Been a busy month planning and getting some work done on the car for me. I was contemplating what wing to use, and after a lot of reading on the interwebs the GT250 seems like the clear best choice. Big thanks to Tommy at Baero for some advice and his awesome website. I was comparing the GTC200, J's Type 1, GT250, and 9lives. Ultimately the 9lives was crossed off the list because it's ugly, the GTC200 isn't as efficient (L/D ratio) as the J's Type 1, and the GT250 is very efficient and provides a lot more downforce. So, the GT250 is what I'll be running. Thanks to Albert as well for the advice.

Also, I have removed the WASP brake ducts. They are good, but I'm going to need the passenger duct for my oil cooler mount. To get some cooling I'm going to try out the honed air guide kit for the brakes. I'm thinking with the BBK it should provide some benefit and be good enough. I'm still just running 200TW tires. Nice thing about removing the brake ducts is no more rubbing on full lock on the street.

After some more thought on the oil cooler, I realized the 19row probably won't suffice, so I got a setrab 25 row. A 19 row fits pretty easily but the 25 row is a little tighter. I moved up the SRS sensor to give some more space. Plan is to use a Baero duct to feed the oil cooler. Comparing the Mishimoto sandwich plate with the Mocal I bought it looks like a solid piece, no complaints. I'm switching the sandwich plate so I can sell of my Mishimoto oil cooler kit complete. For NA cars I'd say the Mishimoto kit is a pretty solid kit.

Here's the old 19 row mishimoto next to the 25 row setrab:



Got the new clutch installed and I'm sticking with my cheapo ebay F1 racing flywheel. I got it years ago and it looked almost brand new when inspecting it before installing the new clutch. I inspected my old clutch disc and it measured 8mm thick (new is 8.2-8.9 according to the service manual), so it has a lot of life left. I changed it with a fresh OEM disc and an ACT PP, but I probably could've reused it and been fine.

Since I had a lot of things apart and the coolant out, I figured what the hell and pulled the intake manifold. I will drill and tap some 1/8" npt vacuum fittings for it. It's a little cleaner than using vacuum blocks and not much more trouble.

I went back and forth on what fuel setup to run, and ultimately just opted to switch to a full return setup. I was considering just keeping the returnless system but the return setup should make tuning easier and leaves the option open of running e85 down the road. Considering everything I'm doing it's just one more thing and not a huge effort. The 06+ fuel rails can't be drilled and tapped for a fuel pressure gauge like the earlier years, so I'm switching to a radium rail and rail mounted fpr. I picked up a pre-dbw fuel pump hangar and will probably just run a new braided -6an line under the car for a fuel feed. I thought about going the SOS route, but it comes with an oem rail (and I already have my 06+ ID injectors), so the additional effort/cost to bore out the rail openings wasn't worth just diying the return setup myself.

I got the battery mounted in the trunk. This is a street car so I wanted to keep my spare (I use a jdm dc5 to clear the bbk). I originally was thinking I would need a different battery to fit the trunk better, but realized I could just weld in some brackets. The welds were pretty shitty as the metal is super thin and I didn't clean the backside and it was pulling shit into the welds but it should hold. I had to position the battery at an angle but it clears everything nicely.

 

Good news is my hot side for the turbo came in today. Overall welds and everything looks great by Pang! As I mentioned before, I went top mount for many reasons, main one being that I wanted an internal wastegate setup (I'm not looking to run a ton of boost or make big power) and a good flowing manifold. There are some pita aspects to it, but as with everything there are advantages and disadvantages with everything.

I went with the G25-660 with the .92a/r turbine housing. First impression is this thing is actually pretty small. The turbine housing is not that big. When talking with Khiem he was saying that a G30 turbine housing might be better suited to this motor as it flows more and I can see why. Unfortunately the G30 turbine doesn't come with an IWG.


The manifold is purdy.





Regarding fitment I didn't clock things perfectly but pretty close. The only noticeable fitment "complaints" are that the small engine mount nub looks to touch the bottom of the manifold (I will just cut it off, it's really not an issue), and the rubber water line that connects the heater core to the water pipe is pressing against the downpipe. I'm not sure how I'll fix that right now, pang suggested maybe bending the line or running a longer line and looping it. I may just remove it and bring it somewhere and try to get someone to weld a 90 on it, which would provide plenty of clearance. Overall fitment is pretty good, aftermarket stuff is never perfect.





