What I do on my weekends

[Rowdy S13]

This is a car my buddy owns, but were both building. The car is a 1998 Trans AM WS6 clone, 6-speed, t-tops, leather, ect. When he picked it up it had a VFN WS6 fiberglass hood, WS6 air box, WS6, wheels, WS6 badges, center force dual friction clutch, pro 5.0 shifter, bilstien shocks, eibach springs, and a moroso non adjustable panhard bar. Not a bad start, but far from what he wanted from the car. Over the next few months parts started to go on, SLP Smooth bellows, ported TB, LS6 intake manifold, ceramic coated long tube header, custom 3" dual exhaust with x-pipe and moroso spiral flow mufflers (dumped at axle), custom tune, 4:11 gear, UMI weld in box sub frame connectors, UMI adjustable rear lower control arms, and a UMI adjustable panhard bar. With that set up the car ran a best of 12.7 @ 111 MPH on a set of M/T 26x11.5 17" ET Streets. Now that summer was winding down, it was time to start making some winter plans. Lots of discussion went on about what to do, big cam and heads, nitrous, supercharger, stay bolt on and work on suspension more, and so on. After a LONG time we came to the conclusion that turbo would be the way to go. Once we decided on a turbo for the added power, the search started for what kit to get. When that was turning up nothing really impressive, we started to wonder..... How hard could it be??

This is where the real build starts, now the car had a direction with both short and long term goals laid out. So with no prior experience, and very little knowledge we started.

Day 1
Backing it in for the last time

Engine bay before...

Pulling off the headers

Day 2
Bumper off (that was a pain in the ***)

Here is the old exhaust, headers, and the new truck manifolds.

Day 3
Getting all the un-needed crap out of the way

Most of what came off, never to go back on

What we have to work with more or less

Here is the first order of pipe (2.5" and 3") The turbo, waste gate, BOV, and intercooler.

Here is the second order or pipe (more 2.5" and 4")

 

[Rowdy S13]

The welder (Hobart handler 140)

Stuff to make new power steering lines (still missing 3 fittings in this pic)

thats a block of aluminum and a mason chisel for those who are wondering. Supposedly it the best way to cut AN line, well let you know cause we need to cut alot.

Day 4
Intercooler finally mounted, and bumper mostly done.

Placing the turbo (we did this alot)

Day 5
Me welding the crossover pipe

The crossover pipe after I just finished it

Crossover pipe in the car and bolted on for the first time

Turbo bolted on for the first time

Bottom shot, to see where the wastegate is goin.

 

[Rowdy S13]

Intercooler and turbo on the car

Thats about all for now, but Ill keep this updated.

Sean
P.S. I taught myself how to weld, and basicly all Ive ever welded is whats on the car.

 

[cbraver]

What a great project dude! HOW'S IT RUN?!

I don't want to hyjack your thread, but I put a blower on my truck a few years back, some pictures below. There wasn't a kit for mine either, especially since I wanted the Paxton NOVI-2000 instead of the 1200 head. I have some idea how much work it was for you to put that together, so, props man! Great job, now go drive it!

Some picks of my slob:

Haha, washer fluid bottle was getting cut by the belt (see the white residue on the belt?) so I had to make a custom washer fluid bottle, haha... best mod ever.

Old picture... I made myself a fiberglass gauge pod that sits on the dash and matches:

Air intake pipe:

 

[cbraver]

Oh, and nice welding helmet!! Mine is junk. I'm jealous.

 

[stratman]

This might give you better results cutting AN and easier all around:

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?part=sum-900040

If you want something fancier:

http://www.ccmotorsports.net/cgi-bin/Store/store.cgi?product=construction&productid=11000

And here's something that might help:

http://racingarticles.com/article_racing-28.html

 

[emrliquidlife]

Great Post!

Let us know how it goes!

E

 

[Rickster71]

Nice project!

I used to electrical tape and a hack saw, or a Sawzall to cut braided line.
If you don't want to spring for cutters.

Good Luck
Rick

 

[Rowdy S13]

For anyone wondering where we got the idea for cutting the AN...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1J7u8sG118
They cut it all day everyday and thats how they do it, must work. If it dosent we have all the tools for every other method mentioned and then some. Look for some new pics sunday or monday, were hoping to get the IC piping almost done (cant do all of it cause out of the turbo has to be aluminum which we cant weld) and lower intercooler brackets at least. Radiator and other parts came in the other day, so well see if we start on that or not.

Sean

 

[Rowdy S13]

OK, we were back at it again last night. We got all the intercooler piping made, and the start of the downpipe. For the intercooler pipe we still need to decide where were gonna put the MAF, and the blow off valve, and install them. Still need to brace the piping as well, and probably have it bead rolled where there are couplers. On the turbo, its a aluminum flange, so that has to get welded to a aluminum 90 as well. The downpipe is just what you see in the pics so far. Because of placement, we have to run the downpipe under the K-Member. As I'm sure you could imagine 4" pipe under the motor doesn't give alot of clearance, so a 4" oval pipe is gonna clear the K-Member. Once that gets made then well finish the exhaust/downpipe, the "muffler" is already here as well as the piping we need (minus the custom made oval pipe)

All that left for us to do is mount the new Griffin radiator (Thats next weeks project) then its all small stuff. We need to install fuel pump, injectors, plugs, boost controller, make some lines (oil for the turbo, radiator, and power steering) mount the alternator and the belt, rewire the alternator, wire linelock, and wire gauges. Thats about it, there may be a lil more but nothing really major.

On to pics

There is more room between the piping then it looks like in the pics. The downpipe and the crossover pipe are close, but it is a 4" downpipe We decided to grind down the welds on the IC piping so that it will look like 1 pipe when its all coated, that and my welds aren't nice enough yet (but getting better)


Sean

 

[Rowdy S13]

Ok I finally uploaded all the pics and Chris made a gallery for them all. If you want to see a LOT of pics, check it out
http://www.sidewayz.net/turbota/

Sean

 

[Rowdy S13]

Ok time for a update. We got the radiator support cut, and the radiator mounted. I also made some lower radiator brackets, mounted the blowoff valve, waste gate, and 2 of the O2 bungs. Once we make the upper radiator support were done with fab work, and its on to all the small things.

Sean