ATX P5 Turbo Build by Richs970

[richs970]

I recently fell back in love with my P5 after years of borderline neglect. I'm from NYC so the car gets visually beat up on a daily basis and the potholes are like craters, which made me give up on it. But recently I've been fixing her up and now I've decided that all this talk about boost sounds too good to pass up...

Current Mods
MagnaFlow Catback
Matt V Retrofitted Lights
-MSP OEM Turbo setup
GT2554R Turbo
S-Pipe
Tapped Upper Oil Pan
All OEM coolant lines and fittings
Oil Feed line with brass T-fitting
Oil Return line
Exhaust Manifold Gasket
Manifold -> Turbo Gasket
Turbo -> S-Pipe Gasket
S-Pipe to J-Pipe Gasket
-Mishimoto Intercooler
-Altered Customs MSP Intercooler Piping Kit
-JCell's Dual Gauge Bezel
-Prosport Gauges
Boost
Oil Pressure
Fuel Pressure
-AEM UEGO Wideband A/F Gauge
-ProSport Sandwich Plate
-Vibrant Vacuum Distribution Block
-HKS SSQV BOV
-2.5" SSQV BOV flange pipe
-B&M Transmission Cooler
-Begi FMU
-Flyin Miata o2 Voltage Clamp
-Ebay catless midpipe (gotta pass NJ emission in February)
-Doc B Blueprinted Oil Pump (he has my oil pump now)
-Doc B PRV
-Oil filter relocation kit from ebay
-AWR Engine Mount Inserts (70)
-Fog Deletes

Future Stuff
Body Work and Paint Job!!!
Lentech Valve Body (expensive but worth it?)
Millenia PCV
Tokico Blues and Eibach Spring Combo or something similar

I'll post pics below as progress is made. Enjoy.

 

[richs970]

Pictures

Before

After

4-6-2010 - Mishimoto Intercooler, B&M Transmission Cooler, and Begi RRFPR

4-7-2010 - Gauges, BOV, Sandwich Plate, and Vac Block

4-9-2010 - Mani, Turbo, S-Pipe, Coolant Lines, Oil Lines, Tapped Upper Oil Pan

4-12-2010 BOV Flange Pipe

4-15-2010 Engine Mount Inserts, misc. gaskets, connectors and fittings from ATP

4-20-2010 Piping (got one random blue coupler,lol. Not sure why)

4-24-2010 Vac Fitting set from yudkib

4-24-2010 Dual Guage Pod by JCell

4-28-2010 ebay midpipe

5-17-2010 Oil lines and fittings from Jegs + Bung for PRV return line + and PRV

5-17-2010 Oil Pump, coated and modded by Doc B Racing

5-17-2010 Radio Bracket and Single DIN Triple Gauge Pod + Extra Oil Plumbing fittings

 

[richs970]

So I need a little help deciding on something. And at he same time giving my thread a cheap bump, lol.

I've got a few things going in all at once. Up until now I'd planned on doing all this work with the engine in the car. But the more I research, the more I'm thinking that I should just lift the engine out of the car. The turbo setup should be easy enough it seems, but between the engine mount inserts, and the oil pump install, it's looking more and more like taking the engine out completely may save a lot of time. Question is, will it save me enough time to justify disconnecting everything from the engine and lifting it out (something I've never done)? Maybe it'll be about the same time overall?

I'm not 100% what the oil pump replacement will entail. According to the workshop manual I need to remove the timing belt and the transmission. It seems that the transmission removal is not necessary if I can just remove the two bolts connecting the transmission to the girdle. Which I was going to do by just drilling through the bell housing. But, the timing belt removal is a time consuming project by itself. It probably wouldn't be much easier with the engine out though.

The engine mount inserts, it seems, can be done with the engine in, as long as I can jack up the transmission/engine while removing each mount. It would definitely be easier to do them all in one shot if the engine was out though.

Ok this is a wall of text, so hopefully someone can give their opinion. Is it worth hoisting the engine out or not? If so I have a lot more research to do in order to learn the proper steps.

 

[shane02pro5]

I very confused...the fuel pump is under the back seat and takes 30min max.

 

[richs970]

I very confused...the fuel pump is under the back seat and takes 30min max.

lol wow I meant oil pump. haha I'm gonna edit that post cause that's gonna confuse people.
Was looking at fuel pumps this morning.

 

[MP3Night]

Nice build man...Good luck

 

[JCell]

Subbin

 

[richs970]

Sweet. My first follower. Hope you enjoy.
I'd love to start the build in the next three weeks since I've got pretty much everything I need. But I'm goin to Vegas in the beginning of June so I might just wait until I get back. But, since I'm pretty excited to start I may do a couple of the more minor things to get all set up and refamiliarize myself with everything, like installing the the motor mount inserts and gauges and pods, etc. Stay tuned....

 

[justanothermp5]

sweet intercooler, i should get one like that




oh wait.....

 

[richs970]

sweet intercooler, i should get one like that




oh wait.....

Haha definitely bit that off you man. This thing is sytlish tho. Plus I need black so crackheads in NYC can't see that easily at night. Luckily you're about 500 mi away or so, so I guess we won't look like fools with matching coolers.

