Ok, now that I got you salivating, I'll tell you what I really think of it after I work on it some more. It comes with a reducer pipe that goes between the turbo and stock intercooler pipe and the guy I bought it from didn't send me the piece of hose to attach it to the turbo. I had a piece of hose from replumbing the racecar intercooler that I thought would work, but blew it off today. My dad works accross town close to a hose place and is going to bring me what I need after work. So I haven't really got to fully test it yet. I played around last night but had no place to let her all hang out and never got above about 60mph. Today, I got on it from a light and when the converter locked it blew the hose.

First impressions - it's a lot different feeling. I am still trying to figure out if it's faster or not. The stocker would hit like a ton of bricks at about 12psi and break the 315 right rear loose - stupid one wheel wonder. Anyway, even rollin at 20-25mph I could stand on it and it would break the tire loose and then about a 6ft mark shifting to 2nd. With the 3k, it doesn't break the tire loose even from a stand still. It still barks the tire going to second but not as hard. I think it has more mid and upper rpm pull, but again, I haven't really had time and room to play yet. I don't know if the gain I think I feel up top is enough to oevercome the loss on the bottom. It is not laggy however. Don't misunderstand me there. It starts to spool fairly quickly, but it is just a smoother transition to full boost than the stocker. I need to do some more testing before I decide on the power difference. The Aurora is not wastegated, which was a little of a concern but decided to buy anyway. I was getting about 45psi out of the stocker. I have seen about 42psi so far, but am thinking that it might have been higher than that when the hose let go. I was watching the egts not the boost when it happened. As far as egts, I really haven't gotten to see that yet either. At the point it blew the hose, it had just went over 1000. I think, but not sure, that I would have been about 1200 with the stocker at that point. I'll know better when I get the hose on and can make a full run, becuase I know what max egts were before on a full run.

As for the install - me and dad - about 3.5 hours. At least 30 minutes was spent trying to come up with a solution to the missing hose that blew off anyway. At least another 20 minutes was spent when we got a couple bolts in the front piece of the ATS manifold started and realized that where it joints together wasn't completely seated and the rear bolts weren't lined up. Had to pull it back out and get the two halves seated together. So without those two issues it was about a two hour job. We did remove the innner fender liner which made the turbo drain tube easier to install. HERE IS A GREAT HINT FOR ANYONE ATTEMPTING THIS IN THE FUTURE. I used a spray adhesive to stick the manifold gaskets to the head. Worked great. I let them sit for like 5 minutes and then held the whole assembly up there while dad started bolts. They never moved out of place.
I did have to call ATS today to ask them what to do with the wastegate plug since the 3k is not wastegated. They said just unbolt the sensor from the old turbo and plug them together and zip tie it up somewhere. The check engine light is on with the open plug. The ATS guy said that it only senses that it is not plugged in and that it is not looking for any information and that doing that would eliminate the CEL.

Sorry for the long post, but just wanted to answer as many questions as possible in advance.

 

give industrial injection a call on that sensor connector for the turbo. when i changed the turbo, i had to buy the fooler plug that told the ecm that the sensor on the turbo was still there. it cost me $25.

 

$25 bucks

 

yeah, i wasnt too happy either. when you spend $1650 for a turbo, you'd think i would be included. but at least i got a free t shirt.

 

expensive t-shirt

 

yeah, sure is a fun tshirt. wearing it is worth at least 75 hp!!!

 

omaha glad to hear you got it in now give us some more info once you get to hammer on it.

 

Ok, enough abusing, time to talk.
I like it - um......a lot!
The power comes on nice and smooth and very strong and still early. At 1/2 to 3/4 throttle it has a lot more power. I had to be WOT with the stocker to hit 40psi, but the A3k will hit 40 at 2/3 - 3/4 throttle making it less necessary to floor it. At WOT it runs 40-42 and then hits about 47 when it shifts to 4th and falls back to 40 or so. The Edge monitor - which I don't necessarily put a lot of faith in - is showing 2 tenths in the 1/4 and 4mph. It feels way different launching in 4wd. With the stock turbo that hit all at once, it would squirm a little almost like torque steer in a front drive. Now it is straight and smooth and at first feels like it doesn't take off as fast because you don't get that burst of power, but if you pay attention to speed it is pretty much the same. Above 60 or 70mph is where it for sure feels faster.
The egts aren't down as much as I hoped, but down none the less. On a WOT run they are about 150 degrees less. Given that the exhaust housing is much bigger than the Holset, I was hoping for more. If it's nice here this weekend, I may go hook up my camper to do a little testing. If I do, I'll post again with results.

 

You will notice the egts lower significantly when working it with your camper etc. I noticed with my turbo that empty it wasnt a huge diff, but when I was working it pulling my trailer, it just never seemed to go past a certain point, which I loved.

Kevin

 

the biggest difference you'll notice is the sudden carefree driving you will experience while towing because your egt's will be below the point where it makes you worry. you'll really love it towing.

 

Good review.

 

You need more fuel with that turbo! It will really wake up then. Get to 50 psi or more!

 

at 50 psi, isnt the stock head bolts questionable on the gasket retention? i have mine set at 47psi to not risk blowing the gasket and fully allowing it to warm up.


my quad race spools the turbo ok, but it spooled much faster with the smarty. i agree, add FUEL!

 

My friend will be installing an Aurora 3K along with the ARC intake, ATS exhaust manifold and the stage 2 air intake. Hopefully we will make more hp's, with the stock turbo the 4" exhaust and xcelarator with a stacked edge we made 440hp/800tq. I will be able to drive it at the end of the year when I go and visit...

 

Ever since I put Injetors and a CP3X2 on my truck My Aurora2000 woke the Edit up. Fastest spool up I've ever felt. And in terms of temp my egt's are low even with high tunes on. My brother(BlackBeast) went with a big charger, but he's totally shocked at how a small charger like that works good with that much fuel.