Blitz`s Detailed Alpha Stage 1 Turbo Kit Installation Before you

Blitz’s Detailed Alpha Stage 1 Turbo Kit Installation
Before you do any of the following steps:
First, I recommend you download and read the Alpha Turbo install instructions, then read this doc. If
you find any conflicting steps please 1) Notify me and 2) Follow the Alpha instructions. They supersede
anything I say here. These are my notes and experiences which expand on the steps in the Alpha install
doc.
Link to Alpha Turbo install doc: http://www.slingmods.com/pdf/alpha-turbo-install.pdf
You will want your Slingshot jacked up to do this. I don’t like to tempt fate so I use Rhino Ramps vs jack
stands. A word of caution – the SS is too light to hold a Rhino Ramp down and back the back wheel up it
unless you have the Rhino Ramp secured to the garage floor (as in concrete anchors).
If you try to back the SS up on an unsecured ramp (especially if you have a slick or treated garage floor) it
will spin the ramp under the vehicle and cause damage to a lesser or greater degree depending on where
it hits. You have been duly warned.
I jack up the SS and put the Rhino Ramps under the wheels that way. I have found putting the front
wheel Rhino Ramp slopes towards the front of the vehicle and the rear facing the rear allows for nice
access all under the vehicle.
1) Remove the hood. I found that it made it easier to wrap some tie down straps around the joist
hangers in my garage and hook them into the rear latches of the hood (with the hood open)
before removing the bolts. This way the hood is supported from above once the bolts are
removed.
Consider removing the hood a two person job unless you don’t care about damage or have four
(really long) arms.
These are the hood hinge bolts you’ll want to remove (hood hinge is in open position, passenger
side in photo for reference):
2) Remove the passenger side panel and mudguard/fender as one assembly. Watch for
incorrectly installed speed nuts. I found speed nuts that were installed from the factory behind
the tab they were supposed to be sandwiching and also torn tabs from incorrect installation.
This seems to be a common occurrence on Slingshots so care must be taken not to damage the
tab further. Move slowly and if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. If in doubt, get a
finger behind the screw and feel for the speed nut spinning when you loosen the screw. This can
be easy to very difficult depending on how the panel is mounted and access to the speed nut.
There is one panel mount screw by the passenger seat that is difficult to get to, you may have to
remove your speaker pod and there are two different length screws depending on how you go
about removing the panels. The speed nuts are M6 and available at auto parts stores. Honestly,
the panel removal is my least favorite part of this procedure.
And lastly, the M6 panel button bolts that come on the SS are weak. They start to strip when
installed at the factory and after two or three uses are pretty much junk. I am telling you this
because when that happens, they are very easy to cross thread. Trust your fingers and if they
don’t feel like they are threading right, they probably aren’t.
3) Remove the factory muffler assembly. I recommend putting several layers of masking tape on
the frame member you see under the muffler or you will scratch it up. No sense in giving rust a
head start. On heat reduction equipped vehicles it is easiest to remove the heat shield and then
the muffler. Do not remove the factory exhaust manifold unless you are putting on a header.
4) Remove the O2 Sensor. Unplug the O2 sensor and then remove it (7/8” box end). We unplug
the sensor so the wires don’t twist and possibly get damaged during removal. The ONLY reason
we are removing the O2 sensor is it will hit the frame during the engine lifting procedure farther
down.
5) Remove the two coolant tank mounting bolts and allow the coolant tank to be free. This is
necessary because the coolant tank has to be able to travel up and down during the engine
lifting procedure farther down. 2 x 15MM
Now we are ready to get to the meat of the install. But first some background that will help you:
On 2016.5 Slingshots (and possibly older units that have the heat reduction kit – I do not have
access to an older model with the heat kit retrofitted) there are several pieces to the radiator
shroud and air flow package. Starting from the front of the motor and moving towards the front
of the vehicle, there is:
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
The rear shroud. This completely covers the fan assembly
The fan assembly
The radiator
The front upper shroud
The front lower shroud
There are several issues you may or will encounter here:
f) The intercooler tubes will not fit with the upper shroud installed.
g) You may not be able to remove the oil pan with the rear radiator shroud present (the
“finagle” procedure as I call requires moving the oil pan towards the front of the vehicle
over the steering rack and then dropping it down in back and sliding it out).
Now here is the rub: We have seen what appears to be two different styles of radiator
shrouds on the 2016.5. Deep Sea was able to remove his oil pan without removing the rear
radiator shroud on his 2016.5, my 2016.5 there is no way the oil pan was coming out with
the rear shroud installed. My 2016.5 was a late build so I suspect (no proof just suspicion)
that Polaris made some assembly line tweaks to the shrouding during the 2016.5 build run.
2017’s are anybody’s guess as far as shrouding but I’d be willing to bet they will be like mine
and you will have to remove the radiator. Just keep this in mind.
