OFFICIAL Treadstone Stage 4 Install & Review
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Joined: 10-19-09
Posts: 7,431
Likes: 1
From: Gering, Nebraska
OFFICIAL Treadstone Stage 4 Install & Review
Hello to all, so...I know this is definitely past due but I have had some unaccounted for issues come up in life and it put a hampering on this review. Alot of you have been following and wanting to see results for this. Well here is my belated install and personal review for the Treadstone Stage 4 Turbo Upgrade.
I will also be doing some dyno runs to see what kinda of numbers this kit is capable of. I am hoping to do an E47 tune but if not it will be on 91 octane because Nebraska is too cool for 93
Stage 4 kit includes(turbo upgrade):
Turbo manifold
Turbo
Wastegate
downpipe
dump tube
oil lines, gaskets and hardware
silicone coupler to connect to any intercooler pipe set up, and cold air intake set up
we will make it with with any set you may have
Now I went with every part that they offer minus their catback exhaust. The turbo i chose is the PTE 5557 JB with billet wheel. I of course have their amazing turbo manifold that is almost too pretty to be real.
Starting off, jack up the car and put on jack stands..unless you are a boss and have a lift…then I just hate you. Something that will prove to be a pain later if you don’t follow is to make the the jack stands are far enough back and wide enough so a creeper will get between them
Once you have risen and are steady, remove the headlights and bumper. Its easy…if you don’t know how to do it, then look it up.
Next, I took the liberty of mocking up the intercooler and cold and hotside chargepiping.
This is a pretty straight forward process as well. If you are removing the stock hotside chargepiping then there is a special bracket that you will have to remove. As well as a clamp that has proven to be a PITA so some people just cut the piping to remove it. Me on the other hand, already had Dejon piping so I didn’t have to mess with that. The Treadstone Intercooler Kit is phenomenal IMO. The intercooler is excellent quality and the piping has smooth bends and not to mention the flat textured black color! I love the look of it…kinda stealthy! (as “stealthy” as a big pipe with a massive Turbosmart bov can look anyway).
Also I opted for the Blow-Thru MAF relocation cold side pipe, so that will take a special step in extending the MAF sensor wires to reach to the new location. We had to cut the looming and wrap around the harness about 12” so it would reach down to the coldside pipe.
Be careful not to cut any wires! After cutting to the needed length I just wrapped the wires/harness in electrical tape and wire loom to protect everything and clean it up. Now is also a good time to install the temp sensor.
(At this point I didn’t tighten anything down fully just because I figured I would be tweaking later)
Next comes the uninstall of the old turbo, manifold, downpipe, etc.
CAUTION: NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME TO DRAIN COOLANT SO YOU DON’T END UP WEARING IT LATER!!! –I removed the lower hose on the driver side of the car.
-Start off by removing the downpipe completely. 4 bolts on the O2 housing and 3 on the catback. Don’t forget to remove the O2 sensor(s). You can either do this by unscrewing the sensors from the downpipe and housing or by just disconnecting the wires. I opted to disconnect the wires.
-Then I removed the heatshield because they just get in the way…and hide bolts.
-Next I removed any coolant and oil lines to the turbo. You WILL get a little wet from coolant that is still in the lines…but luckily you didn’t wear 2 gallons of it since I warned you!
-Next is to remove the O2 housing from the turbo…you may be able to leave it on and still get the turbo out…but I chose to just take it off.
-After the housing and all lines are off, unbolt the turbo from the manifold. A friend is helpful here to keep the turbo from falling on your face once that last bolt is off. The stock boost controller needs to come off the turbo but stay on the car as it will be used.
-Next is to remove the manifold. Pretty self explanatory…just remove all the nuts and the thing falls off.
Now it is time to reinstall all the new parts! In a sense, reverse the steps above!
-Start by putting the manifold back on over the studs on the engine (don’t forget the gasket).Pretty easy here as well. Its a tight squeeze by a hardline of some sort but it does go on and clears. Tighten down all the bolts evenly.
