Today I got the turbo installed. It took all afternoon, and that's with a helper.
This morning I finished modifying the wiring harness to run at the front of the engine instead of a U behind it. Disassembling the exhaust was simple - the old Y-pipe came right off, and I cut the 3" tailpipe with a sawzall about a foot back.
Mounting the turbo
wasn't easy... maybe it would be, on a truck with a couple of inches body lift! But the complete turbo assembly just would NOT go past the firewall - I had to dismount the up-pipe. From there it wasn't too bad. In fact my helper noticed I'd pinched the O-ring in the oil drain pedestal and there would have been a huge leak there. So we figured it had to come off again for a reason
I bent the body seam over from underneath with vise-grips, then used a 1x2 bar and a 4# hammer to fold it over. Still not quite enough room for the flange on the Banks downpipe. A little more persuasion with a porta-power "duckbill" against the bellhousing (gently so as not to crack the ZF5!) and I could get it in... From there it took both of us to get the band clamp on the downpipe but it's on.
A couple of notes: The grommet that came with the left turbo valve cover was way too big for the CDR to plug directly into it. However, a NA valley pan grommet with the snout cut down to about 1" is a perfect fit in the cover and the CDR too.
Getting the threads started on the factory oil line is "interesting" with new olives, which also were a pain to shove into the fittings. I lubed the olives and tapped them in with a small plastic-faced hammer. Then I could assemble the oil line.
There's a stud in the right rear intake bolt (for the body ground strap). I don't think it would have cleared the downpipe so I swapped it with another intake bolt.
Speaking of studs, the ones in the right exhaust manifold stayed in place and did not interfere with installation of the wye casting. I tried to use the bolts from the kit to secure the crossover pipe but ran into an excessively tight thread fit even after running a thread chaser. (Studs and bolts don't have exactly the same thread cut). So I just put a couple of 7/16" studs in the wye, then bolted up the crossover.
Now, just a few more odds & ends (rig up a piece of flex pipe so I can get to the exhaust shop, mount the GPC when the bracket gets here, likewise the CDR, hook up the boost gauge to the hat, and install the pyro probe
if I can find the ^&@#% compression fitting!! Don't know where I put it... in a safe place no doubt.