The clearances involved with removing the oil pan are tight and if everything is not just
right… back to square one.
So, I have amended these instructions accordingly. You might have to remove the radiator in
order to remove the oil pan, you might not have to. On pre 2016.5 vehicles this does not
appear to be an issue so the least vague advice I can give is try to pull your oil pan out and if
you can without removing the radiator, great. If not, you are in the same boat I was. I have
marked these steps “** Optional IF REQUIRED **”.
h) If you want to keep your shrouding, you are going to have to modify the shrouds to
accommodate the intercooler tubes and CAI. There is no way around this. You either take
the time to do this or remove them.
I am vehemently against removing them because they are there for a reason. I will show you
pic’s below of what I did and you can form your own plan of attack. With a jigsaw, a fine
tooth blade and a very slow saw speed you can slowly cut away what you need to in order
to make the shrouds look factory designed around the intercooler tubes. A little light
sanding after your final cuts and some heat gun (or light propane torch) on the cuts to settle
the plastic and it will look like new.
6) Remove the front bumper. There are a) two bolts (four total) on either side of the radiator
support b) one bolt each side facing up and c) one bolt each side on the outriggers. They are
easy to find just take care you don’t drop the bumper and scratch it once you start getting
everything loose. We have to remove the front bumper in order to install the intercooler (and if
applicable the sway bar and radiator – see my notes below).
7) ** Optional IF REQUIRED ** Remove the front hood pivot bolts. This is necessary in order to
remove the radiator and shrouding. Picture is taken from passenger side looking at bracket for
reference. Drivers side is a mirror of this.
8) ** Optional IF REQUIRED ** Remove the sway bar. This is necessary in order to remove the
radiator and shrouding.
9) ** Optional IF REQUIRED ** Remove the radiator.
a) Drain the radiator. The SS does not have a drain petcock. You have to remove the lower
radiator house.
b) The spring clamp is difficult to reach. I replaced both clamps with good old fashioned screw
clamps when I put things back together.
c) If you don’t put a wide pan underneath you will end up with a mess. It will drain about 1
gallon. I picked up a wide fairly low clearance tub at Home Depot for like $4. I am sure I’ll
need it again for something else.
d) Remove the four bolts (4mm hex) on the backside of the radiator that attach the rear fan
shroud and fan to the radiator. They are at (on square) 2,4,8,10 o’clock. The radiator cannot
be removed as a unit with the shroud and fan attached.
e) Remove the upper radiator hose and vent hose.
f) Disconnect the fan power connector (comes up through round hole in rear shroud).
g) Remove radiator and shrouds. Be careful of the zip ties on the wiring that is attached to the
frame in front of the radiator, they can damage the cooling fins on the radiator if you get
careless. I wrapped them with rags to be safe.
Now we are ready to remove the oil pan:
10) Remove the motor mount bolts. You want to remove the driver’s side LOWER motor mount nut
and the passenger side UPPER motor mount nut. Nuts are 15MM.
I wondered about this seemingly hodgepodge order of lower and upper and after you do this a
couple times you will understand why Alpha came up with this set of steps – it works.
11) Jack up passenger side motor mount. You need to jack up the mount 2”. A standard 2x4 stud
spacer is not going to work as dimensional lumber - a 2x4 is really closer to a 1.5x3.5. So, I cut a
2x4 at 2 1/4” lengthwise.
I put a piece of Hardy Board trim (really hard compressed stuff) on my jack lift circle so as not to
damage the oil pan when lifting the motor.
When you have the mount properly raised the mount bolt will pretty much be out of its hole.
Why is this important? Because when you get to put the new oil pan back in – it is TIGHT. It’s
really easy to bump the RTV bead you just laid on the new pan if you don’t have enough
clearance and nobody wants to have to pull everything apart and do all this from step #1. There
is sufficient clearance just jack slowly and have your ears tuned.
Stick your spacer in there and slowly release your jack so the engine rests on that.
12) Jack up the transmission. Remove the two transmission mount nuts. These nuts are attached to
the two long bolts that you can easily see at the back of transmission looking from the ground
up.
The best way to raise the tranny is to put your jack under these two studs (after removing their
bolts) and gently lift up watching the gear shift lever as you lift. When you have lifted the tranny
as far as it’s going to go you will see the shift lever stop moving up. Alpha warns not to crush
anything doing this so I assume at some point somebody kept jacking until they broke
something. If you watch the shift lever it very clear when it’s gone up as far as it’s going to go.
My estimate is you will see the shift lever raise about 2” before it stops. That where you stop
too.
13) Drain the motor oil. Loosening the filler cap on the valve cover will speed this up.
