So here I will attempt to answer questions on this kit, share some pictures, and document my overall thoughts on the process.
I'll break up the thread into a couple of sections. QUALITY, FITAMENT/INSTALL, and PERFORMANCE.
I never dyno'd my Paxton and only had it at the drag strip twice. This thread will eventually turn into a comparison of the two and just keep in mind that I didn't have the Paxton long enough to realize it's full potential. Part of that is because I knew deep down that the centri is less efficient than the turbo and i knew I would eventually switch, because the Paxton needed an 8 rib upgrade to get serious and I didn't feel like changing all the pulleys on the rest of the motor, and lastly because the Paxton sold a little quicker than I anticipated.
QUALITY
This kit is made in China. I could just end it there, but truthfully, there are many parts of this kit that have impressive quality and others that certainly do not.
The headers and header flanges are extremely beefy. I do not foresee any cracking issues as I chose to not wrap the headers and they are constructed with heavy gauge steel.
The turbos are ball bearing and not bad. Not great, but not bad. I really hate the dull chrome look of the compressor covers and will eventually have them powder coated black if they last. There are no real visible casting flaws or obvious issues I could see from simple visual inspection.
The wastegates and BOV are not bad. The quality control in their construction SUCKS as the flange thicknesses of my two gates was completely different which led to sealing issues and exhaust leaks. Hell they probably were made in different plants. See pics. The rubber used for the diaphrams is quality and the aluminum bodies and stainless valves appear to be of high quality as well. Wastegate clamps were completely different on each gate. The stainless ones needed lots of fab work to get to seal properly. Awful.
Intercooler is meh. Its a large unit and 3.5" thick. Quality is sub par and NOT on the same level as a nice sheet metal end tanked garret unit. The welds, however, are nice. Cold side piping is nice.
Hardware is junk. Metal is of low quality and bolts strip easily. Upgraded nuts and bolts are highly recommended. Hoses are not bad. Drains are actually made in USA. Feed lines are fine. T bold clamps on cold side are ok. I don't see any issue with them. V band 3" exhaust clamps are ok as well. Not great.. but they'll work.
INSTALL
This kit is NOT for a first timer power adder installer lol. I had the Paxton installed in a weekend and could do it again in less than a day easy.
This kit, however, kicked my ass for a few weeks. I was only able to work on it 6-7 hours per weekend though. I'd say my total time invested so far is 40-45 hours. I am still chasing down small issues but was able to take it for a spin around the block today.
The kit does not come with instructions. It comes with an "install guide" which is more of a "thoughts and the way I like to do it" kind of guide from Chad the owner of On3.
That said, I pieced together my own instructions. I printed out the instructions from the Armageddon kit and also watched a few videos on Coyote header swaps.
If you've installed turbos before, there are no surprises here. The only REAL issue with this kit and this model mustang is SPACE! No space.
Specific FITAMENT issues:
The overall fit of the kit gets a C-. Some of this is due to the poor quality control I alluded to with the wastegates and some of it MUST be his jigs are off in China when they are producing these kits. I had to use a 12 ton shop press to flatten a spot on the pass side wastegate dump tube because it interfered with the exhaust housing of the turbo.
The driver side took me 2 weekends to get the exhaust leaks sorted out. I had to shave the exhaust housing on the dr side turbo just as others did to get the wastegate clamp to clear. I actually had to shave the clamp itself as well. Once I got this figured out and assembled, the base of the wastegate leaked exhaust like crazy as did the 2nd 3" v band connection at the down pipe. I ended up having to shave the rear most upper header bolt in order to get more space for the down pipe to adjust. Once this was done, the v band clamp bolted down tight and the leaks went away. To get the wastegate leak fixed, I had to shave the mating faces of the v band clamp to allow them to tighten more. Before this, the gate would spin on its base all with the clamp fully tightened down. After my mod it tightened enough to seal up the leak.
The intercooler mounting brackets are nice pieces, but not long enough lol. I had to weld a section onto the pass side in order to be able to hang the cooler and center it properly. This was easy being I have a welder but ridiculous that it needs done.
None of the header mounting bolts were correct. I didn't want to mod all of my existing studs and bolts (weld and cut) so I went to the hardware store and bought a new set of the correct bolts.
PERFORMANCE
Car is being tuned by Chris Holmes. Fired right up and idles nicely. Was able to take it around the block today and boost builds EXTREMELY fast. It will get 2-3 psi before 3000 rpm. Did not do any full throttle pulls as we are in the baby stages of logging and tuning so this section will get updated once tuning is complete.
The car has a magnaflow 3" ORX, JPC OTA pipes, and GT500s. It sounds OUTSTANDING!! Very excited. Im 37 and not interested in LOUD-- LOOK AT ME --exhausts any longer. This setup is nice and quiet and perfect for me.
Being that the exhaust is quiet, the turbos are obvious in their sound when they start to spool. With the anti-surge compressor housings and ball bearings, they sound outstanding. Very, very excited to get this thing tuned and dialed in.
MORE TO COME!
UPDATE 8.24.15. This car runs like a scalded ass ape and I could NOT be more happy. For the amount of money invested this kit is a no brainer! The car flies!
Chris Holmes is highly recommended on the tuning side!!!
AWFUL
See any difference?
stamped steel junk chromed clamps. wow
regular v band style clamps came with this one lol
Intercooler
T bolt clamps
Turbos
Wastegate flange on dr side.. needed shaving.
Pass side WG dump tube had to be flattened some via 12 ton shop press
IC bracket mod
ECU mounting
3.5" MAF pipe in latest kits
Prepping oil pan for dual drains.
how she sits now
turbo blankets.
