The rod under the turbo has adjuster nuts, run the front one all the way to the stop then tighten up the back one, "shortening" the rod. I am seeing higher boost levels and it builds faster. I saw a nice improvement, try it if you like and no I don't know if it will void your warranty, no I don't know why it didn't come this way. If you have any reservations just don't do it. If you want to try it go for it, if not leave it alone. This is the rod you adjust, just run it down to the stop, it is under the turbo, just remove the heat shield and you will see it.

This modification will bypass the solenoid that limits the rate of spooling for your stock GXP/Redline Turbo. The tools you will need are:

Pliers
Rubber jaw guards or soft material to place in pliers to protect tearing the tubing
1 Ziptie (normal size, not the small ones)
1/4" Vacuum Tube Connector
1/4" Vacuum Tube Cap

It's a good idea to do this on a cold engine, to save yourself from some contact burns.

First you will need to remove your engine cover to access the solenoid, which is on the drivers side of the engine bay. The engine cover is held in place by 4 rubber snaps. Just hold tightly with your hands and pull it off. Don't be afraid to use a little force.

Now with the cover off (Pic 1) you can see the solenoid with 3 tubes attached to it; the tube connecting to the stock wastegate, the tube connecting to the intercooler pipe, and the tube connecting to the manifold.

Using pliers, pinch the green tube clamps at the tabs to loosen (pic 2). Move the clamps further back on the tube rather than take off since we're going to use these later on. The tubes simply pull off, but may need some encouragement. Using rubber guards or perhaps soft cloth to protect the tube, use your pliers to loosen the tube and pull carefully. Once the tube begins to move, go back to pulling by hand. All 3 tubes are going to be taken off the solenoid (Pic 3)

Next, using a 1/4" vacuum tube connector (Pic 4) connect the Stock wastegate tube together with the manifold tube. Make sure to firmly push each tube all the way to the center of the connector. (Pic 5) Using the original green tabbed tube pinch clamps, secure your new connection by moving the clamps to the ends of the tubes. This connection is now done. You should look something like this, with the intercooler pipe tube still to be removed in the next step. (Pic 6)

Now remove the intercooler pipe tube in a similar fashion, loosening the clamp and give it a tug. With the tube removed, you will see the exposed brass nipple on the intercooler pipe. (Pic 7) You are going to install the Vacuum tube cap onto this brass nipple. (Pic 8) Push the vacuum cap onto the nipple as far as it will go. I tried to use the same green clamps, but my vacuum cap was a smaller diameter, and the clamp wouldn't hold tightly. I used a normal sized cable ziptie to tightly secure the vacuum cap onto the nipple. (Pic 9) Trim the extra ziptie from nipple and this is done.

You should look something like this. (Pic 10) The intercooler pipe tube can now be removed completely. Hold onto this tube in case you decide to go back to a stock setup.

Replace the engine cover onto the engine, and give it a sturdy push on all 4 corners to make sure all the snaps are inserted properly.

YOU'RE DONE!

This modification did not throw any codes. I did not see in increase in total boost, just the time it takes to spool. Happy Modding!

Now that we have installed several Vertical Door kits for the Saturn SKY, we have been asked to provide more details about the installation process, so we'll try to do an overview here. While the door kits we purchased are customized for the SKY and advertised as reversable bolt-on kits, we should caution that the installation requires a great deal of metalwork, rewiring, and adjustments.

The installation begins with removal of both front fenders plus the fender support brackets. Then, three components need to be removed and replaced in new positions:

1. On the drivers side, the ECM/TCM module and bracket are removed, and the bracket that holds the computer module must be trimmed and relocated
2. Also on the driver's side, the washer bottle needs to be removed, and a new bracket needs to be installed which moves the bottle forward about an inch.
3. On the passenger side, the battery needs to be removed, and the battery tray modified slightly to allow the battery to slide forward about an inch.

After the components have been moved, the next step is to trim off material from the fenders and support brackets to provide clearance for the new hinges. The kit includes diagrams telling you how much metal needs to be removed from each piece. Also at this time, material needs to be removed from the underside of the hood to provide hinge clearance.

