90stang5speed Rear Mounted Turbo Project Thread

[90stang5speed]

I’ve been thinking about doing a build thread for a while now so, here goes. This is my first project car build. The car is a 90 lx hatch. When I bought the car a few years ago for $1800 bucks, it had been converted to a 5 speed but, the guy who did the swap only tightened 3 of the 6 pressure plate bolts & the clutch chattered pretty bad. The rear fenders had been rolled and beat out pretty bad. It had a B303 cam in it. The smog pump was gone & they had put an H pipe with flow masters on it.

Like a lot of guys on here, I wanted more power & started with the junk yard mod list. I picked up a 3G alt, a Mark VIII electric fan, & an Aerostar aluminum drive shaft. Shortly after that, the engine blew a head gasket. At that point I put the F303 cam in. I also put the explorer intake, 225 walbro fuel pump, the long tube headers, and 3” X pipe with dynomax race bullets on.

My import buddy with the Mitsubishi VR4 started teasing me about how he eats mustangs for breakfast & then the track car project really began. I knew I needed more traction to compete with an AWD. I put the granatelli lower control arms on. I did the 5 lug conversion. I put the front A arms on with coilovers & adjustable struts. I also put adjustable shocks in the rear. I upgraded the rear axles to 31 spline 5 lug & put a full spool with 3.73’s in there. Then I got in touch with Baseline Suspension & got their upper control arm kit. I also started gutting the car and removed everything possible to drop weight. The last time I weighed the car it was at 2760 with me in it and a half tank of fuel. The car had always used oil but, I started to notice a lot of blue smoke on start up & hard acceleration. Me & my import buddy pulled the engine out, tore it down & sent it off to the machine shop to get bored 0.040 over. I also ordered the AFR 185 heads, the 90 mm LMAF, & 1.6 roller rockers at that time. We rebuilt the engine once the machine shop was done.

A week before I moved to GA my car was backed into twice in the same week while setting in the parking lot at AutoZone. I already had the TWEECER RT for a while by now & had all my build pics up to this point on my laptop. Unfortunately, our house was broken into & that laptop was stolen shortly after we moved to GA.

Now here is where the turbo build & latest mods start.
Here's a pic of the front end damage.

Here are a couple pics of the tear down. I have no experience with body work yet so, this part will be a big challenge.

 

[90stang5speed]

Here are some more pics of the parts pile I removed and some of the replacment parts.

The new Stalker front bumper.

The new fenders & the antenna hole before I patched it.

Not many people will like the 1 piece headlights but, I thought I would give them a chance since someone else’s insurance was paying for the damaged parts. I took them apart & tinted the lenses myself with VHT Night Shade. I don’t have them on the car yet but I have a before & after pic of the tinted lenses. I don’t see a lot of night driving in this cars future so I’m not too concerned with the tint. It was more for the look than function.

I figure that mods that make an N/A car better will make a turbo car better. I decided to get the Summit stage 4 intake & convert it to a fuel injected intake. I drilled out holes for the injector bungs & JB Welded them in. I also ordered the Edelbrock intake elbow & fuel rails. I needed another fuel pressure reg for this setup & some braided fuel lines to go with it. I also added a 1” carb spacer plate so the elbow would clear the rails & give me a place to tap into for vacuum ports. My clips on the injector harness were all broken so I took the opportunity to replace them as well. I also found that fuel lines were both crimped where the metal lines turn into plastic by the frame. A couple compression fittings took care of that. My old 1.6 rocker rollers were wearing out so I upgraded them to Comp Cams gold 1.72 roller rockers. I also picked up a pair of Ford Racing valve covers. Here are a few pics of the intake & other parts.

I had to delete the EGR spacer for the intake plumbing to have clearance by the strut tower. I had to fad up a new throttle cable bracket. I also modified the alt bracket and deleted the belt tensioner by using a turn buckle that I had lying around. I will upgrade the ends later to make it look a little better.
Here are a few pics of the throttle cable bracket.

Here's some pics of the alt bracket mod

 

[No.11]

nice! looks like you know exactly what you want from this build. keep up the good work and the updates.

