Need help with a turbo swap!!

[my240driftz]

Does anyone have a write-up on changing a t25 turbo for another t25 turbo on a sr20det redtop ? Or has anyone done this before ? If so how long and difficult of a job am I looking at ? Thanks in advance

[janda240sx]

Takes maybe an hour tops.

[my240driftz]

did you do the turbo swap urself or did u have help?

[schanne]

It will take a little longer than an hr. Make sure you have all the tools you need. I used a torque wrench, but make sure you have extensions and swivell wrench's. That will help. Search\, this was just discussed a day or 2 ago.

[janda240sx]

I unbolted the motor mounts and lifted the engine to one side for easier acces. You don't have to though.

[modulation]

When was the last time the turbo was out?If it's been along time, soaking all the bolts in PB-Blaster over-night before you do the job or even a few hours will make it much easier..

[johnnyballs180]

have lots of tools. ratchets with extensions and swivels are the shiznits. one of those magnetic bowls for holding screws and things, those are nice, but you don't need it. get masking tape and a sharpie.when you do all this, you'll have a lot of parts laying around; STAY ORGAINIZED. IT HELPS.if you take pics, not only would it be cool for us to see what you did, but it's also a good reference if you screw something up. you can go back and look and see how things went or whatever. i took lots of pics of the vacuum lines, and it helped.if you have a friend, awesome. put them to work. if you're solo like me, no sweat. if i can do it, so can most monkeys.

first, get the car up on jack stands. you'll want to be able to get under the car to remove some screws and clamps from the turbo.

remove all the piping from the turbo and intake. you could probably get away with leaving some of it there, but it's way easier when there's nothing in the way. make sure you remember EXACTLY how everything went.if you have masking tape, now's the time to bust it out. there's a lot of vacuum and pressure hoses in the area, so get the tape and a sharpie, write down which lines are what, and make sure the tape won't come off. when i did my turbo swap, i didn't know the names of everything the lines went to, so i would name them like, "grey thing on top of manifold"loli later discovered that's the eai valve.

now that your hoses are labeled, remove the ones in your path. lines like your wastegate, bov if you have one, eai control solenoid, blah blah blah.

i loosened up my power steering reservoir to scoot it over, just because i could you may want to unscrew your dipstick and LIGHTLY push it out of the way as well.. your call, but it helped me.

now that all that crap is finished, remove the eai valve (your sr20 might not have one, but it should). it sits right above the exhaust manifold; it's grey, ugly, and has a hose that (normally) connects to the turbo elbow, and a vacuum hose that connects to.... something. i forget.

remove your o2 sensor. this guy also sits on the turbo elbow. there's a clip that runs like a foot behind it; undo that and make sure you put your o2 sensor in a happy place, like a strip club.

take off the damn manifold. there's 8 nuts holding it in. an extension for your ratchet and a swivel are going to be your best friend.take all the m'fu*kers out and stash the nuts. you'll probably have to use a combination of wrenches, ratchets, and swear words to get them out. it's just a pita.note: you may want to leave ONE nut on, the easiest to access even, just to hold the manifold from falling off when you go under the car.it won't, but, just to be safe.you could even do this part before taking the manifold off, but, whatever. crawl under the car, remove the exhaust hanger, then remove the 3 nuts and bolts that hold your turbo elbow to the down pipe. once the 3 are removed, let the exhaust just chill on the ground. it won't hurt anything.while you're under the car, remove the hose that connects the oil drain doodad on the turbo. there's probably going to be a shiney thing wrapped around it with a wire. just keep it safe. i think it's thermal insulation, yea?be prepared for some oil to leak out.now that you have that part done, remove the three hardlines connecting to the turbo from the motor. two of them are for coolant, one is for oil. be VERY careful not to damage any of the lines. don't tug and yank on them or the turbo.i highly recommend puting a catch pan or something under the turbo to collect all the fluids that are going to come out. also, it will be nice to cap off the coolant lines because they're probably going to leak and leak on you. and that's not cool, man. shove some paper towels or something in the ends.there's a hundred cats that live downstairs of me, and my neighbor feeds them. if they died from drinking coolant, i'd never hear the end of it. haha

okay, FINALLY, the ***** is ready to come out. do a final inspection on everything around the area. are all vacuum lines tagged properly? is there anything fragile in the area that i might hit with the turbo? all coolant lines off? oil?

my first time taking it out, i was SUPER methodical and took it nice and easy.. i can't afford to eff something up in that area.i don't know how you can do this in one hour... properly. if the engine's out of the car, it's a piece of cake.

this part's fun: taking the turbo oult. maybe you won't have such a hard time like i did, but you'll get it. the turbo's still attached to the manifold. unscrew that nut you put on there to keep the manifold from falling off and put it with the other nuts. (best to keep it all orgainzed. you'll thank yourself later) CAREFULLY slide the manifold off of the 8 studs. you'll have to wiggle, slide, push, turn, wiggle some more, get angry, and then it comes out. it's a little heavy. heavier than you want to be handling with if trying to keep from breaking things, but it's not so bad. just be patient with it.it's not as bad as i make it... it was around 1 in the morning when i got to the point of taking the turbo out; i was tired and pissed off, so that made it more challenging. later though, after knowing how it's done, it was a sinch.

now your turbo's off! this is a good opportunity to clean the area, change gaskets, and inspect some stuff.

if you have any questions man, let me know. i'm no expert, but i'm stupid enough to have taken the turbo out as many times as i have on my sr20. good luck! take pics!

[janda240sx]

Nice and very descriptive. Should've said that I had another person helping. Anyway I can do it PROPERLY by myself in 1 1/2 hours. With 2 people that know what they're doin 1 hour. And I also had to rethread the block for the coolant line.

[johnnyballs180]

loli never have anyone with two cents of what's going on helping me. in most cases, i'd rather do it by myself.. it's the only way i can insure everything is the way i wanted it.the turbo i put in my car was a t28, so for the MOST part, it went in the same as the t25. i didn't have to fart around with the turbo lines either; i had also gotten earl's stainless braided lines to replace all the crappy factory hard lines. the turbo lines kick ***! i could route them a little differently too.

so, my240driftz, did you get a chance to try the swap? the part that sucked the most was removing the studs from the manifold. a couple of them broke off when attaching my turbo to it.. i think it was soley my fault though; i have a tendency to tighten things a littttttle too much. plus the studs were 15 years old..i always fear things will come off, but if you notice (and i forgot to mention in the last post), there's two steel clips that fold over and hold the nut in place onto the stud on the turbo side. these guys you can just bang with a hammer, but be careful not to break them.i broke one