FINALLY!
The turbo is finally installed and running on my street ported, high compression N/A.
WOW.
That's all I can say about the power. As soon as the turbo spools up at around 3300 rpms the rush of power is amazing.

My first quick drive, I still had 87 in the tank, my S-AFC was still tuned way lean for N/A power, and my timing was still bumped up! (oops..) I rolled on the gas for a quick second, saw the gauge spike up to 9-10 psi, and heard a nasty popcorn-y / rattle, sounded weird, like metal on metal, oh ya, detonation!!! I have since richened it up like crazy over 3500 rpms(only -10 with 550cc secondaries, so theoretically at +10), and dumped some 91 in the tank, the detonation's gone.
Funny, it sounded more like it was coming from the turbo, and not in the engine.

Anyways, I still have a few glitches to sort out, my oil feed is leaking where I tapped into the oil cooler, and it seems there is a little bit of white smoke out the back- smells like gas! Funny. Hope the oil seals in the turbo aren't gone.
The BOV isn't installed yet, so I'm not laying on it.. don't want to damage the turbo!


The intercooler piping looks sweet! I'll get some pics of the whole setup when I can, but if anyone has any questions, let me know.

S4 turbo/manifold. Removed twin scroll. Ported wastegate.
2 1/2 inch manifold spacer
stock DP with no cat, had to reshape the pipe a bit.
2 TII intercooler cores welded together, and mounted in front of the radiator (rad moved back about 4 inches)
2" IC piping.
550cc secondies, S-AFC
TII fuel pump
Oil feed tapped into side of the oil cooler
oil return bolted to the side of the oil pan
Coolant taken from the heater hose.
Had to cut a small chunk out of the pass side frame rail to clear the WG actuator, but not much.

F'in FAST!!!

 

very cool, i can't wait to fell boost to, gonna be done some time this week. get some pix for us, and how much did that whole IC setup run you?

 

How effective are two of them welded together, and where/how did you get it done? Costs?

 

Nice man! i was waiting on this! I think if my new N/A engine doesnt give me the desired amount of juice i need ill turbo that bitch. Any pictures?

 

well u might as well start now, cuz you know the answer to that question.

 

Well on a stock ported motor, my car was good for mid 14s, if i can get mid 13s ported, that'll be enough for my street car. So no, i dont know the answer to that question.

 

Dude, you owe us some pics. Did you get the Wide Band O2 Sensor?

 

Haha. Wait till the rest of you feel the power of the DarkSide.

Muhahaha.

 

Well, it's never fast enough... I thought mine was, but I wanted more!!
The midrange tourque is amazing, something the N/A totally lacked, it's sweet.
As for the dual core IC, who knows if it's effective.
It's not robbing too much power, because with a stock DP, and no tuning, I'm seeing almost 10 psi...
I know that after a hard run, the pipe from the turbo was warm, but the upper IC pipe to the engine was ice cold. I welded it at my shop.


Umm, Roy James, if you get 13's with your N/A, I'll give you my car!! Plus, it'll feel slow because there will be no power below 6 grand!
G-tech doesn't count!!!!

I don't have the wideband hooked up yet, I'm just watching the stock o2 sensor, and listening for detonation.

 

where did you get the IC piping from/what'd it cost?

 

No man, im serious, i have TIME SLIPS, of a few 14.6 passes on STOCK PORTS! Im planing on something along the lines of a BP or a serious port on my S4N/A motor, i might slap an S5 rotating assembly. Im SURE ill hit 13s, so give me your car mother ******

 

Does that go for me too? Ive got almost 900 miles of my break-in done, then its time to hit the track. Besides, I coul duse another running FC.....

Ill have a dyno graph some time in Jan. too. What will that win me?

 

Why don't you concentrate on beating my old GSL-SE first ..... before worrying about 13's ...... :-P

Just giving you a hard time .... :-)

 

HMMM, The DARKSIDE!!

 

1. PICTURES! Especially that downpipe.

2. We should race. In the spring anyway...I still have a few tricks up my sleeve...*cough* bridgeport *cough*

 

Very interesting. I've been wondering if supercharging an NA engine would be better as you'd still have decent low end NA torque and better throttle responce.

Once you have it tuned correctly, I'd love to here you impression of how power is made on this engine both in and out of boost.

 

I am soooooo pissed!!
The oil seals in the turbo have got to be gone.
The thing belches white/blue smoke at idle like crazy, it stinks like burning oil.
Whenever I turn the car off, the turbo makes funny percolating/bubbling noises too, for a few minutes.

