I am planning on straight piping my exhaust besides the mufflers. I've been told a few times to port the wastegate, but i've also been told that is an 8 hour job by a professional mechanic. Are there any other ways to eliminate boost creep?

 

ive seen people port the wastegate by themselves its not that hard

 

Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.

 

The 8 hours is assuming the turbo has not been removed. If it's the first time this is done, it can take all day. The actual porting is an hour, tops.

Running a stock airbox will help somewhat but a lot of S4 cars will start to creep as soon as you significantly open the exhaust.

 

Is it a difficult task to remove the turbo the first time for a mechanical noobie (ie. me)? Or would I be better off adding some restriction to my exhaust? Boost control must be a wonderful thing

 

Take a look at the removal procedure in the FSM and then decide for yourself. It's not fundamentally difficult but rust and limited access can make it into a real pain in the butt.

Adding restriction to the exhaust is a bit crude, but then again restricting the intake is as well.

 

The 1st time you take your turbo off....it's a pain...especially finding the top right nut where the turbo/manifold meet up. Once you do it a couple times....you can do it in your sleep.

 

I went through this boost creep myself.

You either have to fix the wastegate, restrict the intake or restrict the exhaust.

If you can't fix the wastegate I think the best solution is to run the intake and exhaust unrestricted, BUT put a gasket in at the joint just before the muffler with a smaller hole than the exhaust pipe.

This allows very good spool up from low restriction intake and exhaust (since you have all the volume in front of the restriction before the back pressure begins to build), but flow is limited at the top end where boost creep happens due to the gasket/restrictor.


You will have to play with the restrictor hole size. If you run a 3 1/2" exhaust the hole may have to be as small as 1 1/2", but it will still provide awsome low end and as much top end as a 2 1/2" turbo back exhaust.

Fix the wastegate if you can!

 

How about just buying an s5 turbo and wastegate. Those wastegates can handle the boost right. Are those turbos designed different (a.k.a will they give me more power)?

 

it took me and my friend about 20 min to port, and another 20 to machine a valve to fit the hole and weld it on.....and as for removeing the turbo, its pretty easy!

 

S5 turbo won't bolt up to an S4 manifold.....you need both if you're going to do a swap.....and YES, the S5 wastegate is much more effecient. I did the very same swap...works well.