IHI VF34 Conversion Pics

[HTC]

Okay, thought I'd post a few pics of day one of my turbo conversion. For the record my hands are killing me. Damn these cars with their fiddly turbos fitted in silly tight spaces.

Any ways, thought you might like to see proof of my spanner time.

The kit:

The working environment (looks sunny, but for the record its ****** cold and ****** cramped in there):

Old turbo removed (remember to remove the driveshaft, makes for a much easier job due to the added space):

Old vs New:

Manifold on:

And turbo:

Downpipe:

Oil and coolant lines connected (It took 30mins just to connect the oil feed I may have swore a couple of times) :

Most annoying part of the day had to be the cat. Basically I was going to use the cat from my milltek downpipe, but I messed up the cutting process. So now I have to fill this gap with something. I'm going to run a by-pass pipe for a few weeks until I can source a new cat. Always measure twice kids, it'll save you a couple of hundred quid :-(

I'll be back at it tomorrow to start on the TIP and other odds and sods. The TIP is going to be interesting, due to the close proximity of the gear change cables. Fingers crossed.

 

[jojo]

Looks like it's all going to plan, it will be worth it though, having driven RichA3Turbo's IHI first hand!

 

[emzino]

Are IHI Turbos the Hybrid Turbos? What kind of power would you expect from it?

 

[mat20vt]

looks smart. your love driving it!
that jbs kit?

 

[sitrials]

how much did that lot set you back? and whos mapping it for you?

 

[jeffers999]

looks a nice kit mate ...

 

[HTC]

Yes this is a JBS stage 1 kit. I sourced the turbo separately from ebay. Its a ex jabbasport item. I had it checked over. Cost me £400. Its not a hybrid. Its basically straight off a subaru STI with the compressor "clocked" to point in the right direction. Has the original P18 turbine housing. Although you can get hybrid IHI turbos.

The manifold, downpipe, water lines, bolts, silicone bends etc came to £900. The injectors are from USRT in the USA and cost £160. I haven't added up bits and bobs like heat sheilds, jubilee clips etc, but it isn't much more. I estimate about £1500 in total so far which has been spread over a fair few months with a few delays.

Mapping with either be performed by Jabbasport or Custom code. I'm leaning towards Custom Code at the moment.

I'm looking for a solid 300bhp on conservative boost. Anymore is a bonus.

 

[HTC]

Just found out today that the standard cat flows as well as some after market hi-flow cats. Seems the narrow downpipe is the restriction. I'm now thinking about welding two short 2.5" pipes to the original cat and using that. Will save the expense of a new one.

 

[A3_Turbo]

that's got to be the ultime A3 when its done!

What are you doing about traction? Race-logic maybe?

Keep us posted though, makes a difference from the boring threads lol

Jason

 

[simch]

Jabba do some nice bullet style cats v hi flow and recommended with their IHI kit. They are not as expensive as you may think.
They weld them up on site so if you were to send them some pics and dimensions you may be able to get is made to suit.

The IHI is a nice turbo on the 18t, with your housing you should get nice boost form 3k revs and 300bhp should not be an issue on about 1.3bar max.

 

[HTC]

Cheers for the comments. Going to see how it drives, but I am considering the racelogic traction control.

Simch, thanks for letting me know about the cats. I'll give them a call.

I've got more pics from today, but I'm heading into brighton for some drinks, so I'll post them later.......if I'm coherant

 

[edward_harris]

surley it will make more than 300bhp wont it? take it to 1.6bar! Have you changed any internals?

 

[HTC]

Day 2 pics.

Pretty productive day considering the freezing weather. Ordered a straight piece of 2.5" pipe, to fix my cat mess-up, which promptly arrived today.....thanks jetex for the good customer service.

Made a new inlet pipe. Chopped the bottom off an AGU silicone TIP and added an aluminium joining peice and larger 90° silicone bend. Had a small pipe welded into the joiner locally for the charcoal canister return connection.

Then made the boost pipe connection from the turbo to standard boost pipe. Pretty straight forward stuff.

Due to the revised mounting point of the lambda probe, I had to lengthen the wires. Also wrapped it in aluminiumised fabric to keep the heat away and ran it behind the exhaust heat sheild. Looks factory on the car.

Cut and fitted the cat-bypass. To reiterate, this is only temporary until I can source a new cat, but I need my car on the road.

Made up a new airbox lid. Its from an audi TT and uses a 3" MAF housing. Annoyingly you can't simply swap over the sensor as the AGU engine uses a 4 wire connector unlike the 5 wire later MAFs. Also the sensor itself is larger in diameter.
I cut out the housing and epoxyed part of the AGU sensor holder onto the housing making sure it was all centred correctly.
Further to this, the AGU has its ignition amp stage separate to the coils and mounted on the airbox lid for cooling. On later cars its incorporated into the coilpacks. This is the part that fail incidentally. I cut out the side of the box and fashioned a new mount, again out of epoxy, using the rubber gromet as a moulding peice. I'll fit this later with the injectors when its time for mapping. Turned out okay I think.

