zerMATT951

Yes, I did get the misc sensor harness too... Figured I might as well replace as much as I could before those connectors started to fall apart too. One of my reference sensor connectors had completely disintegrated, so im sure the others wouldn't be far behind.

The term "cheater" turbo is something the PO told me when I bought the car. I don't know much about it, but when I mentioned it to Dave Lindsey before sending it in for a rebuild, he seemed familiar with that term, but apparently it can mean different things. I think most typical is swapping out the compressor wheel and/or doing work on the compressor housing.

67King

There is a Garrett compressor wheel, I believe it is a T04B S-trim, that is slightly larger in diameter than a 26, but significantly taller. You can't tell it apart from a 26 impeller without taking off the housing. That is the one I've heard from one of the few people that do the actual rebuilds (most places send them out to turbo specialists - this was one of the specialists).

zerMATT951

I didn't get to work on the car any for the last couple of weeks, but I did get some garage time in this morning. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up the rear head coolant pipe, chasing the threads, and shortening the bolts because I'm not re-installing the CV bracket. I also had to clean up the threads at the front water neck (multiple sets) and figure out which bolts go where . Turns out I haven't bought a bolt to replace the one I broke 5 years ago! I went ahead and mounted the headers and installed the head. I'm going to take my time doing 3x torque sequences this evening and tomorrow.

Anyway, here's what I got done today...

zerMATT951

Got the head torqued down last night... that last 90 degree turn sure was scary with a 14" breaker bar, but from what I've read, I'm not the only one uncomfortable with that procedure! I can't really explain it... I'm used to putting 95 ft lbs on the lug nuts, so putting around 60-70 ft lbs on these stud nuts (new) shouldn't be a big deal. Maybe its all of the hours that would be involved if something stripped or snapped!! Whew, I'm glad that is behind me.

Today started with covering up all of those important holes in the head so that I don't accidentally drop something in there. Next, I modified the LR heater valve coolant hose a little to make the fit more appealing (see separate thread for details), then I got started under the car fitting the crossover and it's connections. I ended the day dropping the PS rack to gain access to slip in the long turbo mount bolt, and did another test fit with the top half of the cut crossover, and the down pipe attached. All of the exhaust components are finger-tight, and everything feels like it will work itself into place with some minor coaxing.

I stopped because after staring at the turbo hot side outlet studs for about the 10th time, I've decided to pull them and install longer studs. LR sent new stock studs with my rebuilt turbo, but between the bottoming them out in the housing and the added thickness of the LR copper gasket, 3 of the 4 lock nuts were not fully engaging the locking portion of the nut. Rather than risk having a loose nut on the down pipe in a few months, I'm going to find some that are at least 1/4" longer to work with.

Nothing is going to happen next weekend because i'll be traveling. This really sucks because I feel like the car is so close to being buttoned up with the head on and exhaust components in place and waiting for the turbo...

zerMATT951

Well, I made some decent headway today - "feel good" stuff anyway. I replaced the too-short hot side to down pipe studs with something a couple threads longer. Then I proceeded to attach the down pipe and upper half of the 3-piece crossover and loosened the hot side from the center section a bit to do one more test fit and check clocking. I'm glad I did that because it did require a slight turn from what I thought was correct when I test fit it a few weeks ago before I had the lower half of the crossover installed. Once I pulled the turbo out to tighten those nuts one last time, I slipped it in again and proceeded to wrestle with and swear at the down pipe flange-to-block bolt for 20 minutes or so while also tightening the turbo mount bolts. Once that was done, I grabbed two fist-fuels of tools and climbed under the car for a while...

I had installed the header, lower crossover pieces, waste gate, and 3" exhaust front section a few weeks ago. Now everything was pretty much lined up, but no matter how much I tried, I could not get one of the down pipe to exhaust nuts started, let alone get a socket onto it. I ended up disconnecting the WG completely to give the exhaust some extra wiggle room. After wrestling with that pipe for a while, I was finally able to get that most difficult nut started with a socket, u-joint, and 12" extension. The other 2 nuts were a piece of cake.

I installed the O2 sensor while I was down there, then proceeded to re-connect the WG and began tightening ALL of those WG, crossover, and header nuts & bolts. As I sit here, I counted 53 different things that I tightened today starting with installing the turbo pipes, and ending with a couple of exhaust clamps. Whew, that feels good... I sure hope I don't have to take all that stuff out any time soon!

Not many pics today because most of it was already installed (but finger tight) and those pictures are above, but here are a couple of the turbo with the pipes installed just before going in.

racerxrick

I ran into Matt locally at Zim's...as you can imagine they know him well

btw, Matt is a big dude and that must make it tougher working in that tight engine bay!

And Matt as deep as you are into this car...your a much better man than me.

looking forward to that drive on country roads SW of Ft. Worth!...had a great drive in mine Sunday morning, set the alarm for 6:15!

