So I'm a mechanic by trade and have installed a good bit of single turbo kits ranging from motiv kits to garbage JP kits and a few in between, also being that im installing this for a customer car and not my own i feel that i can give a fairly unbias opinion on it.
For this install i removed the lower front subframe just to make it easy on myself, for twin installs and top mount installs i can get away with leaving it in but bottom mount kits it makes things much easier to pull it, if your gonna tackle this job just drop it out of the way and save yourself the frustration
First thing ill note is the instructions provided are fairly clear but there are some things i personally feel speedtech should do for you before they send the kit like clock the turbo for you, most diy'ers dont have the right tools to properly clock one using the degrees they provide and even so without a jig to hold the turbo perfectly level your still probably gonna be stuck putting the turbo up and taking it back down to adjust it just right.
Next thing i want to note is the cheap oil feed and drain setup, definitely can see where corners were cut to bring price down. Does there setup work, sure, but it could have been a little nicer. The coolant plugs and oil feed fittings supplied also just looked like cheap welded fittings, but again they did work as intended, as far as manifold and turbo fitment goes everything sits nicely and has good clearance all around which is definitely a plus
As far as the coolant system goes, the silicone hoses they provided seem to be very high quality. Thick walled hoses look like theyll have no problems with melting from heat down there as long it's not pushing directly on the turbine housing, and they're all fitted nicely as far as routng goes. I don't like their solution to moving the water pump forward, when pushed all the way forward the thermostat housing housing hits the radiator fan so in that configuration they had listed in the manual it won't work with out some serious "massaging". They also don't include any 90 degree fitting in the kit to run the trans cooler coolant hose, not a big deal just annoying when you have to make a home depot run mid install to pick up a cheap fitting
The hotside parts all fit very well, dump tube and downpipe lined up perfectly with one another and mated to the catback no problem, engine mount bracket also fit well, no modifications needed at all to any of the hot parts. Kudos to them on those parts
Cold side silicone hose WOULD have fit perfectly if it weren't for a mix between the customers car having a psp ic which has a 2.5" inlet for some reason which means you have to trim the charge pipe to the 2.5" side. Problem with that is that once you trim it like the instructions say it's too short for my liking to get a really good clamp on both compressor and ic inlet. You can see in the picture it took some staining on the silicone to get it to reach to the turbo. For people with vrsf ic's this shouldn't be a problem at all
Lastly they only included one plug for there intake assuming everyone recirculates their pcv systems on the high side, a second plug would be nice for people who vta on that side of the system, this particular customer did not and required a 3/4 barb fitting to connect a house to the vac source on the intake
In conclusion my gripes and groans really aren't a big deal just more nitpicking then anything and seeing how this is a budget turbo kit you can't expect it all, cheap fittings and adapters but as i said before they will probably do the job fine. And as far as budget kits go this one's not bad, only thing im really not a fan of is the coolant setup they reccomend, shifting all that around really makes it difficult for that fan to go in nicely. Hope i was able to provide some insight on anyone looking to pick one of these kits up!!
For this install i removed the lower front subframe just to make it easy on myself, for twin installs and top mount installs i can get away with leaving it in but bottom mount kits it makes things much easier to pull it, if your gonna tackle this job just drop it out of the way and save yourself the frustration
First thing ill note is the instructions provided are fairly clear but there are some things i personally feel speedtech should do for you before they send the kit like clock the turbo for you, most diy'ers dont have the right tools to properly clock one using the degrees they provide and even so without a jig to hold the turbo perfectly level your still probably gonna be stuck putting the turbo up and taking it back down to adjust it just right.
Next thing i want to note is the cheap oil feed and drain setup, definitely can see where corners were cut to bring price down. Does there setup work, sure, but it could have been a little nicer. The coolant plugs and oil feed fittings supplied also just looked like cheap welded fittings, but again they did work as intended, as far as manifold and turbo fitment goes everything sits nicely and has good clearance all around which is definitely a plus
As far as the coolant system goes, the silicone hoses they provided seem to be very high quality. Thick walled hoses look like theyll have no problems with melting from heat down there as long it's not pushing directly on the turbine housing, and they're all fitted nicely as far as routng goes. I don't like their solution to moving the water pump forward, when pushed all the way forward the thermostat housing housing hits the radiator fan so in that configuration they had listed in the manual it won't work with out some serious "massaging". They also don't include any 90 degree fitting in the kit to run the trans cooler coolant hose, not a big deal just annoying when you have to make a home depot run mid install to pick up a cheap fitting
The hotside parts all fit very well, dump tube and downpipe lined up perfectly with one another and mated to the catback no problem, engine mount bracket also fit well, no modifications needed at all to any of the hot parts. Kudos to them on those parts
Cold side silicone hose WOULD have fit perfectly if it weren't for a mix between the customers car having a psp ic which has a 2.5" inlet for some reason which means you have to trim the charge pipe to the 2.5" side. Problem with that is that once you trim it like the instructions say it's too short for my liking to get a really good clamp on both compressor and ic inlet. You can see in the picture it took some staining on the silicone to get it to reach to the turbo. For people with vrsf ic's this shouldn't be a problem at all
Lastly they only included one plug for there intake assuming everyone recirculates their pcv systems on the high side, a second plug would be nice for people who vta on that side of the system, this particular customer did not and required a 3/4 barb fitting to connect a house to the vac source on the intake
In conclusion my gripes and groans really aren't a big deal just more nitpicking then anything and seeing how this is a budget turbo kit you can't expect it all, cheap fittings and adapters but as i said before they will probably do the job fine. And as far as budget kits go this one's not bad, only thing im really not a fan of is the coolant setup they reccomend, shifting all that around really makes it difficult for that fan to go in nicely. Hope i was able to provide some insight on anyone looking to pick one of these kits up!!
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