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Did you already drill and tap your pan? Did you take it off or do it with it on the car? Thats one thing i'd like to do this winter is buy a new pan and tap it higher to try and get rid of my scavenger pump.
Did you already drill and tap your pan? Did you take it off or do it with it on the car? Thats one thing i'd like to do this winter is buy a new pan and tap it higher to try and get rid of my scavenger pump.
Yeah drains are all wrapped up now. I drilled and tapped it while the pan was on the car. I just made sure to leave the oil in and use a ton of heavy weight grease to catch any clippings. I also will flush it out with oil again before I start it up to be safe. Seemed a lot easier to me to do it that way then try to take the pan off. Ive done it many times with the pan on a car so It was no different here. It took me just a few minutes to drill and tap each side.
Funny you ask,though. I remember you saying your drains were fairly close and you initially had smoke issues. I wonder if the smoke had anything to do with you not running a breather setup on your car. If youre creating positive crankcase pressure I've heard that it can create issues with the turbos draining properly since that pressure is stopping fluids from coming down into the pan. Just speculating here but maybe that and/or the drains being below the oil level couldve been your issue. This is one of the reasons ive been trying to figure out my breather/catch can setup before moving forward.
Youve also inspired me to block off my upper wastegates. One of the items on my list that I purchased today was a couple block off plates for the manifolds. Its just much less messy, much less heat and much more space with them being gone. Hopefully I can control boost from the exhaust housings like you are! Appreciate the info on that one, you did me a solid for sure.
Yeah drains are all wrapped up now. I drilled and tapped it while the pan was on the car. I just made sure to leave the oil in and use a ton of heavy weight grease to catch any clippings. I also will flush it out with oil again before I start it up to be safe. Seemed a lot easier to me to do it that way then try to take the pan off. Ive done it many times with the pan on a car so It was no different here. It took me just a few minutes to drill and tap each side.
Funny you ask,though. I remember you saying your drains were fairly close and you initially had smoke issues. I wonder if the smoke had anything to do with you not running a breather setup on your car. If youre creating positive crankcase pressure I've heard that it can create issues with the turbos draining properly since that pressure is stopping fluids from coming down into the pan. Just speculating here but maybe that and/or the drains being below the oil level couldve been your issue. This is one of the reasons ive been trying to figure out my breather/catch can setup before moving forward.
Im kinda clueless when it comes to the vacuum side of things, what do you mean breather setup? I could understand how positive pressure could restrict gravity flow into the pan. I also run just a mini air filter on the valve cover so im not sure that was the problem. If I took the drain fitting off, oil from the pan would leak out. Which means I drilled it too low. Also Im hoping to test the block off plates tomorrow so Ill let you know for sure. But I would think unhooking the vacuum source to a wastegate is basically like a block off plate. So theoretically from what Iv already tested it should work good. But yeah im super excited about getting rid of those top gates. lol
So I finally got around to finishing the car up. Ive had a few small things to get squared away but lifes been hectic so I've been putting it off. Kind of a bad quality video because after having been down for a LOOONG time, I didnt think she'd fire on the first try. Took me a bit off guard haha. Car runs pretty strong but cant get into it too much due to the fact that its on a tune from my old STS twin setup. Car gets into boost much faster than it did before and boost hits pretty hard. Im in between houses right now as mine just sold and waiting on the new one to finish being built. Unfortunately my HPTuners is in a portable storage container somewhere out there and wont be delivered to the new house until the end of the month. When that happens I can get it tuned. Car is obnoxiously loud so I'll definitely have to get something other than the mid pipes but I also dont want to restrict anything. Its just a street car but I sitll want to make decent power if possible. Anyhow, heres a little shoot of what i recorded on the first startup.
Finally! Did you block the tops waste gates off like I did? I hope you dont have any issues with the drain line, Id like to re-tap my pan to get rid of the scavenger pump.
Finally! Did you block the tops waste gates off like I did? I hope you dont have any issues with the drain line, Id like to re-tap my pan to get rid of the scavenger pump.
I blocked them off since it made everything a million times easier room wise. I still need to put my fuel pressure regulator in and im locating it right where the drivers wastegate would have been. Heres a little video fo a walk around and you can see them blocked off. Some stuff I just slapped together to get it to run since I needed it out of the house i sold, so dont mind the messy lines everywhere lol.
6AN check valve for the catch can Some small notches so the line fits through the support. This dump didnt have as bad of placement but figured I'd divert the exhaust anyhow. Couldnt hurt As you can see, this one dumps very close to the vacuum line. Not comfortable. Looks so vacant. Notched this a bit too much but thats ok. Still looks 100x better with it on. Cutting up the top side dump to put it on the bottom gate. Just a small little dump pipe but effective at least. Passenger side drivers side dump Everything back on. I like how it hides the lines a bit.
So finally had a little time today to spend on the car and got a few things taken care of. I never cut the front brake ducts and wheel liner to fit around the charge pipe so ive been running with them off. Got those cut today so I could put them on. Car looks mostly whole again because of that. I also utilized the piping they gave me for the manifold wastegates (that I'm not using) to make some dumps for the gates on the exhaust housings. They were originally just dumping straight out and I have some push-lok fittings for the wastegates really close to the area. I wanted to send that hot exhaust as far away from that stuff as possible. I also threw on some dumps for the exhaust since I just had the 3" mid pipe that On3 sends with the kit. Again, just trying to push those gases away from stuff in stead of shooting onto my trans. I also cleaned up some wiring, notched out my upper radiator support to allow me to run the braided vacuum lines through it. I didnt have this support on for the longest time because it didnt fit on my old STS kit and I never bothered to put it on for this one either. Nice to have it back on and holding things in place a little better. I have an aftermarket radiator so it doesnt fit perfectly but its holding everything down and looks a lot better now. I had a couple vacuum leaks and I got those squared away. I also 'upgraded' my check valve to -6 AN instead of the old barb style. Its a little bulky and I wanted something in black, but this will do for now. Car idles at about 20" of vacuum so I think im free of leaks now. It was around 10" before all this. Still need to clean up the tune but did a one handed rolling pull to about 5.5k, hitting about 3psi. Boost comes on much faster than my STS kit with the roughly the same size turbos.
Now that the upper radiator support is on I plan to move the vacuum block to between that and the radiator since there is room. I can hide a bit more of the lines and clean everything up a bit better this way. Have some new tires on order as well as a boost controller since I'm sure ill want more than 6.5 psi (whats in the gates) and then it should be time to hit the rollers.
Here's the exhaust dump and a terrible video of a roll on throttle pull. Only hit about 3psi here and wasnt gunning it. Very hard to record and drive at the same time lol
I asked g23 the same thing, but you should add a review of fitment and what all you had to do to the kit to make it work if any.
I have sort of touched on fitment and modifications I have had to make throughout the thread but I can summarize and add any details I may have missed.
The build took WAY longer than I had anticipated and the original plan was to completely get rid of the car so hopefully I dont leave anything out that is of importance. I have a 9 month old daughter and sold and bought a house through the build as well as taking a couple of long family vacations. I also work about 60-70 hours a weeks so my schedule is really tight. I'm a cheap *** so I wanted to do all the work myself, hence the drawn out install. It would have been quicker with a bit of foresight and having a better 'kit', but it ended up working out in the long run. I think it will be easiest to break it down by whats parts are included in the kit, t heir specific fitment, what changed I made and then an overall description of the entire kit.
Starting with the manifolds - The exhaust manifolds look pretty good and rival some priced in a much higher tier. The fitment on the manifolds was great, probably the most important piece to the puzzle so I wasnt at all mad about this. They have provisions for wastegates (44mm vband) that I ended up not using (thanks to G23's advice!) so I just capped them. Down the road I may have the flange cut off and just weld them shut to function as normal manifolds. This wouldnt change anything performance wise but the manifolds would look a ton better IMO. I used standard OE gaskets for the manifolds and everythign seals up nicely. The dip stick had to be bent a bit and I also put some heat socks around the spark plug wires as theyre essentially touching the manifold now. I'm not sure stock plug wires would hold up in this situation.
Turbos- The turbos are 61mm , GT35R knock-offs. Not much here to write home about. They have 44mm vbands on them for wastegates. Turbos seems to be of decent quality but ive heard some good and some bad about On3 turbos so we'll see on that one. Turbos mate up to the vband flanges on the manifolds just fine. They have proprietary housings on them to fit in tight quarters inside the vette engine bay.
Downpipes- these are full 3" downpipes with vbands on one side and On3 includes some clamps for the portion that mates to the mid pipe. The vband flange from the turbo to the downpipe are misporportioned. They say it seals good but also advise to put some copper gasket spray on the vband flange (kind of odd) but they seem to be leak free after about a couple hundred miles on the car. Hopefully this holds up and I'm not sure why the flanges are done this way. I'm assuming its due to the angle that the downpipes connect to the turbo? Either way, fit and finish of the downpipes looks good, all stainless and they do the job.
Mid-Pipe- These have no crossover, are full 3", stainless as well. They match up to the downpipe and hangars just fine and fit perfectly.
Intercooler - This looks to be of the ebay variant, nothing special. Dual inlets with a single 4" outlet. They include 'laser cut' deflectors that are used in conjunction with the mounting brackets. I, unfortunately, didnt use them as they didnt fit with my aftermarket radiator. I could cut them down a bit and make them work but opted to just leave them off and see how it works. Car defintely heats up when im on it at higher speeds (counter intuitive, i know) and im sure its do to the shrouding and ducting from the removal of the stock stuff. It has not gotten hot enough to be an issue, though, so I have left them off. The intercooler has 2 50mm BOV flanges attached to it and On3 includes 2 BOV's as well. These seem to work just fine and look pretty neat mounted up on the intercooler the way they are.
Charge pipe from intercooler to throttle body- this pipe sucks. The angle is off and its probably my least favorite part of the kit. I feel like they could have gone with a 3" pipe here and made life better. the 4" pipe looks intimidating and if it were a great fit and quality, id say it was a good decision. Unfortunately, its not. Its a 4" pipe and its bead rolled on each end. I plan to have this redone in the future. It fits but hits my hood and looks like dookie. It has provisions for an LS3/7 style MAF so LS2 guys need to take this into consideration. Luckily I had already converted to LS7 MAF from my last setup to take advantage of the higher frequency.
Turbo drains- This kit was designed around a gravity drain setup. I probably spent a few hundred dollars just buying and trying different fittings/setups to get these drains to work properly and look decent. The supplied stuff they give you is garbage. Expect to spend a little extra on this. While you probably wont need to spend what I did, you're going to most likely have to redo what they say works.
Starter - The kit comes with its own starter. The passenger side turbo would not work with an OEM starter. This starter has the ability to shift around the solenoid so you can clock it out of the way of the turbo housing. This also complicates the passenger side turbo drain. It also has you redoing some of the wiring (extending hot lead and cutting signal lead) but its not a big deal. The issue is, with the starter in the position its in and the turbo being so close, the worry of melted wires becomes real. I opted to run a DEI starter heat shield and it seems to be working good. It clutters things up a bit more down there which make it really difficult, but id rather that than have stuff melting away.
Wastegates - Kit comes with 4...yes 4, 44mm vband wastegates. I took the 2 manifold gates off as said earlier and am just running the 2 on the turbine housings. You need to notch a pinch weld in the drivers side area to fit the gate on that side. Not a big deal, 2 cuts and some bending and hammering and its out of the way. Ive read mixed reviews about On3 wastegates so we'll see how these hold up when i turn the boost up.
