It's Been A Long Time Coming!

[Bellato]

This is going to be a bit of a read but for those who can’t be bothered here’s a simplified version:

FG XR6T ZF CMS Tuned

Hurricane m/s dump and 100 cell cat, rear muffler delete

Rapid Cooler and turbo side

ID 1000’s

PW Surge with single 460 and FPR 1200

XR6Turbo Developments Billet Wheeled GT3576

Turbosmart 45mm external gate

349rwkw at 16-17psi on 98.

So back in 2012 I was in the market for a BFII turbo when I came across a 2008 FG XR6T at pickles in Melbourne with 78,000kms for $20k so immediately got a friend to check it out and it was bought. First impression was incredible how quick it was compared to my BA NA

First mod was to put my plastidipped 19” Advanti Fusions on and I liked it because the matte black was just starting to come on trend but this would be changed soon enough.

First issue was a horrible knock in the rear end that could not be found. All the basic things like spare wheel and the like were checked and nothing came up. Had a couple shops check it out and firstly changed the control blade bushes to Nolathane. This did nothing for the knock but helped with axle tramp that I was getting. Next suggestions were shocks so I thought perfect opportunity to lower the car.

Did some research and ended up with King SSSL fronts and SSSSL rear springs, Monroe GT Shocks, Superpro shortened bump stops, Superpro front upper control arm brackets with shims and rear upper inner control arm camber bushes. I think this all came in at about $1100 delivered. So went through the process and found that the upper inner bush on the left rear could not be accessed without dropping the cradle so thought might aswell get some superpro comfort diff bushes and get them installed while I was going. Bushes were $250 delivered and a local ford dealer installed them for $380. So got all that in but knock was still there. Also had trouble with the ‘camber brackets’ for the front with them not actually being able to correct any more camber than the factory brackets fully shimmed.

In the mean time a member had a set of vertini magics come up for sale. 20x8.5+42 and 20x10+38 with 6 tyres all up and set me back $2000. Went to put them on the car and surely enough because I had corrected rear camber they fouled on the guards so went down the road and got the rear guards rolled and pumped ($120 for the pair). Now sitting pretty but that knock was still there.

I finally got advice from luke/jesus/bionic (not sure if he’s still around) and he suggested upper outer control arm bushes. Got a set that included upper outer, lower outer and outer toe arm bushes for $90. With the help of my old man made up a contraption with threaded rods, some nuts and sockets and managed to swap all the bushes without taking the arms off the car and finally the knock was gone!

I decided to give the car a bit of a note and deleted the rear muffler for straight pipe and twin tips. Not a bad sound considering the cost but quite loud (which I don’t mind being only young). $100 total to do this.

Some time amongst all this got a cash job on a buff and polish. I washed the car, clayed it, then washed it again and prepped it to save some $$. For $100 it turned out alright. Before and after pics below.

After

Next on the list was performance. After a lot of research and trying to find the best and cheapest (have learnt my lesson about doing things cheaply now) way to achieve my goals of 300rwkw I ended up with the following list of parts:

ID1000’s - $690

PW Surge and single 460 Pump - $1400ish

Rapid V2 cooler kit and turbo side - $1700

Hurricane dump and generic 100cell cat - $800 installed

2^nd hand x3 - $400

After waiting about 6 weeks and a lot of messages and calls I finally received the rapid cooler kit, everything else was good. I installed this myself only to find a heap of work was required and a heap of parts needed that weren’t supplied in the kit. Eventually got on, took it to the exhaust shop for dump and cat then to the tuners to install injectors and surge then tune the car.

Before tune I also installed an external trans cooler ($250), flushed engine oil, coolant, diff oil and gearbox oil.

First choice of tuner was Gentech in Canberra after a lot of deliberation on who to use. Had a heap of troubles with the car spluttering and stalling at idle. First it was a dead fuel pump that was replaced under warranty then it hung around. After a bit of research (because my tuner couldn’t figure it out) I suggested throwing a fuel pressure gauge on as I was on the factory reg and fuel pressure was up around 100psi and causing havoc. Spoke to Kev at PW and he sorted us out with a stage 1 fitting kit (FPR1200 fuel reg) at cost price because it was only recommended (not required) on their site. Got that hooked up and car running okay. Only ended up with 295rwkw at 14psi tapering to 10psi. Was far from happy I was expecting over 300rwkw and the car had average economy and stalled occasionally. After going back for a few touch ups (whereby the solution to stalling was upping the idle by 200rpm) I cut my losses and left the car as is.

