Day 1
Removed the intake, downpipe and cracked loose the coolant banjos on the stock turbo to let it drain. Sprayed penetrant lube on the manifold nuts to let it soak for a night and called it a day. No pics, because there's plenty of pics around of an intake and downpipe removed from the car.
Day 2
Removed the OE turbo and called it a day after I got the DHM manifold and turbo mounted, as I have other things beside my car to take care of. haha.
I spent more time than I would have liked cleaning up stuff like re-taping and re-threading the manifold nuts and studs. Close to half the studs came out with the nuts, so I opted to clean all of them up before re-installing them with nickel anti-seize.
I managed to mount the turbo on to the manifold by myself with a little ingenuity. I agree it's PITA by oneself and totally doable with an extra set of hands, but I managed by myself once I rigged my "hoist" haha. I used some twine and a bungie cord and fortunately I was able to squeeze both arms up to mate and tighten the v-band clamp.
I tried to install the manifold and turbo as a unit as it looked like I could squeeze it up from the bottom, but the bigger issue I had was the weight of both as a whole, it's probably around 35lbs. and trying to lift it up through a gap while on my back just wasn't going to happen. After :30 of that idea I moved on to my next idea, lol. I separated the turbo from the manifold and installed the manifold first from the top. It's tight and has to be angled right, but it fits. There are 2 nuts on top that have to go on first before the others because these 2 nuts can't fit once the other nuts are on due to the clearance between the manifold and studs for these 2 nuts are close.
The turbo mounted on to the manifold. In the pic is my homemade rig to hoist/suspend the turbo.
The rig allowed me to rest my arm while I regained enough strength to have another go at it. One arm to lift while the other hand finessed and tightened the clamp. After about 3 attempts I got it on.
I was pleased to see that I clocked the turbo right, because having to remove the turbo and re-clock the turbo several times would have been a bad day.