Cold side piping- They include some molded silicone tubing that connects to some aluminum piping for the inlet to the turbos. I opted to run Turbo Guards instead. They say the silicone can buckle under high boost/horsepower applications above 700hp. I feel like its less clutter the way I have it. You could also just run a filter straight off the turbo if you choose but youre very limited on space.
All in all the install isnt bad but figuring out how to mount the turbos to the manifolds was my biggest hurdle. Its outright difficult and a pain. once you learn the trick its easier. It literally took me hours upon hours initially, now I can take off and put them on in a matter of 30 min. Drilling and tapping the oiil pan is only a pain because you need to mock everythign up to see where you can run the drains. I didnt do this and it cost me some time having to plug and redrill/tap a new hole sicne my initial location wouldnt have worked. If someone asked me to install one of these on their car i could probably do it in a day with the proper fittings and stuff so its not terrible.
If i had to rate this kit against other power adders Ive had on my car and seen on other corvettes, id give it a 7/10
Bang for the buck price wise vs quality, id give it a 7.5/10
The instructions suck...terribly
On3's customer service sucks even worse than the instructions
Boost comes on pretty fast and the kit sounds great. I have nothing but a crappy phone to record on so you cant really get a feel for the sound. You get a nice little sound of the turbos spinning and the blow off and spool sound is great. I have yet to throw it on a dyno but hopefully that happens soon.
Mods on the car are holley sniper 102mm intake manifold, fuel injector connection 1350cc injectors, ported throttle body, ECS stage 1 fuel pump setup, Tuned on HpTuners. Monitoring AFR with an Innovate wideband.
So I ended up getting the car ready for the dyno and it started to miss really bad. Found out some of the plug wires had fallen and were resting on the exhaust manifolds and melted pretty badly. Replaced the wires and moved the coils back to their original location since I was changing to a different style plug wire after that incident. I'm now running the Accel Ceramic plugs with the ceramic boots. Lots of people recommended these to me to combat the heat of the turbo manifolds. So far they seem to be working great!
Unfortunately we ran into some issues on the dyno so still dont have any numbers for the car. Car is either blowing out spark, bad plug or one of the ignition coils is failing. So we cut the session and will get back to it.
Car is building boost fast and im making 5psi by about 3k rpm. We couldnt get any power numbers because we were breaking up after 4k rpm with the current issues. car was making close to 500hp at 3800rpm though, so its doing good work until it starts to miss. I'm only running 6.5 psi springs and its basically a stock LS2 with a Holley intake manifold and the fuel to support the turbo system. Very basic setup.
Heres a video of us loading the dyno with the car on it so we can start to get a baseline on it
I guess you run across issues whenever you do a build like this but the car felt pretty good on the street so I figured it was time to dyno. Back to the drawing board and hopefully this is just a bad plug issue and something I can sort out fast.
I'm running BR7's gapped to .0025. Tuner thinks its spark blowout but at that low of a power level and boost I dont think so. Hoping its just a bad plug or something simple but I'll throw new plugs in it and see what happens.
Hope you mean .025" lol mine was .028" and didn't have any problems. I did have to switch to better wires cause the ones I had were arcing off the manifold.
.025, sorry. The wires im running now are really good so I dont think theyre the issue. I didnt see any arcing or anything abnormal. The issue is only happening under high load as well. Car drives great up until about 4k and then misses badly. What wires were you running and how in the world did you keep them from melting prior to coating your manifolds? Mine melted after about 50 miles of driving and they were good Taylor wires.
I was running Taylor wires too and that's how my car was, ran and drove fine but under higher rpm it would arc. Switched to ceramic coated wires and sleeve on top of that.
So these are the wires I switched to from the Taylors. Were you able to physically see the arc or how did you figure out they were arcing? Youve got me curious now.
10-09-2018, 04:32 PM
Did you block the tops waste gates off like I did? I hope you dont have any issues with the drain line, Id like to re-tap my pan to get rid of the scavenger pump.