Almost done.

Only a few things to button up now. Still got to connect a few coolant pipes and bolt the gear cable holder to the box. I'm a bit concerned about that as its pressing on the bottom of the TIP. Hopefully it won't squash it and cause a restriction.
So far its looking fairly factory from the top, which was my aim. Trial fitted all the engine covers and they go on fine.
Only obvious sign of something different is the coolant feed pipe at the back of the engine bay. IMO the JBS pipe is a bit too long. I may get a new one made up, but thats just me.

Just got to fill it up with new fluids and start it up tomorrow, fingers crossed it will start okay and not leak anything.

 

[HTC]

Edward, yes, it would make more than 300bhp if I turned the boost right up, but I'll be happy with 300.

I want to run conservative boost and then it shouldn't get too hot and be a reliable daily driver.

Standard internals at present.

 

[sitrials]

you been a busy boy, well done.
gotta do my thermostat in the freeing cold today while I have chance! I'm gonna freeze my *** off cause my garage is full of rubbish!!

 

[Dave_Bayern]

This is an awesome thread.

Very impressed.

I didnt bother with a cat and I've had an MOT, not a problem where I get mine done.

The only problem is on overrun, due to it being a straight pipe, i get pops and flames.

Also, I reckon you're going to need traction control, I only have 240-250Bhp and its a right handful to keep control of.

 

[simch]

Boost on IHI comes on a bit later and wheelspin is manageable.

I remember having the jabba ibiza for an extended test drive and even on full boost with near 360hp, you could turn the tc off and it was fine.
They had modded the tc anyway on that car to allow some spin before it cut the power too. But without it it was manageable. Just get some nice spenny set up and dont go hoofing it.

 

[jojo]

Boost on IHI comes on a bit later and wheelspin is manageable.

I agree with Simch here. the boost is very progressive and gives you power all the way to the redline without dying off, it's has a very tractable power delivery when driven smoothly.

 

[recomdos]

Great stuff Kev - ya sure know ya stuff mate!

Hope she runs fine and dandy!

Rob :icon_thumright:

 

[HTC]

It runs!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76mxerH7rFA

Started it up and then when for a long test drive. Although I can't put my foot down you can feel the different character of this turbo already. I agree with jojo and simch, the boost comes in later and very smoothly in a linear fashion. The car runs more in vacuum for casual driving, which will help with fuel costs.

I did give it a little test tho even at 8psi on part throttle is much quicker. Its frustrating knowing the potential under your foot and not being able to use it just yet. I'm going to fit an old unmapped ecu I have today to limit boost.

Can't wait to get it mapped properly, but prior to that I need to sort a few things.
The gearbox cable support when bolted up does indeed press on the bottom of the TIP, so much so that is squashing the pipe. I need to get a different style of 90° bend which should sort that out. I did make a bracket to move the gear cables, but the gear change became tough, which I wasn't happy with.

Also I need to fit a cat, though at the moment the exhaust note is very nice with it removed. I also have a Jetex cat back system to fit, so I'll sort that out in one hit.

All in the swap when pretty smooth and I'm very please with the fit of the JBS kit.

Thanks for the comments all.

 

[jeffers999]

Nice one mate glad your happy, good job....:icon_thumright:

 

[jojo]

IT'S ALIVE! Fantastic work HTC.

 

[Ess_Three]

Damn good work...keep us informed of how things go, especially after mapping.

 

[joshW]

Very impressed mate! wish i had money/time/skills to do this sort of conversion myself! Must be very rewarding knowing its all your own work.

As said keep us informed!!
Top work!

josh

 

[Clach]

Magic stuff...:icon_thumright:

 

[S POT]

Well done mate! Sounds really nice.

 

[JBS Sales]

Looking good

You will have to keep me updated! Did you say you are coming to us for the mapping?

If so hurry up! 30% off till Jan 08 so it brings it down from £763.75 to £534.63

Mike

 

[HTC]

Blimey, I didn't know that!

Yes. I will be bringing the car to you. I'll call you tomorrow about arranging an appointment.

 

[glen_jai]

I think most places do remaps for around £550 mark including VAT.
I had mine done at Jabba for 500. That was standard price.

 

[HTC]

Quick update on proceedings (been busy at work lately so not a great deal achieved).

I didn't want to throw away my milltek cat, so I decided to faff around with it a bit. I've chopped off the ends that place the fitment at an angle. I'm fashioning some new straight end cones out of a piece of 1.5mm 304 grade stainless steel sheet. Going to then have some straight pipe welded to that.

