HomemadeTurbo - DIY Turbo Forum - I should introduce myself

Well, my name is Josh. I had checked this site out a few times building my last car but never found a reason to join. I'm a regular on J-body.org as this current car and my last were J-bodies. Phil (Turbo Eco) has introduced a few JBOers to HMT with the posts about the kid with the.... "not so pretty" turbo set-up and a huge mouth. I checked out a few posts and you guys don't seem so bad. I will warn you that some of my views are a little biased as this is not just my hobby but a profession and passion, I may be 20 but I have been in the tuning game for a while and there is nothing I will say that I wont back up.
My last car was a 1995 Cavalier show car with Sunfire headlights and a custom-made hood giving it the "evil eyes" look. I ran a custom widebody leading into Lesux RX300 taillights and a custom trunk. A molded a full blitz body kit in with Bomex sides and X2 fenders and sahved the door handles. The car looked cool as hell but I got bored with it really fast. I had been building a 2.3 quad 4 turbo motor for it for a full year before I sold the car. I bought another 95 shell and planned on finishing the motor to make a drag-only car out of it. I picked up a 1990 Pontiac Sunbird LE Convertible as a daily driver (sold the show car) as I built the drag car but the motor blew (spun #2 rob bearing) three days after getting it. I sold the shell and parted out almost all of the engine (still have the built head and custom full race turboto sell) and then kept a few other things (nitrous set-up, exhaust/charge piping U-bends) for the sunbird. I work for myself but I had another job just for the discount at a parts store. I quit that job and continued my own thing selling new/used parts and fabricating/installing performance parts and doing body work from my garage.
All of that was back in September. I have been building this car ever since.
So maybe a Pontiac sunbird sounds to be a little girly of a car but fear not.... sleeper was all I had in mind ;)

Parts list:
2.0 sohc engine, 8:1 compression forged pistons, forged rods, forged crank, balanced rotating assembly, clevite bearings, bored 0.020" over, port and polished head, 3-angle valve job, turbo (secret specs) camshaft, MSD 6al ignition, MSD multi-step retard (pulling 3 degrees for nitrous), MSD coil, MSD distributor cap, Accell 8.8mm wires, ACdelco standard resistor plugs, 3-core aluminum radiator, custom 2.5" charge pipes, 3.5"x19"x7" core intercooler, HKS SSQV blow-off valve, HKS 40mm external wastegate, Nissan ceramic ball bearing turbocharger, HKS composite 60 trim compressor wheel, custom machined super 60 compressor housing, ceramic turbine wheel/shaft, 56mm Quad 4 throttle body, full 3" downpipe-back exhaust, full completely custom cooling system, modified 160 degree Buick Grand National thermostat, 15" motegi trak lite racing rims, Mickey Thompson ET slicks or BFG G-force T/A drag radials, Exploited racing custom equal length stainless turbo header, NX 10lb nitrous bottle, Earl's braided line/fittings, Zex distribution blocks, NOS brass fogger nozzles, NOS bottle warmer, NWW 75hp jets, Cold Fusion fuel and nitrous solenoids, NX purge system, Autometer ultra-lite Boost, Nitrous pressure and Fuel pressure gauges and a mess of frame modification
There is a lot more but I am going off the top of my head right now. I did all of the work including welding and head work besides for the bottom end machine work. So.. onto pics:
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...652_7_full.jpg
Here is how the POS has spent most of its life in my hands. I pulled the engine outside and then rolled its lifeless carcus into the garage for the full build.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_27_full.jpg
Enter angle grinder, plasma cutter and mig welder....... I cut out the radiator core support (braced later on) some of the bumper and some of the bumper mounts. The hood latch system was unbolted and removed. I welded in a bracket I made to move the fan to the front and another bracket to hold up the 3.5" thick intercooler.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_32_full.jpg
Why chop apart that much metal? To add a ginormous f**king radiator of course! The radiator has an equal amount of hacking at it as well to let the hood close. It was a brand new unit meant for the early 1990 Ford SUVS and trucks with auto trannies. It's a 3-core unit just narrow enough to let me slide the charge pipes around the radiator rather than going under the lower core support like most set-ups do and make the charge pipes that much shorter!
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...652_3_full.jpg
Back from the machine shop... all the specs are listed above. The stock block was trashed as it was meant for the auto bell housing. This was a brand new block that I did the work to with a 5-spd bell housing bolt pattern... no miles at all.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_12_full.jpg
What good is a fancy block without a P+P job on steroids? The head was also brand new although I put 25 miles on it on the stock engine before the build-up (long story there.)
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_54_full.jpg
Coming together! Here we have some extra goodies from MSD and the motor all together!
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_46_full.jpg
Some prep work in teh engine bay... welded in trays for the 6al and mult-step retard. I went ahead and wired them both into the stock harness and added a bracket for ntirous solenoids on the driver's side strut tower (USD driver's side for you Jap Honda guys.)
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_55_full.jpg
The stock throttle body.. the first time I saw this thing tearing down the engine I felt sick.. later followed by irregular bowel movements and a lot of crying in my bedroom. Next to it you see the new 56mm throttle body from a quad 4.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_53_full.jpg
Halfway done making an adapter plate with a drill press... The swap wasn't hard.. I had to cut a bigger hole in the intake manifold and weld the new plate on to bolt the TB to. Then I put a reaming bit on a air tool and cleaned it all up.. perfectly smooth inside now. I had to splice the Quad 4 IAC and TPS harnesses into the stock wiring as well.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_63_full.jpg
All assembled for the most part. The turbo in this picture is on the stock exhaust manifold with a custom adapter to give it a T3 flange. The new TB is bolted down and loving life.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_62_full.jpg
DSM oil return pipe chopped a little bit.. I cut some holes in teh pan to bolt it on.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_67_full.jpg
Allas they meet again! AEM wideband is bolted under the dash.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_74_full.jpg
Then we add charge pipes. HKS SSQV bov flange was welded on wihile fitting up and welding the charge pipes.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_76_full.jpg
All the air she needs and you can't see a thing from outside the car without the flash of the camera.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_78_full.jpg
The parts just kept coming in. The HKS 40mm wastegate replaced the internal when the equal length turbo header was finished. V8 direct port nitrous nozzles means two direct port 4 cylinder J-bodies hailing from Laurel, MD. ;D
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...52_84_full.jpg
Most recent pictures from maybe two weeks ago with the fuel injection back on the intake manifold and all teh charge pipes cleaned and painted. I made a new coolant outle to go straight to the new radiator and hooked oil and coolant into the turbo... so that's that... right? Wroooooooong!
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...2_102_full.jpg
Intake manifold comes back off and is plumbed for nitrous.
But... that is as up to date as my pictures go right now... sorry.. I will add updates soon with the completed car on the road and breaking in. I'm running 12psi on the stock computer and map sensor(shares the same computer as a GMC typhoon turbo 4.3) but I wont spray until the new fuel pump comes. Very early on in the spring I am throwing 440cc injectors on and megasquirt v2.2 plus switching to DIS. The nitrous is set at 75hp roughly right now (68hp actually but that just sounds funny) and I hope to hit around 325 whp on this set-up at 12psi and around 400whp at 20psi on megasquirt and with a slightly larger turbo (looking at a GT3071R) and down to a 50hp nitrous shot.

Anyway, all comments are welcome and thanks for checking it out!