Gotta love the problems that come with installing kits on cars with lots of aftermarket goodies already! Had the same set of issues recently when installing my momentum turbo kit. With the crash bar, you should consider looking into the Soho crash bar as an option. It's tubular and provides much more room, however, it looks like you would have to solve the intercooler mounting issue. Shouldn't be too difficult to get some brackets fabricated, but just something to consider.

 

Yeah comes with the territory. I had a play around with the SC oil canister location and I'm definitely going to have to move my FPR, but that's a minor inconvenience.

I did a rough test fit for my oil cooler between the intercooler and condenser and I think it'll work. Maybe need to shorten the hoses but there's room.

There's some great aftermarket crash bars out there and I like the simplicity of the Soho. I think I'll stick with the stock bar for now for the mounting points, but I'm also keen to design some mods and see them come to life.

Also, it just clicked you're Vitamin Z. I've been watching your updates for a couple of years. Are you just enjoying the build now?

 

I'm partial to using the factory crash bar, should I have a collision I'd rather not have a weaker front end. The intercooler has a dual pass so I'm sure HKS thought things through, that's why I had thought about spraying the intercooler. Also for the oil cooler I'll be putting mine in a similar setup as the Greddy unit and most likely relocating the oil filter as well. I had thought about putting the traction oil up front as I'll be getting the Soho catch can, that should free up space.

 

Googled it and couldn't find any shots of the greddy cooler installed. Do you have one handy?

 

No, it was hard to find the first time, it might have been the HKS one maybe, but this is the idea. Mounted with an air guide and sideways.

 

Yeah okay, cheers. Man, the washer reservoir is offensively large, especially given I use it 2-3 times a year... Might consider replacing that too.

 

Yeah man, that's me! Need to get some more uploads out there sometime soon. Build is great. I had the car down for a bit to get some of the charge pipes recoated, but all good now. So far I've had no issues. Hope was to always over build the motor and keep the power in check so I wouldn't have to worry about anything. So far, so good.

I did swap out the filter element I was running previously to one with a lot more flow and picked up an additional 3psi across the board. Had the timing dialed back just a smidge to be safe. I've also only ran the high boost map once. It pulls super hard (for me), so I've been happy with the lower boost map. With the additional psi my low boost map is probably 550whp, with the high boost likely around 620-640whp now.

Once I get the opportunity I plan to get a larger intercooler installed with new charge piping made.

 

Yeah you need to replace/relocate for the cooler to go there, I initially thought about the other side but the air filter is in there so that's no good.
You can get a smaller HPDE plastic tank for cheap or the chase bays aluminum one, which is tiny and could mount anywhere.
3rd option is to determine how much space we need in there and chop the reservoir to allow that space and have one made up.

 

Everything looks really good so far! I wouldn't bother doing this to the crash bar. Air really doesn't like flowing around corners like that and it will just create a recirculation zone in that top triangle. It would me much more effective to spend time making a really good duct work from the front opening to the core support than it would be to modify the core support like that.

 

@DarkZ03 Ha, I was legit sizing up how to cut the bottle up and either 3D print a new top or bottom section (depending on best approach) and JB weld them. I had the same thought about the intake side and decided not to as well.

I really like this position. With really minor modification to the rad support it'll fit quite nicely but I haven't figure out a good way to route the hoses yet..


@GreyZ After posting that image I figured if this was worth doing, then you'd really want curves at the beginning and end (almost like a big S shape) to guide/transition the airflow. Still not perfect but I'd be surprised if not better than no channelling. Anyway, appreciate the input and and not sold on it either way yet.

 

Wouldn't be bad in there either, I still think I'd rather keep the oil cooler separate instead of sandwiched just so it's easier to inspect and keep track of.

 

@DarkZ03 Good point

Test fit!

There's a slight modification to the black metal frame behind the headlight to fit the intercooler inlet pipe (bottom) but pretty simple.

One issue I ran into that isn't in the manual is that the SC housing interferes with the dipstick bracket. There's a step early on that references a harness bracket but the picture kind of looks like it's referring to the dipstick bracket. Anyway I sanded a tiny edge off with the Dremel but still wasn't enough. I removed the whole bracket and sure enough the SC fit. I'll buzz a larger chunk out of the dipstick bracket and reinstall. There are a few places with about 2mm clearance...

In terms of the kit, there actually isn't much left to do. That said, I'll be pulling all the piping and the SC out again before installing it properly.

Again the quality of the kit overall is excellent. I'm missing two bolts, there's maybe 3-4 minor mistakes I've picked up on in the manual and the hoop brackets for the blow-off valve couplers are just too small. At least that's an inexpensive solution.


I'll have bung added for the IAT either this side or the opposite. I'd prefer the other side for neatness (and probably less turbulence) but have to check clearance with the plenum etc when it's back together.


I'm in the process of trying to find a fabricator in Melbourne that works with alloy, and in particular, can weld cast (for the plenum). Youtube has lead me to believe good welders are everywhere, lol! Not as easy as I thought...

I'll probably switch back to port-matching the intake components this weekend now that my flap wheels were delivered.

 

Any reason you want a dedicated IAT sensor instead of using the stock one? Nice progress!

 

Watching your build is making me even more excited to get my kit. Still awaiting on tracking from z1 for delivery. After seeing you get yours am sure that mine should not take much longer. Am putting up a pic of my modified core support for you, may give you other ideas to mount other coolers

 

Still not worth sandwiching coolers in there we have a wide front, use it. Hurts efficiency across the board and harder to keep track of everything/harder to work on everything.

 

@rustyschopshop That's awesome mate. Mine took a good 6 months from order but hopefully yours is quicker.

I can't quite tell from the photo but I still think you're going to have a clearance issue with the intercooler there? With my oil cooler almost touching the condenser there's only about 5mm or so clearance to the intercooler. Def no space to mount on the rad support.

​@DarkZ03 Literally just to reduce air restriction/turbulence with the IAT. Haha, saving a couple of amps power draw? Jk
I'd always planned on doing it, but splicing ECU wires was the point of no return for me in terms of worrying about factory wiring or returning it to stock yadda yadda.

 

You still using the MAF with the Link or you switching to MAP?

 

Already switched for the current tune. The MAF is redundant now.

I'll have a blanking plate made up for the socket.

 

Ah, ok. Makes perfect sense now. Still undecided on what I want to tune on when the time comes.

 

The G4x has to be the best value plug and play option for the DE by a long shot. Their latest platform, wide feature set, great support (their forum is awesome and I've had them remote dial in twice to get me setup).

Haltech's Platinum Pro is an older platform and has less features. I think AEM discontinued their plug and play?

If there was no plug and play options I might've been tempted to go with a Haltech Elite and wire it in myself (I like their software). Now that I've spent some time with wiring/pinning I'd be comfortable doing it but glad I didn't have to.

That said, UpRev is still plenty for most jobs. I wanted closed loop WB support and the ability to learn about tuning on my own car, so an aftermarket made sense. One of the other benefits of using UpRev is you keep all that factory fine tuning on idle/VCT/temp scaling etc.. Assuming you don't care about factory smoothness, you'll still have to pay a tuner to get it to a point you can live with it and/or tune it in yourself... Something I hadn't considered at the time (noob).