 

[justanothermp5]

its cool, its not like i copyrighted it lol
and just an fyi, the coating on this thing is absolute crap, i already have some sections where the black is completely gone, like on the left weld bead

if you keep the grill in the bumper i think that should keep most of the rocks and bugs out
i have to clean bugs out of mine like every 3 days haha

 

[richs970]

Good to know. I'll keep it wrapped in cardboard as long as possible during the install then. I was planning on keepin the grill in anyway. Trying to stay as aesthetically low profile as I can for now.
You had your car broken into right. I think I remember you saying that some retards jumped on your hood and roof a while back? I got broken into last New Years eve, got the window replaced, replaced all the electronics they stole (two amps and an Alpine HU), and drove up to Hunter to go skiing and realized only after a week and 300mi or so that the asshole that broke in actually dropped his crackpipe in my car and it was still there wedged in between the carpet and the plastic panel on the passenger side, lol. Thank god I didn't get pulled over....

 

[richs970]

Anybody know of a good place to get a bung welded into the aluminum girdle in NY/NJ/eastern PA. I have a return bung for the turbo (which you can see in the pictures), but I'm putting in the Doc B PRV and oil pump, and I'm going to need a second bung on the other side for the PRV return.

By the way, no one responded to my post above....any opinions on whether I should just hoist the whole engine. Has anyone switched out the oil pump and retimed while the engine is still in the car?

 

[Kfoster79]

Going to watch your thread... I too have a Auto P5 "Sport Shift" and have thought about turboing it, but I don't know yet.

 

[Crazee D]

woohoo Turbo P5's!!

 

[shane02pro5]

Hell yeah P5T>MSP

I've read of the oil pump or timing belt being done just pulling the pass side mount and most likely front and rear too to drop the motor and get at from underneath.

 

[Signature Sound]

when doing the timing, you must be extremely careful not to stretch the tensioner spring. for anyone that has done this and jacked up the spriing, you know what i am talking about. you cannot just buy the spring. you have to buy the whole pulley kit (again). i think thats why there is a toss up over this "to pull, or not to pull the engine" question. getting it wrong could mean having to buy some new internals, then you gotta pull it anyway. it would be a great opportunity to take care of the check valve under the intake mani while its out. if you are doing the DocB oil pump, you can install the oil pressure sending unit, the turbo feed tee, the block off adpater and attach the hoses much easier too. its a muther F'er when you have leaks because you cant get to something to tighten it properly. we all know what a great location the oil filter has been placed. pulling the motor will be good practice for when the urge to raise the boost gets overwhelming too LOL!! in any case, i wish you the best of luck and hope you keep it enjoyable. keep us updated... photos usually work best.

 

[richs970]

Thanks for the info, thats great stuff. I'm still planning on doing it while in the car at the moment, simply because I'd probably screw something up royally tryin to hoist it out. Not to mention I don't own a hoist, or know of an economical place to rent one. The nearest place is an hour and fifteen minutes away and they want 250 bucks to rent it when I can just buy one for that price. But...I'm still wrestling with the idea of just lifting it out. I can get all that stuff on the back of the block done in half the time. I could get everything through the firewall much cleaner. Plus I could do all the engine mounts in half the time, and all of it can be done with the confidence of knowing I got everything tightened and sealed the right way.

If anyone in north/central/OC NJ has an engine hoist I can use/rent, it'd be greatly appreciated. I guess 250$ in the long run is worth the extra cash tho. Whats and extra 250 when I just spent 3k+ right? (8.3% is a lot actually)

I'd love to know how to get to the oil pump from below though. It probably wouldn't make it a whole lot easier tho, would it?
Thanks guys for the help tho. Pictures will definitely be taken.

 

[richs970]

Build starts next friday. I've got Vacuum hoses on the way. And an oil filter relocation kit from ebay. Going to get the bung welded into the MBSP this weekend as well as picking up the anti-fouler from NAPA.

Seems like I've got pretty much everything in order, but I have a bad feeling that I'm missing something really obvious. Can anyone spot anything I'm missing?

 

[richs970]

Ok build has begun. I've been going at it for about 4 days now. I started out doing the Doc B Oil System and that's done. I posted some pics on that thread, so I'm not going to post those here.

Turbo wise I have some issues:

I decided not to run the oil cooler, so I got a new banjo from ATP. I had the same problem as Fishdontbounce because the 14mm fitting from ATP was too big for the stock coolant banjo. It should be a 12mm banjo I think. Someone may want to fix that P5 turbo sticky thread, cause I think that thread recommends the 14mm. I didn't order it yet, but I'm going to try a 12mm Banjo bolt instead of a 14mm.

Getting the IM out is awful. I had to take out the water outlet on the front of the block because I couldn't get the EGR tube off from the IM side.

Thought the stock fuel lines were 3/8 so I got 3/8 barbed fitting fuel pressure sender adapter. Turns out that the fuel line is more like 5/16. So I went to a local store, picked up a ton of 5/16 fitting and adapters to basically make my own fuel pressure sender adapter, and then those wouldn't fit either. I wound up finally settling for 1/4" barbed fittings for the fuel lines. Is this right? 5/16 definitely wasn't fitting and it was damaging the inside of the hose. Finished product:

Have tomorrow off from work, so I'll be back at it. Hoping to find a 12mm banjo locally, get the oil pan back on and maybe even drop in the exhaust mani and turbo.