P&L Motorsports Stage 1 Turbo Kit Review (In Progress)
 

So let me just start by saying hi and that I hope this is informative for you.
Some of you may have been following my progress on my car and others may not know anything about my build so for those interested here's a link to my build page:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13381

As you can probably guess, this has been a labor of love and sacrifice. When I purchased the car I knew I would be going the route of forced induction and had consigned the car to that fate from the get go.

Of course we all saw how quickly things escalated in the forced induction race for this car, originally I was tempted by the idea of a supercharger, but the power to be had by turbos was what won me over. So I had to make a choice on what kit to buy and I ended up with the P&L Motorsports kit at the top of my list because of a number of things. I wanted the turbo front and center and P&L was the first to meet that criteria, then I wanted customization, which P&L gives you. Lastly after talking to John Visconti I was sold on the kit.

I called up P&L Motorsports and talked with Paul directly and went over all the stuff i wanted and would need and ended up spending quite a bit more than the starting price of the Stage 1 kit. I bought the turbo kit with red intercooler piping, 700cc injectors, Ecutek Cable/License/Base Map, AEM Truboost, AEM UEGO Wideband, and a full P&L exhaust system. All told with shipping included for the exhaust I spent just shy of $10k. Like I said, a labor of love and sacrifice.

After a few delays because of the holidays I finally received the full kit, and started inspecting everything. To say that the P&L Stage 1 kit is quality parts is kind of an understatement. Everything has nice welds, great coating quality, and fits just right. With the kit you get: Tial MVS Wastegate, Tial Q BOV, Deatschwerks 265LPH fuel pump, Deatschwerks 700cc injectors, Precision Turbo 5558B turbo, smaller washer fluid bottle with relocation bracket, DEI Turbo blanket, v-band clamps, new oil pan, oil supply and darin lines, and an assortment of other necessary items to get this kit together.

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What I didn't receive was instructions, which would have help tremendously, but they haven't finished the instruction manual at the time so I put the kit together with a bit of general knowhow and lots of calls to P&L and Prime Motoring. I will say this though, even with instructions, this is not something that a novice could just jump in and install. If you are not comfortable with splicing wires, disconnecting fuel lines, and basically tearing apart the entire front end of your car...get a pro to do this or get help from someone with experience. I replaced my own clutch in my garage, and at times this turbo install felt more daunting than dropping the transmission.

You can do almost the entire install with a basic mechanics toolset, with one exception. You will likely want a set of fuel line connector release tools...I MacGuyver'd them off using a chopped up hobby lobby card, but the tool would have been much easier and is not expensive at all. I'm not gonna go into detail about the install because that would take forever, but you will benefit with an extra pair of hands for a lot of the install, so bribe a friend with beer or something and dedicate a weekend to the job.

Once I was done with the installation, I looked back and I figure if I were to do this again for someone i could get it finished in a day, now that I know how everything goes together. Hunting down wires for the gauge took longer than expected but now I know where they are so it's not too bad.

On to what everyone really wants to know...power!!!

I rushed to get my kit together because John Visconti was actually in Phoenix the weekend I finished my car up, so I pestered him to come and tune my car. He showed up bright and early on a Sunday and we proceeded to start getting the car to run. We found a couple issues with my install concerning one of the injectors and the fuel pump. Once we got that all sorted the car fired up and we started the fun of street tuning the car. After a while John had everything running smoothly and took a couple videos for fun and for John's Facebook:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=0B2TOrb_wdE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_cKb...ature=youtu.be

With that we went back to my place and John was off to other adventures in FR-S tuning. I drove the car the next couple days and found that one of the fan connectors was resting against the downpipe and was melting to I moved it. I also have an exhaust leak between the overpipe and the midpipe flange which I cant for the life of me get to go away so i will have to bring it someplace to have it fixed up. The flanges just aren't capable of getting flush with one another. I have had no issues since it got tuned so i decided to take it to a local dyno to see what it could do:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8357/8...495de350_b.jpg
23JAN13 7PSI DYNO by Supermassive80, on Flickr

Those runs are just 7 pounds of boost, on 91 octane gasoline...254HP and 207ftlbs of torque isn't too shabby, plus the curves are nice and smooth.

Overall I am extremely pleased with how this all turned out, I want to give thanks to @PrimeMotoring , @P&L Motorsports ,and @Visconti for helping me out with this.

I am nowhere near done pushing this kit so stay tuned for Flex Fuel...and lots more boost!

^ Glad I could be part of this.

Again if anyone is wondering, this is the tune that comes with the P&L Kit. Since I was about a hr away I thought I'd come by and make sure the car was to my satisfaction.

It was a good thing I came because it made solving the little fueling issues 1000x faster.

-John

Would you be willing to list a line by line parts and cost total?
Subaru BRZ Rear Diffuser
Team Voodoo Shift Knob
Billet Pro Shop Short Shifter
Pioneer AVIC X940BT
Whiteline Positive Shift Kit
Whiteline Subframe Inserts
Agency Power Lightweight Crank Pulley in red
Agency Power Adjustable Rear Lower Control Arms
KW Variant 3 Coilovers
Vorshlag Camber plates
Rays Gramlights 57Xtreme Wheels (18x8.5 and 18x9.5)
Nitto Invo Tires (235/40/18 and 255/35/18)
ClutchMasters FX400 6-puck clutch and flywheel
Seibon SN Style Lip Spoiler
Seibon Carbon Fiber Roof Spoiler
Seibon TS Style Hood
P&L Motorsports Header Back Exhaust
P&L Motorsports Stage 1 Turbo kit (Red IC piping and Ceramic Coated Exhaust piping)
Deatschwerks 700cc Injectors
Deatschwerks Fuel pump
EcuTek Cable/License/Tune
Tial Q series BOV
Tial MV-S Wastegate
Tactrix Boost Control solenoid
AEM Failsafe
Prime Motoring Single gauge cluster
Motul 300V Tranny and Diff fluid

what are you in so far?

looks good!! I'll have to check it out one of these days :)

Very nice! Loving that redline! I hope these motors prove to be reliable rev'ing out to 8.5k.

More speedo videos, maybe some 0-60 etc if possible. How much power could you get going to 93 from 91? I'd assume it would be marginal but just curious.

Umm SBD290 Fuel Pump !!

That setup just looks... Supermassive!

WELL DONE!

Lol thanks everyone! I could do a line by line MSRP cost, but I'd do that on my build page and not here. I'm gonna order brakes this weekend most likely to help slow this thing down, 100mph is so easy to hit now I have to be careful ;)

Where's your shop located i could swing by sometime :)

What do you think this kit could make at 8.5 psi?

FBM stage 1 8.5 psi on 91 octane makes 300 whp. Is there anything to suggest this kit could make the same numbers?

Idk.. But this is a badass turbo, much better then the 2871

I know from talking to Paul at the shop the hp increase really ramps up the higher you push the boost. Playing around at the shop his kit was jumping over 20 hp to the wheel going up from 17 to 18 psi. It's too bad they dissappeared from the forum, they make some quality stuff.

Great job on the car @Supermassive, it looks fantastic.

8.5 PSI is not gonna make 300WHP on this kit, that would be 45+ HP gained with just 1.5PSI of boost. 9-10PSI would be feasible but once again gas quality is the limiting factor here. I'm guessing 8.5 PSI will yield about 275whp which is right about where every other turbo kit stands. This is where I have to call the numbers Full Blown got on 8.5 PSI skewed. My kit is laid out almost exactly the same as FBM, I have a better turbo, and an exhaust made in conjunction with the turbo kit. The differences lie in intercooler construction and injector sizes (my 700cc vs FBM's 550cc which is irrelevant because at these boost levels the duty cycle has plenty of overhead on both). Unless they have some turbo wizard sprinkling magic pixie dust on each kit, it doesn't quite add up. Of course I could be wrong but until someone straps this to their car and posts dyno numbers it's all speculation. I am quite happy with the power I got with just 7PSI and a street tune because it's exactly what I had hoped for at that boost.

Once I start cranking up the boost we'll see just how powerful this setup is, I have a feeling things will get scary at 400+HP. 250HP is already incredibly amusing and can be a handful at times. The car is so light that the rear tires have trouble hooking up at regular DD pressures.

Didn't mean to call their numbers in question, but that's what this forum is for, real people putting these kits to the test in real conditions on independent dyno's. I will also be posting up 1/4 mile times with the base map as soon as I get a suspension guru to massage my car a bit to see if I can get the rear end under control, right now I would just spin and spin and spin!