Originally Posted by libbybapa

With regard to the water cooling plumbing I started by re-tapping the fittings on the flange that bolts to the turbo, in order to use standard NPT fittings. They are the two fittings shown in the center of the turbo:



For the water to the turbo I removed a very large allen head plug that is in the side of the block. The plug had a 19mm allen head. For lack of a 19mm allen socket, I took a VW vanagon lug nut and lug bolt (I have quite a few extra), threaded them together and welded the seam and the end where the bolt protruded from the nut. I tried first with one welded just at the seam and the nut just bent and twisted. I used a 3/4 drive breaker bar reduced down to a 19mm socket and a 5 ft cheater bar. I was able to push basically straight up on the cheater bar. I imagine I can push 250-300 pounds in that manner and was pushing at 5 ft away from the fulcrum with all of my strength. It finally let loose. Doing the math I come up with somewhere between 1250 and 1500 ft-lbs of torque. I was very relieved and thankful when it finally let go without anything getting broken. drilled the center of it and tapped it to NPT. I had to grind a hex head into the end of the barb fitting, as once the fitting was threaded into the plug, the stock hex was into the allen area far enough that I could not get a wrench on it. Here are the plug, fitting a the welded lug bolt and nut:





For the return of coolant from the turbo I chose to remove a stock plug from the thermostat housing and re-tap the hole to NPT:



The result is that coolant will flow from the block at all times will be returned just prior to the thermostat. Should be an ideal hose routing.

Originally Posted by bgkast

Check out post 21 for my plan for plumbing a Water cooled turbo:

http://schumanautomotive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4580