Now that we have all the needed parts, it's time to remove the old turbo. I didn't want to mess with trying to take the exhaust manifold off so I decided to take the turbo directly off the manifold. There's plenty of room if you remove the radiator so do yourself a favor and take the radiator out before doing anything else. It only takes around 10 minutes to remove it and by doing so you save yourself from getting cut by the radiator fins and/or crushing them when you take the turbo out.
The 16G turbo I had on there's been on the car for almost 7 years now, so I sprayed a lot (a lot, as in an entire can) of WD-40 on all the bolts and let it sit over night before trying to take the thing off. I guess it worked out ok because everything came off pretty easily (only broke one bolt taking it off). By the way, it's not a big deal if you break any studs/bolts when taking the turbo off. If you do, the turbo will just drop down, that's all. Well, not a big deal unless you plan on selling or putting the 16G in another car of course .... then you're screwed because you'll have to extract the broken stud/bolt out of the 16G's exhaust housing :P
Just when I was all happy that everything's going smoothly and thinking to myself removing a turbo's a piece of cake, I rounded off the nut on the coolant feed line to the 16G. Fuck. So now I'm stuck with a turbo hanging off the coolant feed line (note to self: remember to use a flare nut wrench next time!!):
I didn't have a whole lot of time to file the thing down and remove it, so I needed a quick solution (bad idea: was doing this one weekend before a track event, so I had to finish this in 1 day) .....
I still had those big scissors from doing the brake install, so I thought what the hell, I might as well cut the line and attach a coolant hose to it and route it back to the thermostat housing. I originally planned on taking the line off then plug the hole with a bolt, but since the damn nut on the feed line is rounded off, this is my only choice right now. If you think about it, that's where the coolant was going after cooling the 16G in the first place (PTEs aren't watercooled, so no need for it), so this should be fine. Only problem is, when I bent the line I kinked it big time:
Oh well, it's not like I bent it back and forth so the line still felt pretty strong even at the place where it's kinked. I guess only time will tell if there's any problems with doing this :P If it does start leaking, I'll swap the whole water pipe out for one off a non turbo car.
With the 16G off, it's time for a good old comparison shot. The PTE is HUGE compared to the 16G ;)
- Part 1: Prep work
- Part 2: Remove the old 16G turbo
- Part 3: Install the oil feed line, turbo, lower intercooler pipes
