so recently my engine spun a bearing and I am considering a rebuild.
My builder said that the FD housings were coated in a superior metal that is more durable than the s4 and s5 turbo housings and that I should use them.
I would love to do this, however,

I am told that the FD housings do not have the coolant passages necessary for the stock turbo. Is this true? also, if so can they be modified to work with the stock turbo lines?

I have a BNR stage 4 and it uses all the stock coolant and oil lines, and no I dont want to get a different turbo.

 

drill out the coolant passage, i do it all the time when adapting housings to different motors.

if your builder couldn't recognize that as a possibility, yeah....

 

I'm sure he did, I just haven't heard back from him for a few days.
And that is mostly because I haven't committed to having him rebuild my engine yet, It was just info from a quote.

Anyway, Thanks Karack. You wouldn't happen to have a picture of a drilled FD housing would you? In case I do it myself?

 

it is easily recognizable.

fd housings have the hole you need in the casting but its blocked off. take a drill gun and blow the hole out and youre good to go.

i dont have a pic off hand but its easy to see

 

i don't believe i ever took any pictures of the bored out passages, sorry. if you look at the coolant line for the turbo you can tell that even the stock passage is oversized so even a 10mm drill would be aqequate which is far smaller than the 19mm diameter of the passage, but usually i just mill out the hole to match the 19mm diameter that it was cast in.

 

well that sounds pretty straightforward.

Thanks!

 

some one should correct me if I'm incorrect, the FD housings have different positioning for the spark plugs when compared to FC housings

 

they're the same as all series 5 rotor housings and all Jspec 13B turbo engines including series 4. unless you mix a housing with an S4 USDM you shouldn't notice a difference. i don't know why they used a narrower split for the USDM series 4 but it was short lived.

 

There is no landing for the o-ring. Drilling a hole is one thing, if that is all you are doing then the engine is going to leak coolant. Machining the landing is manidory for installing the o-ring. http://www.banzai-racing.com/faq_housings_ID.htm

FD housing


FC TII Housing

 

not really, a little silicone on the gasket does the same job. in fact i've seen plenty of the stock o-rings leak so i always add silicone to the stock housings as well. it's a shitty design, a round o-ring in another square cut groove with nothing to hold it in place.

at any rate, if you want to be that **** about it any machine shop should be able to cut the groove, perhaps even do it right by retaining the inner wall so the seal won't pop out of the channel.

 

Nothing **** about doing it correctly. Just squirting a bunch of RTV in there is something a hack would do, and it is guaranteed to leak.

 

to each their own, as mentioned even the stock o-ring is a poorly designed concept which also leaked. guess i'm lucky that i haven't had a single converted housing leak to date.

being a hack, if you hack it right it works right.

you can also use a smaller thickness o-ring in conjunction with the gasket without milling the housing o-ring seal area, but that's probably also considered a hack job. but still an option.

the spot is also generally ideal for coolant to erode away at first due to it's stagnant location. i don't have, nor have seen a housing with over 30k miles that doesn't have a fair amount of pitting in that groove, only some j-specs and mazda remans looked exceptional still.

i have given every option available as alternatives including converting a housing to be 100% OEM in style but you still want to be arrogant about alternatives, just as shops who refuse to reuse used rotor housings and **** on shops who do. take a step back and perhaps realize that we're both here to help people, including sharing experiences that have worked for us.

 

i have never machined that groove..

i have never had one leak

i have had a few stockers fail though, but thats to be expected when its 25 years old at this point.

 

Good for you steven. You do not see nearly as many cars as I do. Give it a little time and that cheapo gasket will get soaked and start leaking coolant into the engine and externally. You can do what ever you want on your personal car.

Karack, there goes that attitude problem again. Always have to attack people that do not agree with you. You can cut whatever corners you want on engines you build/install. You will never catch doing what you describe on any customers car.

I do agree that the factory o-rings fail, this would be why we install Viton o-rings on every TII we install. We also ship them to people with their rebuilt engines.

I am sure there are others that will chime in saying their engine has not started leaking coolant in 100 years of daily driving with no o-rings installed at all. All I can say is "yeah right"

 

honestly i believe you're the one with the attitude problem, as the one who said that there is no alternative to the way that the OEM seals are designed to work and that adding a small bit of silicone is a "hack". it's only a hack because it isn't pretty in your eyes. of course slobbering tons of sealant on may cause issues to which i will not argue as that is true.

you're the one who only gave a single option, not i. you sir are far more opinionated than i ever will be.