TIP: You may find it easier to put the wastegate on the manifold before installing the manifold. One of the bolts is kind of a pain to get to once the manifold is on the car. (again, don’t forget the gasket!). And make sure that you have it on correctly with the opening facing down.
-Next is the install of the turbo. Something that we did before installing was to mock up the turbo on the manifold to check if the intercooler piping will line up with the turbo correctly as well as the oil feed and drain points are pointed in the right direction. If it doesn’t line up correctly (mine didn’t) then you need to loosen the bolts on the turbo and turn it accordingly. And once everything is to your liking, be sure to tighten all the bolts down on the turbo. Now mount the turbo to the manifold and be sure to put the gasket in between. If you opted not to install the wastegate in the previous step, now would be the time do that.
-Next step is to deal with the oil and coolant lines (or lack thereof). First you need to put the fittings onto the stainless oil line provided. Install the oil line flange onto the turbo and attach one side of the oil line to it. Keep in mind that you will have a dump tube coming off the wastegate and you need to take that into consideration when routing the oil drain line to the oil pan. I personally routed the line around the left side of the wastegate because that gave the best clearance. Then screw the oil line fitting on the plug that was provided and installed onto the pan.
>Now you have to plug the coolant drain hole since this turbo is oil cooled only. Take the provided blue “hole plugger” and plug the drain hole for the coolant. Pretty easy…just screw it in.
-Now once you have the manifold, turbo, and wastegate tightened down thoroughly, you can install the downpipe. When doing mine I had to remove the tranny mount in order to get the downpipe in correctly.
(to uninstall mounts, support the engine and tranny with a jack..just enough to take weight off the mounts, then loosen and remove the bolts. For more details on this, look up in the “how-to” section). To attach to turbo, line up the vband sections of the downpipe and turbo and place vband clamp around in the proper place. Tighten clamp down partially. Then replace the bolts that connect the downpipe to the catback and tighten those down all the way. Now go back and tighten your vband clamp all the way.
-Next is to replace your O2 sensors to their respective spots. Depending on how your removed them earlier, you will need to take them off the old downpipe and O2 housing and put them onto the new downpipe. There is an extra bung on the downpipe that I used for a wideband. If you aren’t using that extra bung, then it would be a good idea to plug it.
>After downpipe and sensors are installed, be sure to put the tranny mount back on.
>After your downpipe is tightened down, attach the dump tube to the wastegate. To do this, you will have to rotate the around with the end of the tube in the downpipe. It will take some force of rotating to get it to line up with the wastegate..but it will go!!! Be sure to use the gasket in there!
-Next is to install the intake. This is a pretty straight forward process as well. The kit comes with a 90* elbow that goes onto the turbo, then the intake pipe connects to that elbow, followed by a coupler and another pipe that takes the intake tube and filter into the fender. All these connections are held with worm drives. Be sure everything is lined up and on all the way before tightening down. (especially that 90* coupler).
Now would be a good time to install the blow off valve. You will need to remove the flange from the blow off valve since the flange is already welded to the chargepiping. The connection between the blow off valve and chargepipe is basically a vband type clamp. Once aligned correctly, tighten down the clamp with an allen wrench.
Next part is the routing of all the vacuum lines. Easiest one is the one for the blowoff valve. Route a line from the port on bov to the top of the intake manifold.
Then comes lines from the wastegate and the stock boost controller. The front port is left open. The side port goes to the port on the wastegate that is closest to the car. The other port on the wastegate is left open. Then the rear port on the boost controller goes to the boost source on the turbo. Wouldn't be a bad idea to hold all these lines down with some zip ties.
-Next is to align and tighten down all the chargepiping. Again, this is a pretty easy process..it just takes some tweaking and rotating to get everything to line up square. All these connections are held together with T-bolt clamps (thank God).
After all lines/sensors/bolts are checked and checked again and you refill your car with coolant...you could get away with a test start. Before doing so, it wouldnt be a bad idea to put a little bit of oil down the hotside tube of the turbo since it will be a dry start...just to make sure there isn't any metal to metal. Test start it and let it run. If all is well then it should run and run rough!
