My summer build: custom turbo kit-Apex

TurboMatt · Jul 4, 2010

Here's my progress so far on my Apex. I'm building a custom turbo kit for my Apex. The pics start with the tear down, then move onto the mock-up, and move up to the current state.
I will post updates as I make progress.

The only part I really didn't build was the Impulse header I'm using. I bought the header off a guy on Ebay. It was cracked when I got it, I fixed the crack and reinforced in a bit.

custom intercooler that I made:

TurboMatt · Jul 4, 2010

The mock-up:

Avids installed:

TurboMatt · Jul 4, 2010

Parts back from Ceramic coating:

Stage 8 locking fasteners for the header:

header, turbo and downpipe mounted permanently:

my semi polished tunnel:

TurboMatt · Jul 4, 2010

Unfortunately I didn't get any pics when I did my engine work. I have 3 stacked headgaskets installed and ARP headstuds.

I did make some more progress yesterday and today. I'll post more pics when i get them.

NM · Jul 4, 2010

Looks good. Your going to love it. What are your plans for clutching?

Wheel House Motorsports · Jul 4, 2010

also, curious beyond clutching, but why 3 gaskets and not a shim??? its nice to be able to get that comp NICE and low..

looks really good and keep us updated. have you figured out your choice of fueling yet?? I thought you mentioned on TY using the power commander parts..

TurboMatt · Jul 5, 2010

NM said:
Looks good. Your going to love it. What are your plans for clutching?

I don't have any set plans yet. Any reccomendations? Right now I have 60g Supertips for the primary and was kinda planning on a Shockwave for the secondary. What should I run for springs?

TurboMatt · Jul 5, 2010

Ski-Dooin it said:
also, curious beyond clutching, but why 3 gaskets and not a shim??? its nice to be able to get that comp NICE and low..

looks really good and keep us updated. have you figured out your choice of fueling yet?? I thought you mentioned on TY using the power commander parts..

I went with 3 stacked gaskets because it works. I live 20 minutes down the road from Simons CPR. So I get some of my parts from him, including the gaskets and Arp studs. He pretty much talked me into it. He knows what he is talking about, that's what he runs on all the sled he runs or puts together. that's what he runs on his 600hp asphalt sled. You can't agrue with results.

I can run 12psi on pump gas at sea level on stacked gaskets, that's pushing 260hp at that point on pump. That's more than enough. In fact I'll probably only run 10psi down here. I do A LOT of riding in the UP and that is a lot of tight tree riding. That's why I went with a midmount and kept the higher comp. of 3 stacked gaskets. I want to keep some throttle response. At high elevation I should still be able to run 15psi on pump or some race gas and crank it up.

I'm still somewhat up in the air on engine management. But I am leaning hard towards the Power Commander. Has anyone heard if Impulse of Mount. Perf is still coming out with a standalone for the Apex this fall yet?

If propane was more convenient that would be my choice, but at this point it's not an option.

Wheel House Motorsports · Jul 5, 2010

darn... I wish I had another convert to work with right now.. if your interested, PM me.. we can talk. its cool stuff.

as far as the what fuel, I forgot that your interested in stuff with timing control, so you can play with that and make safe maps to help with deto.. I just like the big thick shim and pump fuel and dont worry to much what the boost is at, but I like dumb simple for some stuff.

the header looks slick, looks exactly like what im going to be trying and building.. only thing I kinda was curious about was the way you ran your charge tube pretty far out around the edge on the delta box.. just seems a little weird to me.. althought from my experience long charge tubes go relatively unnoticed with the whole midmount thing.. it all just sorta goes away once the turbo is lit.. and they get lit fast with these midmounts!!

TurboMatt · Jul 5, 2010

Ski-Dooin it said:
darn... I wish I had another convert to work with right now.. if your interested, PM me.. we can talk. its cool stuff.

as far as the what fuel, I forgot that your interested in stuff with timing control, so you can play with that and make safe maps to help with deto.. I just like the big thick shim and pump fuel and dont worry to much what the boost is at, but I like dumb simple for some stuff.

the header looks slick, looks exactly like what im going to be trying and building.. only thing I kinda was curious about was the way you ran your charge tube pretty far out around the edge on the delta box.. just seems a little weird to me.. althought from my experience long charge tubes go relatively unnoticed with the whole midmount thing.. it all just sorta goes away once the turbo is lit.. and they get lit fast with these midmounts!!

Yeah, I definately am interested, but it's just not very practical right now. There's time's where I ride that I don't get back to the truck to fill up with gas and need to be able to pull up to the gas station pump.

The intercooler piping had to be run that way in my configuration to clear everything. Yeah, I could have run it inside the headlight mount bracket, but it would've been super tight and woulda rubbed on everything. I can gaurantee that little bit of extra piping is not going to be noticeable. Most of my experience is in turbocharging cars, but some of it carries over. Keeping the turbo close to the engine, the exhaust hot, the intake temps cold and having a properly sized turbo are much more important points IMHO.

That header is an Impulse header. It's a good header, it was cracked when I bought it. I fixed in and reinforced it. Hopefully it holds up. That thing in made very beefy, My props to Impulse, I like it. I do wish that it sat the turbo a little higher up though, everything is very cramped. Not easy to work on. Barely has enough slope for the oil drain(actually I'm a little worried about that). I had a ***** of a time getting it bolted up. there's no room. If I knew it was going to be that hard I woulda bolted it on before I installed the engine.

It's been a fun project so far, really everything is going well.

Wheel House Motorsports · Jul 5, 2010

as far as turbo setup, definately, hot side IMO is 10x more important then cold side as far as getting short. I have ridden some sleds with long arse charge tubes but lit up like a SOB because of proper turbo sizing etc etc... are you planning on still running the stock headlights? Just curious as getting rid of stuff like that is really nice in making space!! and getting air back down to those midmounts is NICE!!- where does the oil drain to on that setup? just figuring I would discuss all the stupid details as thats what always hangs things up... details details details.

as far as fueling, I definately understand for the type of riding you do requires different fuel needs then I do.

mattymac · Jul 5, 2010

TurboMatt said:
That header is an Impulse header. It's a good header, it was cracked when I bought it. I fixed in and reinforced it. Hopefully it holds up. That thing in made very beefy, My props to Impulse, I like it. I do wish that it sat the turbo a little higher up though, everything is very cramped. Not easy to work on. Barely has enough slope for the oil drain(actually I'm a little worried about that). I had a ***** of a time getting it bolted up. there's no room. If I knew it was going to be that hard I woulda bolted it on before I installed the engine.

It's been a fun project so far, really everything is going well.

Thats the first impulse header ive heard of being cracked, where abouts was it cracked???

Pauls headers are the best in the biz IMO! I bolt everything on the head when its off the sled, makes it alot easier!!!

Did jeff (CPR) dial you in on cam timing as well with the stacked gaskets??

Great write up so far as well!!! Keep it comin!!! Its gunna be a fun ride when its done!

TurboMatt · Jul 5, 2010

Ski-Dooin it said:
as far as turbo setup, definately, hot side IMO is 10x more important then cold side as far as getting short. I have ridden some sleds with long arse charge tubes but lit up like a SOB because of proper turbo sizing etc etc... are you planning on still running the stock headlights? Just curious as getting rid of stuff like that is really nice in making space!! and getting air back down to those midmounts is NICE!!- where does the oil drain to on that setup? just figuring I would discuss all the stupid details as thats what always hangs things up... details details details.

as far as fueling, I definately understand for the type of riding you do requires different fuel needs then I do.

Yeah, the stock headlights are staying. For now anyways. Ya if i would get rid of those it frees up a lot of options. It may sound kinda lame, but I kinda like the look of the stock headlights and outline of the Apex as it is now. It looks sleek and mean. I kinda wanna keep that.
Oil drain goes to the mag side(right side),drains back to the time plug hole.
Yes, your right details are the real pain....I am knees deep in that stage right now.
For crankcase venting I designed a catch can that should be really sweet. I'm gonna run the crankcase vent hose to the catch can then to the intake side of the turbo so I don't get nasty odors. The catch can I designed will not allow the caught fluid to drain back into anywhere no matter how the sled is sitting. It's a pretty slick design and something I came up myself. Just one of those small things I'm really proud of.

mattymac said:
Thats the first impulse header ive heard of being cracked, where abouts was it cracked???

Pauls headers are the best in the biz IMO! I bolt everything on the head when its off the sled, makes it alot easier!!!

Did jeff (CPR) dial you in on cam timing as well with the stacked gaskets??

Great write up so far as well!!! Keep it comin!!! Its gunna be a fun ride when its done!

The header was cracked on the top side of the turbo flange. Not sure what happened, didn't asked. I'm glad it was cracked though cause I got a smokin' deal on it. I reinforced it and will be running a brace for the turbo so hopefully it doesnt happen again.

