IT RUNS!!! - My 500whp build - Element motor and Moore Performance Twin Scroll Kit! by dexterous

8 minute(s) of a 312 minute read

Today was the most productive day yet. I managed to complete a ton of stuff (with Abby's help of course).

Abby likes to hold the smashed piston from the first motor while I work. I cant believe how old she looks in this pict! BTW, if you're wondering, that doll just got home from a date with Chris Brown.

I finally got my EGT probe installed in my JDM manifold. I had intended to do this sometime this winter but I never knew that I would be replacing the whole damn motor at the same time. This involved removing the drivers side heat shield which is welded on, drilling a hole in both the shield and the pipe and putting it all back together. I think it turned out pretty good:

My TGV gaskets arrived in the mail today so I bolted the intake manifold back on. It took me almost an hour to get all the metal fragments out of it from when the old motor blew. It looked like somebody put a hand full of scrap metal in it!

As I mentioned a few posts back, I bumped up the EWG springs up two steps. I am now running a 21.5PSI spring which I suspect will net me 18PSI.

Many people have asked about my Moore Performance Turbo kit. Here's the up-pipe extender known as "the adapter" that allows any stock location twin scroll JDM header to be used with a variety of rotated turbos. Twin TiAL wastegates and ceramic coating for the win!

Like all my EWG setups, I always run a pair of SuperTrap exhaust silencers. These things make an amazing difference when you are married, have a kid, live in a quiet neighborhood and otherwise need to pretend you are an adult from time to time.

Those who know me know how I covet my full set of $nap-on Torque wrenches. They are worth every penny!

Here's another shot just for good measure

Here's the oil cooler thermostat sandwich adapter that caused all the drama a few pages ago.

Since I dont run the factory oil heat exchanger I put this hose here. I know I could block off all those barbs but I have always used a hose between them.

A block heater makes things really nice if for those super cold start-ups.

In addition to everything else that's been going on with my car I have been fighting a silent war with boost control for nearly three years. Yes, I know reinventing the wheel is not exactly required to keep boost pressure under wraps these days but for whatever reason this has been a total thorn in my side. The story starts back in the spring of 2008 when I was running a Blouch Dom 3 turbo on my stock motor. I was on my way home from getting tuned at Agile Automotive in Baltimore MD (a really great shop BTW) and at first everything seemed great with the tune. Unfortunately, by the time I hit the mountains in south central PA I started having boost control issues at WOT. In 1st-3rd gear everything worked just fine but boost was wobbly 4th gear and a total mess in 5th and 6th.

At the time, I was running the factory ECU with a COBB AccessPORT and a GM boost control solenoid. Hill (the tuner/owner at Agile) told me during that day’s tune that I should be looking for an aftermarket boost management solution because the car was somewhat difficult to tune using my setup. To fix the situation I decided to purchase an Apexi AVC-R since I had prior experience with one on a friend's car. This allowed me to tune the boost pretty well but there were issues. Since the AVC-R has no temp compensation, the car would make significantly different amounts of boost depending on the weather. As time when on this became super annoying because I was constantly making boost corrections every time I drove the car.

The following year (2009) I decided to try meth injection out so I moved to a Hydra ECU and installed a Hydramist meth kit. I also decided to move to the Hydra's internal boost control solution because of the frustrations with the AVC-R. The number one thing that swayed me to make this decision was the Hydra's ability to trim the solenoid duty cycle based on ambient temp which I thought would make all the difference in the world. Unfortunately, the Hydra 2.6's boost control ability is even WORSE than the factory ECU. The Hydra has tons more tuning capability than the factory ECU but not even Phil could get my boost situation ironed out. At Phil’s suggestion I re-installed my AVC-R, tuned the boost myself and ran the car like that for the rest of 2009 and some of 2010. Unfortunately, I would still find myself messing with the boost settings just about every time I drive the car due to the rather significant temp swings in the Northeast US (the temp can vary 30F in a day here).

In mid 2010 I tried the hybrid boost control method out to see if that would at least cap my boost at an acceptable level on cold days. While it technically worked, my experience running the hybrid setup with a Hallman pro RX and the AVC-R was pretty frustrating. The MBC would do its job just fine and prevent max boost form exceeding my desired levels BUT no matter what I did I could not prevent the AVC-R from slowing down the boost response.

After some more messing around I decided to cut the AVC-R out of the mix again and run a pure manual setup. The issue with running a manual boost controller was my meth kit. If a meth failure occurs the Hydra must have some automatic method of reducing boost. My solution was to buy a special MAC valve that's capable of being energized for long period. I used the valve to change between directing full boost pressure to the EWGs (spring pressure only) and directing pressure through my Hallman RX MBC. I also installed the remote control knob so that I could make boost adjustments form inside the car. A bit of brief testing showed that the setup had potential but it just left to much on the table.

At the strong suggestion of Phil and several others I decided to just move to an eBoost2 and ditch the custom and overly complicated boost setup that I had been running. I was surprised how easy the eBoost2 was to setup especially after hearing so many people complain. I obviously haven't used it yet but I am confident that it will be a significant improvement over what I have been running.

I decided to mock the turbo kit up so that I could re-route a few lines and hoses. I guess the benefit of getting to do this twice is that I get a chance to leverage my hindsight. There are a number of little things that I wanted to redo and now I have an opportunity to get it all perfect.

Here are a few more Moore Performance rotated kit pictures. This thing is like a work of art!