Moar Biggerer Tirboes: Upgrading Turbos on 2.7L Bronco - Helpful Tips

[SierraBronco]

Yet again another mod that took a bit of time to install and the vehicle looks exactly the same after completion. I guess we just have a proclivity for such things. If you are planning on upgrading the turbos on your 2.7L bronco, here are some helpful tips-

The driver side is the more tedious of the two. If you’re doing it by yourself…good luck. A second set of (small) hands that know what they’re doing is definitely going to do some things you’ll appreciate…

”that’s what she said!”

Passenger side is still tedious, but it’s more open and can be done by one person. Wifey did the removal and installation herself while I wrapped and installed down pipes on driver side.

The oil check valves are important for turbo life, and also a beeotch to install. Heat gun and freezer will be your friends.

You’ll need to drain the radiator to avoid dumping coolant everywhere when pulling the coolant lines. We disconnected coolant lines first then oil lines to try preventing any coolant from getting into the oil pan, but just as a precaution we also drained the oil and left the plug out during the turbo swap. To fill the system, it’s not as easy as the old 1973 Suburban I last worked on. Gotta use a vacuum filler. And when trying to use said filler you might go effing crazy because you aren’t getting a vacuum, even after clamping all the lines to figure out where the air is coming from. @Ducati1098 was kind enough to inform me that there is a vent on the coolant reservoir filling neck that prevents a vacuum. Holy shit was that annoying. Thank you @Ducati1098 for helping me with that. Sealed it off with electrical tape and was then able to get a vacuum, but still had to push on the Venturi device just right.

The studs. AKA banjo bolt? (Turns out I have no idea what a banjo bolt actually is) According to grok and verified with internet searches, it is very common on this engine that the studs are overtorqued and push into the head, cracking the coolant passage, and fluid starts leaking out. The repair is JB Weld/Steelstik. Figured I can’t screw the head up any more than it is so why not try it out? And so far so good! (This was 100% on me. She left those ones for me to tighten up)

Now we get the tune dialed in with @GooseTuned!

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[userdude]

I knew whose thread it was just by reading the title... lol

 

[SierraBronco]

Oh!!! And a big shout out to @ScLeCo for teaching me about flood mode! And thanks to Ford for thinking about such a thing.

 

[5GENIDN]

Yet again another mod that took a bit of time to install and the vehicle looks exactly the same after completion. I guess we just have a proclivity for such things. If you are planning on upgrading the turbos on your 2.7L bronco, here are some helpful tips-

The driver side is the more tedious of the two. If you’re doing it by yourself…good luck. A second set of (small) hands that know what they’re doing is definitely going to do some things you’ll appreciate…

”that’s what she said!”

Passenger side is still tedious, but it’s more open and can be done by one person. Wifey did the removal and installation herself while I wrapped and installed down pipes on driver side.

The oil check valves are important for turbo life, and also a beeotch to install. Heat gun and freezer will be your friends.

You’ll need to drain the radiator to avoid dumping coolant everywhere when pulling the coolant lines. We disconnected coolant lines first then oil lines to try preventing any coolant from getting into the oil pan, but just as a precaution we also drained the oil and left the plug out during the turbo swap. To fill the system, it’s not as easy as the old 1973 Suburban I last worked on. Gotta use a vacuum filler. And when trying to use said filler you might go effing crazy because you aren’t getting a vacuum, even after clamping all the lines to figure out where the air is coming from. @Ducati1098 was kind enough to inform me that there is a vent on the coolant reservoir filling neck that prevents a vacuum. Holy shit was that annoying. Thank you @Ducati1098 for helping me with that. Sealed it off with electrical tape and was then able to get a vacuum, but still had to push on the Venturi device just right.

The studs. AKA banjo bolt? (Turns out I have no idea what a banjo bolt actually is) According to grok and verified with internet searches, it is very common on this engine that the studs are overtorqued and push into the head, cracking the coolant passage, and fluid starts leaking out. The repair is JB Weld/Steelstik. Figured I can’t screw the head up any more than it is so why not try it out? And so far so good! (This was 100% on me. She left those ones for me to tighten up)

Now we get the tune dialed in with @GooseTuned!

Dude!!!! you are going to have two of the nicest Broncos ever built! Damn!

 

[zyglyrox]

POWER!!!!!!

 

[SierraBronco]

Dude!!!! you are going to have two of the nicest Broncos ever built! Damn!

Can’t be a raptor killer with less power!

 

[5GENIDN]

POWER!!!!!!

I LOVE the areial atom.... Dude showed up here to a cars and coffee with one. Illinois would not let him street it... Here, he just had to add a wind screen...

 

[zyglyrox]

I LOVE the areial atom.... Dude showed up here to a cars and coffee with one. Illinois would not let him street it... Here, he just had to add a wind screen...

I’ve been passenger in one with a supercharged ecotec motor.. Like being shot out of a cannon with control. Mental is the only way it can be described.

 

[SierraBronco]

I’ve been passenger in one with a supercharged ecotec motor.. Like being shot out of a cannon with control. Mental is the only way it can be described.

“It’s so quick it can destroy your face!”
-Jezza

 

[SierraBronco]

I knew whose thread it was just by reading the title... lol

Still laughing at this

 

[23OBX2.7]

I’ve been passenger in one with a supercharged ecotec motor.. Like being shot out of a cannon with control. Mental is the only way it can be described.

I had a super charged turbo charged Volvo S60 T6R SC did the low end heavy lifting then seamlessly passed over to Turbo. A wonderful powerplant.