14) Remove the oil pan bolts.
a) There are fifteen bolts, they are all the same bolts EXCEPT the bolt that is in the center of
the pan closest to the tranny. That bolt is much longer. It is #15 on the diagram below.
b) Remove the four bolts that connect the oil pan to the tranny. The oil pan is a stressed
member of the 2.4L drivetrain and these bolts are much bigger.
15) Remove the oil pan.
a) The oil pan on mine from the factory was not too bad to break loose from the engine block.
However after I reinstalled it with Permatex Ultra Black and subsequently had to remove it,
it would not budge.
You have three things working against you if the oil pan is fighting removal: 1) Gravity – you
are on your back without a lot of room to work or gain leverage and 2) The “pry points” are
difficult to get at with the engine in the car and 3) It’s really easy to screw a machined
surface (engine block OR oil pan) up if you get in there and start prying around with a
screwdriver.
Necessity is the mother of invention and after an hour of non-success I came up with a
better way.
I went to Home Depot and bought a 4’ length of good old solid oak 1” dowel stock. If you
stand next to the passenger side front wheel and look at the back of the block and oil pan,
there is a flange back there (on the oil pan) that you can snake the dowel into and on top of.
Get the dowel on top of that flange, get out your big hammer and whack the top of that
dowel with it sitting on that flange and ~Viola. You One. Oil pan Zero.
b) Now you can slide the oil pan over the steering rack far enough that you can drop the back
down and pull it out. This is the “Finagle Procedure” I spoke of earlier. If you’ve done all the
prior steps properly this is a cake walk. If you haven’t, it’s not coming out.
16) Clean RTV off block oil flange. This step sucks. The best method I have found is a flat blade
Exacto knife. I am talking the type where the blade is like ½” wide, flat and mounts in a handle.
Do not get aggressive doing this on either the block (or oil pan if reinstalling oil pan). They are
aluminum alloy and if you get stupid you can gouge the mating surfaces and then you have a
problem. Keep the blade almost flat with the surface and let the edge of the blade do the work.
A brass welding brush you can get in the welding section of Home Depot (or wherever) also
works nicely for finishing up the cleanup and is soft and will not gouge the aluminum alloy.
Finish up all surfaces with a clean rag and denatured alcohol and you are set.
17) Reinstall the new oil pan:
a) Run a bead of RTV around the entire perimeter of the oil pan including circling the bolt
holes. Read your chosen sealants instructions carefully. Put a straight edge on the oil pan
flange above the bung hole (turbo drain down hole). If it’s flat no worries, if not, put a little
more RTV in that area. Mine was perfectly flat.
Do NOT forget to run a bead of RTV on the oil pickup flange. That is the little square on the
diagram below after step b.
My sealant of choice is Permatex and the second time I installed the pan I went with their
newer Ultra Synthetic vs Ultra Black. Some guys say slather it on like there is no tomorrow, I
don’t subscribe to that school of thought. It gains nothing and just makes a mess the next
time you have to undo it. Permatex says 1/16th to ¼”. I say 1/8th inch bead. Compromise that
has worked well for me.
More importantly it specifies you put the wet bead on, finger tighten the fasteners only and
then torque to spec after one hour. This is super important to follow. You want the bead to
spread out on the flanges just so, but you don’t want so much torque applied that the wet
sealant is just pushed out and then you have an oil leak and well, that sucks.
b) Install the pan the reverse of how you took it out. In above the steering rack, up in back and
then carefully move it back into position. This is where you have to be really careful. The
clearances are tight and it’s really easy to hit the fresh bead of RTV on the engine block,
frame, or screw it up with your fingers. I bought four one inch long bolts the same size as
the oil pan bolts, cut the heads off and then screwed them in as guides so I could do the
finger tight part with some help on alignment. A little effort but made it much easier.
c) Okay so you did step 17a above and now the oil pan has been installed finger tight for one
hour. Now you need to torque the pan bolts down (slowly and methodically) to 18 lbs ft in
the following sequence. The diagram is looking up at the oil pan as you lay under the
vehicle. Oil feed is passenger side, bolt 15 is the long one and next to tranny. Do not reinstall
the oil pan to tranny bolts (four big ones that install into tranny from the oil pan
horizontally) until 24 hours after you complete this step. Let the pan set up good and tight.
18) Now 24 hours have passed. Time to lower engine.
a) Install the four oil pan to tranny bolts we discussed in step 17c.
b) I recommend you wait 24 hours before lowering the motor so the RTV can fully seat. Why?
Because you are using the oil pan to jack the tranny up to remove the spacer you put under
the passenger side motor mount in step #11 above. Oil leaks suck and if you screw this up
you will be starting over from scratch.
c) After removing the spacer from the passenger side motor mount, lower the motor slowly
ensuring the motor mount bolts align with holes, reinstall the motor mount bolts and torque
to spec (41 lb-ft).