Put your bumper back on, get a good tuner to tune you up and enjoy this kit! It is an absolute blast!!!
Later on I will be posting vids of some dyno runs and some various street pulls to show what she does!
But overall, this kit was about like any other serious modifications to cars...it takes a buddy, some beer, and some busted knuckles but it is an overall fairly straight forward and simple install! I would like to thank Treadstone for giving me the chance to purchase this kit and trusting me enough to do this review (even tho it is late
). They are an amazing company to work with and their parts are top notch!
ON TO THE DYNO!!!!
Cobalt SS Turbo Dyno- Precision 5557 - YouTube
I will also be doing some dyno runs to see what kinda of numbers this kit is capable of. I am hoping to do an E47 tune but if not it will be on 91 octane because Nebraska is too cool for 93
Stage 4 kit includes(turbo upgrade):
Turbo manifold
Turbo
Wastegate
downpipe
dump tube
oil lines, gaskets and hardware
silicone coupler to connect to any intercooler pipe set up, and cold air intake set up
we will make it with with any set you may have
Now I went with every part that they offer minus their catback exhaust. The turbo i chose is the PTE 5557 JB with billet wheel. I of course have their amazing turbo manifold that is almost too pretty to be real.
Starting off, jack up the car and put on jack stands..unless you are a boss and have a lift…then I just hate you. Something that will prove to be a pain later if you don’t follow is to make the the jack stands are far enough back and wide enough so a creeper will get between them
Once you have risen and are steady, remove the headlights and bumper. Its easy…if you don’t know how to do it, then look it up.
Next, I took the liberty of mocking up the intercooler and cold and hotside chargepiping.
This is a pretty straight forward process as well. If you are removing the stock hotside chargepiping then there is a special bracket that you will have to remove. As well as a clamp that has proven to be a PITA so some people just cut the piping to remove it. Me on the other hand, already had Dejon piping so I didn’t have to mess with that. The Treadstone Intercooler Kit is phenomenal IMO. The intercooler is excellent quality and the piping has smooth bends and not to mention the flat textured black color! I love the look of it…kinda stealthy! (as “stealthy” as a big pipe with a massive Turbosmart bov can look anyway).
Also I opted for the Blow-Thru MAF relocation cold side pipe, so that will take a special step in extending the MAF sensor wires to reach to the new location. We had to cut the looming and wrap around the harness about 12” so it would reach down to the coldside pipe.
Be careful not to cut any wires! After cutting to the needed length I just wrapped the wires/harness in electrical tape and wire loom to protect everything and clean it up. Now is also a good time to install the temp sensor.
(At this point I didn’t tighten anything down fully just because I figured I would be tweaking later)
Next comes the uninstall of the old turbo, manifold, downpipe, etc.
CAUTION: NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME TO DRAIN COOLANT SO YOU DON’T END UP WEARING IT LATER!!! –I removed the lower hose on the driver side of the car.
-Start off by removing the downpipe completely. 4 bolts on the O2 housing and 3 on the catback. Don’t forget to remove the O2 sensor(s). You can either do this by unscrewing the sensors from the downpipe and housing or by just disconnecting the wires. I opted to disconnect the wires.
-Then I removed the heatshield because they just get in the way…and hide bolts.
-Next I removed any coolant and oil lines to the turbo. You WILL get a little wet from coolant that is still in the lines…but luckily you didn’t wear 2 gallons of it since I warned you!
-Next is to remove the O2 housing from the turbo…you may be able to leave it on and still get the turbo out…but I chose to just take it off.
-After the housing and all lines are off, unbolt the turbo from the manifold. A friend is helpful here to keep the turbo from falling on your face once that last bolt is off. The stock boost controller needs to come off the turbo but stay on the car as it will be used.
-Next is to remove the manifold. Pretty self explanatory…just remove all the nuts and the thing falls off.
Now it is time to reinstall all the new parts! In a sense, reverse the steps above!