Getting bored with the car I decided to upgrade to some RDA slotted and dimpled rotors, remsa pads and new fluid, got that all for about $550 delivered from Race Brakes. I got all that on easier enough and the braking was marginally better but just a decent upgrade from the now 100,000kms old brakes.

Next problem arose with the zf starting to flare and do all kinds of crap. Took it to trans shop to check fluid levels and the like and found out that the box was about 500ml low on oil and potentially causing the dramas. They topped it up and the box seemed good for a few months but started to flare again.

Somewhere amongst all this I decided to put some gauges in the car. I ended up making my own fiberglass gauge pod out of the tissue box holder, bought some prosport oil pressure, oil temp and boost gauges as well as a sandwich plate to install them. I think all up I spent about $400 and installed them myself.

Again lost track of what order things happened but the wheels copped a coat of purple plastidip and glossifier to try something a bit different. I think it came out pretty good.

Come summernats time I thought I would invest in some sound system gear. Quite a mix and match of brands and parts but basically changed the whole lot and rewired everything from scratch. This never quite worked that well and ended up getting a car audio shop to have a fiddle and they got it working well until the next time the car hit the dyno and something tripped the line converter and amp’s and basically destroyed everything. Just not worrying about that anymore at the moment because can’t be bother spending any more on that aspect of the car.

It was around about this time that I also got my hand on some matte orange vinyl wrap and gave the car a facelift. The rims went back to normal and the plastidip went on with the help of my little brother. Total cost was $200 and 20 man hours between 2 people. Was pretty happy with the result but quite lazy with some bits and would do it differently if I did it again.

Edited 18/05/15 11:02 AM by Bellato

[Bellato]

By now I figure it was about time for a retune so I took the car up to Sydney to see Joe and the boys at CMS and they ran it up with a base run only making 263rwkw (with about 20 degree higher ambient temps so should have made more not less) and running 11 afr’s, far from impressed as you could imagine. Joe had a bit of a play with the tune and managed to pick up 15rwkw and 150nm of torque with just the tune. Car was much better to drive and had all the everyday characteristics of a good cold start and nice idle that I wanted from the start. Unfortunately for me, still no 300rwkw. Joe put it down to the exhaust flowing too will and actuator just not doing its job holding boost. So back to the drawing board to save some $$ and work out where to take the car.

A few months passed before I decided to get some more work done and try crack that elusive 300rwkw mark. After a bit of research I decided on a gtx3576 as this would make the 350rwkw on 98 that I wanted and avoid me having to do a gearbox build in the near future. I found one with 3000kms, ported rear and actuator for $1200 so bought it but was well and truly scammed but luckily enough paypal refunded me. Once I got the money back I ended up buying a billet wheeled gt3576 from xr6turbo developments for about $1250 and also one of their external gate and screamer setups for $900. I had a crack at this myself and it took about 2.5hrs on my own to remove, except I had to take the turbo and manifold in to get the 4 nuts taken off as I didn’t have the tools to get them off without making a mess. Getting everything back together took me about a day because there was a lot of messing around trying to get the gate to line up properly and then plumb everything up correctly. She was finally back together, so gave her a service and away she went to CMS for a retune.

New tune managed 349rwkw on 16-17psi and holding it all the way to red line. Initially I expected the kw increase to feel like more, but after driving it for a week or so it’s definitely a step up. I previously use to launch hard in 1^st, then once it spun at the top of 1^st change. Now 1^st is pretty useless unless you want to start a powerskid and have to start in 2^nd or shift to 2^nd basically straight away. Done a few limiter taps trying to learn the right time to shift. Don’t have any time to go to the drags but will get there eventually and hopefully go somewhere around 11.5-11.7. For now I’m happy just handing out chops on Friday nights

At the moment the plans for the future are full exhaust, valve springs, tailshaft and retune on 98 and also an e85 tune, but having just finished 5.5 years of uni I’m going on a well deserved 3 month holiday to Europe and then plan to buy a house as soon as I can so the car will be on hold for any major mods.

