So I was looking and planning my turbo setup. I found an excellent place to put the turbo, low to keep the weight low, nice straight down pipe run, easy ic piping routing. 1 problem, the lower rad hose is right in the middle of the compressor housing. So, are there any alternative mixing blocks that work on the 1.8, or is it possible to flip the manifold around and have the neck for the lower rad hose go off the front? If I did the former I have no problem re-working the part of the mixing block for the heater hose. I wont be running ac, I will be running PS in the future but I plan on using one of the electric power steering pumps. I'd really prefer to not have to cut and past on a stock mixing housing to make this work since my aluminum welding skills are questionable at best. Steel is no problem, freshly machined AL with the welder setup perfect (and the correct tungsten), no problem, dirty old *** random AL? FML!

 

Yup you can flip it around and run it no problem. If you get a much thicker radiator in the future you might have some clearance issues and need to modify it to fit from there. If you are still running your heater core that will be the worst hose to re-route, but it is really no problem.

Someone, maybe me in the future, should produce a modified mixing manifold to put all the hose connections in the right places and fit with any radiator. hmmmm

 

Yeah to do the heater hose I was thinking about just drilling and tapping the back side of the elbow for 3/8npt and running a barb. Then tapping the inlet and plugging it. I'll have to look at the inner bits to make sure that this wont completely mess up the flow inside it though. Hopefully by the time I feel the need for a thicker rad I'll be good enough at welding AL to change the low rad hose nipple.