Prodigy Performance 3.6 Turbo DIY Install

[UselessPickles]

Now to remove the stock exhaust components.

First, the catalytic converter pipes come off:






I didn't get any pictures of the removal process. Those are mounted to each head of the engine.

Disconnect the O2 sensor wiring first.

The bolts at the lower end of those pipes (connecting them to the Y-pipe) were a mixed bag. I think 3 of them came out no problem, but we gave up on one and used a sawzall. Those bolts aren't reused with the turbo kit, so don't feel bad about using destructive removal procedures.

IIRC, 3 of the bolts on each head were accessible through the wheel well by just sticking your hand under the fender liner. Some of them accessible with a 1/4" socket wrench (maybe with a small extension), and some with a simple wrench. At least one lower bolt on each side was only accessible (as far as we could figure out) from underneath the jeep with a simple wrench and some contortion. It's VERY cramped in there, but it is possible. Choose the friend with the smallest hands to do this part.

Only the top two bolts on each side come completely out. The bottom two just need to be loosened.

With the bolts removed and loosened, the fun doesn't end. There's almost not enough room to get those pipes out. It just took some experimentation of twisting and wiggling the pipe into different orientations, and finally forcing one of them just a little bit when an O2 sensor was getting barely hung up somewhere. I just confirmed that none of the wires were about to get pinched before giving it the final nudge to break it free.

Keep the O2 sensors where they are for not. You'll want to transfer them over to their respective locations on the new exhaust system later (after all the new pipes are installed).

And finally, the y-pipe needs to come out. The instructions make it sound like it will be very difficult, but it was actually the easiest part of the exhaust removal for us. This may have been due to the fact that we had earlier thoroughly soaked the pipe connection with PB Blaster to help break up corrosion.




The trickiest part for us was the stupid exhaust clamp:




WHY is the nut ON TOP? As you can see, we ended up popping the pipe out of the exhaust hanger so we could get a deep-well socket onto the nut. Normal human strength was not enough to get that nut to budge, though. Not even after multiple PB Blaster soakings. We ended up sliding the handle of a jack (essentially a long pipe) over the handle of the ratchet for more leverage, and the nut didn't put up much fight against that.

With the clamp loosened, the y-pipe easily twisted out (again, probably thanks to all the PB Blaster that had soaked in for hours).

[UselessPickles]

Going slightly out of order again...

Instructions say to do this AFTER installing some of the turbo exhaust pipes, but I liked doing this with less stuff in the area. The cooling fan shroud needs to be trimmed to make room for the turbo itself (especially for a turbo blanket), and also for the silicone connector leading into the throttle body.






I used the Dremel with a routing bit again, then cleaned things up with a sanding drum bit.

I actually had to go back and trim some more that what I have done in the picture after everything was installed. Just double check for sufficient clearance as you install stuff, and remember that the engine shakes around a bit. Especially pay attention to clearance for the lower forward portion of the turbo blanket when you install that. I discovered that part of the fan shroud was tearing a hole in my turbo blanket, and luckily had just barely enough room to get the Dremel in there for some more trimming with the turbo fully installed (turbo blanket removed, though).


EDIT: Oops... forgot to mention that the coolant overflow reservoir needs to be temporarily moved out of the way right around this time to give you more room to work. It just lifts right out. We even popped the hose off the reservoir so we could set it aside safely, rather than have it still sitting around somewhere in the engine bay, tethered to the radiator with a hose.

[UselessPickles]

Finally time to start installing the major turbo components!

Photographic coverage starts thinning out here, because it was becoming clear that we weren't going to finish as early as we hoped.

The "up pipe" or "turbo feed pipe" is first to go on:




But first you clamp the wastegate onto it. The clamp does not get tightened at this point, because you'll need to rotate things into proper orientation later. This pipe has a small bracket for mounting it to an existing unused threaded hole on the engine. The hole in my pipe's bracket would not line up with the hole in the engine. I had to grind the end of the bracket down a bit to get things to line up. The Dremel's grinding bit was barely capably of doing this job. It was slow progress:






Instructions say to install the up pipe from below the vehicle. That was not an option for us, and we had absolutely no problem lowering the pipe down from above.


