Im not so sure you will be able to drive the car with the Stillen can tune and the A2A kit. The mafs will be seeing pushed air instead of pulled. It might work but i am not sure. I just wanted to point this out so you can have a back up plan if needed. Definitely stay out of boost and if anything just use this to idle the car to check for leaks of any kind. If its driveable then limp it to the tuner but I wouldnt go drive around for fun.

Yes! The car will be babied until tuned (which will be very difficult). I do have the advantage of having the AEM failsafe gauge to tell me boost as well as AFR in real time. It also has a data logging function that I can monitor. Neat gauge although rather expensive. As long as I stay out of boost the MAF sensor won't see any difference than it would NA. I should be able to still run 70 mph cruise with no boost. Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I have read, I should not see any boost build until around 3K rpm.

You could run the car at 7500rpms and not see boost. Its all a matter of how hard you are into the peddle.

Are you still planning on getting me the rest of my parts before Friday?

Yes, I have a tracking number for you and it should all be there by Wednesday/Thursday.

Sweet! Thanks!!

Y pipe has arrived. One more box to go!

Slow progress
 

Well it's Sunday night and after a couple of very good margarita's I've decided to update the thread.

Lots of interruptions during the build so it isn't going very fast.

Friday was the oil cooler day and it went pretty smooth. The hardest part is getting the sandwich plate on with the hoses attached. You have to be very careful that you don't cross-thread the coupler bolt. Fired the engine up and no leaks. The rest of Friday was taking the intake manifold off before heading out to a concert recording which went off without a single problem.

Saturday morning my buddy Jim came over at 7am (yes, he is that good of a friend!). We started tackling the fuel pump mods. That wasn't fun at all. It is so hard to get to and difficult to maneuver the fuel pump out. The big hold up was getting the saddle tank hose off. The locking clip had rotated around where I could not get to it. I finally got a small screwdriver in there to rotate the clip so I could squeeze it. Wile this was going on gas was dripping on the blue O-ring that you are not supposed to get gas on........ as soon as I got the pump out I quickly washed the O-ring with soap and water. I'm not sure which caused the O-ring to swell but it did and it would not allow the pump to sit down low enough to get the screws back on the retaining ring, of which one of them rolled off into the lost screw void and was never seen again. Working on the fuel pump is best done with two people. There are several three handed moments and even a couple of four handed ones too. Jim and I worked till noon and then had to stop while I went to a another recording job that afternoon. We had gotten all of the fuel system work done including the injectors so it was a good stopping point.

Sunday morning I started back on my own getting the new intake manifold on. I found it very easy to do. I have a inspection camera (Harbor Freight $69.99 and no person working on cars shouldn't have one) and it made the job MUCH easier. All in all, I had the new intake on in about an hour. I would gladly do two, maybe three of those jobs compared to the fuel pump. Maybe it's just me, but the fuel pump was a huge PITA compared to the intake.

Thing progressed right along until I got the air-to-air intercooler. I found that the kit is difficult to figure out without instructions. TopgunZ is sending them to me tomorrow. I just could not figure out what silicone coupler went where. Very confusing even looking at the pictures posted. Me not being able to figure this out lead to the margaritas. I was hungry and had to eat so my wife and I headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant.

Tomorrow I hope to finish everything up except the gauge installation. I'll probably save that for next weekend.

I'll add in pictures later. I just realized that my camera was set to high res and the pictures are too big to upload. Time to do some resizing in Photoshop. Here are some pics from Jim's Iphone.

You should have called me earlier to walk through the couplers. Also, I should have sent the work instructions, my apologies.

No problem, I needed a break. Hopefully I'll get her done today.

Just sent you the Work Instructions.

Brute Force
 

Thanks! Working through some of the issues now. I did decide to take the night off after figuring out the solution to the Y-pipe problem. A big old hammer and a wood wedge fixed that SOB.

Here are the resized pictures.

Good job TBATT, the hardest part was the fuel pump for me aswell.

Your almost there!

Thanks! I'm looking forward to the engine start. I hope that fuel pump is okay. We had to seal it in with a bead of RTV since the o-ring had swelled up and the local dealer did not have one in stock. Special order that would take 1-2 weeks. I was afraid to ask the price.

I just ordered a oil catch can. I didn't care to have the crankcase being vented by just a filter. I had just a filter on my autoX car and it still got a oil mist on the engine. That was with a NA twin carb setup, with boost I'm expecting even more. Summit Racing had a nice CF one for a reasonable price.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/m...c-cf/overview/

Tonight I hope to have the Y-pipe with the MAFs installed. The fit is really tight the way I ran into the throttle body coolant lines so they are going to go away. I just need to get a barbed fitting to connect the left and right side coolant lines together. I'll pick one up on the way home.

Here is a link to the inspection camera I used.

Digital Inspection Camera

HF puts these on sale regularly for $69.99. You will find so many uses for this camera! The end is small enough to go through the sparkplug hole along with the 90 degree mirror so you can inspect cylinder walls.

