April 15, 2006 - Finishing the Drivetrain
Installation and Remounting the Turbos
(2)
With the header in place we could position the turbos again.
We had already done this once so we knew what to expect. We
found out that the best way to tighten these clamps is to use the
following procedure: tighten the v-clamp a little and slide it over
one end of the pipe, move the pipe into position, hold it flush
against the mating surface, move the clamp into position, use your
fingers to close the clamp around the two surfaces, and then
tighten the nut on the clamp. We left the clamps loose enough
to move the turbos around a little. By some stroke of luck we
found a position that was much better than before. On the
driver side the turbo to fender clearance was greatly improved and
we would only have to take a small notch out of the support (as
opposed to a major rework that we were considering before). On
the passenger side the notch we took out of the support ended up
being unnecessary.
Since we were happy with the turbo placement we went back and
tightened all of the clamps. I rummaged through the rest of
the parts and found the downpipe flanges. They seemed like the
next logical parts to install and as I got down on my hands and
knees to get a better look at how they fit into place I noticed that
they should have been installed before we remounted the turbos.
I wasn't about the take the turbos down again since we had them in
such great spots so I started to install the flanges anyway.
It took some cussing and banging and an assortment of 1/2" wrenches,
one of them was cut in half (left over from another tight job on a
different car, see the picture below),
but I got the job done. The pictures don't really do it
justice but it was tight.
That was all we had time to do on Saturday, April 15th. I looked
at the turbo downpipes for a few minutes, decided that they were
going to be a pain to install and then set them aside for some other
day. I also looked at the horn and decided that it too was
going to be too much of a hassle for how much time we had left.
It needed to be relocated and I wasn't sure how much stuff would be
in the way once we got everything reinstalled. The best thing
to do would be to get everything reinstalled and then try to
relocate the horn.