Next up is the passenger head pipe:




Mounting it to the head of the engine is a bit easier than removing the stock pipe. There's a little more room to work. Remember not to tighten these bolts yet. Leave EVERYTHING loose until the end!




The crossover pipe comes next:




Mounts to the driver side head first:




Then connect the crossover pipe and passenger head pipe to the up pipe:




Again, keep those connections loose so they can wiggle. But do spend some time planning how you will orient those flanges to avoid interfering with any suspension components, ground clearance, etc. Also consider whether you'll be able to reach both the nut and the head of the bolt to tighten it later. This is NOT the final orientation I ended up with.


Next is the extension pipe:




I don't have a picture of this getting installed, but it slips into the remainder of the stock exhaust system where the old y-pipe used to connect. You'll want the driver side O2 sensor bung to be just slightly above horizontal. It's a TIGHT fit. We had you use a dead blow hammer to get this pipe in. Maybe we should have tried cleaning out the stock pipe that it slides into for an easier install? Don't tighten the clamp yet.

And, finally, the down pipe:






This pipe has two brackets that slide behind two bolts under the alternator. You have to loosen those two bolts first. And connect it to the extension pipe (don't tighten!).

[UselessPickles]

Now that I've solved my check valve problem, I can get back to documenting the install

Time to prep the turbo itself! I actually did this the night before the install, indoors. It's a nice easy thing to do ahead of time so you don't feel like you're just stuck waiting to get started the next day.

The body of the turbo (small part in the middle with the bearing) has a small oil inlet on one side, and a larger oil outlet on the opposite side. We need to install adapter plates and female compression fittings to each of these, so that the oil feed and drain lines can be connected.




That's the oil feed side. There's a thin gasket that goes on first, then the thick adapter.




Then add some teflon tape (PTFE plumber's thread tape) to the fitting and thread it into the adapter plate.




Same thing for the drain side:













Don't be surprised if the the turbine and compressor housings are not oriented correctly relative to each other, or relative to the turbo body. It's completely adjustable. You actually get quite a good view of the housing bolts in the photos above. Just loosen all the housing bolts slightly (about 1/4 turn should be enough; only loosen them enough so that you can rotate the housing), then rotate the housing relative to the body. The rectangle turbine housing inlet and the oil drain hole need to be pointing straight down. The compressor outlet and oil inlet need to be pointing straight up. Tighten the housing bolts in a star pattern when you're done.

Even if yours comes perfectly aligned already, you should double check that all the housing bolts are tight.

[UselessPickles]

And now the photo coverage REALLY thins out. Hunger, exhaustion and fading sunlight played a role in this.

Next up: install the TURBO!

First, attach the oil drain hose to the turbo, then lower it down unto the turbo feed pipe. There's a steel gasket that goes between the feed pipe and the turbine inlet. Four bolts and nuts secure the turbo in place.




There's some tight spaces in there to get the nuts started. Once all of the nuts are started, it's a two person job to snug them up. One person on top with an open-ended wrench, and another person below with a socket wrench and a LONG extension. We used three 6" extensions.




DO NOT FULLY TIGHTEN!

See the common theme here? All of the exhaust hardware should still be loose, and the turbo mounting hardware should remain loose now.


Now that the turbo is in place, there's a couple things that can be routed to their final locations:
1) Oil feed line needs to be routed nicely and attached to the turbo.
2) That coolant hose that's been dangling off to the side can now get routed around the turbo, then up to the T-fitting back at the heater core.

I'll have to take pictures of final locations of things in my install and post them later for reference.


The air filter gets installed through the wheel well:




Then everything with the turbo/exhaust gets connected/tightened in a certain order. Learn from my mistakes:

1) Re-attach the inner fender liner (that you partially removed to install the air filter). This is important because you need to make sure the air filter is not contacting the fender as you tighten things down. I didn't realize the importance of this step and instead left the fender liner out of the way for better access to stuff. My air filter now touches my fender liner and I'll have to spend the time some day to loosen EVERYTHING, then tighten it all again while applying pressure as necessary to guide things into a better position.