-Start by putting the manifold back on over the studs on the engine (don’t forget the gasket).Pretty easy here as well. Its a tight squeeze by a hardline of some sort but it does go on and clears. Tighten down all the bolts evenly.
TIP: You may find it easier to put the wastegate on the manifold before installing the manifold. One of the bolts is kind of a pain to get to once the manifold is on the car. (again, don’t forget the gasket!). And make sure that you have it on correctly with the opening facing down.
-Next is the install of the turbo. Something that we did before installing was to mock up the turbo on the manifold to check if the intercooler piping will line up with the turbo correctly as well as the oil feed and drain points are pointed in the right direction. If it doesn’t line up correctly (mine didn’t) then you need to loosen the bolts on the turbo and turn it accordingly. And once everything is to your liking, be sure to tighten all the bolts down on the turbo. Now mount the turbo to the manifold and be sure to put the gasket in between. If you opted not to install the wastegate in the previous step, now would be the time do that.
-Next step is to deal with the oil and coolant lines (or lack thereof). First you need to put the fittings onto the stainless oil line provided. Install the oil line flange onto the turbo and attach one side of the oil line to it. Keep in mind that you will have a dump tube coming off the wastegate and you need to take that into consideration when routing the oil drain line to the oil pan. I personally routed the line around the left side of the wastegate because that gave the best clearance. Then screw the oil line fitting on the plug that was provided and installed onto the pan.
>Now you have to plug the coolant drain hole since this turbo is oil cooled only. Take the provided blue “hole plugger” and plug the drain hole for the coolant. Pretty easy…just screw it in.
-Now once you have the manifold, turbo, and wastegate tightened down thoroughly, you can install the downpipe. When doing mine I had to remove the tranny mount in order to get the downpipe in correctly.
(to uninstall mounts, support the engine and tranny with a jack..just enough to take weight off the mounts, then loosen and remove the bolts. For more details on this, look up in the “how-to” section). To attach to turbo, line up the vband sections of the downpipe and turbo and place vband clamp around in the proper place. Tighten clamp down partially. Then replace the bolts that connect the downpipe to the catback and tighten those down all the way. Now go back and tighten your vband clamp all the way.
-Next is to replace your O2 sensors to their respective spots. Depending on how your removed them earlier, you will need to take them off the old downpipe and O2 housing and put them onto the new downpipe. There is an extra bung on the downpipe that I used for a wideband. If you aren’t using that extra bung, then it would be a good idea to plug it.
>After downpipe and sensors are installed, be sure to put the tranny mount back on.
>After your downpipe is tightened down, attach the dump tube to the wastegate. To do this, you will have to rotate the around with the end of the tube in the downpipe. It will take some force of rotating to get it to line up with the wastegate..but it will go!!! Be sure to use the gasket in there!
-Next is to install the intake. This is a pretty straight forward process as well. The kit comes with a 90* elbow that goes onto the turbo, then the intake pipe connects to that elbow, followed by a coupler and another pipe that takes the intake tube and filter into the fender. All these connections are held with worm drives. Be sure everything is lined up and on all the way before tightening down. (especially that 90* coupler).
Now would be a good time to install the blow off valve. You will need to remove the flange from the blow off valve since the flange is already welded to the chargepiping. The connection between the blow off valve and chargepipe is basically a vband type clamp. Once aligned correctly, tighten down the clamp with an allen wrench.
Next part is the routing of all the vacuum lines. Easiest one is the one for the blowoff valve. Route a line from the port on bov to the top of the intake manifold.
Then comes lines from the wastegate and the stock boost controller. The front port is left open. The side port goes to the port on the wastegate that is closest to the car. The other port on the wastegate is left open. Then the rear port on the boost controller goes to the boost source on the turbo. Wouldn't be a bad idea to hold all these lines down with some zip ties.
-Next is to align and tighten down all the chargepiping. Again, this is a pretty easy process..it just takes some tweaking and rotating to get everything to line up square. All these connections are held together with T-bolt clamps (thank God).
