Prior to my +500 mile trip I built a turbo cozy for the turbine. Made from 2 ply stainless steel and ceramic insulator filling.
Easy to cut on the bench and fold over the edges.


I coined it in place after getting the general shape by hand.

Coil spring retainers to keep it in place

Worked like a charm

Dennis can you identify the product you used? I was considering buying a turbo cover, but they are not inexpensive. I like your alternative.

gmreider wrote:Dennis can you identify the product you used? I was considering buying a turbo cover, but they are not inexpensive. I like your alternative.

Yes the good lava blankets for turbos are hand tailored and sew making them labor intensive, thus expensive. I had one and as it gets cycles starts to turn to lava ash.
We will see how this holds up over time. The insulation being captured by two sheets stainless should keep the stuff in place.
I saw a company from Oz DCI at SEMA and they had a host of products. I told them the application and they recommended the XT-5000 version:
http://www.verociousmotorsports.com/Sho ... ield-3-Ply
Verocious also has the springs or you can use safety wire.
I reused the hook washers from my old cozy. I'm sure you can make some out of stainless sheet.

Not much to report, which is a good thing with a non OEM major project.
No leaks, cracks, or meltdowns.
I have been driving it to work on the nice days.

Added some more thermal management. With the header' primaries sitting higher and the turbo in its new location need some more protection. Lava mat with self stick laminated to a thin layer of aluminum sheet. Edge treatment with high temp RTV silicone. Whole works fastened to the existing insulation.

A little over 20,000 views/hits in two years time.
Thanks for coming along on the project thread.

Thank you for keeping the bar set high on this board!

Nice thermal management, brings new ideas for myself aswell.

Always a great feeling when one can daily-drive projects with a lot of custom solutions! Keep it up!

schwartz wrote:Nice thermal management, brings new ideas for myself aswell.

Always a great feeling when one can daily-drive projects with a lot of custom solutions! Keep it up!

Glad to inspire some ideas.

So the car was running super sweet with my newly adjusted ignition timing map at the idle region. No stalling or stumble, 850 rpm target. It would swing +- 30 rpm per the datalog. Cold start was good, hot start, and even heat soak start were all good with no throttle intervention. Feeling pretty proud of myself I was using it as a daily driver before the weather turns. Stop at the store for some groceries and the flipin idle is at 3k+, WTF?
This is the second time the driver in the ECU has taken a dump a failed to send a pwm signal to the AIC. The MOSFETs seem to be dying in my EMS ecu. ECU replacement has moved into P1 on the to do list. Well I needed a project for this winter.

Does it use an AIC valve? I had one that got stuck so now and then, with weird idle values as a result..

Scared the crap out of me the first time it happened, pressed the clutch for a red light and the revs went up instead of down..

Krizzie wrote:Does it use an AIC valve? I had one that got stuck so now and then, with weird idle values as a result..

Scared the crap out of me the first time it happened, pressed the clutch for a red light and the revs went up instead of down..

It does use the 2 pin Bosch AIC valve found on LH. The internal cylinder shuttle/rotates back and forth to meter air. In this case, it fail to wide open and revs high. I unplugged it and the rpms "dropped" to 1500.
I currently have a total ghetto fix with a 5 cent coin and black tape capping off the inlet of the valve, and the hose put back in place. I adjusted the T/B plate to get a reasonable idle (850). Use the ignition map as the prime authority to keep the idle steady. The ignition map is instantaneous, where the AIC is playing catchup. It only took me eight years and countless hours in the driveway dorking with the AIC settings to figure I was on the wrong path.

Well that's also a way to "fix" it..

Pocket change still comes in handy so now and then!

Update with a little work done.
I have provisioned in per cylinder lambda sensors. In order for the readings to be accurate for a force inducted engine the exhaust pressure reading needs to be obtained and factored in with the AEM Wideband arrangement. I took the baseline pressure kit and added a T arrangement, so the pressures from the two banks of secondaries would merge thus giving me an average prior to the turbo. This is used only for testing, so not a lot of duty.
First layout. Simple and to the point. Mount the T fitting to the chassis. I was worried the tubes would fatigue because of engine movement relative to the chassis.


Round two.
Mounted the T fitting on the tripod and use the flex line to suck up the movement. More creative with the tube routing and bending, but I like it.

Wastegate/Merge collector ports. -4 AN. 1-4 and 2-3 primaries.

Geez I felt pretty proud of myself for gluing some pieces of wood together this weekend

squaab99t wrote:In order for the readings to be accurate for a force inducted engine the exhaust pressure reading needs to be obtained and factored in with the AEM Wideband arrangement.

This part confused me until I did some reading up on how o2 sensors get their reference oxygen and now I think I understand it a little better. I guess now I am still confused, just in a different way, but how is this not a bigger problem with all FI cars? Is it because factory ECU's usually ignore the narrowband o2 sensor when at WOT to get high boost levels? Is this more of an issue that mostly pops up when tuning with a wideband?