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SO... driving home this afternoon and suddenly Marvin sounds like a tired Toyota Stout Close inspection reveals the centre lower nut on the exhaust manifold (to the engine block) has come loose, and I assume is either blowing past the gasket or has blown away some of the gasket. All the other nuts are tight and sweet, just the middle one is loose

I know that loose manifold nuts is a weakness on the SP, but can I retighten the offending nut, if so how do I get to it, and what risk am I taking driving it as is?

bigdog wrote:SO... driving home this afternoon and suddenly Marvin sounds like a tired Toyota Stout Close inspection reveals the centre lower nut on the exhaust manifold (to the engine block) has come loose, and I assume is either blowing past the gasket or has blown away some of the gasket. All the other nuts are tight and sweet, just the middle one is loose

I know that loose manifold nuts is a weakness on the SP, but can I retighten the offending nut, if so how do I get to it, and what risk am I taking driving it as is?

Very little risk of damaging the engine. But there is a high risk of getting a filthy engine bay depending how much air is escaping.

You can just replace it (if the gasket is intact) but if it were mine I'd swap all teh studs out for inkonel (not sure of spelling) ones and ensure they are torqued perfectly. That's what i did on my AVO kit, hasn't lost a studs or nut since. I assume the same would work for SPs.

bigdog wrote:All the other nuts are tight and sweet, just the middle one is loose

The nut behind the steering wheel isn't that tight, nor sweet and he's certainly loose!

Craig wrote:The nut behind the steering wheel isn't that tight, nor sweet and he's certainly loose!

Craig, some of your discoveries should be kept quiet, mmkay?

sabretooth wrote:

Craig wrote:The nut behind the steering wheel isn't that tight, nor sweet and he's certainly loose!

Craig, some of your discoveries should be kept quiet, mmkay?

Read it in a Maccas toilet in the Blue Mountains!

Craig wrote:Read it in a Maccas toilet in the Blue Mountains!

So you've been hanging out *cough* in the Maccas loo again Craig

Sean wrote:You can just replace it (if the gasket is intact) but if it were mine I'd swap all teh studs out for inkonel (not sure of spelling) ones and ensure they are torqued perfectly. That's what i did on my AVO kit, hasn't lost a studs or nut since. I assume the same would work for SPs.

I have a set of inkonel studs and nuts in stock for just this occasion... but I would love to tighten up the loose one first and see how it is - any idea how to get to it? Or is it a case of remove turbo, pipes etc first?

Hey Bigdog,

Remember this post .....any correlation ...

Well, $5 later and boy am I impressed! The difference is substantial and so far no problems at all (60km trip) Can't hear any pinging but will put a little octane booster in just in case until I can get to the dyno. Well done Daz (and others)!

Maybe it is the higer exhaust flow, temperature, or not related at all.

My nuts came loose on the turbo/downpipe join last week. Never happened before.

BTW .... did the Mad SP Mod 3 weeks ago ... new clutch this week, nuts loose last week, .... not looking forward to the surprises next week.

I have no idea how you tighten it up BD. AMR used to removed the engine to get at the bottom nuts but I hear Newells have managed to manufacture a spanner to get onto the nut with the engine installed. When Newells replaced the head they did all the nuts up to the correct torque specs while the head was off the car and I haven't had any problems since.

This used to happen a lot with my old MX6 turbo. The alloy head is very very soft and the stud end up ripping the thread out of the head.

I'm not sure how good/bad these ones are but be careful not to go gorilla man on them.

Best to speak to Mxmania,Daniel has had a lot of experience with the SP turbos.

Spot on Lou - taking it to Daniel tomorrow for the big fix. Will probably do the full 100K service at the same time - car will be in a million bits so might as well get it all over and done with.

same as PT said, this happened a few times on the previous mx6 turbo's i had. you can retighten it no probs, but eventually the torque/twist force of the turbo on the manifold will cause the stud to snap...

best option would be to get all the studs retapped to thicker ones with a new gasket.

1/ Jack car up
2/ slide in underneath car with 12mm (from memory) combination spanner
3/ perform things with hand only seen in circuses
4/ voila

actually with 3 you'll find you'll be able to find a spot where you can get your hand and the spanner onto the three bolts/nuts and tighten them sufficiently.

wait till the engine is cold first