One of my other friends saw a post I made on Facebook about this and has a drill press and offered to help out. So, I'll probably drill and tap for 10mm.

I suppose I could always go cheap and get the Full Race setup if I'm drilling for M10.

http://www.full-race.com/store/turbo...dware-kit.html

I feel like Savington's kit might be overkill, but then again, maybe not, because I've heard a lot of guys say that the things back out or bust.

Overkill? Maybe, but exhaust leaks and busted turbo hardware SUCKS.

Make sure you get a bottoming tap if you plan on doing it yourself since you want to maximize thread depth (the driver side rear stud doesn't have much clearance).

-Zach

A machine shop is WAAAAY cheaper than DIY for this job.

And, like I said, Andrew's studs can be recovered and re-used on future projects.

Do it once.

How is a machine shop cheaper when my friend has all the tools needed including the M10 tap? I'm confused.

Manifolds must vary a lot; all of mine ended up through holes.

Sorry if I'm being dense. What do you mean they "ended up through holes."

Drilled completely through the manifold into the runners/plenum. It's generally considered "a bad thing" to do this as you are then directly exposing the fasteners to the exhaust gasses.

A blind hole has a bottom, a through hole has no bottom.

That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. I'll take a look at what is there now. I don't think I actually removed the turbo from the manifold when I got the thing because it was hooked in pretty good to the existing studs which the PO had put in to replace the Greddy hardware.

A through hole tapped all the way IMHO is better than a stud bottoming. The inconel stud will be less susceptible to exhaust gasses than just about everything else they hit and if you need to remove the stud, it will not bind so easily as in a blind hole.

There is also the chance of over-stressing the stud against the bottom of the thread which may lead to cracking of the manifold.

TSE's kit was the first inconel stud kit on the market aimed directly for miatas. Savington spent a ton of time making sure they fixed the problem, which he was one of the first people to discover. I will not recommend any other Inconel hardware because no other vendor has shown them running below SM laptimes and causing studs to stretch, then running their Inconel studs at the same laptimes and have them not stretch. That alone makes the cost of the TSE studs worth it in my mind.

I might go to a different turbo setup just to avoid undoing and redoing this stupid bottom bolt on the turbo to downpipe connection ever again.

:vash:

Well, you can't use a ratchet on it, but other than that . . . never thought it was much of an issue. What was the problem with it?

I'm a big wussbag and want a ratchet is the problem. :ugh:

It's annoying to get the damned wrench on the bolt I have on there. The tony downpipe is just in the way.

I think I had to use a shorter bolt for the bottom location of turbo to downpipe. I even chopped the end off a 13mm wrench so I could do that bolt and a couple of the manifold bolts specifically. It's tedious, but definitely do-able. A ratcheting wrench may help you.

I can barely get the 13mm wrench on there now. Most of the ratcheting ones I've seen wouldn't fit. It will come off, just not easily. I think I've got it mostly done now. I just have to detach the manifold and see how far I've gotten. Waiting for extensions to come in the mail so I can hit the bottom bolts on the manifold from under the fender.

Got everything off. Between the downpipe refusing to let go of the manifold and the manifold just sticking itself on to the block it was a huge pain in the ass getting the thing off. And that was after I finally managed to get those three somewhat hard to reach bolts off finally. It's really annoying when everything is unbolted and the thing still won't come off.

Drilling and tapping tomorrow. I didn't even try removing the turbo from the manifold yet.

I ordered the Trackspeed kit today.

I just read underdog's thread and now I want to go to a taco manifold and a chinese turbo for $300.

Okay, so as I figured removing the studs from the manifold didn't work out too well. Of the three remaining studs only one came out without breaking leaving a total of three studs embedded in the manifold. Looking at it off the car the manifold looks a bit well... bent. It's just not quite straight anymore. My friend didn't feel comfortable drilling out the all the studs as he had one walk a bit as he was drilling it out. So, he is sending it over to someone with better equipment. We'll see how it comes out and whether I can drill for 10mm or not. I'm kind of regretting ordering the kit before I really knew if this manifold was going to work out.

1. Machine shop would have been the inexpensive and easy way to go.

2. Those studs should be used on any setup you put on the car from here out. Why do you regret it and what does it have to do with your old Greddy manifold working out?

You can lead a horse to water . . . .

1. I still don't see where expense comes into this? Also my friend is sending it to a machine shop at this point, but it was worth a try at his place and I got pizza and beer out of it. Do you just want to think I've suddenly shelled out money for this? Because so far it's $0 and very little trouble. In fact I had to offer some money for the guy he is sending it to as he was gonna have it done for nothing.

2. Eh I dunno. I was thinking last night that I could only use it for this setup. I think I had too much beer and wasn't thinking straight.