 

[5GENIDN]

I had a super charged turbo charged Volvo S60 T6R SC did the low end heavy lifting then seamlessly passed over to Turbo. A wonderful powerplant.

Sound awesome! but you have to understand.... that Aerial Atom only weighs in at 1200 lbs! What that video pic was from 15 years ago? they were running a 4 banger out of a Honda civic type R and then supercharged it... I think 5 years ago you could get it with a V8 out of a formula 1 car, it was a $100,000.00 option I believe though. It is all bout the lack of weight. NOTHING could beat that thing in the corners, not even bikes, and only a couple cars on the planet could hold a candle in the straights.

 

[userdude]

About the banjo bolt: I totally would've strutted around acting like I knew what that was, but yeah, holy gosh darn, WHY is that a banjo bolt?? What stage are you going to, 3/4? (Again, other than biggerer and betterer I don't really know but the number impresses nonetheless.)

 

[SierraBronco]

About the banjo bolt: I totally would've strutted around acting like I knew what that was, but yeah, holy gosh darn, WHY is that a banjo bolt?? What stage are you going to, 3/4? (Again, other than biggerer and betterer I don't really know but the number impresses nonetheless.)

As to the banjo bolt-right? It’s a damn stud! Threads into the head with a little stoppie thread divided bit and provides a threaded shank sticking out of the block useful for securing something to the head. Like a turbo. I thought banjo bolts were hollow to provide a passageway for fluids or air. But apparently this is a banjo bolt too, according to a Ford parts guy.

No hole, but going from a T45 to an M6 shank it has a very peculiar ratio of shank to head size…heh…

And I don’t understand stages. There’s no standardization of what the different stages represent throughout the aftermarket. One company has three stages of suspension and another one has eight, but both final stages are effectively the same thing from their offerings. With power mods, is stage one simply a tune, stage two a tune and downpipes, and stage three both of those and turbos? Add an intercooler for stage four? What about those that just do an intercooler and downpipes? Now they’re skipping steps and have no respect for the stages! And now I’m back to thinking about banjo bolts. That’s bothering me. According to the internet banjo bolts are indeed hollow. Though solid banjo bolts exist for plugging a hydraulic line or whatever it may be. In that case…I would just call it a bolt. Just perused the Ford catalog and now I’m starting to think the parts guy wifey spoke with (I was working on the car still) maybe didn’t understand the difference. A quick search reveals Ford does have banjo bolts for some turbo applications -

But on the 2.7 Ford indeed has them listed as a bolt.

Despite that somehow we still got the right part and it only cost us some confusion on what a banjo bolt is. Why they referred to a stud as a banjo bolt I have no frickin clue.

Back to stages-I opted to not change the intercooler yet. Still debating on what to do there as I might be interested in the winch mount from @DoYouBronco and I believe you need to run a specific intercooler if you have adaptive cruise. So right now it’s just…stage three? Maybe 3.1 because I feel I deserve a bonus point for wrapping the downpipes. I literally used 100’ of exhaust wrap doing that. Pretty cool note on that-the driver side was difficult to wrap neatly and required the entry of the catalytic converter to be wrapped several times to get the rest of it to lay in an appealing manner. And you can see it with the flir.

152 in that spot vs 264 right next to it.

I’m easily entertained, I know. But sometimes those little things are just cool to see. “How effective is this stuff? I mean really?” Turns out it does indeed work!

In hindsight I should have done all the charge pipes and whatnot since I had everything off already, but didn’t do any research on what was compatible with these turbos and the bigger outlet. Also the opportunity to perform the install was completely unexpected so I didn’t have time to order the pipes and still stay on schedule. So stage four(?) will wait. I believe @GooseTuned can get you to around 640 hp with what I’m guessing is stage five(?) and includes bigger injectors and running E85. But finding good E85 is already difficult. And finding any E85 is troublesome when traveling so I’m not gonna bother with it. Even with it I still won’t be able to keep up with @BigMeatsBronco and his stage seven build.

 

[SierraBronco]

Oh yeahhhhh-I also redid the exhaust. I guess I didn’t include this because the thread is about installing the turbo’s and not a build thread. Oh well. Anyway-I say “I” instead of “we” as wifey was getting…some kind of bolts. Maybe banjo maybe not…from town so to stay productive I went ahead and knocked this out while she was gone.

I wanted to try to keep it on the quiet side, so instead of the 16” flowmaster we did on wifey’s I went with a 24” @MagnaFlow and it fit quite well. It also sounds much better. A nice deep tone at idle, only a tiny hint of what I call raspiness under full throttle, and much quieter on the interstate. Definitely much happier with this setup.

That said, I reallllllllllly screwed up when cutting the old exhaust out. In Texas some of the roads to location have deeeeeeep moondust. Gotta throw it in 4A. It’s the worst. I had glasses on when I went to start cutting the old muffler out, and with the length of the new muffler I needed to be right next to a bend. Despite washing the car before starting this project, as soon as I started cutting, moon dust falls onto my face and bounces underneath the safety glasses. A sensible person would have stopped and taken the necessary measures to restore their vision, but I chose to simply continue cutting with my eyes closed. My calibrated arms for holding a line were off quite badly, and I had a HUGE gap to fill. Whoopsie!

It took some time but I was able to fix my mistake. Then I took the sawzall to the OEM muffler and, eyes open, cut the tip off in a slash cut to dump the exhaust towards the ground in front of the axle.

The Magnaflow was ~$140 compared to $40 for the flowmaster but it was definitely worth it.

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