Thursday 24 January 2019

Now it's a turbo R53

Lot of time spent in the garage working on the turbo conversion and it's in and running - even tuned.

After having installed the new manifold, turbo, exhaust and all the cooling I then had to obtain a new bumper bar for the front and cut out an area for the front mount charge cooler and oil cooler.

The pipework was tight and fitting was tight but quite easy. All made in one piece from the turbo to the charge cooler and then back to the manifold - Also on the last update I had modified a stock manifold to take a throttle for the turbo but now it is changed to the custom inlet manifold which has given me some more room. The pipes and manifold were all the powder coated to match the wheels and roof. The bumper bar received a nice matt black finish and the coolant header tank which had been cut up got re-coated in red


Turbo all installed prior to going off for the rolling road. Starts and runs well although the first start had a big puddle of oil on the floor because I had not put the oil return into the sump... Didn't take long to spot that!


Next I set about creating a set of GP style skirts using foam and 2 sets of cooper skirts. they have come out really nice and I decided to follow the arch round and I think it looks correct, these can be sourced directly from me on the shop link at the top of the page or through Orranje performance


Not the best photo but there isn't much to do, skirts fitted and I am really pleased with them and the front bumper - still have plans and ideas but they can all wait until the car is on the road 


Dyno was done at 1320 and it made great power at 22psi the car made 322whp (370bhp+/-) however there is still a lot less as the boost can be pushed up to 27psi but drive ability is more important for me at the moment and power can come later.
I have realised that I can't drive the car without stalling it either! this is the light weight flywheel, the rpm drops so quickly and I am just not used to it. I do recall hating my last R53 for this very reason