Yay... It's done...

When i started, i was excited. It was great. Four days (one rained out, xmas and nothing was open and couldn't get an oil sending unit removal socket) later, i'm just glad it's over. The first thing after i finished, we tried to start it and the battery had died (damn amp). When we got it chareged, it turned over fine, but we couldn't start for the life of us. We went through our troubleshooting process (air? fuel? spark?) First we thought it was the fuel, but come to find out the fuel pump was working fine (nobody told me it only kicked on for a second right when you try to turn the motor over ) Next we tried the spark.. And there was none. We called in the big guns and got one of the local gurus to come up to the shop. Come to find out, after two hours of us fuckin with the thing, and a half hour of him tinkering, that the harness connector for the oil pressure sensor had come loose, and that the ecu was preventing the motor from starting because it was getting no input from that sensor. (Damn, that ecu sharp, or what?) Once we got the thing running (at 9:00 this evening), it sounded like a freaking LAWNMOWER because of my custom exhaust having to be cut off of the stock downpipe and inability to get it welded because of the late time. Thus, my only driving experiances thus far are with an exhaust system that dumps straight to air and ZERO back pressure, ZERO low end torque, and ZERO acceleration. On my way home from the shop, with no illumination on my hastily installed boost gauge, i saw it got from somewhere way down in it's range to zero right before i shifted and well, i was kinda impressed. I could feel the power coming out of that turbo and even in my impaired setup, i was automatically in love.
I'm kind of worried about detonation, though. I had half a tank of 87 octane when the install was done, and i included two bottles of octane boost and another half-tank of 93 as soon as my car was mobile. For some reason, though, whenever my car became forced-induction as a result of opened throttle and turbo spool, it just didn't seem to run right. Maybe it's just me. I don't know.. I'm tired. I've had a few beers and few tokes, and i'm justb excited that i have my car to drive around again.

Food for replies:

How much for a set of forged JE pistons, 8.8:1 compression?
How much install retail?
How hard to do it yourself?
Can it be done with stock rods?
What else do i need for the project? (head studs, lift, ect?)
Can i do it without pulling the whole motor?
What is the default setting on the turbonetics wastegate in the star kits?

I've got this funny feeling that i'm going to destroy my motor soon. As i understand, the only variables in the turbo gs equation are boost and fuel octane. With the static ratio FMU, what else can i adjust to resist piston damage, other than lowering the boost or increasing octane (which isn't an option... anything higher than 93 octane pump gas is just cost-prohibitive) ?

-DarkOne
I'm so bad and long winded, i should be in detention.

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'95 Eclipse TurboGS (garage deco)
'95 TSi AWD (restoring a survivor)
'97 Talon ESi-T (poor impulse control)
'99 Eclipse RS-T (daily beater)
'13 Evo X (mostly stock)
'17 Sienna (Middle Aged Dad Mobile)



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