[Donovan34]

Originally Posted by Amputechture

As far as the kit itself here are some of my experiences:


The Bad news:
-My kit had a bad weld where the BOV flange is welded on the intercooler end tank. I knew I had a bad boost leak, and it forever to figure out this is where it was. My IAM kept dropping and the car ran like shit the first few months it was very frustrating. Got it tig welded and it's been okay since.
-I have the original version (it's actually the 2nd version even though they are calling the third iteration which is it's current form the "V2"...1st version had the BOV on the charge pipe). The MAF location of my kit is in a less than ideal spot....right after a couple slight bends which causes turbulence in the readings. It's another contributing factor to my sluggish throttle response. James with HRI was able to get my car dialed in and the drive-ability is pretty damn good now, but I was tuned by 3 others before him and none of them could get it right. You won't have to worry about this as the MAF location in the new version is, according to James, placed very well and should have zero problems with MAF reading accurately.
-The downpipe is slightly touching the camshaft angle sensor on exhaust bank 2, it's a very common problem (and not just for the JDL kit). Make sure you get some heat reflectant foil to wrap around the sensor and the wiring.


The good news:
-Built extremely well, I have no doubts it will stand the test of time.
-If I'm above the boost threshold, all of the response issues I've mentioned above are negated and out the door. If I apply throttle once I'm out of vacuum, absolute fucking instant V8 power. So basically anytime I'm actually driving aggressively, which is when I need it to respond, it responds. If I had a BB turbo, that 3,800 to 4,000 RPM line in the sand would probably drop to around 3,400 to 3,600 RPM and the in vacuum/below threshold response wouldn't be as bad.
-Outside of the cam sensor thing, everything fits great


I don't regret anything, outside of the fact that I should have gotten a proper boost-leak test with a smoke machine right off of the bat so that I could have avoided a lot of headaches. If my car got totaled and I had to get another twin and go through the FI build process again...I would still choose JDL.

Thanks for the respond. Yeah I can't wait to finally get it installed. It's been a month since I got the kit but I just been waiting for that turbo. From what you say the experience should be great. Curious how much power are you making? Stock block?. I've gotten ill the supporting mods that I think will help it out such as catch cans and an oil cooler. But I am worried about having a heating issue because I didn't get ceramic coating on the hot side of the turbo kit. Any problems with heat? Like you said I'll probably get some foil to protect the wiring from heat. But I don't want to run to any issue when the kits on. Also curious if you installed your kit yourself or did you let a shop do it. I'm sort on the fence between the two. Also do you recommend anything else to go along with the kit like support mods? Thanks for the help with all this.