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The Dorman replacement manifolds that come with the kit. I thought it was dumb to supply manifolds with AIR and ERG fittings in them. Just one more place for a leak.
The tube for my wastegate was MIG welded first then Had TIG over it to make it look good. Not a big deal until two large chunks of weld break off and lock up your turbine wheel. I ran a borescope down the crossover and it wasn't pretty in there. The ID the T4 flange is smaller than an actual T4 flange. Quite obvious when you put the gasket on. Nothing to worry about at my power level just another thing I noticed. It was also near impossible to get the bottom bolt tight from the manifolds to the crossover on the passenger side. I ended up installing GM truck manifolds and left the studs in to aid in R and R. I notched the k member for this to work. That work may not have been necessary but I didn't want to have to worry about leaks and this made it much easier to remove and install.
My downpipe didn't fit that great. I don't know if it was my kit or all downpipes are that tight with the stock k member but i didn't even know if I was going to get it back in after I wrapped it. The way the downpipe is supposed to hold up that heavy exhaust with a Torca clamp to just awful. I plan to get a tubular K member and run a bigger downpipe on the other side of the motormount. Some of these are not there fault it's just what a realized after using a kit designed fit a stock car.
No intercooler mount. They should have supplied some sort of mount instead of having you bolt the intercooler to the plastic bumper support. Don't really care much for the cold side. Had to trim a ton off of the fuse boxes move them over and still spent a hour adjusting it to where I think it wouldn't rub a hole in the coupler that goes through there. The spring that came in the blow off was half the pressure it needed to be.
Instructions were almost non existent.
The alternator relocation bracket was pretty cheesy. After figuring what to put where and finding the right length belt which took several trips to the auto part store I noticed that when you tighten the turnbuckle for propper tension that it would change the angle of the alternator. I replaced the bracket with a much more solid mount with a built In auto tensioner.
Just ran into some things I was Hoping not to deal with a kit.
Sounds like a lot of the complaints you had were things I brought up in the write up like the truck manifolds, the alternator bracket (which was a bit of a struggle to figure put at first but once I did it was a nice sturdy piece), the down pipe which I fixed by adding v bands and the cut out. The down pipe not fitting through the motor mount area possibly could have been from work motor mounts which I did experience once or twice on installs.
There's definitely room for improvement and I feel like it's that way with almost anything. But like you said you get what you pay for. I'd rather do a little extra work to have extra cash in my pocket than spend a lot more and bolt everything right up.
At the time there was nothing even close to on3 price range that I could find. And I'm glad I did because I was more than happy with the kit.
Sorry again that you had a bad experience but I hope you don't blame my write up for the purchase lol.
Hi EvilZ - your original post was my blueprint - will do a build page after clutch break in and dyno numbers but used your drain line guide and built a very similar one and it appears to be fine, so thank you. Here are a couple of pics of the finished install (I also did a LS conversion to a LT car for mine).
05-21-2017, 08:20 PM