You can just delete the coolant to the throttle bodies. I mean, you are in Alabama.

Yep, that is what I did last night, removed to TB coolant lines. They had to go as they were in the way of the Y-pipe along with several cables and the windshield washer filler neck. The Y-pipe is finally on but it sure put up a fight. I wound up having to spread the ends further apart in order to get both clamps on. My wood wedge and hammer trick worked out well to spread the ends and did very little springing back.

Getting both of those couplers on at the same time is also a challenge!

Now I need to get the Y-pipe to intercooler coupler on. The 45 degree coupler (short one) is too long and will need to be trimmed. Sliding excess lengths of silicone couplers on to these pipes is not fun. I got the coupler on but it just won't slide any further up the y-pipe so I need to take it back off and trim it a couple of inches. I would have had it done last night but I had to go to a HOA meeting about our 4th of July party.

I did have the carb on my old Honda Civic freeze up once. We have high humidity during the winter. The humidity will cause a carb or throttle body to ice up as the air expands passing the throttle plate. Up North, you guys have dry air winters most of the time but colder temps. At least that has been my experience in Illinois and North Dakota.

I am going to put the couplers on for the rest of the guys that get this. They did make them pretty tight.

Heres the best trick in the world for ANY tough coupler. WINDEX!! If you spray some windex on the pipe before sliding it on it will slip on like butter. The methanol in the windex will evaporate it quickly after. This is how i have always done mine.

I should probably put that in the Work Instructions.

WINDEX rules!
 

Got all of the hoses on!!

I could not get the 45 degree coupler to work coming off of the SC so I used a 90 and it worked perfect. I also managed to get the pinch weld cleared out from under the SC by careful use of my saws-all and dremel tool. Mainly I cut the pinch weld on both sides of the Volute exhaust and then used the dremel tool with a carbide cutting disc to cut partially through the metal so I could grab it with a needle nose vise grip and simply fold the metal over. Took about 15 minutes and I did not have to remove the SC.....again.

You can see my BOV muffler. I hope it works.

I need to get a 3/8 barbed union to connect two water lines together and I think I'm done installing. Far from finished yet though. Tomorrow night will be the ECU reflash and water lines then I'll be ready to fire the beast up.

Time for a tall rum and coke and then a shower.

Houston, we have a problem.................before removing the MAF sensors from the stock intake, I used a marker to show airflow direction so I wouldn't install the sensor in the wrong direction. It looked as if the mounting plate was symmetrical but the sensor is made to go on one way so you can't screw it up. This when I found out that the sensor mounting blocks were welded on backwards! I'm pretty dang sure that the MAF is directional because it can only be installed in one direction.

I'm going to check it again when I get home and also compare it to the Stillen y-pipe.

If the mounting blocks are indeed backwards I'll take the pipe to a local machine shop and have them cut them off just below the screw holes and turn the top section 180 degrees and re-weld them back on. With luck they can get it done tomorrow. While I'm having them do that I'll also have them spread the ends apart a little more. They need to be around .5 inch apart but were .219 when I first got the pipe. I used a wood wedge to spread them apart so that both silicone couplers and clamps will fit. I think some heat is needed to spread it any further.

I was expecting to have some issues being that the kit is so new. Top has been great helping me out and I am supplying him with useful information about the install instructions and any issues I've had. Team work!

I just got back from a work trip. Ill check out the rest of the pipes tonight. Hopefully!!!...They just put those on backwards.

Let me know the cost of the fabrication on those flanges and ill Paypal you the funds.


BTW. TBatt did text and say the windex trick "worked like a charm". It really does make a tough coupler slide around with ease.

I dropped the pipe off at a local fabricator and they should have the blocks turned around by the end of the day today. With luck I can get things finished up on Saturday.

The shop just called and they have my pipe fixed. They are great about serving walk-in business. Same day service is hard to find in shops these days.

When I walked in with the pipe he said that it looked like it came off of a super charger setup before I had told him anything. Old guys rule!

Maybe tomorrow will be a good day and I can get this beast fired up. Now THAT will make for a good fathers day!!!!!!

Success!!!!

Fired her up around 12:30. Dang that SC rattles a lot. It's a good thing that I knew that they do when they are at idle speed. One of my other motor head buddies drives a CTS V-Spec and he says his SC rattles like crazy after a cold start. He said it sounds like it is full of marbles!

If you have the hood closed and the windows up you can't hardly hear it. I would hate to give away my little secret at a traffic light......

The test drive didn't go so well. The car was rather jerky at low throttle but was fine with a bit of load on it. I came back home and did a Idle Air Volume re-learn and it helped a lot but it still isn't quite right. Service engine light came on after about 10 minutes of light driving. I'll go check the code and see what's up.

At least the install is almost done. I need to get the gauges installed too. The oil pressure sensor wires are going to have to be extended as they are way too short. No big deal for me but just another thing to do before I can be done.

The custom EcuTek tune will take place next Saturday. Until then I have to baby the car. I still get a little swoosh from the BOV just driving lightly, no flutter from the stock Stillen BOV so far.