I am running stock cam timing. It was reccommended by both Jeff at Simmons and Allen Ulmer. Jeff @ Simmons CPR has multiple sled running around WI that dynoed at 260hp at 12psi on pump gas. That's using 3 stacked gaskets, ARP studs, stock cam timing, and a deobek fuel contoller. Plus he runs the stacked gaskets on his asphalt sled which pushes 600+hp...Yea that's good enough for me.Plus the stock Yammie gaskets are pretty well made IHMO. I'm not worried. If my sled makes 15 less hp because of the cam timing yet runs great all winter, that's fine with me.
Besides my only competition is a pump gas M8 and possibly a M7 on N20 so do I really need that much power? LOL

mattymac · Jul 5, 2010

the only thing ive heard with problems associated with blowing out stacked gaskets are using stock head bolts not re-torqued.

with the ARP's in there you shouldnt ever have a problem!!!

Jeff and allen know how to make these things go!!! Should be a blast!!

NM · Jul 7, 2010

TurboMatt said:
I don't have any set plans yet. Any reccomendations? Right now I have 60g Supertips for the primary and was kinda planning on a Shockwave for the secondary. What should I run for springs?

We run blue/white/blue primary and cat or epi purple in secondary. We used to use supertips, but we now use Daltons because the bushings are far better quality and they waaaaay smoother. 174 sleds have 47deg helix and used to run 51 deg in the Apex with 162.

Header caracking is part of the deal with turbo sleds. I have seen dozens of cracked headers and many have been impulse, but thats what happens in deeep heavy powder when your running alot of boost. I budget for 1 new header each season. Breaking is only a matter of time with extreme heat cycles.

ruffryder · Jul 7, 2010

NM said:
but we now use Daltons because the bushings are far better quality and they waaaaay smoother.

can you explain the waaay smoother part? curious... thanks

TurboMatt · Jul 7, 2010

NM said:
We run blue/white/blue primary and cat or epi purple in secondary. We used to use supertips, but we now use Daltons because the bushings are far better quality and they waaaaay smoother. 174 sleds have 47deg helix and used to run 51 deg in the Apex with 162.

Header caracking is part of the deal with turbo sleds. I have seen dozens of cracked headers and many have been impulse, but thats what happens in deeep heavy powder when your running alot of boost. I budget for 1 new header each season. Breaking is only a matter of time with extreme heat cycles.

Are you just running a straight Yamaha helix's in those degrees?

Wheel House Motorsports · Jul 7, 2010

It may just be my opinion, but as far as just simple metal goes, the slower you cool it back down, the less likely your gonna crack it, this combined with the fact that heat is good in the exhaust leads me to want to run well wrapped headers, it seemed to keep mine from cracking with 1000 mile season and only 16 gauge material, there are a lot of other factors at work, BUT, the slowed cooling cyle just seems like it would help the metal from getting so upset with the crazy cycles, also really helps keep underhood heat down. you would be amazed how well 2 thick layers of header wrap will keep heat from melting things!

TurboMatt · Jul 8, 2010

Ski-Dooin it said:
It may just be my opinion, but as far as just simple metal goes, the slower you cool it back down, the less likely your gonna crack it, this combined with the fact that heat is good in the exhaust leads me to want to run well wrapped headers, it seemed to keep mine from cracking with 1000 mile season and only 16 gauge material, there are a lot of other factors at work, BUT, the slowed cooling cyle just seems like it would help the metal from getting so upset with the crazy cycles, also really helps keep underhood heat down. you would be amazed how well 2 thick layers of header wrap will keep heat from melting things!

I have tend to agree with you.BUT: I haven 't come up with a good way to cover my Impulse header yet. Any ideas? I was thinking some kind of blanket, but I don't really know how I'd fasten it. Using regular wrap wasn't an option. It's jsut all too tight for that.

Wheel House Motorsports · Jul 9, 2010

With some hard work and a little bit of spare time you can wrap most anything and make it look nice.. I wish I had a better picture of my old one, but it was a PITA to wrap around the 4-1 section with bends, but I got it done and it worked really well, if your still stuck on doing it otherwise check out this site, they have TONS of stuff, not sure on the pricing as you have to go throught one of there dealers.

http://www.heatshieldproducts.com/inferno_heat_shield.php

My summer build: custom turbo kit-Apex

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