg

http://www.scheides.com/albums/dynodayprep/IMG_3262.sized.jpg

With this exhaust, this car officially sounds like a DSM!

[scheides]

Also, helping Chris on this project has been really fun, reminds me why having a DSM is so fun, all this little stuff, $100 in mods, and the thing is really starting to feel quick! I don't drive the thing ever but from the passenger seat, 12psi feels freaking strong. Still having some sort of ignition issue so it seems to break-up past 15psi, should be able to run 17-18psi on this setup no problemo.

[Kracka]

Great pictures!

Yea, that was a very productive day :D The exhaust originally had a huge 5" shiny chrome tip on so we putt Matt D. hard to work hacksawing it off while we ran back and forth to the deal with the retard at the hardware store who is unsure of how bolts and nuts are supposed to function. Thank you again to Tim (not X-Factor, Tim from Owatonna) for the free exhaust, I really appreciate it and it will go to good use! The exhaust seriously fit perfectly. It was a spot on match to the flange of the o2 housing thanks to a 3" to 2.5" neck-down JET fabricated who knows how long ago for Nash. Its actually a pretty decent exhaust. Stainless downpipe with flex and o2 bung, then a mild catback with Magnaflow muffler.

I did a bit more porting on the collector of the 2G exhaust manifold and hogged the wastegate passage out to about as close to the edge of the flapper as possible. It holds 10psi to redline so there are no creep issues here! The welds inside the tubular o2 housing were pretty bad so I spent some time going through that thing cleaning up and smoothing out all the welds and transitions so it would flow as smoothly as possible. Thank you again Andrew for providing those to the project within fund budget!

I warrantied my Autozone front brake rotors and got a new pair of those installed today so it cruises down the highway a bit smoother. I also cleaned my K&N air filter and gapped the spark plugs down to .026". It still misses above 15 psi so thats another thing to look into sometime in the future.

All in all, the car sounds a lot meaner and pulls damn hard for the amount of money I have into this thing!

Again, thank you Scheides, Mark, Matt, Tim, and other Tim! Oh yeah, thank you Turbo for doing whatever it is you spent the day doing, thank you Anna for being out of town, and thank you Ally for suggesting pizza and keeping Janelle company this evening. Hmmmmm.....oh yeah, thanks for all the beer Tim!

Even the trip down to Owatonna to pick up the exhaust in a Subaru Forester was fun. We somehow crammed the whole turboback and 4 people into the car. Matt D. was even lucky enough to ride the whole way back in the trunk ;) Tomorrow in celebration we shall enjoy Chicken & Waffles :)

[tim]

I replaced one of the coils back when I had the car due to a hesitation under boost. It seemed to fix the problem so I only replaced one of them. Maybe the other one is bad?? The coil I replaced was arcing between the terminals where the plug wires connect.

Did I ever give you the other coils I had laying around? It would be something simple to check.