My 6a12 Turbo Project AKA “Project Panda” conversion in full

[d_dan]

My car started out being exported from the motherland looking like this;



She’s a GPX so it’s a 2L V6 MIVEC.
When she left Japan she was already fitted with

ARC intake chamber,
HKS Super dragger air filter,

5ZIGEN FIREBALL cat back exhaust,

CUSCO COMP-L zero coilovers,

Endless break pads
APP braided break lines.

Along with a Full Japanese service history



While in England,
Under the care of her previous owner the car was well looked after and another complete service history from England was added to the file,

Though the spec was in some what reduced my the removal of the Evo style carbon bonnet, Cusco coilovers being replaced with Apexi springs and Defi gauges being removed the car still kept its aggressive look and the ARC Evo IV spoiler was removed and a more subtle VersionR FTO spoiler was added along with a Boss front bar,



I imported the car from England in March 08 after falling in love with the FTO and the community base on FTO-Ireland.

As soon as I got the car I was hell bent on making it as Responsive, Powerful & Reliable as possible.

First on my list was a set of coilovers as I felt that the springs had the car sitting too high for my liking and there was too much body roll for my liking, So a set of TIEN super street coilovers and adjustable camber plates were fitted.

With the ride height and stiffness just how I liked it, it was down to try and adapt the breathing of the car. An ARC airbox was sourced. To complete the intake.
The car had all the basics done and it was all down to fine tuning everything to get the last remaining ponies of potential out of her,

An APEXI neo was soon fitted to give me the control of the fuling as the car was running very rich up high and there was always room for improvement. The car was sent to Westward Engineering to get the piggyback ECU mapped. Where Martin adapted the car to run optimal for my setup.

Running out of things to do with the car and soon becoming bored I still wasn’t happy and wanted more power but I knew a lot of research and deep pockets were going to be needed.

When the opportunity of a lifetime arose and I managed to get the basics of a Turbo kit that would completely change my car.

[d_dan]

Upgraded 3:2:1 manifolds ,
Turbo Down pipes ,
With a IHI RH5F Hybrid Turbo,
were all supplied among other parts.


If was down to me to decide how much power and what way I was going to go about doing this conversion. As I would be looking to run the HIGH compression MIVEC and the LOW compression TURBO all at the one time.

First was to reduce the compression from the standard 10:1 down to 9:1. Other setups use 8:5:1 (lil red’s FTO and Mr.bishi’s) but I thought this may be a bit too low for my build. So I needed to raise the head by 1.1mm exactly. With that in mind I had two options to go for a Single head gasket that was 1.19mm thick which is more common and leave less points to leak compression from in worse case scanario. Or to do a Multi Layered Gasket a stronger setup but leaving 4 points to loose compression for and under excess pressure blow out.
I decided to go with the more controversial MLG as in the event of too much pressure would blow out saving my complete bottom end.


Next on the list was fueling,
To get the most out of the setup I needed to have bigger injectors to add more fuel to match the added air that the turbo would provide. I used 350cc injectors from the Galant VR4. Also adding a 7th injector just before the Throttle body connected to a Blitz additional injector controller which was connected to a boost pressure sensor.


This setup allowed me to run the car as economical as possible during everyday driving situations but under boost to activate the 7th injector and add extra fuel to the mix making the car run slightly richer but would help cool any hot spots in the cylinders.


Also with a Walbro 255LPH pump she has all the fuel at the ready.




With the Heads raised this would raise the height of the camgears and shafts thus throwing off the timing by retarding the cams slightly. To perfect this I had some custom Vernier cam gears made to give the tuner maximum control by allowing them to have the valve open and closed at the exactly the right time to get maximum efficiency, on NA cars we can so up to 10BHP increase from this modification so it shows how useful this is.


To make everything work smoothly together Im using a Greddy Emanage BLUE

This gives me control over,
Ignition timing,
Air & Fuel,
Mivec Point,
Boost limit,


Also to help against Detenation A full set of Denso Iridium Plugs were aquired as these are colder than normal plugs.

[CJ]

Thats better :)

Appears you've drawn the attention of the Aussie crew:

http://www.ftoaustralia.com/modules.php ... ic&t=16561

CJ

[d_dan]

Nothing says stop like a big break kit.