After all lines/sensors/bolts are checked and checked again and you refill your car with coolant...you could get away with a test start. Before doing so, it wouldnt be a bad idea to put a little bit of oil down the hotside tube of the turbo since it will be a dry start...just to make sure there isn't any metal to metal. Test start it and let it run. If all is well then it should run and run rough!
Put your bumper back on, get a good tuner to tune you up and enjoy this kit! It is an absolute blast!!!
Later on I will be posting vids of some dyno runs and some various street pulls to show what she does!
But overall, this kit was about like any other serious modifications to cars...it takes a buddy, some beer, and some busted knuckles but it is an overall fairly straight forward and simple install! I would like to thank Treadstone for giving me the chance to purchase this kit and trusting me enough to do this review (even tho it is late
). They are an amazing company to work with and their parts are top notch!ON TO THE DYNO!!!!
Cobalt SS Turbo Dyno- Precision 5557 - YouTube
Last edited by FrossB; Feb 4, 2012 at 08:55 PM.
Senior Member
Joined: 07-23-10
Posts: 3,451
Likes: 0
From: Carlsbad, CA
Good write up bro. I doubt you will be able to run e47... I had to turn the fuel pressure all the way up on mine (and by me of course I mean Term2 lol). It barely kept up even with a stock turbo. But your normal dino fuel numbers should be good
Thread Starter
Joined: 10-19-09
Posts: 7,431
Likes: 1
From: Gering, Nebraska
Yea I am having some problems with e47 when I get to higher rpms. And I know that another member running above 24psi and 93 octane ran into fueling issues so I'm thinking 91 is my best bet! but even when I was running 20 psi on 91 this car would rip!!!! As for the efr questions...I can't answer if they will work but I can find out! I wouldn't see why they wouldn't work. But even this 5557 has some pretty quick spool (not stock turbo spool but still speedy). I will post some videos of some various pulls to show spool times.
Standing by for the dyno numbers and some pull vids!
Senior Member
Joined: 07-23-10
Posts: 3,451
Likes: 0
From: Carlsbad, CA
Yea I am having some problems with e47 when I get to higher rpms. And I know that another member running above 24psi and 93 octane ran into fueling issues so I'm thinking 91 is my best bet! but even when I was running 20 psi on 91 this car would rip!!!! As for the efr questions...I can't answer if they will work but I can find out! I wouldn't see why they wouldn't work. But even this 5557 has some pretty quick spool (not stock turbo spool but still speedy). I will post some videos of some various pulls to show spool times.
Thread Starter
Joined: 10-19-09
Posts: 7,431
Likes: 1
From: Gering, Nebraska
Unless you do modifications to the cams, pump, and/or injectors... you will still run into the fueling problem in the meat of the torque range... Even on a stock turbo with a E/91 mix, I would run into low rail pressure... It would throw me into reduced power mode. But ZZP's new head and cam combo will take care of the fueling issues from what I understand. It will allow the fuel pump to run faster, so it develops more pressure and flow. But that is like $2k for the head... Still I really really really REALLY want it lol.
Thread Starter
Joined: 10-19-09
Posts: 7,431
Likes: 1
From: Gering, Nebraska
Thread Starter
Joined: 10-19-09
Posts: 7,431
Likes: 1
From: Gering, Nebraska
Right on..well we might have to meet up in Kearney or North Platte Nebraska. I think both of those places have tracks and thats about halfway for both of us.
Were trying to work kinks out in my e47 tune because im at 25psi and im not running out of fuel yet im getting blowout and we know its blowout because on 25lbs it does it and at 18lbs it does it and watching the fuel rail pressure on the rpd it doesnt drop when the blow out occurs...Once we have it dialed in ill send it your way but wont be till summer unless we find a dyno
Thread Starter
Joined: 10-19-09
Posts: 7,431
Likes: 1
From: Gering, Nebraska
well im throwing misfire codes everywhere and my fuel pressure kinda plateaus at more of a stock fuel pressure when its tuned to be turned up. So im going to get my coils checked. if they check out then im going to go back to a 91 tune and see what it does then.