Turbo mounting and downpipe fabrication

 Today I mounted the turbo to the manifold for the first time, also started fabricating the downpipe. Everything is extremely tight, with very tight clearances to the motor mount and jack shaft, but in the end it should be good. I could have mounted the turbo differently but I didn't want to make the exhaust piping too crazy, with the current layout the two mufflers will exit center on the bumper of the car. Still contemplating what tip to use, but in reality its going to be a long time before I have to mount one.

Turbo manifold welding complete

Today I finished off 99% of the welding on the header, I just have to locate the position of the turbo and weld the turbo flange onto the header. Everything looks like its coming together really nice, but positioning the turbo is going to be a real pain in the ass due to space requirements and the size of the downpipe elbow. Also pictured is the dash that I picked up a couple weeks ago, its a 240SX dash, I know a couple guys who have done this install. I always hear about how easy it is to do and now I know why, in the picture the dash is just sitting there, no bolts, no brackets......nothing, steering wheel is centered, even the tunnel matches up to the center part of the dash.

Turbo manifold update

Welding has commenced, I decided to add some bracing to the pipes in an attempt to keep warping down and to keep the pipes from touching each other over time. Hope to have it finished welding this week and start mounting the other hardware to the engine.

Turbo manifold progress

Well I had to rebuild a part of the header due to some clearance issues getting the outer primaries to fit. Right now its just tack welded, I should be welding it all tomorrow.

More parts arrive

Hopefully the last gauge came in today, I hope its the last cause its going to be hard to locate places to put all of them into the dash (speaking of which I need to take a couple photos of that update) So here's the list of gauges that is going to be installed on the project.

Stock ION redline Tach, Speedo, Fuel level, Water temp, Autometer Oil pressure, Oil temp, Fuel pressure, Air/Fuel, Pyro, Boost, Volt and a Aeroforce Interceptor.

Also the HID's for high and low beam on the custom projectors came in, 9005 and 9006 in 6000K.

Turbo manifold started

Just started up the ram horn turbo manifold, got it quite far in the prototype tonight, ran into a problem though and I have to take it back to the drawing board. I noticed after running the two inner primaries that the water pump and thermostat housing on the Ecotec's are too close to the outer primaries, making it impossible to run the outer primaries the way I was planning. So tomorrow I am going to have to cut apart half the work that I have done and build the outer primaries first so that everything clears the water housings. The pics of what I do will do tomorrow will show what was/is the problem.

Parts start flowing in

Got another piece to the puzzle today, a electronic boost controller, not much to say to it, look nice can't wait to see it in action. I've also gotten several more autometer gauges, waiting on one more and I will post up all the gauges that will be installed in this car, its really quite the list, I think that a Cessna has less gauges. Lastly this past weekend I went and grabbed a Nissan 240SX dashboard for the buildup, I know of a couple guys who have installed this dash into a Fiero and they come out looking great and are almost a bolt on modification.

Here's a couple shots of the boost controller.

Exhaust and Intake manifold pieces

Between March 20th and the end of August there wasn't much progress on Fierion, I had to get my new daily driver reliable with full tune up, fluid leak fixes, as well as install so upgrades, mostly suspension, brakes and stereo. Also over the last two months it was time to fully disassemble the donor ION..........but now I am currently back into full production mode and should have my hands TIG welding some new parts, pictured are all the parts that I am going to have to weld up in the next couple weeks, but to do that I have to put the donor motor back into the chassis to get the full mock up done.