 

[90stang5speed]

After I finished up the 10 point roll cage I started on the turbo install. I got a “universal” kit from STS (Squire Turbo Systems) because they don’t make a rear mount kit for the fox body. When I called them, the guy I talked to recommended a 76 mm P trim turbo to match my power goals. I wanted a turbo that could supply enough air to make between 550 crank HP (stock block) to 800 crank HP (future DART 363 block) & that is what he came up with. I also ordered a methanol injection kit from Snow Performance & an electronic boost controller from Turbosmart. I also ordered a 2 step ignition box with boost retard from Mallory through Summit. I took the entire exhaust system off. I cut the 3” X pipe to make a 2 into 1 exhaust. I cut the U bend 3” pipes that came with the turbo kit & welded everything up. I also got a 4” U bend to use for the outlet side of the turbo. The turbo is mounted right behind the driver’s seat where the back seat used to be. To do this, I had to cut 2 big holes in the floorboard. The exhaust exits through the floor just outside of the driver’s side lower control arm mount .It turns out in front of the rear wheel. The entire exhaust is wrapped from the headers all the way back to the 4” outlet pipe. The intake air comes in from behind the passenger seat. Once it leaves the turbo, the 3” plumbing goes back to the inner cooler mounted on the rear bars of the roll cage. Then the 3” pipe come forward to the BOV located under the passenger seat. From there it goes into a 4” pipe up to the 90 mm LMAF. Another 4” pipe goes from the LMAF to a 90* reducer into the throttle body. I want to see what my intake temps are with & without the inner cooler. If there isn’t much difference, I will probably delete the inner cooler & shorten up my plumbing quite a bit. My guess is that the temp won’t be that much different and the shorter plumbing will be lighter, cause less pressure drop, & make the turbo more responsive. Here are some pics of the turbo install.
The X pipe before.

The X pipe cut for turbo install

The exhaust with the turbo & waste gate.

from under the car

turbo test fitting in the car

The headers wrapped & views of the turbo, inner cooler, and plumbing inside the car.

The BOV, ignition box, boost controller, & meth controller. I still need to clean this and other parts of the build up a lot.

The meth pump & tank

Thats about all the pics I have for now. I have got the car running but, I haven't had it out on the road yet. When my laptop was stolen, I lost my tuning software as well ( BE & EA ). So, needless to say, Im trying to use the software that came with the TWEECER RT & I havent got the tune dialed in very well yet. I still have a ton of body work to do. I dont even have a hood yet. The car has been up on stands for so long, the brake pads were stuck to the rotors with rust. I just installed the 95 lb 12" coilover springs & I modified the strut mounts while I was at it. I flipped the top caps over, cut them down smaller & welded them back into the strut mount. That gave me about another inch of upward travel for a total of 5.5 inches at street ride hight. I might post up some pics of that after I clean up the welds & get rid of all the slag. I would welcome any tips from The turbo guys out there. If anyone has questions about my setup I will do my best to answer them but, this is my first build so Im no expert.

 

[FordRacing302]

Thats badass man...More progress and pics

 

[90stang5speed]

thanks for the compliment. That's all I have for now. I would like to get some more pics of the body posted up so people could see a before & after on that too. I would like to get a sound clip of the exhaust posted up too if any of you guys know how to do that, please let me know. Thanks to tips from MadMike1157 I was able to post up the pics I have.

 

[90stang5speed]

Here are a couple pics of how I reinforced the torque box on the drivers side. The 1/8" steel kits you can buy wont work for this setup so I made my own out of 3/16 (bigger is better) plate steel.
View attachment torqueboxreinforcement1.jpg
View attachment torqueboxreinforcement2.jpg

 

[elarm1]

Turbo's next to my head and back scare me...... Good luck!

 

[NIKwoaC]

I see you have the BFH. That's all you need.


Cool build!

 

[90lxcoupe]

your not worried about the heat inside the car and the intercooler not getting fresh air?

