So it begins. Worked about 3 hours on the car tonight, clam removal = 5 minutes, literally. Take out 2 r-clip cotter pins for the hinges, 2 more for the cables that stop the clam from falling too far back, unplug 1 harness connection for all the rear lights, and then just lift it off the car.
Started off by removing all the intercooler and intake piping, then the intercooler and fans, heat shields, etc. I was left with the exhaust and rear turbo:
Next I removed the rear turbo and all exhaust pieces except the front turbo downpipe. One of the five turbine housing to downpipe studs was a major PITA. Minimum 30 minutes of cursing at it, could barely fit a 1/4" drive socket on it, so I was turning it 1/12 of a turn, refitting socket on the nut, etc. Sucky. Fortunately the new turbos have a v-band discharge. The dust you can see on the diffuser was part of the crusty turbo blanket coming apart.
Here is most of the stuff I took off tonight. I was really surprised how freely the wheels spin on the turbo, maybe it's the ball bearings vs journal bearings which I had on the Talon. No shaft play, and never smoked when I was driving the car, so hopefully I can sell them for decent money.
Also noticed that my exhaust manifolds are stainless steel, I did not expect that, I have no idea if they are stock parts, will have to ask on the forum. Neither the turbo-manifold or turbo-downpipe connections had gaskets which I thought was weird too, I'll be adding gaskets between the manifolds and turbos when I put in the new ones.
Next steps for this weekend are removing the diffuser & undertray and putting the car on stands so I can get under the car. This will allow me to remove the front turbo and downpipe. Also need to remove the intake manifold, fuel rails, injectors, coils, spark plugs, etc. Last step will be removing the entire wiring harness and ECU from the car.
Basically everything but the motor/trans/clutch is getting replaced. I'm meeting the guy in Illinois next Saturday to pick up all the new parts.
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