Garret Turbo Exhaust

14th November 2007
My Cosworth Turbo 2WD Stainless front section finally turned up much to the embarrassment of the postman trying to get this through the letter box to no avail.

I was very pleased with this item as I picked it up from eBay and to be honest this item was possibly the cheapest part I have purchased.

The exhaust I was planning would only need the front end of this exhaust section. When choosing your exhaust it is important to ensure that it comes from the car that the turbo came from. The reason for this is that the Garrett T3 unit comes with an assortment of different exhaust turbine sections to fit different exhaust.

I took the exhaust to a friends workshop to get it cut as cutting exhaust tubing to leave a square edge is notoriously difficult. My friend had a bench with a motorised hack saw that could hold the exhaust squarely in to cut it. I tried to use cleaning compounds to clean up the exhaust , but nothing seemed to budge the grime.

Luckily I had found a metal surface specialist company that would clean the exhaust with a glass bead blasting system, and would be able to then clean and polish the exhaust to a high luster. The results speak for themselves.

The turbo unit was nearly ready to go on the car. I only needed a few items left to get the lambda sensor, which was a V90HF9F472AA Cosworth Sapphire 4x4 Lambda Sensor these usually go for about £50 and I was hoping I could find one through an auction service cheaper. I would also need to purchase an induction kit for the turbo that would also required to be fitted with an air flow mass meter. Both of these senders would be needed for the Megasquirt ignition system that I still needed to source and build.

The next item that I needed to manufacture was the stainless steel section that would attach the Garret Turbo to my ceramic exhaust. I have been told this has to be stainless due to the high temperatures reached in the turbo. I had purchased a Turbo installation kit which contained studs and gaskets for the T3. I needed to locate the triangular 60mm gasket to join the exhaust. My plan was to make a u shape that would have to manifolds on each end. This would put the turbo up above and behind the exhaust in the same orientation that it came out of the Cosworth. I would need to find a company that would mill the flanges and be able to stainless steel weld them onto the manifolds. I had contacted one company and they had quoted me around £100.00 to build the adapter from scratch . The cost of this manufacture was high as the current stainless steel prices were very high making fabrication costs dear.

Christmas was coming at full speed and I was not sure whether I could spare this money before Christmas.