2) Attach turbo to down pipe with a big clamp. The turbo and down pipe need to be nearly perfectly mated to each other before the clamp will go on. We had a lot of trouble getting this to happen. Thinking back, there's a couple possibilities for out trouble:
a) The exhaust pipes had gotten tightened to the engine before I remembered that we were not supposed to tighten anything yet. It took a long time to get them all tightened due to tight spaces, so we decided to leave them tightened because they seemed to have no wiggle room for their final location anyway. We should have taken the time to loosen the bolts to get some wiggle room for getting OTHER components connected.
b) I MIGHT have already tightened the bolts below the alternator that mount the down pipe brackets. i really can't remember now. Don't do that.
c) Remember back when I said I had to grind the end of the bracket that mounts the turbo feed pipe to the engine? I only ground it just enough to get it to barely fit. I think I should have ground it down more to give some more wiggle room for the position of that pipe.

3) Tighten exhaust to the engine heads.

4) Tighten the turbo to the platform of the turbo feed pipe (paying attention to location of air filter to avoid contact with anything nearby).

5) Tighten down pipe to extension pipe.

6) Tighten stock exhaust clamp (which holds the extension pipe).

7) Tighten the remaining two exhaust connections that hold the crossover pipe and passenger head pipe to the turbo feed pipe.

Remember to double check the orientation of the flanges for the exhaust connections to avoid interference with suspension components, avoid reducing ground clearance, and to ensure that you can actually reach the bolts/nuts from both sides with tools to tighten them. We ended up using a socket extension and even a universal joint to reach some of them. Also, tighten all those ball joints TIGHT, or else you will have exhaust leaks.


And now attach the oil drain hose to the oil pan. Be sure to hold the base of the oil pan fitting with a wrench or similar to avoid twisting it in the oil pan.




I zip-tied the oil drain hose to that radiator hose up front to prevent it from swinging toward the exhaust pipe.

[UselessPickles]

Almost done...

But also almost no pictures for the rest of the install.

The wastegate gets connected to the down pipe with a clamp. This clamp will not go un unless the wastegate is almost perfectly aligned with the mounting flange on the downpipe. We had a LOT of trouble getting it to line up. This may have been a continuation of our punishment for the same mistakes that made it tough to attach the turbo to the down pipe. Once you think you have the clamp on, squeeze it closed with some pliers before trying to thread the screw into the clamp. The screw will not go through unless the clamp is nearly closed already, and it requires just a bit more force than my bare hands could provide. The clamp completely closed VERY easily with pliers.

Next, a plastic tube gets connected to a port on the wastegate, and the other end to a port on the turbo compressor outlet. This is the pressure sensing line that causes the wastegate to open and limit the speed of the turbo as pressure increases. Again, I'll try to post a collection of photos later that show the final routing/location of all these items that need to be "carefully routed". The general theme is to keep things away from exhaust pipes.

Next, time to pour coolant back into the radiator. There's an air bleed valve that you open (obvious from photos in the instructions) before pouring coolant in, then close the bleed valve as soon as coolant starts coming out of it. Before pouring my coolant back in, I strained it through an old T-shirt, since the coolant had run all over various dirty parts of the jeep before dripping into the bucket. There were some visible floaters. Why doesn't coolant ever drain out of vehicles nicely, straight into the container?

The upper intake manifold goes back on, attaching all the various hoses and electrical connectors that were disconnected when you removed it. Except for the MAP sensor. The OEM sensor gets replaced with a new MAP sensor (that can read higher pressures). The new sensor uses a different type of connector, so the kit includes an adapter.




I routed the adapter behind a hose to keep it from dangling out from underneath the engine cover.

[UselessPickles]

So close...

Next, the turbo gets connected up to the throttle body with two silicone elbow connectors, a pipe, and some clamps. Remember that tiny fragile intake temperature sensor you removed from the stock intake? That needs to get installed into the silicone elbow that connects to the throttle body.






The IAT sensor just presses into the hole, then gets secured/sealed with super glue. I had to punch my own hole (pounded a screwdriver through it, then used an xacto knife to kinda scrape/ream/drill it out large enough), but future kits are supposed to come pre-punched.