As for the IC piping, I just bought straight 2" aluminum piping (looks nice polished!) and bought some radiator hoses from random cars. I cut them up and used the bends. It is very simple and direct, looks great!

What the hell do I do about the oil seals???

 

 

get some pics. do you have a ball park guess on how much this cost you? I thought you could only run 8psi on high compression rotors?

 

Sounds awsome man. Did you consider using 2 stock ic cores in parallel?

Welding the 2 together will increase pressure drop because you are using the same amount of tubes but doubling the length. Cooling should theoretically double (i think) but at the expense of larger pressure drop.

Im thinking of mounting 2 stock intercoolers at the front and splitting the turbo outlet pipe with a Y to the 2 ic's and then joining back up after them. This way pressure drop would decrease and coolong would increase.

Gotta be careful of that popcorn/ripping cloth sound, thats how my NA blew, and ive heard it 3 times on my Turbo motor running 10psi.

 

That sounds like detonation to me. Be careful man. I had it quite a bit on my old motor due to my boost sensor wiring grounding out off and on quickly....

But awsome man.. I hope its worth it.

BTW, get a wideband or something if you can, a lot of folks on here have said that the A/F meter has been full rich and they've been at 16:1 ratio at WOT. scary. With that much air going in, it will be a lot easier to pop

 

Too bad...Easy enough to fix though.

That is the coolant circulating through the turbo. This is of course caused by convection and heat soak. It's not a problem. You simply have some air bubbles in your cooling system, and the excess heat of the turbo is causing the bubbles to be pushed through the system as the coolant moves...Mine does it too...

I did the same thing, but used stainless pipe.

Replace the seals. Might as well do the bearing at the same time.

 

Alright... I fixed the smoking prob.
I shortened the oil drain hose a bit, so there is less
"swoop" to the hose...
Also, I put a vacuum line (with a check valve of course) to the oil filler neck, so that the oil pan is under vacuum ad idle and low throttle, this helps pull the oil from the turbo drain. Works like a charm!!

I have added a modified check vlave to the stock Bosch BOV (Its a metal, sprung type that I ported out considerably!)

All in all, the car works amazing.
1psi by 2000 rpms, 7 by 2500, and up to 12 after 4000 in 4rth! (1,2 and 3 see a max of about 8-9)
I love going from 120 km's to 210 in a blink of an eye... I've never been able to really pull in 5th before either.. can't wait to see what this thing will top out at!

The front mounted dual IC cores work fantastic, I've gone for a few hard runs, pulled over immediately, and felt the IC intake, and output pipes. The intake is very warm, but the output is ice cold! Beautifull. I'm not worried about pressure drop through the series mounted cores, because the current boost is PLENTY for my highcomp engine.


I really need to tune it though... I've got 4 550 cc injectors, on the stock NA ecu, and my S-AFC is tuned to about -10 or so... so that's about 10% more fuel than stock (550's flowing 20% more) . I don't hear any detonation anymore, like I did with is set at -25 (oops) but I don't know exactly what the mixture is.

I am going to get some pics out ASAP!!

BTW... why does boost sometimes bleed down near redline?? I've only seen it happen once, it dropped from 9 psi or so at 5000 to 5 or 6 at redline... what was that????

 

The S4 turbos are pretty small, and not particularly efficient near redline (more or less), which is part of the reason the boost drops down a couple PSI. That's normal, don't worry!

Also, go get yourself a wideband ASAP -- sounds like you're playing with fire!

Cool project!
-Manolis

 

I bought the DIY wideband from Oz, I just don't have the special honda sensor yet, they're kindof expensive.
I hope to build and install it ASAP... as soon as exams are over!

I think JUST the rear rotor seems to be running leaner than the front- don't ask me why.
I pulled the plugs out tonight to ATF it, and the electrode in the rear plug is almost GONE. Compression in the rear is more uneven/lower than the front rotor too, this may be a problem later on, or it may be a sticking apex seal, hopfully fixed by the ATF.
If anyone is wondering why I'm ATFing it, I've already lost one engine to carbon buildup, and this one is ported, with 3mm seals, I don't want to ever have a chunk of carbon dislodge and lock up this one too, (too much $$ invested in it) that's what seized my old one.
I am going to do this once a year or so.
I'm going to check my injectors... a rear one may be clogged or stuck... causing the leaner condition in the rear rotor.