nice progress. looks like your birthday came early!

Haha, I guess you could say that.

Going to try and mount up the turbo kit sometime this week that way I can make sure everything is absolutely ready for the tune date.

I wish I would have taken more pictures. Almost done with the turbo kit, should be finished Monday for sure.

Decided I'm going to plug the downpipe where the wastegate reroutes into it and just go with an atmospheric dump. At least, I think that's what I am going to do. Will confirm this on Monday for sure.

Also, holy hell... this is such a tight engine bay. Can someone confirm that the location of everything is correct with my downpipe? Want to make sure I'm not going to melt any important bits. Finished with all of the AC lines, fuel delivery stuff, put the tomei muffler and second pipe on, waiting to throw the resonator on all the way until I throw the last Momentum bit on.

All that is left is the oil feed, attaching the lines to the turbo, then all of the intake/intercooler piping. After that it is going to be time to clean everything up and throw it back together until I can get the coils on. But that may have to wait until after I get tuned for trailer/travel reasons.

Was hoping to find someone with an UpRev cable close to me so I could throw a base map on and make sure everything works properly before taking it to Dynosty.

Also worth mentioning, this is the Automatic kit and the fit was a bit tighter for some reason. I didn't have to trim the trans case though, so that is nice. Also, something mildly infuriating is that the primary O2 sensor on the driver's side bank won't fit into the bung because it sits just below the collector flange. So I am going to have to mount my primary O2 sensor on the downpipe and have another bung welded in for my AFR gauge.

Attachment 460353

Attachment 460354

Attachment 460355

Attachment 460356

Ended up getting everything thrown together, car is off of the lift and just about ready for a tune.

Just need to finish wiring up my gauges and get them to read the information necessary. So basically just a few more wires to run, also need to run the vacuum lines for the wastegate which is super easy to do, shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. Running press fit lines with harder vacuum line commonly used on the transmissions built by Allison Transmission.

Aside from that, I did get the carn to turn over to check for any leaks. After turning it over the first time, I found that I forgot to tighten the banjo bolt on the passenger side of the turbo, so coolant started to leak out of there pretty steadily. So I quickly shut the car off and tightened that up as well as double checked all of the exhaust piping. Forgot to tighten two of the bolts/nuts on the collector to up-pipe section, which was a bit of a pain but I ended up getting it.

Turned the car back on, much less rattling going on, and zero coolant leaking. I do still have a rattle on the crossover pipe because I missed three bolts to tighten up the crossover pipe down haha. Simple fix, I'll get that taken care of when I get the car back down home as well as the wastegate and the gauge wiring.

Aside from that, I still need to throw on the washer fluid resevoir tubing, the clutch heat shield, and bolt down the exhaust hanger.

Still to do is mount the new wheels and tires and install the Hipermax IV SPs on the car. After that it will be time to get an alignment. I may have to do that before my tune date though because the car is so low, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get it on a trailer or not haha.

Pics to come later tonight, this is just an update from work.

And photo dump from the weekend. To start things off, I started by installing this kit at a shop called DIY Garage in Indianapolis, IN. Tyler and the rest of the staff were amazing people who took care of me and helped me here and there along the road. Without such an amazing place to install my kit, it would have never gotten done.

I had a lot of friends chime in a lend a hand, and I am more than grateful for that. Thanks to those of you who helped, you know who you are!

I wish I had gotten more pictures than I did, but this is all I have, so work with me here haha.

Starting to disassemble the engine compartment to make room for turbo things.
Attachment 460285

Got the exhaust taken off, went to put the up-pips on to the collector pipes. Thought I had lost the gaskets for it, turns out they were sitting on my cats still. Thank god.
Attachment 460286

Interestingly enough, I had picked up an automatic transmission kit. I run a manual transmission, the only problem I ran into was that the primary O@ sensor doesn't fit in the up-pipe where Momentum had intended for it to. I didn't have to shave my transmission casing either, so that was nice. Here's an undercar view of how close everything is.
Attachment 460287

Seriously, getting this freaking turbo mounted.. dear lord. Clock, clock, clock, and then clock again. This was at the end of the night, so I stopped here and took pictures to show friends that I did at least get it mounted into the car finally haha.
Attachment 460288

Attachment 460289

Another picture from further away that night after getting the turbo mounted. Intercooler mounted and all lines ran for the most part.
Attachment 460290

My buddy wanted to compare his turbo to mine. It's really odd, because the GT35R is not a small turbo at all.. I mean, I guess it's "normal" sized. This is going on his 1500hp drag car.
Attachment 460291

