I've made a few changes over the past few months to protect stuff from excessive heat. The turbo's an A-Spec GT35R, so the turbine housing is especially close to the CHRA and the oil and coolant lines that plumb into it. Thought I'd share.

1. For the oil feed, I bent and flared 1/4" SS brake line. I used SS AN fittings at the ends, and covered the part near the turbine housing with fire sleeve. I know the SS line can withstand the heat, but I didn't want the oil to coke inside the line. It's so hot there that the silicone heat sleeve is already turning to sand.

2. For the oil drain, I used standard -10AN braided SS rubber lines, but put fire sleeve over it for extra safety margin. The oil drain line isn't very close to the turbine housing, since I made a steel transition tube that goes from the 2-bolt drain flange to the -10 male fitting (sorry, no pic)

3. For the coolant lines, I used steel banjo fittings and welded 3/8" SS brake tube to them. The hose is silicone, secured with constant tension band clamps. This gets the coolant lines far enough away from the hot section that they should survive. The lower coolant line, which you can't see, is plumbed into the lower portion of the radiator tank.

4. My car's an FB, with a steering idler arm that is very close to the down pipe. To protect it, I fabbed a shield out of SS. I replaced the nuts that retain the idler arm (M10 X 1.25) with coupler nuts that are about 2" long and bolted the shield to them. It makes the design of the shield a lot easier. The shield protects the idler arm on the 3 sides that are close to hot stuff -- inboard, top, and rear. Since you won't find coupler nuts in that size and pitch, I drilled and tapped 3/8" coupler nuts to fit.

 

Looks good and well laid out engine bay!

 

+1

Got pics of the whole thing? Love turbo 1st gens.

 

Nice work!

 

Thanks for the positive comments.

Here are some of the mods:

- roll bar, 5-pt harness, Momo racing seats
- MoTeC M2R / Twin MSD DIS-4 HO boxes
- heim joints at all suspension points -- coilovers in front, adj. springs in rear
- tubular front swaybar
- homemade in-tank swirl pot
- homemade big brake setup w/Stop-Tech calipers & Coleman rotors, ducted
- homemade short runner exhaust manifold, with twin 44mm TiAL WGs
- modified circle track radiator w/Evans NPG+

 

I knew i could find something wrong with it: its not mine, that thing is over all well built!

Did you do most of the work?

 

Yes -- I do everything but welding. Luckily I have some friends that are good with the TIG wand. I've already blown up the motor once, so I'm getting better and better at rebuilding it.