850 t5 engine upgrade query

[thewoodster]

hi chaps i currently have a t5 with standard 15g turbo , huge cone filter, and mbc set at around 13 psi , i have just broken another t5 for bits which i Payed for £25O for , now the main reason i bought the car was because it had a 300mm brake conversion with new discs and pads and very good rear calipers and my brakes were ££££ed - boy do these two tonnes monsters take some slowing down at three in the morning on the motorway at full chat ( if you get my drift :-) ) anyway when i bought the car i was told that it had been remaped to around 280bhp - now im the wrong side of 40 years old and my last car was a 4x4 cosworth and i also own a new and nearly new tyre business so i have heard more exaggerated claims of bhp output from the "my vauxhall corsa is 200bhp because i fitted a big bore exhaust "to the "ive spent 30k on my cossie and its 900 bhp" boy racer chavs than i have had hot dinners , however when i drove it back the 127 miles from norwich to nottingham even though is was ££££ing minging and showing 240k and an automatic it drove mint returning 34mpg according to the computer , and im lucky if i see 24 out mine and pulled like a train with the boost gauge on the clocks going right off the scale, so at this point it was safe to assume it was chipped or mapped but to what power it was really hard to say but it did feel strong ,anyway the car is now in bits and i mean bits - and my mint bright red 850 t5 s manual stops on a ££££ing button - well the rear offside caliper has been siezed far too long for me to admit, we also have a tail gate that stays up and a set of working odometers (ok they show 240k and not the 137k they should but who cares i will not be selling it - ill just run it till its dead) (being in the motor trade is like a builder who has no time to fix his own house )and a shed load of spare parts and ive just got the shell hiab`d away and got £80 for it so i got my moneys worth already, so now were getting nearer to my question (but hope your enjoying the story so far ) anyway when i stripped the car i removed the ecu and opened it up as it had obviously been opened before and the writing on the chip states 850R but as for as my limited volvo knowledge goes the only difference between the t5 and r was 30 seconds of overboost and this was not the case on the drive home it just kept going and going - i also found that it was running grey/light blue injectors but with no mbc. when i removed the turbo there were no markings or plates so do not now wether its a 15g or 16t (in my day a turbo was either t2/5 t3 t3/4 or t4) so now to where i need help.

so which of the following should i do ??

1. just plug the ecu in and go
2. use ecu and remove mbc
3. use ecu with mbc turned up
4 use all of the above with the blue injectors
5 use all of the above and swop turbos
6 fit the lot and get it mapped
7 is there on obvious physical difference in appearence between the 15g and 16t turbos

cheers woodster

[M-R-P]

First thought that came to mind was what state were the vac pipes in on the donor car? If the actuator pipe was damaged, it'll overboost like hell.
Second was although saying "850R" on the chip, it's clearly been remapped so whatever settings that are on an R ecu would be exaggerated by the remap any way.
Give both turbos a good look over and decide if it's worth the effort changing them over.
White/blue injectors will be better than the orange ones you probably have in your car.

First thing I'd do is throw the new ECU at it and see what happens. Then start faffing about with MBC's and turbos, if you feel the need. (tweaking is kinda addictive tho ;))

[p fandango]

the 850R didn't have overboost, that was on the T-5R. As for the turbo, the only 850 to come with the 16t was the 850R manual. I'd be tempted to swop everything over, with blue injectors as well its hinting theirs a few thing done to it