19) Trimming the radiator shrouds.
a) The lower shroud (fits under the radiator locating pins and goes to front of vehicle) needs
NO trimming.
b) The upper front shroud (sits on top in front of the radiator and extends to center headlights)
will need to have the side flaps cut off (arrows on following picture). This is necessary to
clear the intercooler hot and cold tubes.
c) The rear radiator shroud will need to be cut to clear the cold air intake tube. This is the
trickiest cut to do right as it requires the radiator and rear shroud to be installed temporarily
in order to index the cut area. Here is where I am going to divert from the normal install
instructions because you will not be successful in doing this without the turbo installed. So,
we will continue with step 20 and revert back to here when appropriate.
20) Install the turbocharger.
a) Install the turbo oil feed line into the farthest forward oil port on the engine block. These oil
ports are under the exhaust manifold as show in the following photo. Do NOT use Teflon
tape on this connection. Protect the other end of the hose from dirt and abrasion (cover it
with a baggie or latex glove finger or whatever you have handy).
b) Install the turbo oil return line into the oil pan bung (welded port on passenger side). You
will be installing the 90 degree angle portion of the hose to the oil pan after you apply
Teflon tape to the connection in a counter-clockwise direction (when the connection is
facing away from you) so the tape holds while you screw in the connection. Protect the
other end of the hose from dirt and abrasion (cover it with a baggie or latex glove finger or
whatever you have handy).
c) Install the turbocharger.
You will likely need to clock the turbo. Clocking the turbo means adjusting it so that it is
properly aligned between the engine, frame rail and for the intercooler hot tube to be
where it needs to be. This step is INFINITELY easier if you do it now rather than later as
the clock bolts are difficult to reach (especially the lower ones) once the turbo is
installed and torqued down. Trial fit here w/o gaskets, adjust and do not put the gasket
in and torque down until I say “Torque the turbo down” below.
The biggest problem you will run into is the turbo will hit the frame rail during the
engine lifting and lowering process if you don’t do this right. You do not want this. The
second biggest problem is the hot intercooler pipe will not line up right. You do not
want this either.
There are a series of bolts and retainers on the rear side of the turbo (as installed in the
following picture) that you loosen up to clock the turbo.
a) Loosen up the turbo clock bolts just ever so slightly so that you can rotate the turbo
housing while holding the exhaust manifold mounting flange. Don’t move it around
a lot. Just make sure you can clock (turn) it.
b) Finger tighten the exhaust manifold mount/turbo assembly to the exhaust manifold.
Finger tight only, no gasket.
c) Ensure there is at least 1/2” clearance between the frame rail and turbo hot pipe.
Following picture (yellow arrow) is what I am talking about:
d) Now you are ready to get everything else aligned. You’ve got your turbo finger tight
mounted and we are ready to trim the radiator shrouds and make sure we didn’t
screw anything up.
e) Install the radiator and rear shroud temporarily (finger tight only). Leave the fan off
for now.
f) Install the silicone connector hose on the turbo inlet side (don’t worry about the
screw clamps yet. We are just lining everything up and trimming the rear radiator
shroud at this point).
g) Now you are reverting to step 19c. If you are following along with me this is making
sense.  Everything has to line up correctly or you will be undoing things. At this
step we are going to loosely install the turbo intake tube and mark the rear shroud
at where we need to cut.
I recommend you mark and cut a little at a time. You can always take off more, but
you can’t add it back. As Henry said, this is a trial and error process. Do it right, and
it will look like it came from the factory. Do it wrong and it will look like… well, you
know. The yellow arrows in the below pic should give you an idea of what we are
trying to accomplish.
Okay, so you made it this far. You are almost home.
21) Wrap Up
a) Strongly consider doing the Alpha intake manifold mod at this time. There is a pilot hole in
the intake manifold that is not always correct from the factory. The process involves
removed the intake manifold and drilling this pilot hole out to 3/32”.
The link to the doc is: http://www.slingmods.com/pdf/intake-manifold-turbo.pdf
b) Pull the turbo and torque the clock bolts. DO NOT MOVE THE TURBO FROM THE POSTION
YOU ESTABLISHED IN Step 20c! Torque the turbo down.
c) Install the turbo for final assembly with gaskets and Permatex Copper for the exhaust to
turbo connection.
d) Install the radiator, fan and shrouds (if applicable) tightening everything down.
e) Install the intercooler
f) Trial fit the intercooler tubes. Once you get all the silicone joints and piping figured out
tighten everything down.
g) Double check all bolts on turbo, intercooler and intercooler piping, etc…
h) Reinstall front bumper
i) Reinstall hood
j) Drive 20 miles under no boost (keep your foot out of it)
k) After a couple heat cycles, recheck all bolts. The exhaust manifold -> turbo bolts in particular
are prone to heat cycle loosening.