I had installed the IAT sensor earlier in the day, but it was quite late when I was actually installing the silicone and pipe:




Put the coolant overflow reservoir back in place.


Install the front air dam if you still have it and want to keep it. I left mine off for a few days and my jeep wandered noticeable at freeway speeds without it. I would actually recommend leaving it off until after some test driving and inspection anyway. It's easier to look around without the air dam there. Once I put it back on, freeway driving felt more stable.


Transfer the O2 sensors from the stock exhaust to the new turbo exhaust. The upstream sensors are still about in the same location, so they plug right in. The downstream sensors move way down underneath the jeep on the extension pipe. The kit comes with wire harness extensions that must be routed and zip-tied along the way. I'll try to include this in my future collection of photos showing the final routing and resting places of parts.


Fill up on oil. Synthetic oil is a must with the turbo. I used Mobil 1. Double check that your drain plug is tight first


Reconnect the battery.


That's the end of the physical labor!

[UselessPickles]

Don't start the engine yet...


Now it's time to double check that everything is connected, fluids are filled, etc.

Then you turn the key on (but don't start), wait a few seconds for the fuel pump to pressurize, then turn the key off. Repeat 2 more times to build up fuel pressure, then go check under the hood for fuel leaks around the fuel-related stuff you messed with.

NOW start the engine! but only let it run for about 10 seconds, stop it, then check for fluid leaks. I also recommend having someone watching and listening to the exhaust joints for exhaust leaks. I had some VERY loud exhaust leaks on my first start. I could also see water sputtering out of the exhaust connections where it was leaking. I quickly learned that I simply needed to tighten those ball joints much more to seal them up.

Now you can start the engine and let it idle for a while, waiting for the cooling fans to turn on (indicating that coolant is up to temp) so that you can shut the engine off again, and top off the radiator. While it's warming up, keep checking for leaks, bad noises (exhaust leaks), etc. The new fuel injectors seem like they might be louder, or I was just paranoid listening for bad sounds. But if you hear ticking sounds, check to see if they are coming from the fuel rail before you worry about it. it will be louder on the passenger side, because there is foam covering the driver side.

Finally, go for a short, gentle test drive to confirm things are working. Check for leaks, etc. again. Don't forget to check the oil feed and drain lines for the turbo.

Once you are satisfied that everything is good, go enjoy it. there is no break-in procedure required for the turbo itself, but Prodigy recommends that you gently work up to full throttle to get used to it. They specifically say light/moderate throttle for the first 50 miles, but I say just go at your own responsible pace. If you have driven powerful vehicles before, then you might only need a couple miles of driving to become accustomed to the throttle behavior.


Keep an eye on your coolant overflow reservoir over the next couple warm up cycles. I had to top mine off twice.

[UselessPickles]

Before you excitedly start the engine, make sure you install the Prodigy tune with the included Diablosport InTune.

It's pretty painless, but time consuming (possibly an hour or more). This is something that you could do the night before the install so that you really are ready to turn the key after putting the oil in.

First you connect the InTune to an internet-connected computer via the included USB cable. Every time the InTune powers up, it takes several minutes to go through its boot process. The first time you connect to a given computer, it will also take a while for the computer to recognize it, etc. Eventually, an updater application may automatically launch (depending on your exact OS and settings), or you might have to manually launch it (follow Diablosport's instructions).

The updater app will automatically check for updates, download, and install them. You'll have to leave the InTune connected and wait several minutes for it to process the update and reboot.

Once the updater app says it's up-to-date, you can go connect to the OBD port in the Jeep. Several minutes to power up. Then you go through the menu options to install the Prodigy tune. Follow the on-screen instructions, and be ready to do a lot of waiting.

It might tell you that your vehicle requires an update before you can install the tune. If this happens, you just unplug the InTune and take it back to the computer. plug in, wait for it to boot, wait for the updater app to launch (or launch manually if necessary). It will download and install something, probably require you to wait while it reboots, then you can finally go back out to the jeep again, where it will install the update (maybe it waits till you try to install the tune again?), then finally the tune.

