Hi, i have been thinking about this project for a while and now decided to post my plans and ask for your ideas

I found a guy from rs25, who made custom ic piping for his front mount. It looked pretty decent, and i liked the idea, so i added some of my own thoughts and here i am now.

http://www.rs25.com/forums/f7/81773-...t-ej18t-8.html

My plan would be similar to that but with some differences, to mount the front mount upside down, so the ins and outs are on top, then either weld some elbows there or use 90degree hoses and direct the piping straight to engine bay. That of course means cutting some metal brackets to give some clearance to the pipes. So, that also means, at least in my case, that i would need narrower radiator. I think mishimotos or koyos can be pretty much narrower than stock radiators, giving enough room for the pipes to enter engine bay from both sides.

Another thing would be to twist the turbochargers cold side, housing, to opposite direction, facing left (when you stand in front of the car) rather than right. That would also save a fair amount of piping. This would be pretty much all piping before the ic. Now to move on to the other side, it can be either to direct the pipes to the throttle body as its done, or to rotate the manifold and save also a lot of piping. But this is another phase.

This is a really crappy cell phone pic of my current engine bay:
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/o...A/IMG_0268.jpg
its a ver. 6 sti ra limited

So why im planning all this? First of all to do something differently, and the joy of doing an interesting diy project, and also to gain some response from the turbo. Doing all this with rotated manifold actually results roughly half the piping from the front mount kit, if not more than that. Also to make engine bay look a bit nicer and complex, and maybe a bit different than most.

Im trying to gather some ideas and tips for the project. I have not yet started to do it, since my car is daily driven and i dont want it to be under construction very long. Thats why i am trying to think things through, and then start the project step by step.

Im sure many of you have had or have realized similar ideas.
Any tips on relocating the alternator would be good, since its the most difficult to figure out while rotating the manifold. What radiator would be narrow enough to make clearance for the ic pipes. I have had the cheap chinese aluminium radiator which broke after a year, and could be fixed, and was too big anyway for this project so im guessing mishimotos and koyos are worth looking into.

Please, share some ideas...

 

I would go with the Carl Davey aleternator bracket- I have looked at loads of options on this, and his makes the most sense, although initially looks expensive.

 

As above unless your good at fabrication of course.

 

any downsides on mounting bov before the intercooler rather than in front of the throttle body?

 

did mine myself using hand tools n a vice. already had a plan of what i was going to do, mainly by starign at it for an hour and thinking of simple, robust solutions
the alternator is solidly mounted and the belt tension is done by modifying the alternator adjuster and mounting a roller on an arm, using a 46inch belt it all sits nice and low and gives loads of space for the inlet pipework
i used all original pipework from i/c kit and just needed a 45degree reducer to go to the throttle body. also spun compressor wheel almost 180deg, would post up pics but engine came out sunday

 

the whole job cost me about £50

46inch belt
45deg reducing elbow
8mm thick ally plate
a couple nuts n bolts
gaskets
grinding disks (i smoothed off the inlet manifold brackets etc)

but then i got carried away and spent that much on making up an inlet pipe, relocating the p/s reservoir etc.... i get carried away alot!

 

and you used the original alternator bracket? just flipped it over after grinding it a bit?

 

yea, it's ideal. the solid mount i made for the alternator also mounts off that bracket, sits underneath the alternator, kinda banana shape

 

Has any 1 got any pictures for this and if you could kindly put them up or even pm me as I want to do something like this thanks

 

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