I have never heard or seen of one besides Jack’s project that he pulled the plug on. So with that being said I’m calling this one the first.
Early last week Jack asked me if I wanted to put a turbo on his friends jeep. Sounded like a cool project for me so I ran over to the dudes house Monday night to meet the guy and see what he has. bunch of misc pipes and couplers, new precision turbo, tial BOV and WG, misc parts. I tell the dude I cant work on it until sat around 2pm because of school. He seems like a good dude so I tell him I can help him out with it. He asks if he can drop it off Friday night and pick it up Sunday… Challenge accepted and it gave me Friday night to work on it too. After making a plan about the jeep I see a new BMW 1000r bike. Supposed to be the fastest production bike made, So I worked in the deal, I do this for you, you give me one race my car against his bike. =].
So during the week I told him what to buy ( couplers, fittings, gaskets, bolts, vacuum hose, misc junk…) and do prep work like spraying his exhaust bolts with PB Blast. Wed after school I cleaned up the garage and re organized my tools.
Friday around 6:30 he dropped it off and I tossed Pantera on Pandora and started to jam.
Well this its been a bitch the whole way. All the stock exhaust bolts were rusted to hell and all the flanges were rusted together. So removing the stock exhaust took longer than I wanted but i got it all off and in perfect condition keeping the clips and flanges nice for the owner to keep.
The merge pipe needed hammering to clear the front driveshaft and cutting the 02 sensor bung down to fit the sensor under the jeep. The long straight section going from the merge to the axle was a pain too. The hangers didn’t line up very well and took a lot of muscle to fit. The tiny flex joint isn’t in the best spot. What I have learned is at least a 6 inch flex joint is nice to have with merges and exhaust pipes. They don’t leak, look ok, and functionally cant not be beat.
Test mounted the turbo to start mocking up the oil feed and drain lines, WG hose, mounting of the savage pump, routing of the cold side…
I mounted the oil return pump right under the frame w a bracket I made. Ran the feed -4 line and 1/2 return hose right by the frame. Along with the 1/4 hose for the WG. I put the ?4 psi? spring in the gate for initial fire and break in miles (not exactly positive it is the right spring but ill find out when i drive it). A highly recommended Jeep tuner already loaded a base boost tune to the jeep.
He was missing a good amount of the cold side so I ended up making it out of spare 2.5 tubing. It took some time but turned out real smooth and nice tucked up under the frame and under the cross member.
Mounted the Vacuum block under the hood right above the brake booster ( flush with the weather strip ) and hooked up the 3/8 intake hose, 3/8 booster hose, 1/4 WG hose, 5/32 BOV hose, and boost gauge fitting.
Jack ran the WB through the floor grommet up to the dash ( same as his was ) , I ran the boost gauge line the same way up, behind the dash and to a gauge on the steering wheel cover. Kinda rigged but he didn’t have a pod and I wanted to SEE the boost.
Well my goal to get it done Sunday was a success. Everything was done after over 30 hours. I double checked a couple things, primed the oil feed, hooked it up to the turbo. Had a 2 ft straight section of 1/2 hose down into a jug to drain.
Fired it up, let idle for a couple mins when I’m running around checking for leaks or problems. Oil was draining into the jug fine. So I hooked up the hose to the pump and let it pump into a jug in the front of the jeep ( to flush the hose) it was pumping fine. Hooked the hose up to the driver side valve cover. Engine compartment is fine, exhaust merge and pipes are fine, sliding back toward the turbo I see a small drip out of the exhaust housing. FFFFFFFFFFFFF I killed the jeep.
Crawled back under it and it was still a slow drip. Called the owner and told him it had a drip and def should not be. I tested the pump and it pulls my finger skin into it and pumps the oil great. So its not the pump. I did some research and called my turbo buddies and Percision. Everyone said the 1/2 hose into the pump is prolly enough but try a 5/8 just to try it. So I swapped fitting and the hose. It still dripped out of the exhaust housing. A turbo truck friend of mine told me to try a check valve at the turbo. This is a 1psi check valve basically that will allow the oil to only go into the turbo when the engine is running. Makes sense because any of you that has ran oil lines… they will drip/drain way after the engine is off just because of the height of the line compared to the port on the engine. So I overnighted a check valve.
I will made an oil restrictor with a 0.65 nitrous jet and a spare 1/8 x -4an fitting. Some guys have had to use restrictors some have not, but again I will say Grant from Percision said they do not recommend it especially for a journal bearing turbo. With that being said my friends that have ran this exact turbo said they the -4 feed was just to much flow.
Percision also said because of it only having ~ 10/15 min of idle time there is no reason for a rebuild because it pushed oil past the ring.
So fast fwd to last night. The restrictor was the key to success. I buttoned up a couple things like extending the iat sensor wires and hooking up a Hobbs switch last night and sent him on his way. Made 4 psi no prob then blew the intake hose off. We didn’t have a 3.5 t clamp and a reg hose clamp didn’t hold it. So I took it back home and re tightened the clamp. When back out and after a dozen wot pulls both the customer and I were happy. It def needs a muffler, the dp is 14 inches long and open lol. The check valve I had over nighted did not flow the way I wanted it. I’m sending it back today and already ordered another one. The owner will come back early next week so I can re torque everything and install the check valve.
The base boost tune ran high 9 afr. Once that is dialed back, well put the 6 lb spring in and eventually the 8. At 8psi it should be right around 500wheel.
Spec sheet that Jack made from the jeep forum.
Trinity + Johan Tune
Precision turbo
Tial BOV (which we didn’t end up using yet)
Tial WG
Procharger Flowcharger w/ Jeep harness
Spark plugs
Red Rock? Stock 2010 Jeep SRT8
Under hood -
Procharger BAP
iridium 2 step colder plugs gapped to .28
2 bar SRT4 MAP
BT Catch Can
60lb injectors
aeromotive fuel rails with braided crossover
vibrant vac block
ebay SSQV BOV
oil cap breather
Under the truck -
CX Racing intercooler (nothing special, it is a rear mount afterall - but it was like $115 shipped and it fits beautifully)
RSI Jeep SRT8 Turbo Kit - purchased incomplete and damaged… but RSI did the leg work for some of it. I could suggest several enhancements to this kit if they were still making them.
Tial 44mm gate
Precision 7475 journal bearing turbo (rated over 1000+ hp)
turbowerx exa-pump oil pump -4 braided feed with restrictor + check valve, oil rated 1/2" return hose to valve cover
Innovate LC-1 with auto timer gauge
It was a cool project that took a long weekend to do from dropping it off NA to leaving with some baby jams. Kinda pissed I didnt ask my turbo buddys about the turbo before having to take it off and delay the complete date a couple days waiting on parts. If I woulda asked them instead of trusting a brand new 1000 turbo and a simple feed and drain to not leak, he woulda drove it home Sunday night. Oh well. Better safe than sorry, and I knew it was drivable but wasn’t about to let it leave my hands knowing I wasn’t happy with it. Thanks to Jack, Smoog, and the owner for when they helped. I’ll ask Jack to host the pics for me.
Ill also be sending him over to Turbo Civ’s for a Dyno and a custom Exhaust/Muffler. :tup:
Cliff notes: Big Heavy AWD/4x4 Turbo V8s Are Awesome …and it only takes a weekend to turbo a vehicle. :tspry:
