VF42 Turbo + Maintenance
HELLO EVERYONE! Or like the two people that still go to this website. It's spring! Which means I had a panic attack last weekend about all the work I had planned to do on the car over winter, but never did because cold, busy, other cars, etc.
First things, off topic update: Started a new job, RX-8 got build up pretty good (shameless plug:
#GRIDLIFE Street Mod Time Attack RX-8 Build - RX8Club.com) and I'm finally ready to focus on the Impreza because I want to DRIVE IT AGAIN now that the weather doesn't suck.
Alright, then. Back to things that matter.
So I picked up a lovely S204 VF42 from a good friend. It's in great shape, but claimed to smoke on the dyno. I'll test that out and see if it's actually tanked. Decided if I was going to be swapping the turbo inlet, I may as well put on the best possible OEM upgrade over the VF37. The VF42 features some roller bearings (yay no more thrust bearings!) a titanium shaft, a SLIGHTLY larger cold side, and it's from an S204, so I guess it gets some scene points too.
Okay, diving in. Since I wanted to replace as many sources of possible boost leaks due to age, I decided to just pull the manifold off. Easy enough, done this loads of times before, only issue I ran into was the jabroni (probably the factory) who was in there before had placed the spring clamp for the BOV hose facing towards the block. Pain.
Manifold gaskets looks pretty tanked, inlet had a nice hole in it, and I got a new turbo oil return line.. because obviously I needed a new turbo oil return line.
Turbo came out without hassle as well, and here is it side by side with the VF42 on the right. Good VF37 vs VF42 comparison shot... spoiler they don't look that much different.
One concern I have is with the boost pill. I am reusing the VF37 one, and I have nooooooo idea what the S204 used for it's pill. I figure what I have will be close enough, and I'll dial the WGDC and turbo dynamics in myself anyways, but it's definitely worth a note.
Turbo went back in smoothly. I also decided to replace the up pipe bolts because I had remembered some being damn near close to stripping out last time I yanked the up pipe. SUUUPER glad I did. Just gonna save myself from throwing a wrench across the garage in the future.
Took a little bit of time to clean up the block, and also knife off the intake manifold surfaces because half the damn gasket was on it.
To replace the inlet (I guess I didn't take any pics of it) I used a brand new OEM Spec C inlet (same as standard V8/9). I also pulled off the fuel rails because I was too busy being in the way. Ended up grabbing new injector seals just to make sure that wasn't an issue later (sigh... it still was). Tossed the manifold back on and bolted everything up. I also found a rip in the evap line to the fuel tank, pesky things, so I ordered a new one of those as well.
I wanted to pressure test the fuel lines before getting everything back together, but... because the poor car was neglected all winter, the battery was dead. I threw it on charge all night and came back later.
Because I'm a lazy idiot, I didn't lube the fuel injector o rings to the rail and had to deal with leaky injectors in the morning. Found this lil guy, and luckily I had some spare o rings laying around. Popped in a new one.
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Went to start the car after putting the IC and airbox back in place and it was not a happy camper. I think it was flooded from all the gas leaking into the cylinders during my injector debug. Finally started and it ran an idled smoother than ever! I was letting everything all warm up and was excited to hear the VF42 spool up... and then I heard something leaking..
-_-
Dropped two and a half quarts on the ground from the bottom of the valve cover I just did in January. Damn it.. I'm not sure why the bottom is leaking.. but like.. obviously it was.
I decided to call that a job for another day, and call the physical job of the turbo swap and boost leak decreasing done though, so I'll probably redo the valve cover again later. Grrrr nothing is ever easy, eh?
On a positive note the turbo is SO much more happy to spin just listening to it spin down after shutting the car off, and I can't wait to load this thing up with more boost.
That's all I have for now.. I still need to address the deer damage.. but.. life is busy.
More later. Tuning stuff later, will be sure to make some more posts on that for sure!