Hi Lloyd, welcome to the forum, you sound like a busy man, I guess your coop is garaged to be able to undertake all this work or do you have a trusted place who'll take it on?
As for rusted floors it's sadly a feature of these older cars and sloppy jack-placement is a nightmare to avoid
morning pal, cheers, well, its actually my dailey, i got it off a chap in 2021, he said he let the car sit for years as he had plan on doing track days but never bothered, but said he had the cambelt done in November 2020, so the paints rough as hell, and the floor was somewhat rusty, now the rust has gone right through after doing my last oil change, oddly enough the boot area has not suffered the usual issues as is absolutely mint, and to keep it that way i soaked it all in wd40 then dryed it out thoroughly and put 2 layers of primer over it all inside, the outside is also mint with minor surface rust on the tank straps.
my planet sized predicament now is, i booked the car in with joe for july 10th originally (3 hour drive away) to get the cambelt n pump, manifold, oil pump seal, steering belt kit done with new stage 3 hybrid from turbo technics as my current turbo is dripping coolant and oil from the centre of the cartridge on cold start and after a drive.
so i did my oil change 2 weeks ago to find the rusted areas have turned into holes after jacking it up, and my MOT IS IN AUGUST.....
so. yeh, big problems, the garage i go to do pass it with no cat in and the turbo was only dripping a little oil last time and marked it as advisory, so im praying that they ignore it dripping both liquids this time as im now having to spend the money i would of used for the cambelt and turbo etc on the floor getting welded.
the garage that does the mots and work have let me keep the spare low mileage engine with them for zero cost, but thats for a few years in the future when this engine snuffs it, i want to keep thsi one going as long as possible, but i have no clue as to the mileage of the current one as the speedo isnt the OG plus one, also, where the car was a car d, the whole outer skin of my drivers door is all filler, probablyaking the door 1.5CMS if not more..thicker.....its clearly ALL filler aswell as my boot lid being half filler.
yes, as Lloyd said. I also bought it directly from America in the end with shipping to Germany and taxes it cost me around €260. it is available in t2 and t3. I purchased a t2 because last year I purchased a new, slightly larger turbo (300hp) and it is a t2.
The manifolds are really excellent, they fit the head perfectly, the only problem is that these manifolds are designed to be used with an external wastegate, the SPA manifold has a 45° angle if you look at the turbo flange and the cylinder head ports while the original manifold has the turbo flange inclined about 15° outwards, this creates enough space to install an original turbo with integrated wastegate, the problem itself is the wastegate actuator which takes up a lot of space.
other drawbacks are: the assembly of the SPA manifold should be carried out with the support that holds the a/c pump the pump serves the alternator OUTSIDE the engine otherwise you don't have the space to insert the manifold, I managed to install it with this too inside but it was a nightmare, really a matter of 2-3 millimetres. yet another: the SPA manifold also changes the position of the turbo which will move about 2 cm closer to the oil filter, thus also having to modify the curve of the Downpipe. In any case, I believe that the SPA is a good, very robust manifold which I believe can easily withstand many hp and exclude breakages like the original. Two Internet sites were still offering the original manifold, one for 750 pounds and another for 1500 Euros, this made me think that perhaps in a couple of years I would have to repair them by welding them, so I opted for SPA.
So far I have been able to install the turbo by making a custom bracket to hold the actuator. I strongly advise anyone who wants to install the SPA manifold with a normal turbo to carefully examine the situation, a solution would be to install an adapter with a 15° inclination between the manifold and the turbo. This consists of 2 flanges t2 to t2 (impossible to find) or t2 to t3 (very popular) with a piece of inclined tube welded in the center, this will give you enough space between the block and the turbo but will lower the position of the turbo by about 10cm.
getting a new stage 3 hybrid from turbo technics for the stock manifold setup and replacement stock manifold this year and using the spa manifold for the big power spare engine build, my current setup is good for 420bhp but the rods and pistons wont take that much and i dont know the mileage of my current engine. wish i could upload pics but wont let me
my wastegate will be out the bonnet probably, unless i get a block off plate and use internal gated turbo. but given i want the 3077??...or 3070..? or the 3582 im not sure thats an option. can we use twin scroll turbos on our single scroll manifolds?
Greetings. I forgot to clarify that the photos of the manifold are between a SPA of course it is between one (not original fiat) but with the same shape as the original. This is the manifold that I found on the car when I purchased it, about 2 years ago when I had to carry out some work on the cylinder head (bend valves/service belt which slipped) I noticed that they were broken, no longer having a large budget available at that time due to the cylinder head I made the huge mistake of buying this kind of manifold again (shitty steel) these seemed to be a little better in structure than the ones in the photo above well... about 3000 km of driving and a month ago when I wanted to install my new turbo I realize that this one is broken!!! what I mean to say is that I was also warned at the time by the forum that those manifolds were rubbish but I had no choice, so to speak... so I hope this discussion is a warning to anyone who wants to buy these "steel" manifolds? " Believe in the forum is in the experience of other users who have already had the problem. I hope that the SPA manifolds can be a good alternative to the original which, as we know, I believe Fiat has already overhauled it 3 times in the production time and in the end they will crack anyway, they can be heated efficiently, but not indefinitely.