Decided to give the front end a facelift before I slammed it back together.
pics
pics
pics
I'll break up the thread into a couple of sections. QUALITY, FITAMENT/INSTALL, and PERFORMANCE.
I never dyno'd my Paxton and only had it at the drag strip twice. This thread will eventually turn into a comparison of the two and just keep in mind that I didn't have the Paxton long enough to realize it's full potential. Part of that is because I knew deep down that the centri is less efficient than the turbo and i knew I would eventually switch, because the Paxton needed an 8 rib upgrade to get serious and I didn't feel like changing all the pulleys on the rest of the motor, and lastly because the Paxton sold a little quicker than I anticipated.
QUALITY
This kit is made in China. I could just end it there, but truthfully, there are many parts of this kit that have impressive quality and others that certainly do not.
The headers and header flanges are extremely beefy. I do not foresee any cracking issues as I chose to not wrap the headers and they are constructed with heavy gauge steel.
The turbos are ball bearing and not bad. Not great, but not bad. I really hate the dull chrome look of the compressor covers and will eventually have them powder coated black if they last. There are no real visible casting flaws or obvious issues I could see from simple visual inspection.
The wastegates and BOV are not bad. The quality control in their construction SUCKS as the flange thicknesses of my two gates was completely different which led to sealing issues and exhaust leaks. Hell they probably were made in different plants. See pics. The rubber used for the diaphrams is quality and the aluminum bodies and stainless valves appear to be of high quality as well. Wastegate clamps were completely different on each gate. The stainless ones needed lots of fab work to get to seal properly. Awful.
Intercooler is meh. Its a large unit and 3.5" thick. Quality is sub par and NOT on the same level as a nice sheet metal end tanked garret unit. The welds, however, are nice. Cold side piping is nice.
Hardware is junk. Metal is of low quality and bolts strip easily. Upgraded nuts and bolts are highly recommended. Hoses are not bad. Drains are actually made in USA. Feed lines are fine. T bold clamps on cold side are ok. I don't see any issue with them. V band 3" exhaust clamps are ok as well. Not great.. but they'll work.
INSTALL
This kit is NOT for a first timer power adder installer lol. I had the Paxton installed in a weekend and could do it again in less than a day easy.
This kit, however, kicked my ass for a few weeks. I was only able to work on it 6-7 hours per weekend though. I'd say my total time invested so far is 40-45 hours. I am still chasing down small issues but was able to take it for a spin around the block today.
The kit does not come with instructions. It comes with an "install guide" which is more of a "thoughts and the way I like to do it" kind of guide from Chad the owner of On3.
That said, I pieced together my own instructions. I printed out the instructions from the Armageddon kit and also watched a few videos on Coyote header swaps.
If you've installed turbos before, there are no surprises here. The only REAL issue with this kit and this model mustang is SPACE! No space.
Specific FITAMENT issues:
The overall fit of the kit gets a C-. Some of this is due to the poor quality control I alluded to with the wastegates and some of it MUST be his jigs are off in China when they are producing these kits. I had to use a 12 ton shop press to flatten a spot on the pass side wastegate dump tube because it interfered with the exhaust housing of the turbo.
The driver side took me 2 weekends to get the exhaust leaks sorted out. I had to shave the exhaust housing on the dr side turbo just as others did to get the wastegate clamp to clear. I actually had to shave the clamp itself as well. Once I got this figured out and assembled, the base of the wastegate leaked exhaust like crazy as did the 2nd 3" v band connection at the down pipe. I ended up having to shave the rear most upper header bolt in order to get more space for the down pipe to adjust. Once this was done, the v band clamp bolted down tight and the leaks went away. To get the wastegate leak fixed, I had to shave the mating faces of the v band clamp to allow them to tighten more. Before this, the gate would spin on its base all with the clamp fully tightened down. After my mod it tightened enough to seal up the leak.
The intercooler mounting brackets are nice pieces, but not long enough lol. I had to weld a section onto the pass side in order to be able to hang the cooler and center it properly. This was easy being I have a welder but ridiculous that it needs done.
None of the header mounting bolts were correct. I didn't want to mod all of my existing studs and bolts (weld and cut) so I went to the hardware store and bought a new set of the correct bolts.
PERFORMANCE
Car is being tuned by Chris Holmes. Fired right up and idles nicely. Was able to take it around the block today and boost builds EXTREMELY fast. It will get 2-3 psi before 3000 rpm. Did not do any full throttle pulls as we are in the baby stages of logging and tuning so this section will get updated once tuning is complete.
The car has a magnaflow 3" ORX, JPC OTA pipes, and GT500s. It sounds OUTSTANDING!! Very excited. Im 37 and not interested in LOUD-- LOOK AT ME --exhausts any longer. This setup is nice and quiet and perfect for me.
Being that the exhaust is quiet, the turbos are obvious in their sound when they start to spool. With the anti-surge compressor housings and ball bearings, they sound outstanding. Very, very excited to get this thing tuned and dialed in.
MORE TO COME!
UPDATE 8.24.15. This car runs like a scalded ass ape and I could NOT be more happy. For the amount of money invested this kit is a no brainer! The car flies!
Chris Holmes is highly recommended on the tuning side!!!
AWFUL
See any difference?
stamped steel junk chromed clamps. wow
regular v band style clamps came with this one lol
Intercooler
T bolt clamps
Turbos
Wastegate flange on dr side.. needed shaving.
Pass side WG dump tube had to be flattened some via 12 ton shop press
IC bracket mod
ECU mounting
3.5" MAF pipe in latest kits
Prepping oil pan for dual drains.
how she sits now
turbo blankets.
Decided to give the front end a facelift before I slammed it back together.
pics
pics
pics
Last edited: