JDL Turbo kit review

[diss7]

Here's the first half of my review of the JDL turbo kit. I've only just got the kit dummy fitted ready for coating, but I've already got 100 or so pics, so wanted to start uploading them.

In short, I'm happy with the kit. The quality of the product is as I expected, very good. There were some negative points which I will go into, but these have been resolved to my satisfaction. JDL's reputation and service with regards to putting things right was one of the main reasons I chose them.

Kit arrived in two big boxes. Fit in my wagon without having to put the seats down. I expected there would be more, but no just packed very tightly. There were a couple of points where an item or two and started to penetrate the outer packaging (which is more a reflection of how many freight monkeys handled it) which initially had me worried. However, once I opened the box I saw how well the packaging was.

Packaging was exceptional. Every part over wrapped. I like it. JDL take the title of packaging champions.





Unwrapping everything, and I'm impressed with what I see. Workmanship looks excellent. Not perfect, but excellent. It's not as pretty as the marketting photos, but I guess that's to be expected. Exhaust piping and manifold have all be tidied with a dremel, very good. A couple of points could have had a few more minutes tidying, but overall very good.









































So after I unwrapped it all, I had to wrap it all back up and take around to my mate Beau, who owns his own workshop. I like using one-man-band businesses, because you know for certain the person who is working on your car. You're not talking to one person, and some underpaid spanner monkey is doing the graft.

Anyway, Beau started pointing out issues.
No instructions. Sure, its a turbo kit, hes a mechanic, he can figure it out. But instructions would certainly save some time.
No water fittings or lines for the turbo. These were mistakenly not sent with the kit and are now being sent.

Beau also wasn't happy with the v band clamps or flanges. Here's some pics first...











So what we're seeing here is a Tial turbine housing, with a locator insert. Usually this would be paired with the Tial male flange, shown in the next pics. The flange on the downpipe was instead a generic flange, with no locator. It was also a different size.

The vband flanges at the other end of the downpipe, and start of the overpipe were matching sizes, but did not have locators. Beau said without the locators they'd leak.

The vband clamps provided were branded clampco. Beau showed me a Tial Vband had, and he felt the clampco ones were inferior.

I decided to go see my usual fabricator, Simon @ Surfab. Another one man band. He shared Beau's thoughts on these issues. I then took these to another fabricator I'd used, he shared the same thoughts. I then put pictures of the issues on my fb page, and I got rubbished for even considering running it as is.

JDL's defence was that the generic flange at the start of the downpipe suited both the garrett and precision turbos, so it was easier from them to use one type. They also felt that neither the lack of locators on the flanges, or even the mismatched downpipe to turbine flanges would leak. But the overwhelming opinion of others locally was to changes the flanges and clamps. So thats what we did. I feel better for doing it. Someone said on here that non locating flanges are better because it gives you 'wriggle room", everyone I told that to laughed and said that that wriggle room shouldn't be needed.

I suspect JDL's opinion and usage of these non Tial units is for simplicity (on their part) and also for cost reasons. Tial stuff aint cheap. And in their defense I didnt ask or query it prior to shipment; I didnt even really know about any of this till it was pointed out. What I would have preferred is to be given the option. "Mike you can either have these flanges and clamps, that we use and we think are okay, or you can pay an extra $200 (or whatever) and have the genuine Tial stuff" I think that's probably a good way to handle the situation moving forward. As some will care, others won't. The last couple of pics above are not what came with the kit, they are what I had to borrow while waiting for replacements. The smaller Tial flange wasn't needed, that was already on the manifold.

[diss7]

A few hours into install... (we were also putting the Robispec oil cooler in at the same time.)








Has anyone thought that the heat issues experienced by some turbo builds, is because of how close the manifold runner gets to the water pump? Perhaps swapping the OEM waterpump for a relocated electic water pump would be benefical to those with heat issues. Something Beau pointed out.



Trying to decide whether to use gtx2863r or gtx2867r. Still haven't decided. Lol

































As we start inspecting the IC pipes, we notice they're finished pretty poorly. Also there a heaps of flack in them. Not good.
There was also a fair bit of flack in the intercooler end tanks. Which I could only get out by banging the IC end tanks on the workbench and shaking it, until no more flack was coming out.

Before..










After...







With that done. Onto trimming the crash bar. This is specifically forbiddin in New Zealand, so I'm taking a gamble by using this kit. I also have to get the car certified once the kit is on, for the car to be road legal. So we had to do as tidy job as possible, and just hope it slips through. What we're hoping, is that the certifier never having coming across a modified gt86, will just look at the beam from underneath to ensure its still there. We highly doubt he'll take the bumper off. If he passes it, I'm in the clear. If not, well, fuck that could be a major. Anyway, took a few photos of this as I couldn't find any pictures when I wanted them.



































You can see here, because of the way the IC is mounted, the modifications to the beam are hidden fom the bottom.



Now finishing off install..











I opted for the air intake to sit where the OEM washer bottle was. The pipe fouled on a plug on the headlight. But you can remove the plug and move it out of the way, which means the pipe will fit, but is touching the plug mount, as you can see here. We'll probably trim this down so that there's no rubbing/contact.



All on now. Now need to swap flanges on overpipe, downpipe, and fab up new exhaust.

Waiting for its turn in the fab shop.

[diss7]

I got a text from SURFAB saying he was working on my car yesterday. By time I got round there in the afternoon, he'd already sorted most of everything, which was a bit gutting as it means I got no pics. But he ran me throught what he'd down.

Swapping the flanges to the tial items obviously. Including the two bolt at the rear of the overpipe.

The 3" overpipe in the RHD application was a nightmare. The pipe as it was didn't fit.
***This is not to be seen as a bad mark on JDL's part, they made it very clear to me prior to ordering that they were not sure it would fit, and so I went into it with that knowledge***
The overpipe itself ended up needing a 4mm extension added to the start of it. The rear of it needed to be cut anyway (it had a 2 bolt flange, we had spare vbands) but the final curve wasn't quite right, So had to be trimmed back. I asked Simon if he'd rather have made the pipe from scratch instead, and he said that at first he thought it didn't need much tweaking, but after he'd taken it in and out of the car 15 times, he wished he had. Anyway, it fits now. But is very tight. Only 3 or 4mm clearance either side. Lucky I have Cusco engine mounts. Also, even if it did fit, not really suitable to a home install. You have to jack the motor up a long way, and unattach the steering column.

The downpipe (the pipe between the turbo and the over pipe) was pretty good, but Simon wasn't happy with how he had to pull it towards the turbo. He said the clamp would hold it, but its not ideal. His first thought was that it needed a few mm added to the top of the pipe so that it reached the turbo better, but was hesitant to do this, as its up in the open, and would be seen. He instead trimmed the wastegate exhaust pipe (where the exhaust from the wastegate rejoins the downpipe via a slip join) He said thats what was causing the top of the downpipe to pivot away from the turbo, and after trimming the wastegate exhaust, the downpipe met with the turbo perfectly.

From there, Simon starting fabbing up my exhaust. I went with him because I didn't want to get a generic exhaust, because my rear subframe has been raised quite a bit, so if I got a generic exhaust it would hang much lower than it could on my car. Plus these exhausts were ridiculously priced by time they were shipped to NZ. The Perrin cat back for example was almost $2k. The tomei 80R was $1600. Simon did this one for me for $500.

Plus when I saw the exhaust Simon had made, it was the straightest exhaust I had seen on this car, so I was pretty stoked all round.

Its all mild steel, but I'm getting the exhaust ceramic coated, so that doesn't matter. The muffler is the same one I have on the race car, and it works really well.

At least I was there to make the final call on how the exhaust and the tip sat at the back. I dont like different sized tips to the exhaust, it's ricey. I like the tip being the exhaust. Got the angle and slight extension that I was after as well, for maximum jdm tyte'ness.

Don't like how the muffler is shiney from the back, but ones its all black ceramic coated, it will look much better.
































Will get more pics today of the overpipe, before I drop it off to the coaters. Will also get better pictures of clearnace of it around the RHD setup.

And here we go. Was hard to get a decent picture showing overpipe clearnace, but trust me, its tight.

[diss7]

res3

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res4

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res5

[jamesm]

Nice looking kit, but man... that wastegate angle. Not ideal for sure. Regardless, still one of the better looking kits out there once installed imho.

[Jesse@JDLAutodesign]

Originally Posted by jamesm

Nice looking kit, but man... that wastegate angle. Not ideal for sure. Regardless, still one of the better looking kits out there once installed imho.

I'm assuming you're talking about the wastegate inlet flange? It will see more flow on the outer radius of that bend than anywhere on the the merge collector.

[ThisGuy919]

Just recently ordered mine! Great write up keep it up. Good intel for people to know what to expect going into the install. Hoping mine wont have to many issues (don't foresee to much at least)

[diss7]

Originally Posted by ThisGuy919

Just recently ordered mine! Great write up keep it up. Good intel for people to know what to expect going into the install. Hoping mine wont have to many issues (don't foresee to much at least)

Thanks.

I'm trying to put as much info out there. Whether it good or bad.

Too many reviews I read are stroking the vendors junk way too hard, and just come across as sponsored posts.

I instead try to focus on what the issues were, to put the info out there for future buyers, but also for the vendor so they can improve the product for others (if they choose to) Most of the time, the vendor posting on the forum, is not the guy making the kit. Things like flack being in the pipes is not somethinf he'll be telling his guys to do, they'll be doing it without his knowledge. I'm showing it so he can go kick them up the bum. As a business owner myself, similar things happen with our products. Nothing worse than seeing something received by a customer with something like this. And most employees will only ever work as hard, or in this case tidy/finish, as they are made to. No feedback from the boss, and standards slip.

Most of the issues I've pointed out would be ignored by a lot of people, and they could be ignored I guess. But some other anal people like myself, like to know about everything; good or bad.

I tend to just focus on the bad on my reviews. Maybe a quick comment or two on the positives, but generally, if I haven't commented on something in particular, it means it was good!

[Boofneenee]

I hate you

[AllDayJonRay]

Flooding the I/C and running the hose through it, followed by a healthy dose of compressed air is how I made sure all the extra 'junk' came out before installing and ingesting that crap into the engine.

[Shit Luck]

I plan to flush my intercooler too just for safety sake...
My pipes didn't have an weld issues but I did notice some aluminum dust on the parts.

[aaguirre123]

Originally Posted by diss7

Thanks.

I'm trying to put as much info out there. Whether it good or bad.

Too many reviews I read are stroking the vendors junk way too hard, and just come across as sponsored posts.

I instead try to focus on what the issues were, to put the info out there for future buyers, but also for the vendor so they can improve the product for others (if they choose to) Most of the time, the vendor posting on the forum, is not the guy making the kit. Things like flack being in the pipes is not somethinf he'll be telling his guys to do, they'll be doing it without his knowledge. I'm showing it so he can go kick them up the bum. As a business owner myself, similar things happen with our products. Nothing worse than seeing something received by a customer with something like this. And most employees will only ever work as hard, or in this case tidy/finish, as they are made to. No feedback from the boss, and standards slip.

Most of the issues I've pointed out would be ignored by a lot of people, and they could be ignored I guess. But some other anal people like myself, like to know about everything; good or bad.

I tend to just focus on the bad on my reviews. Maybe a quick comment or two on the positives, but generally, if I haven't commented on something in particular, it means it was good!

for sharing your build. how long did it take for jdl to ship your order? from the time you ordered to that time you received it.