Quick update. We are pretty much complete with the "tear down" section of the installation.
Removed:
Wheels, Bumper, Fender Liners, Power steering lines and cooler, Upper intake manifold, injectors/fuel rails, cats, y-pipe, exaust manifolds, and steering coupler.
Every fastener has been bagged and tagged, and paired parts have been marked to designate which side and orientation they go back in.
We have had a bit of an up and down start as my BIL's kids do kid things and they have holiday stuff they've had to do - but we are starting to build momentum. Only one hangup so far, we lost 4 hours to the drivers side "demon bolt." As suggested in the instructions, we used 40" of 1/2" extensions with a 3 foot breaker bar but the socket would just slip off the bolt. We tried a 350 ft/lb impact wrench. Went to Northern Tool and bought a 1300 ft/lb impact wrench..still no go. We finally took the nuclear option and used a bolt extractor, and then finally the head of the bolt sheared off. Good enough for us.. it was clear that thing was never going come out unless we put a torch on it and we felt it was too tight to try.
One other small hang up.. the stupid manifold heatshield bolts. we got 2 of 6 off, the other 4 sheared off. Whatever. Damn things are only 10mm and there is no room in there to steady the torque on them so they just end up bending and getting stuck in the manifolds.
We are going to deviate from the instructions in a couple of small ways, please let me know if you guys think this is a bad idea. 1) The instructions suggest we install injectors/fuel rails and upper intake manifold and then install the exhaust manifolds and turbos after. I think the little bit of extra room with the intake manifold (and throttle bodies) off will make manifold/turbo installation easier so we are going to reverse those directions. Any reason why we shouldn't?
2) We are going to install the fuel pump last as my BIL's lift is a 2-post symmetric so opening the doors and getting in and out of the car is a bit of a pain... figure it will be far easier once the car is back on the ground. Any reason why we shouldn't?
We have taken a ton of pics, probably will do a mass pic dump after we are done since we are working under a time constraint. So far it's been really fun, but I am looking forward to that finish line!
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