[UselessPickles]

Here's an update on my setup of the PCV system. First, a refresher of what I did with the PCV hose (hose from the PCV valve to the intake manifold): http://jeeplab.com/showthread.php?13...ull=1#post2116

What I didn't talk about back then was the other half of the system: the "make up air" hose, which in stock form allows fresh filtered air from the air filter box to enter the crankcase, replacing the air that was sucked out through the PCV valve.

At the time of my previous posts about the PCV system, Prodigy was still working on how to deal with that side of things. When I first received the stage 1 kit, they completely disabled the PCV system and simply tied both vents from the engine together into a road draft tube, which is just nasty, messy and smelly.

When Prodigy sent me the parts to hook up the PCV hose with a check valve, the instructions had me keep the road draft tube hooked up to the "make up air" vent on the engine. This was unacceptable, because air gets sucked INTO the engine through that tube now! That just seemed like a disaster waiting to happen (tires kicking up dust under the vehicle where the end of the tube is, submerging the tube in water, etc). I immediately ran out to an auto parts store and found a breather filter that I was able to rig up satisfactorily to the original make up air hose, but it was kinda ugly and temporary, so i didn't show it off. Prodigy told me at the time that they were still working on finalizing their solution to the make-up air side of the PCV system.

I have since received a small breather filter (smaller than the hideous monstrosity I had rigged up) from Prodigy with a hose coupler that I believe is intended to be used to attach the filter to the end of the rubber hose that had previously connected to the air filter box. That just so happens to be the same curvy rubber hose that I sacrificed to modify the PCV hose (in the link at the beginning of this post) so I could add the check valve into the system while retaining an OEM look with the formed plastic hose.

So here's the OEM "make up air" hose without its curvy rubber hose:




The breather filter conveniently fits right onto the end of that plastic hose:




Highlighted in that photo are:

• The breather filter.
• Zip ties holding the heater hoses away from the filter, and also preventing them from touching the intake manifold way in the back.
• A zip tie holding a small plastic vacuum line up. That vacuum line used to be connected directly to the intake manifold, holding it in place. But now with the rubber vacuum hose used to tee in the BOV sensing line, it wants to fall down onto the oil filter cap.

A close-up of how the heater hoses are anchored with zip ties:




I like the final result. As close to OEM appearance as I can get:





With the breather filter mounted directly onto the plastic hose, it gets hidden by the the plastic engine cover.

Since there was recent talk about adding oil catch cans to the supercharger setups, I think it's worth mentioning that the Prodigy setup doesn't have any oil vapors going through the turbo or intercooler. The only time oil vapors are entering the intake is when there's vacuum in the intake manifold pulling oil air directly through the PCV hose. When you're making boost, it's all fresh air coming in.

The down-side to this setup is that when you are making boost, piston blow-by gasses pressurized the crankcase and cause oily vapors to flow backwards through the the "make-up air hose", through the breather filter, and dumping out to atmosphere under the hood. This is not ideal because:

• Pollution. It definitely won't meet emissions requirements. Won't even pass a visual inspection, if you have those in your region.
• Sometimes you can smell that oily air, especially after some full throttle in the summer with the top down, then coming to a stop or slowing down soon afterward.
• When hooked up in stock form, there's a slight amount of vacuum in the air filter box under high engine load conditions that helps suck the blow-by gasses out of the crankcase through the make-up air hose. When venting to atmosphere, it's a bit less efficient at keeping the crankcase air clean.

In the future, I'd like to explore the option of adding a hose fitting to the end of the air filter (the main air filter on the turbo) so that I can run the make-up air hose through an oil catch can and back into the air filter for a fully closed PCV system. Less pollution, no oily smells ever, and slightly cleaner crankcase air. The only problem is that the tune from Prodigy was designed with purely fresh air when on boost, so I would run the risk of knocking/detonation as a result of lowered effective octane from whatever oil makes it past the catch can. To be 100% safe, I think this would require some serious testing/monitoring by someone that knows what they're doing to determine whether a custom slightly less aggressive tune is necessary to keep things safe. I'm not sure I'll ever get motivated enough to be willing to pay for professional testing and possibly custom tuning for this.

I may discuss with Prodigy at some point to see if they think it would be safe enough to setup, then send them some data logs afterward to see if any tweaks to the tune are necessary.