Crackership

Wait... there are fun roads in TX? I flew into/out of DFW a couple of times recently, and all I saw was flat and straight. I was even considering taking a job in the area until I saw that...

zerMATT951

Oh, sure, there are a few decent roads not far from Fort Worth to the Southwest in the Granbury, Glen Rose, Meridian, Hico, and Stephenville areas. There are even a few roads up in the Mineral Wells, Santo, Possom Kingdom Lake area.

Check out these FM (Farm to Market) roads South and Southwest of Granbury: 51, 203, 205, 219, 1238, 927, 1602, 2841, 1189, and 1189. Then shooting through those are SH-6 and SH-220, both of which have some multi-mile straight stretches to really let loose... I'll leave out the exact speeds, but let's say that the speed limiter of my ZX-14 has seen some action on those two roads!

It's easy to rack up 300+ miles in a loop from Fort Worth, and some great lunch spots too in some of the small towns. My motorcycle group's favorite is the Koffee Kup in Hico.

It's also worth mentioning that the Talimena Scenic Byway between Talihina, OK and Mena, AR, is just a few hours away with some fun roads to get there. Once you're in AR, there are COUNTLESS amazing roads whether you're on a motorcycle or in a sports car. Arkansas is the perfect 3-day weekend vacation destination for DFW residents.

Crackership

Huh... well, I guess I'll put the DFW area back on my "acceptable places to live" list... from what I know, money goes a good bit farther around there than it does here. How are the vehicle mod/emissions laws there?

zerMATT951

They are fairly strict for modern cars. '94 and newer utilize a OBD2 at an inspection station with no (or very minor) trouble codes. Cars older than '94, but less than 25 years old have to pass a rolling (dyno style) 2-speed emissions test with a sniffer up the tail pipe. The good news is that most of out 944 Turbo's are old enough now (25 or older) that we are exempt from all emissions testing and we only have to pass a very basic safety inspection.

Crackership

Sounds basically like WA, except there's no visual inspection here, and emissions testing is only required in "urban" areas... so, if you live in a rural area, no testing at all.

zerMATT951

Yeah, I guess I forgot about that part too. I live in one of those "urban" counties, so that's the urban process. I think there are something like 10-15 counties in Texas that have the strict emissions laws because of EPA mandates. All of the counties around Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, and I believe a few around Austin & San Antonio have emissions testing. If you are more than an hour outside of those urban centers, you likely only need the safety test.

racerxrick

Matt is over in Ft. Worth..more laid there (think women with dresses and cowboy boots) than in Dallas (think women with boob jobs). The area he describes SW of Ft. Worth is a gem.

Me I am in Dallas (north Suburbs) and head north to horse ranch country for my spiirited Sunday A.M drives...FM455 mainly.

And you right the dollar stretches here better than many area's.

zerMATT951

I only got a couple of hours of garage time in this weekend, so I focused on cleaning up some remaining parts that need to be painted or otherwise "appearance enhanced" before they get bolted back on. I have several brackets that are heavily oxidized and pitted, and some of the parts are just plain ugly. I also hadn't pulled the cam out of the cam tower yet, so I decided that needed to happen so that I could dress that up a bit too. I spent some time removing surface oxidation from many of the parts, and even spray-painted the coolant crossover to clean it up. After looking at all of the parts laying out to be painted, I decided that I might as well have them power-coated instead... they will be much more durable and easier to clean.

When I went to remove the cam gear, I discovered that it was highly unlikely that the cam seal had been replaced when I had the front end re-sealed 6 years ago. The triple-square bolt was all chewed up and looked like it had been that way for a while. I have a Snap-On bit that I bought for this task on my 924S many years ago, so I had high hopes that it would bite. After one failed attempt with a 3/8 drive wrench (making the mess worse!), I decided that I needed some mechanical assistance. After grinding the end of my bit off to get some fresh teeth exposed, I tried again. I used a hammer to get the bit pressed into the mess as far as possible, then tried my Snap-On 3/8 impact... it can do something like 325 ft-lbs, so I thought that would be enough. No luck. I then adapted up to my Harbor Freight 1/2 impact that does something like 550 ft-lbs, and within a few tape, the bolt spun right out. Whew! Now I've got the cam pulled, and everything is cleaned up.

I dropped by a local powder-coating place today with the cam tower, cam gear cover, and a box full of brackets & pipes. Picked out a nice dark-ish gray for all of the pipes, brackets, and cam gear cover, and a good looking red for the cam tower itself. They are charging me $75 for the box of misc parts (including coolant crossover pipe, and about 10 other pieces), and $100 for the cam tower, cover, and end cap. Not bad if you ask me. The parts should be ready for pickup next Tuesday.

zerMATT951

Did a little more work last weekend, but not much. Installed the new LR fuel line fittings in the fender well, cleaned up the belt covers, and installed some timing/balance gears & rollers until I picked up the smooth steel roller and felt it's a little too loose for my taste, so I'm buying a new one. Funny thing is that ALL of the rollers were supposed to be replaced less than 5k miles ago when I sent it to the shop for a refresh... I guess that got overlooked just like the front cam seal.

I also picked up my powder coated parts... they look nice! I'm going to sand off the raised letters on the cam tower this weekend: