As some of you may know I'm in the middle of restoring my LE Coupe.

(JBT I have been meaning to ring you as planned but I can't find the time around work and I don't want to bother you late in the evenings!)

When I say 'restoring' I mean stripping the whole car down and rust proofing, undersealing and welding.

While it's off the road I've also decided to take the turbo off the car (as I believe it's the orignal) to have this refurbished. My manifold is cracked also and I know someone who can weld this and port it for me. I also need to fix a leaking rocker cover gasket too.

It's just got me thinking as I have stripped it so far back. The car has always felt under powered and taking the turbo off to be refreshed seems like a good idea...

Do I do the following?
1. The intercooler looks really tired! Do I get a FMIC while I have the time and the space to fit it? Is there any point if I'm just running a standard turbo with 360 bearing and staggered seals?
2. Where can I get my turbo refurbished at a good price??
3.If I do opt for a FMIC, should I then get a SIP?
4. I will get getting the car remapped with Leighton regardless of what I do, but other than what I have mentioned, I'm guessing there are other things I need to think about?
5. I'm worried i'll get the modding bug and won't be able to stop.
6. Is this all just a waste of time?

I just need some advice from you guys on here that are in the know?

My aim out of all of this is to fix the small issues, like the cracked manifold whilst refreshing the turbo go give the car more urgency! Should I bother with the above?

Advice please?

Ask yourself one question - have i got endless money i can afford to throw at this car?

If the answer is no, i'd advise against going to all that hassle and decrease (potentially) it's reliability whilst increasing the stresses on the car. Get a decent refurbed turbo, map it around 260ish bhp and enjoy it at its optimum. I would NEVER follow the modded route again.......

Just saying

Thank you

I just had in my head that the new turbo would like lots of nice cold air, so a FMIC would come in handy here to replace the manky side mount one. If there will hardly be any gain without changing other things, then I see your point Proccy.

What you're almost saying as well is I could almost make my turbo a little better(hybrid) and just get it mapped? Simples?

I'll be honest I don't have endless money either

Hi dandan, well for me it's easy if you need a turbo you might as well consider getting more bhp out of the car while its off the road and in pieces!

You can get these cars up to 300 with not to much expense if you shop around and still be a realible coupe if it will be your daily driver.

Like me my turbo is smoking so I spoke to John at mcs and he has a stage 3 set up that I should be having fitted to my car soon!

I think I need to find out where you lot would recommend for a turbo refurb?

Once that cost is out the way I can probably start to weigh things up.

Banana_man this is the view I have at the moment. It will be my daily runner too.

Then go with what your heart tells you mate!

Speak to jbt he always gives me good advice!

I agree with banana_man. Aim for 290-300 bhp with a hybrid turbo, FMIC and a fleamap. This seems to be a "safe" and reliable power level for the Coupe, depending on the condition of the engine.

That said Proccy is a fine example of someone who's had heartache chasing bigger numbers and is giving good advice based on his unfortunate experiences.

There are plenty of options for rebuilds, one company who comes across well on this forum is CR Turbos, they're very friendly and know the Coupes TB28.

I can't say I had the same experience as proccy. I probably spent a lot more than him, but I had it done right from the beginning and never suffered any reliability or any other issues.

If you want to mod your car, there's no point asking other people what they think as you'll do it in the end anyway if you really want.

I've learned that car tuning is one of the most expensive hobbies out there, so make sure you at least double your budget on whatever you plan to do.

And double the time it takes to do as well

Don't forget that if you have a bit more go then you will need a bit more stop as well. If you are going to push up towards the 300bhp mark then you will also need an uprated clutch.

My Scottie is now running upwards of 300bhp thanks to JBT's engineering and Barbz' fettling/mapping ....

FMIC
Stage 3 hybrid turbo
Uprated fuel pump
Gizzmo boost controller
Uprated front brakes
Billies and Eibachs
JBT paddle clutch

I already had a larger bore Powerflow exhaust with a 200 cell sports cat, so the exhaust side wasn't a big issue.

The performance is epic enough for an elderly gentleman like myself, and my teenage sons always look forward to a quiet drive in the countryside . The brakes and the suspension parts were second-hand; if you want to go this far I'd suggest you need to budget somewhere in the £2.5K to £3K region (not including the exhaust system), and remember that you will not add anywhere near this to the value of your car. Bloody good fun though .

Good luck!

Ideally I'd prefer to stay below 300bhp for reliability purposes. I don't really have 2-3k to spend on my LE to do this.

So what I think I could do is go for a hybrid turbo and maybe a newer or refurbished SMIC, rather than spending 350+ on a good FMIC? A bleed valve as a boost controller should be ok? This should still be good for 260bhp once re mapped?

I was planning on getting a fast road clutch as I believe these are good for a remapped Coupe?

I've got around 1k to do this, just for parts...(possibly labour on the clutch)

I'll be refurbishing my Brembos and using decent pads and discs.

Basically if I could do the Turbo, clutch and FMIC+SIP for 1k, i'd do it...but I doubt that's possible.

Thanks all for your input so far

If you need a new clutch that's £400 of your £1k budget gone. With the £600 you could get a second hand hybrid, if / when one pops up on here, and a map.

If you can fit the clutch you will save yourself around £250 in labour.

When I spoke with CR Turbos they offered me a fully refurbished hybrid with larger 60 trim compressor wheel for £525 + my turbo. That said someone posted a much cheaper price than that for a hybrid on here recently, I forget who.

If it were me I'd:

Clutch ~£400
Turbo ~£500
Map ~£250
Oil & filter ~£60
Remove and clean out the oil in your SMIC and bung the turbo side of the oil recirc pipe and fit a breather / catch tank to the other. £10 -> ~£50 if fit catch tank.

Enjoy.

I'd be inclined to go for a FMIC anyway. The standard or uprated SMIC just can't get rid of the heat from the air and pushes inlet temps up, so having a FMIC will give you cooler temps and better reliability anyway.

I'd say keep it simple, although hybrids are great and kick in early the std turbo makes a great responsive every day car with a remap, if you don't want mega hp I'd go in this direction.

Stage 1 map
Rebuilt std turbo
New genuine Valeo clutch.

The Hybrid has tempted me as it's only another £120 over a standard rebuilt turbo...

It's the FMIC that's taking me over budget to be honest. I don't need to do the clutch but it's biting high and I've a feeling it will slip when I start to run more power.

With your budget I would personally stick to stage 1. It makes for a fairly quick car, it's cheap and shouldn't need any other modifications to support it.

Take it to Leighton, he can give it a health check and look for boost leaks etc. Then a remap on super would see 260bhp or so. If you go much beyond that you'll need a FMIC, turbo, clutch at the very least and it all gets very expensive. If your turbo and clutch were on their way out and needed replacing, then uprating them would make sense but you may find they are both OK for a while yet.

And the leftover funds you have could be spent uprating the brakes and refreshing the suspension.

Just my 2c!

Almost certainly going to go with this idea now.

Had a good informative chat with Craig at CR Turbos who seemed to be favouring this idea.

Here are my thoughts on it:

Do I do the following?
1. The intercooler looks really tired! Do I get a FMIC while I have the time and the space to fit it? Is there any point if I'm just running a standard turbo with 360 bearing and staggered seals?

No - the standard IC is fine, and having an FMIC may may it worse.

2. Where can I get my turbo refurbished at a good price??

CR Turbos

3.If I do opt for a FMIC, should I then get a SIP?

Yes

4. I will get getting the car remapped with Leighton regardless of what I do, but other than what I have mentioned, I'm guessing there are other things I need to think about?

Yes - Leighton will help you with it all.

5. I'm worried i'll get the modding bug and won't be able to stop.

I'd either leave the car stock, or go for 300bhp and all the mods that go with it.

6. Is this all just a waste of time?

Completely depends on you point of view, and whether your coupe is a hobby (and you don't mind throwing money at it), or just required daily transport that looks nice and goes well too.....

Some good advice above Dan, plenty of options on which way to go and you can't go too far wrong. What I will say is that aiming for 275-285bhp is a done deal these days, I have tuned so many to say it really is as reliable, if not more than a standard Coupe. Give me a call/email, even within this remit there are some very nice turbo options that I would share with you

Leighton, I have PM'd you