for the 95 blown vette.. between my father and I we have 5 vettes, all C4's. a C4 exhaust is not really all that difficult to fab up, but it is a pain in the *** to do when you do not have a lift and get every things just right.. I did it on my car, but for my dads I think the easier way since there is nothing fancy about it would be simpler if the right deal was out there. besides I really like the BB Triflow rolled oval tips.

Chris

 

Well, I decided to go with cutting up my stock exhaust. I want the car out by this weekend if I can. And after thinking about it I would rather have the car extra quiet so I can hear the turbo spool. I'll give up a few ponies for that.

The stock exhaust is cut and tack welded into place. I need to seal weld it as best I can with my crappy welder, or is that crappy welding ability, maybe both.

So the only other thing is the t-stat housing. I was going to meet with my welder guy tonight but he ended up staying at work late so I'll talk to him tomorrow and hopefully he'll have time to fix the water neck by this weekend.

I'm so close I can taste it now. Hundreds of man hours and thousands of dollars and I'm SO close. I'm really excited, and at the same time really nervous that something is going to break in the first 10 minutes of having the car on the road.

 

I was and still am right there with you.. and things do break and things will come up.. ya just have to accept it and tackle them one by one.. after ya work the kinks out it isn't so bad as long as ya don't get greedy.. I swapped to T-bolts to solve intake pipes blowing apart, changed wastegates, swapped throttle bodies, have a bad fuel pump.. waiting to replace it.. have tuning left to dial in.. there are many many things that have to be fixed after the first few runs on the street but they start to get farther and few between from my experience so far.. the main things will show up immediately.. vacuum lines should be heavy duty.. I used 1/4" fuel line so I could use fuel style hose clamps (small ones) to hold them on the nipples.. don't forget to do something about your PCV system.. I am using one of gregs valves.. loving it so far, great piece.. have some sort of catch can between the turbo and valve cover unless your venting to atmosphere small filters, make sure your fuel filter is new or at least clean and free flowing.. and of course review your tune carefully.. other then that let her eat.. start slow with moderate boost and work your way to where your happy and still safe.. these are just a few things I ran across that I ended up having to fix or redesign.

good luck with it man.. your gonna love the feel of spooling up that hair dryer.. I still smile from ear to ear everytime she winds up!

Chris

 

whats up man... hows she comin? updates please!

Chris

 

Well, this weekend I switched out the PS fittings from plastic to brass, and installed my cuise in bling bling lights(led under hood lights).

As for progress I got my exhaust welded up and in place and got my thermostat housing back but there were a few pin hole leaks. So my welder has the housing again and when that is fixed I should be ready to fire it up. Just waiting on parts now, seems to be how it always ends up.

 

More fun...........The thermostat housing is still leaking through some of the welds, but just barely now. If the welder guy can get this fixed up tonight I should be out on the road tomorrow.

I did start the car up last night though, despite the small leaks. And I must say it is MUCH quieter with the stock mufflers on it. But it does seem like the turbo response is lacking now. I don't hear the whistle as much now. Possibly due to the longer spool up time with the mufflers on there, but I'll know more when I get it out on the road.

I did notice a fairly large exhaust leak on my cross over pipe last night. I hadn't put the band clamp around the slip fitting yet. I did that this morning. Note to self, don't slip and touch starter while wrenching on exhaust So I'm hoping this will close it up fairly well.

I also noticed a different vacuume reading at idle and a different behavior as I reved the engine. N/A the vacuume was around 12 inHg and now it is around 18. Do turbos cause that big of a restriction at idle?? I also noticed that if I would do a quick rev of the car the vac would go to zero immediately and start dropping back to about 15 inHg then when I would let off the gas it would drop to 22 or so. I guess that makes sense if the turbo isn't flowing the air at idle, but I guess I thought they could. Perhaps it just doesn't have the load to spin the turbo up enough.

 

Brian,

the exhaust will definately quiet down the turbine side whistle.. mine did this as well.. I see about 18 in/hg at idle and will go to zero immediately when not under load with the blip of the throttle. sounds about normal to me.

the exhaust will hurt the non loaded spool of the turbo but who cares.. when do ya need to spool it in neutral besides to show off...lol it will still sing when ya get her on the road and under loaded conditions.

make sure you have ALL the exhaust leaks fixed this will definately help your spool up period.. I had one small one at the wategate and it stalled the turbo almost 1000 rpm from spooling.. fixed it and the ramp up is much quicker.

I went back and checked my data logs from those dyno runs and noticed I was making 14 pounds by 3400 rpm and started making .03 psi at 2200 rpm.. so over a 1200 rpm window I had max boost, and once you begin making boost it comounds on itself and boost rises exponentially.. its friggin cool man..

get those pin hols fixed and get that thing on the road so we can talk tuning on them!

Chris