Thanks for reading

Edited 18/05/15 11:06 AM by Bellato

[JETURBO]

Nice one mate love the orange wrap

[discostig]

Yeah that orange wrap is killer. Great power level for a daily, low enough to get fairly good traction/acceleration without expensive rubber but high enough to still allow for some immature antics if you find yourself at powercruise or similar motorsport events...

[PTR_NITRO_FG]

Yep +1 on the wrap

Good to see the story being told Bellato!!!

So how does the new turbo work? Wasn't this the turbo they are claiming stupid power (I remember an old thread and someone said like high 400rwkw but baby gtx spool?) So its basically a gtx3576 or did you ask for 350 max and the turbo still has heaps of room for more?

Also thread needs youtube footage of screamer in action!

[sixman]

Nice build, love the orange as well. Congrats!

Why did you decide to go screamer/external gate?

[Bellato]

Yeah that orange wrap is killer. Great power level for a daily, low enough to get fairly good traction/acceleration without expensive rubber but high enough to still allow for some immature antics if you find yourself at powercruise or similar motorsport events...

Yea 350 is perfect for 2nd gear roll on, 1st you really need to use your brain with your right foot, can't just mash the peddle. I've got some 285 invo's im going to try squeeze on the rear so that'll help with traction. Might attend powercruise early next year if funds allow and see if all holds up to some abuse

Yep +1 on the wrap

Good to see the story being told Bellato!!!

So how does the new turbo work? Wasn't this the turbo they are claiming stupid power (I remember an old thread and someone said like high 400rwkw but baby gtx spool?) So its basically a gtx3576 or did you ask for 350 max and the turbo still has heaps of room for more?

Also thread needs youtube footage of screamer in action!

Not sure what you mean by how does the turbo work but basically its an fg gt3576 with a different compressor wheel on the front. It's billet, larger and has longer tips than the factory wheel. The power level was kept to where I asked, I asked for 16-17psi, 350rwkw and quick street car, all of which was delivered. With valve springs and catback and another pound or 2 of boost no reason why it won't see 370-380rwkw on 98, especially on a colder day. One of these turbos went 370 on 18psi on 98 on another car and that car is about to get an e85 tune so I guarantee it will see over 400. You can see in my 2 tunes that it comes on full boost 200-300rpm slower than the factory turbo but boost was brought in more linearly, before because we couldn't hold boost I just got joe to jam it in early to make early torque

Yep videos will come, have only had it back a week and driven it twice because I drive my sh*tbox during the week lol. I'll try get some videos on saturday night handing out some chops

Nice build, love the orange as well. Congrats!

Why did you decide to go screamer/external gate?

Had major boost control issues with the factory setup and was going to go port and flap mod which was going to be about $850 (port and flap, actuator, remove and instal turbo). I thought about having a go myself but thought if I get the preload on the actuator wrong it's going to cost me anyway. Then saw these external gate setups for $895 and there wasn't really many things that could go wrong in installing it myself so saved on labour with it. All up ended up $100 out of pocket more for the external gate and I love the sound of screamers so thought I'd go that route.

[bjc]

Do you have an upgraded comp housing or does the standard hosing fit over the modified billet comp wheel like my Kinugawa wheel did?

[PTR_NITRO_FG]

So $2150 gets you a complete turbo already assembled, balanced, etc and ready to whack straight onto the manifold? Obviously the screamer pipe/gate location fits in a perfect spot and clears everything?

I always wanted an external gate ever since riding shotgun in my mates r33....bloody scary loud when it comes on boost! lol

Look forward to the video

[Bellato]

It's a standard housing and I believe the housing may be machined to fit the wheel, not 100% on that though.

Yea mate $2150, bolt on ready to go. I sold my factory turbo complete for $450 though so $1700 out of pocket (plus tune). Yep screamer tucks under the dump pipe and clears good. I bent the lower heat shield off the engine mount right down so it kind of covered the pipe.

Compared to buying a gtx3576 it would be about $1380 for the turbo with no rear, then use your rear to get port and flap (add $850), plus a couple of joiner and boost nipple. Probably be $2400 or so, but then would only have the front and core of the old turbo to sell so $200-$300 for it. So worked out probably $400ish cheaper overall and for some people they would just go the gtx, but the guy who makes these believes they are better than the wheel in the gtx so I'm hoping when we lean on it in the future we will know its true potential