Rps turbo kit photos & install

RPS Turbo Kit install on 94 MKIV
By Kevin Goroway

[ SP-60 Kit ]

RPS Kit as supplied by Sound Performance
Note: The
dollar bill didn’t come with the kit… it’s there for size reference. 🙂

Here’s a shot of the HKS manifold just
for comparison.

Turbos Off

Plug the water
line seen in the next picture. You may want to tie this whole assembly back as
close to the firewall as possible. Otherwise, the lower hose is dangerously
close to the downpipe when its all finished.

This next shot
shows the upper radiator pipe which I took off and had modified. There are
normally two nipples for water hoses here. They are right smack in the way of
the intake to the turbo. This is a very common problem with the RPS header. It
cost me a whole $40 at a local place. Finding someone who would weld aluminum
wasn’t easy, though.

Connect the oil
return line here:

Connect the oil
feed line here:

Plug the rear oil feed line
here:

Now came the hard part. I tried the
header, and it didn’t fit. It became clear that at least one of the bolt holes
didn’t line up. I’ve since found out that this is common with the RPS header.
You can see Mark, and Roberto trying to solve the problem with my dremel. We
quickly determined that gasoline powered cars would no longer be legal by the
time we would finish it this way… A Home Depot run later, I was the proud
owner of a 1/2 inch drill, and a bit one size bigger than the hole that RPS gave
me. Roberto muscled his way through the one hole that seemed to be the problem.
And, luckily, we were able to get it to clear all of the bolts. Caution: If you
need to do this, be very very careful. It takes quite a bit of force, and the
collectors are very close to the other side of the hole you are
drilling…

Here’s Roberto fiddling with the lower
back bolt. Because of the turn in that rear collector, the bolt basically has to
be threaded on as the header is pushed on…What a PITA.

It’s on! And the EGT probe is
mounted.

It was about now that we realized
that the kit was missing the bolts to connect the oil return line to the turbo.
It was also missing the long bolt for the sorta built-in clamp that is part of
the wastegate/downpipe. A quick run to the hardware store, and you can see it in
the second pic here. Downpipe, and Turbo installed.

Connect the oil feed line, and the oil
return line. Bolt in the primary O2 sensor. And the turbo is done. There is one
more radiator hose to plug. You can see it in the second picture above. It’s the
one right behind the water pump. You may also notice in the first of the two
pics above that my (black) upper intercooler pipe (part of the XS intercooler)
will certainly need to be cut. So, I went and bought one of these. 🙂 I didn’t
want to worry about shavings that would be caused by using a hacksaw, or
anything similar. This pipe cutter was perfect.

It was after this upper intercooler
pipe/blow-off valve combination was installed that I realized I was going to
have to tap into the pipe and install a fitting for a pressure source… I
needed this pressure source for my boost-controller/waste-gate. I wanted the tap
to look neat, so it’s under the pipe, where the blow-off valve is welded
on.
Next was the intake. Notice that I have capped the port in the intake.
This is supposed to take a hose from the port on top of the valve cover, as seen
here . But that will lead to oil in the intake track. Better
to just put a small breather up there.