Thread: intercooler budget build shortstack

hey everyone been budget hunting recently and feel im making some breakthroughs (at least for me) so I thought it'd be fun to post a build thread while in the process. I don't have everything yet and probably wont do the build till the summer but ill show you where im at now.

starting off I know everyone hates on the short stack but its much cheaper and im lowered on coils past 2in don't know by how much but my car passes the mighty car mods shoe test lol so to keep the axles horizontal I have motor mount spacers and shorter dog bones so I imagine hood clearance will be a problem with even the short stack for me plus im already at a 3.1-3.0 pulley and don't plan on going any lower than 2.8 and will maybe use the money for a lightweight/wider wheel and tire package. so onto the build

things I have bought
-short stack core with long bolts and 1/4 in. spacer $225
-Mercedes m-class electric water pump with mount and pigtail $15
-1.25 in. hose and front PCV hose free
-coolant Free from a buddy that I helped fix his car

things I need to buy
-jeep Cherokee radiator $50
-rad mounts ?
-3/4 hose ?
-barbed fittings ?
-injector spacers ?
-ls7 lifter ?
-LIM gasket ?
-valve cover gasket and heater hose ?
-plan to get LIM machined at machine shop. was wondering what to tell them to machine or will they know when I bring it?

I have $80 for zzp and a $10 off $20 oriellys coupon that I got both for free so ill be subtracting that from the final price if I end up using those but if anybody has any of these parts lying around that can help me out message me and we can make a deal.

also let me know if you see anything missing in this list that I would need or want to change. I will update it as I get the parts and price I paid and if im not lazy get some pics up before the install sooner or later.

short stack is kinda not worth it. the lim you can cut your self with a angle grinder, the s/t hoses are small, i forget what size but you need to use adapters to get to a 3/4 hose to fit the fmhe.

id buy a tuner and spray meth......bet you get more out if it and cost the same in the end, or less maybe. here i am with a fsic and meth lol if i had to do all over again, id have gone right to the water meth.

I was thinking of meth but I cant tap it into a tb spacer since my throttle body has studs for some odd reason and the spacer is to thick so id have to pull the lim anyway plus I never see and kits for sale so that plus the tuner would be $700 alone plus the bits and pieces ill need and the cost of meth lol I never really liked the fact that meth and nos you need to keep buying it and yea Ill need a few adapters since the jeep RAD uses 1.25 in hose I do have a few fitting outlets near school and home so it shouldn't be a problem and what do you cut exactly on the LIM with the grinder? ive seen people say a bar of some sort?

tuner is like 300 or so, meth is like 400. if you cant find real meth local washer fluid works in its place. meth is cheap too. 35 bucks for 5 gallons max, and you mix that 50/50 with distilled water, another 4 bucks, so call it 40 bucks for 10 gallons. it only sprays when you make boost. so dont got wot all the time a gallon lasts a while.

those studs come out, when you buy a spacer it comes with longer studs, or just drill and tap the blower case near the tb like i did this time. new blower, already had a plate for a n*, so no where to put it. so in the case it went.

before meth, i was on a 3.2 with a fsic and 14º wot timing. after meth, 21º wot timing and a 2.8 pulley. thats a big jump in pulley and timing, you can say im happy with my meth kit lol id be on the 2.8 still if my injectors didnt max out on it. 42's have a limit, i found it lol

the way i see it, if you plan to mod it, have a grand free to spend. and expect to spend it all. sure you can one by one things over time, tuner would be the first thing i got, play with it learn how it works, then a pulley drop. then a wide band is needed to tune meth in, so there goes another $160, then you can add meth later on and drop to smaller pulley. see how we got to a grand and didnt even add a down pipe or headers yet lol

tuner 400 with 2 credits
meth 425
hub 40
pulley 50, then trade or sell buy new one later.
wb 160
3" d/p another 180 ish or headers for 200 ish

broke a grand there lol

and theres used hpt tuners on ebay, the old standards they go pretty cheap now and credits are 50 each, you need two for your car.