Alcon 6pot Brake Kit with 330mm disks & braided hoses.


CALLAPERS



DISKS


MOUNTING & HOSES

[fatboyfat7]

I thought the idea of this thread was to stop you having a million other threads all relating to this project? As you said above, nothing says stop like big brakes. Therefore you consider your brakes part of project.... So why oh why have you dupicated the above in a thread of its own!?!?!

[d_dan]

this is to show what i got for my car and what iv done the whole way through the project the other is just to show off my new favourite mod

[CJ]

Dan, if your upgrades relate to your turbo work, keep it in the one thread, if not, create a seperate one. Don't post the same set of info in 2 different threads, it wastes bandwidth and time.

CJ

[d_dan]

no bothers

[Muad_dib77]

I like the write up on the turbo kit and your summary of the cars history.. I can't wait for it all to come together.

OT but.. What happened to the evo style bonnet?

[d_dan]

the evo bonnet and coilovers were sold when his baby arrived...

then got another one,
he offered it for sale to the guy i bought it from but he didnt take it so black one ended pm

[d_dan]

So its monday at the end of my 2 weeks I took off to have the car turbo'd and.....


.... Its not finished.

Im waiting on a harness to arrive from HKS as the one i have is damaged.
Also waiting on a power boost valve and my new breaks to arrive should land tomorrow.

So flat out this week. Myself a M8 and a Mechanic are all spending the evenings for the rest of the week in she shed getting it all done.

Also need to find some new tyres for the car to fit a set of enkies.

And then ontop of that i need to get the car setup in westward and break her in with a few hundred miles before the trackday on the 20th

[TopCat]

Sounds like you have the engine side of it pretty much sorted, you had her running yet? Have you set a date for westward?

[Kace]

Myself a M8 and a Mechanic are all spending the evenings for the rest of the week in she shed getting it all done.

Brrrrrrr - chilly

[d_dan]

too right its chilly im Freezing.
Wired up the 7th injector today,

Breaks tomorrow hopefully. if not the boost controller.

Also need to get my m8 to relocate the battery to the boot

[Dragonheart]

Have you fired her up yet Dan? Just to get a noise out of her or anything? Or is it still unsafe to do that?

[d_dan]

nope not at all. went to plug the turbo to a car hoover just to hear it spool up but i forgot i have no sigarette lighter

[d_dan]

Breaks arrived today.... They truly are monsteous. Can't wait to fit them.

[d_dan]

So breaks arrived today,
Fitted them after work and also had the head completely stripped back.

Turns out my possable head gasket issue was a loose sparkplug and broken connector rod.

So a new sparkplug and pluglead is needed.
everything else was in good condition or was being replaced so no problems there.

heads to be skimmed tomorrow,
So with no mechanical work going on tomorrow and thursday its down to the the nitty gritty fitting the new ECU and the Boost controller

[Sebastian]

i'm sure everyone would love to see pics during assembly with explinations of the whole thing rather then pics with them on and off the car .

fingers crossed everything goes okay and you don't blow up at the first sprint drive you go on .

[Muad_dib77]

Fingers crossed dan..

really hope all this goes well for you, good to see that you're making steady progress..

Can I ask what ECU you're going with? (I could have missed it in your posts above.)

[d_dan]

its just a greddy emanage blue,

butwill be followed in the comming months by forged internals and a motec 400

[d_dan]

so at the engineer's they have discovered while doing a compression test that one of the valve seats is fecked....


So it had to spend an extra day there.


Also got a thing of cidut bang, and degreased alot of my engine bay and cleaned it down.

will throw up a few pics tonight of how im getting on

[d_dan]

yet another setback today as found out that due to the spark plug comming loose the blug threads have completely wore out the threads on the head and even a standard hellicoil wont work and a special one will be needed from the UK.

[steelroe]

Dan I hace pleny of valves and even a part of the head if it is any good to you. Free of charge just collect. Might be an easier option.
Will take pic later. It came of an engine with crank damage.
Move quickly though as it is going in the scrap before monday.

[d_dan]

thanks man thats fierce sound of ya...
but im just after paying over a €100 to get the head surface perfected and dont have the money to get it done again.


Thanks a million thouhg rory much appreciated