Installing FP Green stock location with VertiCooler

[atbwrx]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! !!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, just had to vent.

After much fiddling, have everything together except the boost pipe.

This is going to be fun...

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[atbwrx]

As can be seen. the crank breather hose and a wiring terminal are blockng the turbo outlet. If anyone has any options for what can be done to relocate either or both of these components, I'm all ears.

[atbwrx]

Duplicate post.

[atbwrx]

Well that went better than expected.



I had to wrestle with it a bit, and get a couple of radiator hose pick tools in on it, but got the boost hose on. Its actually pretty well designed for the application. The VertiCooler snorkel on the hood is wedge shaped on the bottom, so when you drop the hood the wedge separates the boost hose from the VertiCooler so the snorkel can fit inbetween and still seal to the face of the VertiCooler.

The crank vent and that wire terminal are not yet connected.

On the terminal, you can see that the top 1/4 of the black casing is for the locking mechanism. It will be a little ghetto, but I'm thinking of dremeling that off, and using E-tape to hold this connector onto the female side of the terminal. That would create about 1/4" of clearance which should be enough to put this back on.






Either that, or I'll have remove the downpipe, flange brace and unbolt the up pipe at the header, and use a jack to push up on the up pipe and see if I can create enough clearance under the turbo to click this terminal back together.

Anyone know what this terminal powers? It looks like its attached to a valve on the top of the block.

Comments, suggestions appreciated.

[Max Capacity]

Can you rotate the compressor housing ? Most turbos are able to do that.

[atbwrx]

Originally Posted by Max Capacity

Can you rotate the compressor housing ? Most turbos are able to do that.

That was a great suggestion. I looked to see if it was viable and it isn't. I would almost need to have the discharge port at 45 degrees to be helpful, and the charge pipe wouldn't fit at that angle.


I did "clearance" the wire plug and it worked great, I now have a clear shot to the turbo discharge port.

The crank breather / oil drain hose still wasn't working out. The hose was kinking when bent around the turbo. I bought a 5/8" 90 degree elbow which will allow the breather line to pass under the discharge port, shoot under the intercooler and back to the AOS.

The oil drain from the AOS is going to be rerouted to "T" into the oil drain with this set up from flat iron motors:



Unfortunately, everything is going to have to come apart again but this should be the last time it will need to go back together again. Will post pics as it progresses.

[atbwrx]

Still waiting on the oil drain line from Flatirons, but I went ahead and installed the crankcase to AOS breather line.

I've had this IAG AOS for a couple years, so I think it's the Street Version .v2.

This AOS feeds a line from the crank case breather port back to the AOS, but then routes the AOS oil drain back line back to the same port. So you have a breather pushing oil entrained air to the AOS when there's positive crank case pressure, and then draining the strained oil back down the same hole. Not an ideal situation.
The turbo outlet on the V52 in a WRX points straight up, so having a tall fitting over crank case breather port isn't an issue because the turbo doesn't get in the way. The FP Green turbo outlet points out to the side and blocks the access to the crank case breather port about 4" above it.

I installed a 90 degree elbow, which should fit in the space between the top of block and the bottom of the turbo compressor cover.



This is a lot shorter set up than the AOS adapter which feeds the AOS drain to the base of the adapter and pulls the crank case ventilation off the top. The AOS adapter is about 4.5" tall where the elbow (already installed in this pic) is only about 2" tall.



Here's a shot of the crankcase breather line in place. It runs past the turbo so I put a heat shield on it. I got a turbo blanket for the FP Green as well so that should help. The I.D. of the crank case breather port is larger than the intake line to the AOS so I put in a reducer midway. Probably should move that closer to the crank case breather port to keep the crank case gas velocity up going through the line, will need to think about that.



Will post pics of the drain back line install when received, should ship soon and I can finish this install.

