My experience at Calgary Autoworks and my DIY turbo kit - Heavy Read!!
This thread is to shed some light into my somewhat misleading one regarding my DIY budget turbo kit for my S2K. First, I will get into the kit and the progress of it.
As many of you know, I have a propensity to cut corners and try and recreate things for as cheaply as possible. My student status for many years coupled with my desire to mod cars did not mesh well and as a result, my search for inexpensively turboing a vehicle was born. This should be evident since beyond’s inception and the life of my 4th gen turbo’d lude (and many of you remember that car!) which in the end was turbo’d at a cost of about $1250 and ran for extremely well and quick for over 2 years on a super sweet Rage2 base map.
Fast forward to 2008. I purchased my 2001 S2K and new that it was not going to remain NA for long so I started purchasing parts from anywhere I could that would allow me to keep the costs as low as possible. Many people on the s2ki forums were very skeptical for anyone to turbo an S2K for under 7-8 grand US and this was a far cry from my budget.
After reading countless threads and posts, as well as my previous turboing experience with my car and many other cars, I began collecting parts, many oddly enough from Ebay and the used marketplace from different car forums. Once I finished collecting all my parts, I began the installation during spring break of 2009. I unfortunately chose an engine management system that was foreign to many tuners in Calgary and was not able to achieve my power goals so this was abandoned and I went to an AEM standalone, mind you it was over a year later in which the mean time, I was driving around with a very basic tune that pretty much allowed me to rev to 4K rpm. And although we have some very gifted tuners in this city who are more than affable and willing to help out a fellow car enthusiast, sometimes things do not go as planned.I do thank you Toma for all your efforts in helping me try and get that thing to work.
Fast forward to this week. This is where I encountered an individual at one of the meets at Grey Eagle who referred me to Lawrence at Calgary Autoworks (Thanks Sebasshole). Up to this point, I had no clue he or that shop even existed, but upon hearing about his extensive work with tuning, specifically his monster of an S2K, my attention was engaged.
After making an appointment with him, I have concluded that he has fit the bill with many of the other tuners and dyno operators that I have encountered in this city (truth be told, only two) but both him and Toma are tremendous tuners and outstanding individuals.
My tuning started this past weekend when I dropped off my car Friday night. I had previously met Lawrence and from the word go, he was an amazingly friendly individual who did not once make fun of my turbo kit, or my welding work, hell, I still make fun of my kit! In the end, this was a BLOWN SUCCESS story in that my kit was able to create 318 whp at 7 psi. This is with a safe tune and if I choose to upgrade the clutch and diff as well as swap in a 3mm head gasket, I can safely crank up the boost to the 450 whp mark. These AP1 S2Ks have made roughly 185 whp on this dyno and this is why I am quite content with the outcome.
In the end, Lawrence was very patient and understanding of my needs as well as very considerate with my car. I reckon this comes from owning an S2K himself. In addition to this, I cannot say enough about his work ethic, pleasantness, friendliness and tuning prowess. He is truly an S2K tuning God and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND him to anyone tuning his or her S2K or any vehicle for that matter. It’s unfortunate that he won’t be around Calgary for the long run so I encourage you to go visit him. Amongst our paucity of excellent tuners, he is surely one of the hidden gems in Calgary and I am so glad that I had a chance to go to his shop at Calgary Autoworks and meet a tuner like him! Thanks mate and I hope to see you again when I throw in the 3 mil head gasket.
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to lawrence!
