Hey Guys,

I'm going to be pulling the cylinder head off my turbo miata in the next week or so and need a game plan for how to deal with the exhaust side of the head. Can I pull the manifold/turbo together or do I need to separate the turbo from the manifold first before pulling the manifold? Also, any tips on the turbo lines? I've heard that they can be a pain to work with.

Thanks!

 

I can't comment on the FM manifold specifically, but I believe my old ebay manifold had very similar dimensions and I was able to remove the head with the turbo/manifold in one piece. I also just did this a week or two ago to replace my exhaust manifold gasket, but that was with the Kraken turbo kit. You might have to lift the engine up a tiny bit though. Maybe try disconnecting the driver side engine mount and putting a floor jack underneath it or using an engine hoist if you need a little extra room.

 

Thanks! I plan on also leaving the intake manifold on the head so if I were to leave the exhaust side on as well it would be really, really heavy. It would be nice not having to fiddle with the manifold studs though. What about oil/coolant lines? Any tips on dealing with them. Should I disconnect on the turbo side or the engine side?

 

When I removed my head I did the same thing by leaving the intake manifold attached. It kind of helps to have something to hold onto, but it does increase the weight as you mentioned. I don't remember what I did during my head removal, but when I replaced the gasket I left everything connected except for the downpipe. It kind of depends on how long your water/oil lines are. For me, the downpipe was only a single V-band so I dropped it down before anything else. If you had to remove any lines, I believe it'd be easiest to remove the oil drain and water lines at the engine and only the oil feed at the turbo. It really just depends on your setup though. If you had two people or a hoist to lift the head off, I'd consider keeping the manifold and turbo attached but that's your call.

 

The FM manifold, turbo and soft coolant/oil lines can be installed and removed as a unit with a bit of jockeying. The hard lines have to be removed/installed separately IIRC.

 

I just pulled my FM manifold and Garret turbo from my 2001 a few months ago. Yes, you can do it.

I was originally going to just pull the turbo, but I could not get at all the bolts that hold turbo to manifold.
So I tried downpipe to turbo removal, so I could then get at turbo to manifold, but could not do that either.

But I could pull it all as a unit, manifold, turbo and down pipe.
A little wiggling as said above, or loosening the engine mount and lifting would have made it work better still, but I did not do that.

In the end I had to re-bore and rebuild the engine, so should have just pulled it all to begin with.