End of last month, just before a two week vacation from work, a tubular manifold that came on the car had failed me and started leaking. I figured this would happen since it was a cheapo fleaBay piece so a few years ago I purchased an OE cast manifold from someone here on the forum. I didn’t want to fix what wasn’t broke so I left it alone, a part of me was glad this happened because I prefer a cast manifold and it's a plus that the OE part is much stronger. .
Here's an older picture with the tubular manifold. . It had a hole through it at the turbo flange.
I removed everything and started placing orders for gaskets. I didn't care for the corroded hardware so I ordered titanium and SS hardware to replace all the rusted stuff. At the time I thought it would be a great idea to get titanium studs for the head but it wasn't until I tried to remove the rusted studs that I realized I should have left well enough alone! Many curse words yelled, a broken stud, and a Time-Sert later. . I finally got 5 of the 7 studs out, the remaining two I said Fv*k it! !
(They're not all shiny and new looking because I applied very high temp anti-seize heavily)
While I had the radiator out, I replaced the e-fan with a better quality and slightly slimmer Spal. I also had some mounts fabricated to secure it as opposed to those plastic zip-tie thingies I had been using that royally fubar the rad. After that was completed I straightened damaged fins from past accidents.
(A few hours/beers later. . .)
One last thing I wanted to address was the wastegate. Years ago I had an adapter made that wrapped around the compressor housing and used the original mounting holes but required I cut a portion of the actuator bracket off. It put the angle of the actuator in an awkward position and had the rod in a bind which eventually damaged the actuator diaphragm. I ordered one of those adjustable actuators from eBay and showed the fabricator my issue. . His idea was to remove the mounting points from the housing and weld them in place where the actuator was needed. I gave him an extra CT26 in stock form to get an idea of how it was originally.
The mounting points were almost perfect. . I had to tweak the actuator rod slightly and open the top hole of the bracket to position the actuator body away from the hard cooling lines that run across the engine.
(After tweaking rod and bracket)
(Opened top hole slightly to pull actuator away from hard lines)
(Perfect)
(Very close, there's a mm of clearance)
I also had the fabricator notch one of my intercooler pipes because it was rubbing against the downpipe, it isn't pretty but it'll do.
Radiator in, there's a little more room than before.
And finally got her all buttoned up. Something I always wanted was a heat shield. When this one was delivered I sanded and repainted it to make it look new again.
Took her for a test drive. . . and just when I thought I was all done, I heard my turbo cooling inlet/outlet hissing water :bangshead: I must have broke one of the brazed connections from the flange when I was bending the pipes to clear the heat shield