[Gbarajas]

I’m having the exact same problem with my FP green, I have a 2012 WRX with the same setup v3 IAG aos, verticooler and FP green and this hose is so annoying is there any chance you have a picture of your finished product that you’d be able to send me ?

[atbwrx]

The oil drain part finally came in.

Here's a quick comparison. The stock rubber oil drain hose that mounts between the turbo and the block on the left, and the flatirons part on the right.



The stock hose is about 4" tall. The flatirons part comes with about an extra foot of hose above the "Y" junction. I cut most of it off. The section you see in the pic is cut back to 6" tall. I had struggled getting a good seal with the stock length hose since it was barely tall enough. By adding 2" I'm hoping it will be easier to mount the turbo and in the end have a good seal on the top where it mounts to the turbo and on the bottom where it mounts to the engine.

Here it is mounted in place. As you can see, the drain line from the AOS now taps into the side of the turbo drain hose. Pretty cool.



Next step will be to remount the FP Green and see if it will fit back on the up pipe without the hot side pinching the relocated drain line.

[atbwrx]

Duplicate post.

[atbwrx]

More on with the FP Green Install, I was continuing to have fitment issues.

The turbo wouldn't sit flush on the up pipe. It turned out the crank breather was still just a little bit high and was contacting the underside of the discharge housing. I shortened the hose connecting the crank case breather to the 90 degree elbow by one inch which gave enough clearance so there was no contact.





The issue continued to remain, so I chopped a half inch off the top and bottom of the oil drain "Y" to get it to sit better in the hole and to make sure the hose wasn't propping the turbo up so that it couldn't rest on the up pipe. You can see on the left how much higher the drain hose sits and how it isn't centered in the opening.



It turned out the routing of the AOS drain hose between the bell housing and the turbo was preventing the turbo from sitting all the way down onto the up pipe because the drain hose was getting pinched between the discharge housing and the bell housing. The only solution I could see was to gut the stock up pipe brace to allow room for the breather hose. The pic above on the right shows how after the mod, the opening to the turbo drain pipe is centered in the opening, and the drain line from the AOS doesn't sit inbetween the turbo and bell housing, but actually runs under the turbo. I have some heat shielding on the hose and a turbo blanket, so I'm hoping between the two I don't bake any hoses.




Lastly, I cut the locking clip off of the electrical plug that was obstructing the discharge port on the turbo. This creates about a ½" of clearance. On reinstallation I used electrical tape to hold the plug.




With all of these adjustments I think I am good to go. Pic on the left was the first install with the electric plug and AOS breather/oil drain blocking the turbo outlet, pic on the right is where I'm at now with plenty of clearance around the discharge port on the FP Green.



Here's a shot with the FP Green mounted and all the lines and hoses hooked up. Looks like plenty of room for the downpipe and verticooler with the re-routed AOS hoses, but won't know for sure until they are mounted. I am a little concerned about how close the oil drain is to the hot side and up pipe, hopefully won't get cooked too badly.

[REX_WGN]

man, kudos to you for all of this work. I hope all goes well!

[K3rm1tth3fr0g]

Jeez OP do you know why fitment is so bad on your setup?

I've never heard of people having to chop up electrical connectors...

[atbwrx]

Originally Posted by K3rm1tth3fr0g

Jeez OP do you know why fitment is so bad on your setup?

I've never heard of people having to chop up electrical connectors...

Probably because most people aren't idiots that are trying to run a stock location FP Green with a Verticooler using the stock WRX manifold? Lol.

Every day I look at the engine bay and I hear a little voice inside my head that says "is a front mount REALLY going to add THAT MUCH turbo lag?" or "a rotated set up would look really good in there about now". But NOPE, that's not part of plan. Maximum throttle response and minimum turbo lag on a 400+hp build at stock redline is what we're going for.

[K3rm1tth3fr0g]

Originally Posted by atbwrx

Probably because most people aren't idiots that are trying to run a stock location FP Green with a Verticooler using the stock WRX manifold? Lol.

Every day I look at the engine bay and I hear a little voice inside my head that says "is a front mount REALLY going to add THAT MUCH turbo lag?" or "a rotated set up would look really good in there about now". But NOPE, that's not part of plan. Maximum throttle response and minimum turbo lag on a 400+hp build at stock redline is what we're going for.

Ah yes the massive Verticooler. Kudos to you for giving it your all in trying to make it fit.

FYI rotated turbos actually typically spool and respond much better than OEM location turbos of the same size because they ditch the horrible inefficient FHI housing - not to mention rotated setups can run a better and more sensible inlet.

The turbo lag brought about by FMICs is quite minimal.

[atbwrx]

Bolted on the down pipe and got the intercooler installed.

She's in!



Definitely fighting me every step of the way.

The two major issues on the FP Green + Verticooler install with an AOS on a GR WRX are:
1) The turbo sits right over the crank breather and there's barely enough room to route the breather line around the turbo. I wonder if an STI intake manifold would allow you to run the breather between the turbo and the intake manifold. With the WRX manifold, there is no room for the breather to go but backward, right at the Verticooler.
2) The second issue is the AOS lines interfere with everything with the bigger FP Green turbo. Maybe the competition version of the AOS (I'm running the street version) would make for an easier fit. As mentioned above, the crankcase breather hose was a pain to route, and it runs right in front of the bolt hole opening where the mounting bolt goes through the base of the Verticooler. So I had to pry the hose out of the way with a pry bar, while trying to get the bolt started and using a magnetic probe to hold the spacer in place. One of the those "need three hands" deals.


Here's a side view and you can see how tight of a fit the pressure piping is.



On my first attempt I had the hose too close to the Verticooler so the hood wouldn't shut because the snorkel was hitting the hose.

I loosened the hose clamps and pulled the hose forward to create as much of a gap as possible between the pressure piping and the Verticooler and then cranked down the clamps again. That did the trick.

You can see in this pic how the bottom of the hood snorkel is wedge shaped to create clearance between the verticooler and the pressure pipe as the hood closes.



Is this set up worth the effort? A front mount would make life a lot easier because it would open up all the space behind the intake manifold occupied by the Verticooler, and it would allow you to mount the AOS off the pitch stop instead in the corner next to the stock location turbo.

That being said, the focus of this build is to try to maximize throttle response and create a somewhat quick spooling street motor that can make decent power using the factory redline, and doing this while retaining a somewhat stock look. If this set up can deliver, then it would be worth it.
Although lately I've been seeing some recent builds online where the turbo systems are getting so efficient that the old adage of big turbos + high redline = no low end response is no longer true. I saw build on youtube today where the dyno graph was basically what I'm looking for out of this set up to 6500rpms, but then kept going to an 8K redline. Basically, a 450 hp / 400 ft lbs at 6500 rpms that I'd like to see, but then this motor went to the moon from there and made huge power.

Tomorrow will put in coolant and oil, and then I'll be able to see if she wants to start.
I'm hoping to be able to drive it out to the tuner if I don't go into boost and get the engine tuned for the new turbo.
Since I'm still on the stock WRX motor, I'm not expecting more power out of the set up yet. I just want the car drivable with the new turbo until I get the forged motor built.

It will be interesting to see how the FP Green does compared to the stock VF 52 on the same motor.

[REX_WGN]

way to go! I have the same verticooler that I plan on installing in my Forester. Hopefully I don't run into these clearance issues but I really shouldn't with a stock turbo. Currently running the "regular" PW intercooler.

[atbwrx]

Originally Posted by REX_WGN

way to go! I have the same verticooler that I plan on installing in my Forester. Hopefully I don't run into these clearance issues but I really shouldn't with a stock turbo. Currently running the "regular" PW intercooler.

You'll be good. I had no clearance issues with the stock VF52. It was tight in spots, but no mods necessary.

You'll like it, the Verticooler is a good set up.