Getting the intercooler piping ran, got the air filter on, working on getting the washer fluid reservoir to mount again after putting the intercooler piping through there. Thanks to Dustin and Justin for dropping by and lending a hand. Seriously great friends. Dustin ended up staying all night with me to help me finish up. What a great friend!
Attachment 460292

Attachment 460293

Here you can see us consulting the manual to make sure we're doing all of the steps properly and ensuring fitment was spot on with everything.
Attachment 460294

Dustin being himself and striking up a pose haha.
Attachment 460295

Also, this was an interesting piece as well. Getting the Tomei to fit through the diffuser without taking it off. Dear god haha. Thank you to whoever invented the universal joint sockets, ended up just taking all of my exhaust hangers off with the brackets and putting it together off of the car and then bolting it all up. Made things so much easier. Also, I had to cut a lot of the diffuser up to make it fit, but I plan on getting a brace made to ensure that it doesn't looks shape or deform over time. Wish I could have kept a true dual, but a single was much more practical given the exhaust piping layout.
Attachment 460296

Got everything put back together. This winter I will likely powdercoat the plenum, throttle body and the front timing chain cover in wrinkle black to match all of the intercooler piping. Also plan on getting a turbo blanket for the turbo to keep temps down as much as possible. Maybe take the downpipe off and wrap it in heat wrap as well.
Attachment 460297

Still toying around with the idea of cutting the bumper grills out to make the intercooler more visible. Thoughts on this?
Attachment 460298

The amount of piping difference between my old HKS exhaust and the Tomei is incredible. The Tomei weighed ~10 pounds from the resonator pipe back. The HKS probably weighed a steady 40+ all together.
Attachment 460299

The day I finished the turbo stuff, I came home and the UPS man showed up with some more goodies. These things are beautiful. So lightweight, very quality finish and packaging. Thanks to RavSpec for hooking it up!
Attachment 460300

Attachment 460301

Attachment 460302

Attachment 460303

Attachment 460304

Here I am towing back the Z to Bloomington from Indianapolis. Dad let me borrow his new Z71 to tow the car. Such a bad ass truck, and my great friend Chase who has helped me through the entire build and put me in a much more function minded state of mind lended me the trailer he frequently pulls his Minis and Porsche with.
Attachment 460305

Also, this is an update from today itself. I got the front coilovers installed, didn't get around to the rears before I had to go to work. But, I got something done, and that's what matters. My buddy Justin and Chase ended up helping me with this as well. It's nice to have a second set of hands when doing coilovers on our cars. Also, you can see the wastegate in the back there, I ended up trading my black one for a purple one just to pop a little bit more (plus, the black one ended up being convenient for my friend and purple is one of my accent colors.) I did end up going atmospheric with the wastegate which I am excited to see how well that works for me. But, anyhow.. here are the coilovers. HKS Hipmerax IV SP. Basically a reconstructed version of the GTs with 14k and 16k spring rates.
Attachment 460306

Also, not sure if I posted these or not, but here are all of the Tanabe gauges installed. They're not currently wired up, but will be by this weekend for sure. I used a Glowshift triple gauge pod to install these with. Honestly, the quality of the Glowshift was pretty good. I was expecting much worse, I have no complaints with it, to be honest. John and Premiere Auto Sports LLC hooked me up with the gauges, the pod, and my new coilovers. Such a great guy, highly recommend doing business with him.
Attachment 460307

But, that looks like all for today. More updates to come in the future!

Ended up getting the car back from Dynosty after many nights of no sleep. I had nightmares of my car exploding on the dyno, yadda yadda haha.

This is my first boosted car, and I'm in love with it already. The car is almost obnoxiously loud thanks to the external wastegate. But it's only above 4k when the boost is at peak. And at that point, I don't really mind it because I'm trying to have fun haha. So far I love it, huge thank you to Dynosty and the guys.

Here is my dyno sheet for those interested :)

Attachment 460224

Time to get my wheel fitment and alignment in check! The federal 595 RS-Rs are hooking like crazy even with a bad alignment. The HKS Hipermax IV SP coilovers are stiff, but no stiffer than the D2 coilovers. Overall pretty comfortable to say the least.

Congrats on completing this part of your build! Very healthy looking dyno sheet. Enjoy the new found power!

Thanks!

I finally got around to getting the car aligned, went with -2 degrees all around, well, as close as possible. It is at -1.9 in the rear and -2.1 up front. Lowered the car in the front just a bit and the rear as well. The rear looks like it needs another quarter inch of adjustment down, but I think I'm going to space the rear out another 5-10mm before making a decision on lowering it more or not.

Brakes will be the next upgrade for sure!