The sound of the SC spinning up is sooooooooo sexy! Sounds great mixed in with the FI exhaust. Now I have to behave for a whole week before I can play with my car. I'll continue to drive it so that any problem that might be waiting for me can be discovered before heading over to Z1. It is about a 3 1/2 hour drive so I want the car to have plenty of shake down time before heading out.

I'll post a dyno chart after the tune.

The Service Engine Soon (SES) light was caused by a Lean Bank 1 issue. That explains the wandering idle and rough light load at low rpm. As soon as I push the throttle the engine seems happy again and at speeds above 45 mph she seems to be fine. I'm thinking that the fuel map is off on the low rpm side. Cruise at 60 mph and above is fine.

The AFR gauge is going in tomorrow night so that may help understand what the issue is. I am a little confused about why the idle would be so lean. That part of the map should be virtually stock except that it needs to be leaned out because of the larger injectors. Fuel pressure is running in the mid 50s so it has plenty to work with. Anyone else seen this problem?

I did try both tunes that Stillen provided and they run about the same at idle. I have NOT gone above 3K rpm and all of that has been with very little throttle input. I'm babying her.

Paypal sent for cost to flip MAF flanges.

Got it. Thanks!

The car seems to be running much better now. I think the ECU was just out of whack after the canned tune load.

Gauges are installed. I took some pictures but forgot to transfer them from my camera. I'll try and get that done tonight. One step closer........

Be sure to post some vids of ur dyno/tune session

Will do using my phone.

Oh CRAP!

When I got off work and went out to start the Z it was taking a real long time for the engine to start. When it did it was running very rough. It settled down while I was plugging in my GPS and I proceeded on. As soon as I got on the Interstate I could tell that something was wrong as my AFR was pegged at 18! The car was bucking and not happy. I pulled over and looked a my fuel pressure gauge (under the hood) and it was only reading about 40 psi when it should be in the mid 50's. As I was limping the car home it kept getting worse. When I finally got home the fuel pressure had dropped to less than 20!

The pump runs when the car is turned on and then shuts off as if it has reached it's pressure cut off however the pressure gauge is still only showing 20 psi.

I'm pretty sure that the pump should run continuously and excess flow is returned inside of the pump. At least that was what I remembered it doing when it was working correctly. Does anyone know if the pump is supposed to run continuously?

Anyway the trip to Z1 is off until I can fix the problem. Robert at Z1 was very understanding and wished me luck. I had pre-paid for two nights stay that I'll lose too. Double CRAP!

I'm open to ideas. I hate the thought of taking the pump out. I have full tank of gas and that will need to be drained of at least three gallons so it doesn't spill out. It is 105 degrees now. I wonder if the temperature sensor has anything to do with this problem.

CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!

Here are the pictures of the gauge installation.

I just got off the phone with Stillen. They think I have a bad fuel pump and are sending me a replacement. Either way I have to pull the pump out to see what the problem is. Guess I'll be doing that this Saturday. I am NOT looking forward to that! Seriously, the fuel pump is a PITA.

Question: I'm thinking back about the fuel pump problem and the pump may have been bad from the beginning. I noticed that when the pump was running it was way louder than the stock pump which I could barely hear at all. The 255 Walbro pump could be heard while the engine is running above the FI TDX exhaust system. Compared to the stock pump, should this pump be that loud?

Did you have it all buttoned back up with the sound deadening material and cover on with plastic? If yes, then it shouldn't be heard at all when the car is running.

Oh yeah, fully buttoned up and it was still easily heard.

I just finished up installing the replacement pump and it is as quiet as a mouse. That was it, a bad pump.

Now to re-schedule my diff install and tune at Z1.

My tach sensor has arrived so I will be working on it and a dimmer circuit for the AEM gauges tomorrow.

BTW: It is MUCH easier to get to the fuel pump by taking out the passenger seat. Us big guys need the extra room!

Avant Garde M590 wheels are shipping TODAY.:happydance:

My car idles fine but runs like crap with the Stillen tune. Going with EcuTek and remote tuning by Seb at SpecialtyZ. I hope this works!

My wife is like, "so you take your car that was running just fine, spend a bunch of time and money on it and now you can't drive it. What were you thinking?"

If only she knew...........400+ rwhp should make her scream!

Hahahahahaha....I thought My wife was the only one that said this! I experienced the same thing when I first installed my S/C.....The Stillen can tune had me down for a few days as it was too rich to drive on the road. StillenZ84 and a few others also had some hiccups when he converted to the A2A Kit....it happens.

What I can guarantee you is that Seb will be there for you every step of the way...especially through the bad times. He helped me troubleshoot a lot of stuff when I switched to EcuTek. I had tried remote tuning before with a different Tuner when I was N/A and let me just say that the amount of pulls and data logs that Seb had me doing freaked me out. He won't stop until he get's it right and he also won't do anything to jeopardize the safety of your motor.

Excited for you man, and totally sub'd for your results! :tiphat: