pete25r's bugeye progress by pete25r

6 minute(s) of a 83 minute read

Got my weird turbo installed about a month ago. Been too busy playing/tuning/life to post.

Also got a turbo blanket installed, got it free its not a good one but anything will help I guess.

Turbo details - I got a TD04L-13T on the cheap, bought a 16T compressor from Kinugawa, disassembled, dropped off compressor and 16T wheel at local machine shop - had to swing by a few times because they "forgot" about the job, re-assembled/rebuilt with machined compressor housing and 16T wheel. I did wait a few months to install, that's usual for me. I guess I like them to age a little before I put them on. I did replace the rubber oil drain tube on the bottom of the turbo, mine was hard and seemed to be leaking/sweating too much oil.

I don't have it fined tuned yet but so far the turbo is interesting. It's slower to spool but seems to flow more. The 16T is only 2mm bigger on the inducer. It pulls about the same as the 13T seems to have more. I'll find some logs worth showing and post them.

The 16T is 2mm larger on the inducer if the compressor, the "intake of the intake" of the turbo. They machined out the intake of the compressor housing and radius-ed it to match the profile of barely larger compressor wheel.
They charged me a pretty penny too. I would not suggest this to anyone that likes money. I did it just to do something weird, employ the guys at the machine shop, and work just have me a "bonus" so I had some extra cash.

12-27-2018

Holy slept through my alarm batman... I haven't been on here in forever.

But yes XJman, the car is running much gooder-er after the fitment of the 16T. I've still been too busy, lazy, whatev... to log and really look at the slight difference it made.

Just hit 140k coming back from work the other day.

Upcoming project. Yank and refresh. I'm tired of little oil seepage here and there, old ornery hoses... I've borrowed an engine hoist and stand, have a Subaru "gasket kit" (even came with valve seals!) . As far as the stupid 9-5, I've got 2 weeks of time off scheduled for when I return from my next trip. Mid-late Jan I'll be dropping fluids and gettin' er dun. I'll take some photos and videos so y'all can have a laugh.

I think I skipped over this parts update but found a guy selling a good ole "re-build me" VF39. He had a good price on it so I bit. Turbine fins were TOAst, looked like they got really friggin' hot then spun too fast. New turbine shaft, billet compressor, some dem o-rang thangs and she's ready to go in after the engine gets its refresh.

I also picked up a 07 Legacy to be my chariot whilst the bugeye is apart. I'll sell/give it to my son who turned 18 a few months ago when I'm done with it.

Finally got to do some safe, decent logging pulls. This is just to see what the 16T is doing.

I haven't messed to much with my tune after bringing timing down a bit because I got stuck in the land of expensive crappy(91) gas. I did push the waste-gate duty cycle a bit higher a few months back. I had it turned down a bit after fresh turbo install and pending cross-country road trip.

Found that my WGDC was hitting its limit before I hit target boost. Forget that noise! Added 5-10% depending on how far that cell was from reaching target. Did some good... and the high one must have been a slight downhill or something. This runs were not on the exact same stretch of pavement, the were all similar but one must have had a steeper downslope or something...

She feels like she's in beast mode.

So I finally got enough free time in my life to pull the engine. It needed head gaskets, not blown just seeping too much oil. It also needed a bunch of little hoses and bolts and whatever else was smart to do with the motor out.

So far I've got one the passenger head's castings cleaned, driver's side is about half way done. I had to go saiyan on them cam bolts.
Lapped the passenger head's valves after cleaning them. You would not believe how much carbon was on the #3 left intake valve, that thing was caked in carbon. Some to the other valves were quite carbon dirty but looked like someone made carbon sandcastles on that one in #3 cylinder. Piston heads were pretty caked on the 1 & 3 cylinder side as well. Might have photos.

Still got a lot to do. Gotta replace a the friggin old hoses. Oh and the friggin EVAP solenoid that's on the intake mani decided to let loose one of it's vacuum line connectors, that stupid thing was $80 at the parts store. Didn't really look around so I probably paid too much.

Doing valve lash checking it fun. Real fun. I've gotta recheck some stuff and order some new shims. Some of my valves were way off. I'd suggest checking them if you've go over 105k. I'm almost to break-in at 143k and mine are needing attention.
One thing that sucks about checking them is that with the shim over bucket you can pull out the shims without removing the cams or anything, but its tricky. And when you do get them out the measurement of the shim is on the inside stamped right where the tip of the valve rubs it. Some of my shims only had one of the three digits visible. The first number should be 2 unless you have a funky engine, the second is usually right in the middle of the shim in a shallow recess and the third was either half or completely rubbed off on my shims. What's good though is that the numbers they etch on the shims are the mm of the shim. So a 252 would be a 2.52 mm shim, a good micrometer or if you trust your calipers you can figure our what size/number they are.