Here's the look I'm heading for. Obviously cone needs to still be chopped to open the end out for the straight pipe. I think the cone turned out okay considering my bending tools consisted of a soft faced mallet, a couple of peices of wood on my garage floor and my knee.

I've fixed the bottom of my TIP that was being squashed by the gear cables. The silicone bend has been replaced with a larger one that made it possible to cut it closer to the turbo. Cables clear just fine and I'm glad I now don't have to fabricate a spacer to move them.

Initial squashed pipe:

Updated pipe:

Also, I've had a few water leaks from the coolant feed pipe. The banjo required new larger and tighter fitting washers, but then I found that the water line itself was leaking. It has a pin hole where the flexible section is welded to the rigid part. JBS said they will replace this no problem.

I've still got to decide on how I'm going to sort out my cat fitment. I'm now thinking about 3 bolt flanges where the downpipe connects to the cat pipe.
Has anyone had experience with V-band clamps? Are they any good? I assume they don't use gaskets?

I'll update further when I have more info, but I'm off to Oman on business as of Monday 14th, for a few weeks, so they may not be for a while.

 

[grathies]

Impresive stuff mate, keep it coming

 

[jesters3]

Very impressed mate! wish i had money/time/skills to do this sort of conversion myself! Must be very rewarding knowing its all your own work.

As said keep us informed!!
Top work!

josh

Ditto

 

[patrick swayze]

has anyone has any issues with those welded manifolds like that cracking?

with the way the turbo flange is attached i dont think id be really confident in that design long-term.

 

[HTC]

I've not heard any stories of JBS manifold cracking yet. As far as I'm aware they garantee the product (not completely sure on that one, I'll ask next time I talk to them).

I'm planning to fit a turbo brace as backup support, but I've been told by several people that I won't need one.

I guess time will tell.

 

[jesters3]

Just wondering how you are getting on?

 

[HTC]

Quick update. I've been working abroad of late so the car has taken a back seat. Been back at home this this week so the car came out of the garage.....though the weather has been getting on my nerves a bit.

Anyways, I've replaced a coolant return line that was leaking a tiny amount, but enough to make a bit of a mess down the back of the engine. JBS have redesigned the piece so there should be no more trouble.

I've also tackled my catylitic convertor issue. The chopped up Milltek item from the old downpipe has now been welded up. I'm quite chuffed as it turned out as planned and I saved some cash. Also removed the second half of the downpipe and had a 3 bolt flange to the end of it. The thing has been blowing through its slip joint. The flange should sort that problem out.
Going to fit it all back on tomorrow with a Jetex exhaust I picked up for a VERY good price.

 

[S3 GAZ]

I'm very impressed. i'l be watching this closely. Well done mate

 

[h100vw]

Quick update. I've been working abroad of late so the car has taken a back seat. Been back at home this this week so the car came out of the garage.....though the weather has been getting on my nerves a bit.

Anyways, I've replaced a coolant return line that was leaking a tiny amount, but enough to make a bit of a mess down the back of the engine. JBS have redesigned the piece so there should be no more trouble.


I've also tackled my catylitic convertor issue. The chopped up Milltek item from the old downpipe has now been welded up. I'm quite chuffed as it turned out as planned and I saved some cash. Also removed the second half of the downpipe and had a 3 bolt flange to the end of it. The thing has been blowing through its slip joint. The flange should sort that problem out.
Going to fit it all back on tomorrow with a Jetex exhaust I picked up for a VERY good price.

That exhaust looks pretty good Kev. Nice welding on the cat, was that your own handy work?

Gavin

 

[HTC]

Cheers Gav, half and half on the welding. A guy at a local shop is teaching me. He did the difficult areas. All TIG'd.

How's your setup going?

 

[h100vw]

It runs pretty good when on boost, spins up in second as it comes on boost at about 2800-3000.

On the std software it was doing .8 BAR, now it runs off the top of the gauge if you let it. I am not using full throttle yet either. If I add throttle to maintain a BAR of boost or just over, it's really flies.


It is running pretty rich on the base map at the moment. I was going to do the data logging myself, having bought an Innovate LM1 and Aux box. That has given me some problems and is back in the states getting fixed as I type.

I am thinking that I'll try and do a few runs on a dyno instead, just to get things moving.

Consumption doesn't appear to be too bad/ too much worse than with the K03 given that the car spends most of it's time driving round town at less than 60kmh.

It is still flexible and Debbie is driving it again daily, I had to tell her it needs 98 octane now after I drove at the weekend, it was pinking quite a bit and wouldn't have noticed with the stereo on.

I can't wait to have it all running spot on, gonna see some V8s going backwards then.

Gavin