The car has been down for a few weeks. Actually, there was snow on the ground last time it moved under its own power. I was swapping in the old turbo and intercooler from my 420A car.




Yes, this looks like an upgrade. The tiny sidemount intercooler went in the trash an in goes my old faithful Apex'i frontmount.




Another obvious upgrade. The T25 goes to E-bay and in goes my old GT3071 twin-scroll.




Yeah, of course there is clean up to be done. The radiator support was fairly rusty, but still structurally sound. I used a wire brush on an angle grinder to knock off the heavy stuff. I then followed up with rust remover (the good kind that sizzles).




Then I primed the front end.




Then it was painted. I hit the lower regions with undercoating afterwards (then another top coat over that). It should hold up for long enough).




I bought a compact exhaust manifold with divided T3 turbo flange and twin V-band wastegate from JM Fab. I really pondered building a manifold, but the last one was way too much work. JM Fab did a better job than I could have and everything fit the first time. Two Tial MV-S wastegates are installed. These are just beautiful and come with tiny V-band flanges and clamps, as well as every spring imaginable.




Now, I did have to build the downpipe. The main pipe is 3" OD SS tubing. The wastegate lines are 1.5" OD SS tubing with little flex joints. Ace Stainless (Ace Race) came through with the mandrel bends, except for a tight radius 120 degree bend I had to get from ATP Turbo (I also get my V-band flanges and clamps from them). Vibrant had the 1.5" flex joints without the bulky braid around them.




I had to modify the E-bay intake tube for the larger turbine inlet. I cut the tiny outlet off and welded some 2.75" OD aluminum tubing on. My aluminum welding sucks, but the end result is passable.




I also had to build the intercooler piping. 2" OD SS tubing from the compressor outlet transitions to 2.5" OD tubing for the remainder. After this picture, I welded beads on the ends of the tubing to keep the couplers from slipping off. Then, everything was roughly polished with a fine pad on an angle grinder. You end up with a satin type finish without much labor.




The intercooler install actually came together pretty well. The intercooler was rotated 180 degrees from my 420A install. I threw a pusher fan on the A/C condenser. It should be functional and offer a little help for the radiator fans.




Speaking of that, I had to swap in a radiator from a 2G 4G64 Spyder which moves the upper connection far to the passenger side (avoiding the turbo manifold). I ran my wastegate lines to the downpipe in what seemed like a sensible way, with the gentlest bends. Unfortunately, that put the wastegate flex joints 1.6" from the radiator. Only the slimmest fans would fit and I still had to position the motors away from piping. The small fan is right in front of the manifold, so I put a little SS heat shield on it. The small fan is low speed and the large fan is high speed.




Everything is still a tight fit. I wrapped the exhaust manifold and downpipe. Turbo coolant lines are reinforced silicone with a fiberglass sleeve over it. Those held up well on my last install. I ran 1/4" OD SS tubing next to the manifold to get the air signals to the driver's side wastegate. My old Greddy Type-S BOV makes an appearance on the final installation. Everything came together pretty well.




There's my old friend. The Talon conversion is nearing completion. I fired the car up and let it get up to temperature. The header wrap smokes terribly for a while. No leaks, so I took it for a drive. The header wrapped smoked again as I reached higher temperatures. I put 30-40 minutes on it. It didn't catch on fire and didn't overheat. That is success in my book. I didn't push it hard, but the turbo does spool up later. the T25 spooled at really low RPM, so I always felt like I was lugging the engine. The GT3071 needs a little more RPM, so it doesn't come into play unless you want it. That is really the way I prefer to drive. I'll put some miles on it this week and see how it likes commuting. I now keep extra oil, coolant, and a fire extinguisher in the car (just in case).


Corbin
'97 GSX dressed like a '95 ESi