I was also contemplating using the TB coolant lines to feed the turbo and capping the OEM oil cooler coolant lines (I removed the oem oil cooler), but I measured the port coming out of the head feeding the TB and it's 1/4", which translates to -4. The turbo has a -6 inlet. Not sure if that would be a problem.. I might just use the oem oil cooler coolant lines instead. If anyone wants to throw in their 2 cents please do.

Now that I got the hot side I can finally start working to clean things up and finalize some things in the engine bay like the fuse box position and EPS module as well as the old battery connections. I want to make sure things have plenty of clearance and heatshielding.

 

So originally I thought about pulling the pipe and have a 90 welded on it, which would give more clearance, but I wanted to fiddle with it and see if I could get an acceptable amount of clearance. Fortunately it worked out. After cutting the stock hose down, I realized cutting the oem pipe shorter ~1/2" would give me some more clearance.




There's now about 1" clearance between the dp and the rubber water line. It's not a ton of clearance but should do the trick. I will be wrapping the DP and put some refective wrap on the rubber line, so it should be good.


Here's the turbo properly clocked and you can see the spacing. There's a good amount of space between the turbine housing and the electrical stuff, but I will be making a heatshield and a turbo blanket. I'm thinking about a small heatshield for the engine mount just to be safe. You can see the nub I had to cut off of the mount.

The O2 sensor is practically touching the heater core line, but hopefully it won't be a problem. It's hard to say how much the engine will move. I'm running Megan racing mounts so the engine doesn't move as much as stock, but it's still a little close. Not sure if it'll be good or I should have another bung welded. I guess I'll sleep on it.






Next will be mounting the fuse box/eps module and some heatshielding. If anyone has some tips I'm all ears. I've seen some youtube videos where people make one out of cardboard first, and I'll probably end up doing that. The embossed Aluminum sheets I might use in some spots around the manifold since it seems semi rigid when formed to shape. For the engine mount heatshield and maybe on the side of the manifold by the oil filter. I'm not sure if I will try to create a heatshield for the topside of the manifold, I might. For the chassis mounted heatshielding I will probably use sheet Al.

 

If anyone has any easy tips for positioning of the EPS module/fuse box please let me know. The EPS module can't stay in its stock location with the fuse box tight to the fender, so I'll probably have to think about it for a few days on how to tackle it. I was thinking about just drilling and installing some nutserts for the EPS module over a couple inches. Lots of different ways to tackle it.

 

Got the fusebox/EPS mounting figured out. Got a schmuckbuilt bracket. I was planning on making a bracket for it but I saw his bracket for sale in my fb feed and it's a nice piece, no need reinventing the wheel and I saved myself some time. Nicely mounts the EPS module underneath the fusebox. Space wise it's pretty good and leaves a fair bit of space between the turbine housing and fusebox. I will be doing a lot to keep the heat away from the fuse box.




Now that the fusebox and EPS module are mounted, I need to finish up the battery relocation. I think the plan is to put a distribution block close to the firewall under the fusebox/eps module. One of the threaded holes for the old battery tray I intend to use to mount a heatshield, and I want to keep all the wiring behind that. The brake line I will just bend back a bit to give a little more space.

Plenty more to do, just been dragging a bit lately and haven't been motivated to do much work on the car.

 

Looking good! You've got the same tight fit on your downpipe as me... Probably the only thing I really don't like. It has been fine so far.


You're manifold is definitely close to your motor mount. My billet mounts seem to give a bit more clearance. You might want to look at some different mounts. I went with 80A and the NVH wasn't nearly as increased as it was when I later put the transmission mount in. For manifold heat retention and shielding, something like ATP Inconel is the way to go, IMO. I don't think you'll have an issue with the power goals, especially on E85 ( I think I was at 398whp at just under 9 PSI)

If I had known about that fuse box mount when I did mine, I would have gone that route. I hate having my fuse box in the fender. We had to tear apart an S2000 with an electrical issue at Gridlife to get to the fuse box. It turned out to be a brake light fuse, oddly enough.

This is what I had done for heat protection in that area, which is the battery for me. It's been working extremely well and it's all be installed with nut-serts so it's really easy to remove to get access. Before I had it done, I took a drive through the mountains (which is where I live), I was able to melt my battery. Luckily, it did not kill my Shorai, but I was able to easily push in the side when I was testing out how it got. Now, it's just warm after 20 minutes on track.




