First up, I have an oil leak. A PITA one too, but not life threatening. It’s a result of the oil return line being spliced together. I’ll be traveling to a shop to get a braided replacement made.
I don’t hold fault to the builder because the problem actually lies with the GTB1756’s hotside housing. You can see the nub a little bit in that first photo, but here is a different angle.
And above was a third that shows the rest of it on the exhaust flange. In my opinion, it's safe to cut off. Before the turbo goes back on, I know I'll be trimming it for sure. A braided line would solve the obstruction problem too, obviously.
As said before, one of the reasons I went with a AFN manifold was because I wanted to avoid cutting into the rear engine mount. There are many examples on the forums cut mounts. Based on the price for a replacement fabricated mount, I just got a different exhaust manifold.
There is one itty bitty problem with going with this manifold, the turbo is positioned closer to the firewall. I guess there is supposed to be a heat shield that one bolts onto the hotside, but I don't have one. The upper mount nub allows for about 1/2" clearance with the firewall. Unless you plan on using it, cut it off, imho, and give yourself more clearance.
If you don't, your firewall could end up looking like this:
Next up, before you install the 1756, have the compressor outlet welded back on at a better angle. I'd suggest a little move clockwise rotation that what I have here, but by only a couple of degrees.
Now, something is up with my setup to were I have to have my actuator at about 12.5 inHg in order to get full boost at about 2300 RPM, thus my actuator's arm is pretty short, thought the adaptor plate for the actuator is as far as it can go right now. I'll be looking into this with a bit more detail. The stop screw is protruding 0.5-0.75 mm and I have ~5.5 mm of travel in the actuator, fwiw.
Lastly, if you have the time to take your B4 down and pull the engine for this, it'd give you quite a bit of room to work. You can drop the subframe by removing 4 bolts per side the subframe and 4 more per side for the from frame supporting the front motor mount and radiators. In order to then drop the out and wheel it out of the engine bay, you'll need to disconnect your steering column with 1, 11mm nut and PITA-to-get-out screw hidden behind a plastic cover behind the pedals