yeah im aiming for under $400 on this $500 max ill sell the spacer if I need to so I can stay under lol just found a guy local selling some Koenig runlites for cheap need to get some wider tires for this thing im burning through tires on accident and want a lighter wheel as well as the car came with some heavy aftermarkets so ill be spending $1k too but just wheels and intercooler instead of tuner and meth I did see a tuner for like 125 on here a few months ago but got snagged before I even see it that was the deciding factor lol but I do already have a wideband lol so who knows I feel I broke my dsm though because I didn't know what I was doing tuning even with the forums it was still tough I could figure out timing tables but everything else was a different language to me.

timing maf tuning pe tuning and some tm taken out. then a trans tune is nice, trans tunes you can copy from other people's tunes easy enough. theres a few other tweaks you can copy off a canned tune as well.

if running meth, its the maf you need to tune cause the meth will raise the afr. so you end up taking fuel from the maf, the meth makes it up, wideband tells the story if your at your target afr.

the meth also cools the fuk out of the blower, and the air charge going in. and raises the octane rating of your 93 gas to over a 100.

Update

things I have bought
-short stack core with long bolts and 1/4 in. spacer $225
-Mercedes m-class electric water pump with mount and pigtail $15
-1.25 in. hose and front PCV hose free
-coolant Free from a buddy that I helped fix his car
-vw radiator $40
-all hoses and adapters/fittings with water wetter $25
-found some old catch can mounts in my toolbox use them for the radiator free

things I need to buy
-injector spacers $45
-ls7 lifters want to find some for $70
-valve cover and LIM gasket and elbows $70
- machine LIM

current total $305
projected total $490 only $10 left to spend haha

yeah but don't come with a spacer, fuel rail clearance fix, gaskets, or lifters which is about half my cost for this build.it is a zzp short stack brand new guy just didn't want to use it anymore

lifters have been ticking since I bought the car 70k miles ago so some new ones will be worth the extra cost and install time

i think i will do a reservoir i havent gotten anything to make a fill port yet was going to just do a t fitting with clear hose like sseilomp but a reservoir would be better for me and could probably do it for the same price. i cant imagine the pump being to bad though seems like they are in the same price range as the boosh pump on zzp when new. it is an auxiliary though

oh well im glad I cheaped out on the Mercedes pump lol for future reference if that does seem to be a huge bottle neck what would be a good replacement for it? it would be easy to change anyway. those are the only automotive electric water pump I know about.

holy smokes im sure that things great but it costs as much as my whole kit lol and it almost costs as much as the new set of rims I got haha a little to pricey for me for 1 part ill probably stick to the reservoir idea but is there a certain order everything should be installed? I know ill have the reservoir at the top of the system so there's no air in it but should I put it after the radiator? and should the pump be before or after the radiator im just thinking because of heat reasons or does it not really matter?

ive got my ic pump down in the bumper cover, my fmhe has a high and low port, so the lower port to the pump, pump goes to the ic core, ic core goes to the res tanks high inlet, the lower outlet goes to the top port of the fmhe. ( i used a dorman 8 dollar coolant tank, drilled two 3/4 holes in the side with a flat wood drill bit., one high, one low in the tank.)

heres a link to my pb folder of the ic install. scottydoggs's Library | Photobucket

Update

things I have bought
-short stack core with long bolts and 1/4 in. spacer $225
-Mercedes m-class electric water pump with mount and pigtail $15
-1.25 in. hose and front PCV hose free
-coolant Free from a buddy that I helped fix his car
-vw radiator $40
-all hoses and adapters/fittings with water wetter $25
-found some old catch can mounts in my toolbox use them for the radiator free
-coolant reservoir $5
-injector spacers with ls7 lifters $90
-valve cover and LIM gasket and elbows $40
- machine LIM

current total $440

may just pay a machine shop to machine my LIM since im under budget and don't currently have the tools or place to use proper tools anyway plus I plan on doing the lifters and intercooler plate install on memorial weekend and im hoping I can finish for the weekend so my car isn't down during work and having someone else machine the LIM will save me some time