Also, for some really weird reason, where the O2 sensor is located on the bank 1 side of the up-pipe, I had to plug since the O2 sensor was too tall to fit under the collector flange. The plug came out three times over the weekend, but I feel like I may have gotten it secured in the pipe for sure this time. If not, I will just be putting a small weld on there to secure it in.

Looks great Quinton! Loving the MTM kit <3 How many miles are on your motor now? Going to keep an eye out on this car as I am looking to do the same in a years time or so. Keep up the good work!

Engine looks soo familiar :D Looks good man. How does this kit sound with the Tomei? I want to change to single for the weight but I am afraid it will be to loud for the autox and track days(98d). My car right now with the Fuji sounds stock until the wastegate is open and screaming.

Open wastegate right...

Those two hoses for the coolant from the turbo. Keep an eye on those. Those are what blew on me. Mine were also sitting on the turbo.

Chris

Thank you! I really appreciate the kind words. Right now I'm just a hair over 88k miles, but the motor seems to be very happy for sure. I'm going to do my best to take care of her :)


So you decided to stay FI? :cool:

Thanks for the kind compliments, my man! The tomei sounds great, it seriously does. It took some getting used to from the HKS Hi-power, but I also wasn't quite used to the difference of sound between NA and FI on our cars.

I'm also atmospheric, I couldn't get the wastegate recirc to work too well for me so I said screw it and went open dump. At about 4200, it just screams and I can't really hear the Tomei to be honest. But down low, it sounds great. And on the downrevs it has a lot of popping and crackling, love it.

I did have a friend drive behind me last night because he wanted to hear how it sounded, and he said it was crazy loud (my wastegate), but before I got on it, he said the Tomei had a beautiful sound to it. Sounded like a mix between RB26/Subaru EJ25 to him.

I'm looking at getting a turbo blanket in the near future, likely a month or so as well as a dry sock for the air filter just for reassurance.

Vids or no truth :D Yea my car sounds stock with the fuji. The wastegate is the noise maker :D

Chris

I've been trying to get a video for a while, there just aren't too many places to open it up at haha. I'll see if my roommate can help me out next week when we both have a day off.

your welcomed to hear mine ( Delray Beach )
NA but tomei ti test pipes / mid y / cat back

it is very loud


congrats on your progress great job

Nice dude! Am I seeing this correct you're making 430hp on 8psi?

Thanks man! The Momentum kit with the Tomei has a much different tone/overall sound compared to NA. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it's definitely different. I'll try to get a video soon for everyone :)

Yup, 430/385 on 8psi!

Very nice d00d!!!

Thanks homie! Hope your carbon fiber bits are treating you well :)

Speaking of carbon fiber, here are some updates while I'm in Florida.

Left the car up at Synergy with Shawn so that he can finish my full lip kit on the Z since I won't be driving it on vacation for a few reasons (Tanabe gauges not working at all, fuel level float not reading accurately [ran out of gas at just under half a tank], and the fact that I need to replace my lowside AC line which means the downpipe needs to come out [going to be a nightmare]).

But aside from the little issues I'm having, here are some pictures of the car at Synergy while I anxiously await Shawn finishing the moulds for the lip kit. Shawn will be making me a set of carbon fiber side splitters as well as a front lip and a splitter to accompany the lip. Mine will be in carbon fiber, but will give the option to other Z drivers to get them in FRP if desired.

Here is my lady chilling in the shop:

Attachment 460099

And here are a couple of pictures of something I kind of have an idea for. Basically, when I get an oil cooler, I will likely mount it in front of the driver's side front wheel. Now, the problem is that there is no way to get air in there, so I picked up a NACA duct while at Shawn's shop and got to thinking.. let me know what you guys think! Alternatively, I could get some brake ducting and run brake duct hose to each brake rotor and then Y off on the driver's side to the oil cooler as well.

Attachment 460100

Attachment 460101

nice build. is the motor built? i chuckled when you mentioned the TS diffuser install.
I actually installed mine in addition to removing the oem spoiler and installing the blitz spoiler this past weekend. Was a royal pain and never wanna do it again, especially since I was doing it all myself. Body is still sore from the install but worth it.

Thank you! Motor is not built, it's on stock internals for now. According to Dynosty, the tune is very solid and the numbers are safe for a stock motor. My tune was meant to be able to be bashed on day in and day out and still have a nice running car at the end of the day.

But, nevertheless, I will be saving for a built motor at some point just to ensure everything is 150% safe down the road.

Yeah, the TS diffuser install was a PITA. I need to re-adjust mine just a little bit, the driver's side sits back a little bit further than it should, like 1cm and it bothers the crap out of me lol.