If I had known you were looking for a wing, I would have sent you to my 'guy' (www.zebulonmsc.com). The owners are good friends of mine and the guy that builds the splitters (and built mine), I tune his turbo S2000 as well as their new endurance S2000).
This is also who Robert Thorne uses.

There are a couple Zebulon wings in this photo:

 

Ya, it's close but after rotating the clamp for the water line I think it should be ok. The wire will touch as the engine moves but hopefully no damage. At this point I'll just run it. Worst case shouldn't be too hard to remove things and have a bung welded on if needed.

Ya, the mount is definitely close. I will have to look at some pics of other setups (sos/ptuning) to see how much space they have. I am planning to make a little heatshield out of some embossed aluminum and hopefully it won't get too hot. It's close to the Aluminum bracket that mounts to the engine, but far away from the actual rubber mount. I really want to keep the OEM style mount from a NVH standpoint. I'm running the megan racing mounts which are solid rubber which have a little more NVH but not as bad as urethane. I got a ride in an s2k with the Ptuning kit and while it's not terrible, the NVH from the urethane mount are worse than I'd like. You think it'll be an issue?

Ya, I wanted to keep the fusebox in the OEM location for this reason. Anything that gets moved/messed with is a possible failure point. Downside is it's much closer to the heat source but hopefully it'll be ok. Appreciate that picture! I am planning on going crazy as well with wrapping/heatshielding (I will heat wrap my downpipe). I'm not planning on using an inconel "wrap" for my manifold like yours (maybe I should), but I'm going to try and just make some embossed Aluminum heatshields around the manifold to reduce the heat a bit and protect the water lines. I'm planning to just use sheet metal like you did with nutserts for the heatshielding where possible on the chassis.

All good, appreciate it though. This project has kind of snowballed (doesn't it always) into not half assing anything and I've stopped thinking about the budget. I have a GT250 on order. One question for you and I've seen a couple people mention it is.. how do you like the fluidampr? I didn't even think about it with all the other changes, but it seems like it's a solid product. It's interesting because in my younger days I was semi-convinced that the OEM dampeners in the crank pulleys were a non-factor. I knew people who used unorthodox aluminum crank pulleys that were featherweight. Less weight = less rotational inertia = faster acceleration was the thought. The OEM civic type r (the original one- b16b I think), came with a solid crank pulley with no harmonic dampener, so I figured it wasn't necessary. In hindsight I think they did this because longevity wasn't a big concern. Given what I know now, harmonics in the crank aren't just bs, so to stop my rambling, I guess I should order the fluidampr crank pulley.

Appreciate your input Jason and your build has helped me think of how I should do things as well.

 

We'll see power wise how it does. I'm going to run it off the wastegate spring fed at the turbo for track days, so I expect boost to be <7psi. Probably 5-6. From your build thread, your turbo looks to be a fair bit bigger, so I'd expect you will make a decent amount more power than I will at the same boost level. My turbine housing/wheel is quite a bit smaller than your EFR. It should be plenty either way. Turbo back it'll be 3" piping. I don't plan on messing with e85 for a little while, got my hands full as it is.

 

EFR 7064 - 56 lbs/min
Garrett G25-660 - 61 lbs/min


Your A/R - .92
My A/R - .92


Don't doubt a tuner.






For the Fluidampr… I know how it works by design and it's something I'm after. Being able to damp engine harmonics is a huge benefit and should increase performance over the lightweight pieces of aluminum. I don't even recommend the lightweight pulleys for a Subaru (everything breaks them) and they're more 'inherently' balanced. I had a Fluidampr on my STi.

 

Really? I'm surprised if the flow rates are close but I haven't looked at the comp maps and turbine flow of the EFR. I thought the turbine flow on your EFR would be higher. My simple monkey brain says bigger = more flow = more power.

One thing I've been looking for which has been a pita is a fuel pressure sensor compatible with my PLM multi gauge. I called up PLM but the guy I talked to sounded like a salesman and was useless. I have an oil pressure sensor and oil temp. Apparently the vdo oil pressure sensor I have is not compatible with fuel. I've tried contacting VDO but they never responded. Anyone else crossed this bridge? I will run a mechanical gauge on the rail to set the pressure and monitor it, but an electronic sending unit would be nice so I could see it on the multigauge (it's not something you need to watch that carefully). It's not a high priority but a little thing I'm trying to figure out.