 

[90stang5speed]

The heat inside isn't any worse than when it was an N/A car so far. My entire exhaust is completely wrapped with five 50 foot rolls of wrap. At operating temp, the turbo blanket is cool to the touch and the 4" turbo exhaust is just warm. I know once I start building boost on the street/track that will probably change a lot. The plan for the inner cooler was to have dual electric fans blowing across it. If my intake temps aren't too high without the inner cooler plumbed in, I will try to sell it & just run with the shorter plumbing. The methanol should do the job anyway so the inner cooler idea was probably a waste of time and money. And yes, the BFH is my favorite tool. I even have a 10 lb one with a 12" handle when I need to get up close and personal lol.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

The heat inside isn't any worse than when it was an N/A car so far. My entire exhaust is completely wrapped with five 50 foot rolls of wrap. At operating temp, the turbo blanket is cool to the touch and the 4" turbo exhaust is just warm. I know once I start building boost on the street/track that will probably change a lot. The plan for the inner cooler was to have dual electric fans blowing across it. If my intake temps aren't too high without the inner cooler plumbed in, I will try to sell it & just run with the shorter plumbing. The methanol should do the job anyway so the inner cooler idea was probably a waste of time and money. And yes, the BFH is my favorite tool. I even have a 10 lb one with a 12" handle when I need to get up close and personal lol.

I thought the reason for the rear mount turbo was so that an I/C wasn't required. Surely w/ the Snow cooler your charge temps will be way lower than ambient air temp already. The I/C might not do anything except drop a P.S.I. of boost or more w/o any other benefit.
But that hot side will get plenty roasty when you start making serious boost, doubt that you'll be able to touch the blanket after an 1/8 mile pass. You might consider boxing it in and getting some sort of fan and ducting air to the box and venting that ducted hot-assed air out of the car? The other benefit to that is that the box could serve as a safety margin should the turbo ingest something or the impeller decide to come apart on you. I've already had a "disc" turning at 20,000 rpm fly in my face, you don't want that to happen in a car, boxed in where it can bounce around, and be going about 100 mph when it does.
All in all, It's like I told you. Regardless of what you think about your work, most will (and have) offer help, kudos, and positive comments.
The guys w/ negative stuff to say (if any) will either not say anything or at least word it so as not to be too critical. Let them eat cake.

 

[90stang5speed]

Thanks MadMike. I admit the inner cooler wasn't one of my best ideas. I like the idea of boxing in the turbo & venting it to the outside. I have been thinking about that for some time but havent come up with a good concept for the box or how to vent it. I also want to insulate the box to keep more of the heat away from me. The easy way would be to duct it through the floor but heat rises.

 

[NIKwoaC]

The easy way would be to duct it through the floor but heat rises.

Not if you push the air with a fan.

 

[90stang5speed]

Good point. A small fan like say, one that would fit on a trans cooler might be a good way to go.

 

[S&B]

still cant figure out why you put the turbo in the car, but you'll find out when you blow that oil line.

nice work bringing back that fox looks great

 

[90stang5speed]

The reason i put the turbo in the car is, for one, I have next to no ground clearance. Also, I didnt want to risk getting water & road debris sucked into the intake filter if it was under the car. I wanted to put the turbo where the muffler would normally be but, that just didnt work out for me. People use manual oil pressure gauges that brings a much smaller plastic oil feed line into the cab so Im not to worried about the braided steel oil feed for the turbo. I do agree that if the oil feed line blowns or if the turbo flies apart, its going to be a very bad day.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

Thanks MadMike. I admit the inner cooler wasn't one of my best ideas. I like the idea of boxing in the turbo & venting it to the outside. I have been thinking about that for some time but havent come up with a good concept for the box or how to vent it. I also want to insulate the box to keep more of the heat away from me. The easy way would be to duct it through the floor but heat rises.

Maybe use the squirrel cage fan out of your old heater forcing air in one end from the pass side and run a duct for the exiting air behind the box directly to the ground. BTW it's just Mike, I only get "Mad" when you tell me that I'm wrong.

 

[1bad67sbf]

looks cool, i cant wait to hear it

 

[90stang5speed]

Ok Mike, I was just using the screen name lol. I dont have the heater blower fan anymore. That all went away during the weight reduction & before the turbo was being fabbed up. Good idea though & it would have been cheap too.