Prior to installing the hinges, we taped the doors to the car with A LOT of masking tape to hold the door into the exact place prior to removing the old hinges. After removing the old hinges the new hinges will bolt right up, and the tape can be removed, and the alignment tested before installing the assist shocks.

Although the doors are working at this point, the trickiest part of the installation is extending the wiring harnesses so that they clear the new hinges and fenders. Zip ties are used to accomplish this.

After the wiring harness is extended in such a way as to not interfere with the mechanisms, we reinstall the fender brackets and fenders and begin greasing the hinges and making our adjustments. There are several adjustments to make, and this is time consuming, and imperative for a nice, clean instalation.

After doing several of these, it now takes us about four hours to do the driver's side door, and two hours to do the passenger side. Installation is a team effort, often requiring four hands and special tools. The instructions included in the kit are sketchy at best, and you definately get better at this as you get a few of them under your belt.

The photos in this article are linked into our photo gallery, so you can click on each one to see a larger image.

Searching for an inexpensive alternative to installing ballast-oriented HID lighting kits, we decided to test several sets of inexpensive LED and Xenon replacement bulbs for the Saturn Sky. After contacting five different vendors, we decided to purchase seven different pairs of white zenon and LED replacement bulbs for our test. Our goal was get closer to a cooler white/blue color without loosing illumination. In the end, after trying more than a dozen combinations of lights, the results ranged from totally useless to fairly good, although certainly nothing close to what we have see with true HID lighting.

The photo to the left shows the soft yellow hallogen stock lights that come with the SKY, and the photo to the right is of a Xenon low-beam bulb and a 6-LED driving light. We were hoping for a more modern whiter look, and I think we achieved it.

We learned a few important lessons installing these lights. First and foremost, thesy burn REALLY hot, so turn them off for awhile before attempting to remove them. Second, current needs to travel in a specific direction to illuminate LED bulbs, so if they don't work at first, maybe you have them installed backwards (this does not apply to H11 fog lights). And third, we also learned that even the slightest angle off center might make one light look much brighter than another (in our case, the stock lights on the left appear brighter because our camera was placed a fraction of an inch too far to the left).

We also learned that while LED lights might never need to be replaced, they simply don't produce enough light to be used in nighttime street driving conditions. In the end, we used a set of LED lights for the top driving lights because it matched the white color well, but it wasn't nearly as bright as the stock yellow hallogen driving lights. In fact, we noticed such a huge difference in intensity that we will probably end up tossing all of the LED lights as unusable in road illumination applications.

BULB TYPES: The model numbers of the bulbs for the front of the Saturn SKY are H11 bulbs for low beam and fog lights, H9 bulbs for high beam, and W5W bulbs for the upper driving lights.

DO NOT TRY THESE: Do not try mirrorred W5W bulbs for the driving lights. They are designed to deflect light and product almost no light forward. Also, don't mess with LED lights at all for the front of the car, but especially as fog lights or low beams. H11 LED bulbs are availalbe (and are somewhat expensive), but I am certain that using them for low-beams is NOT street-legal because they produce so little light.

BRIGHTNESS: The stock soft-yellow Halogen lights appeared a bit brighter than the Xenon lights we tested, at least when looking at then directly. When looking at their reflection (see side photos) however, the white xenon bulbs seemed to reflect more off the floor. In the end, it was a toss-up.

SUMMARY: We were happy with the H9 and H11 Xenon bulbs, although one of the six bulbs in the set didn't fit properly in the socket. We were disappointed with all of the LED or mirrored xenon solutions for the fog lights or driving lights, and we will continue to shop for an ultra-bright white xenon W5W replacement lamp for the top fog lights, just so we can get our brightness back.

The photo below was taken with high beams on with OEM lights on the passenger side and the Xenon/LED lights on the drivers side. The differnece in brightness was caused by the camera angle, so it is not representative of comparative brightness. This photo does, however, clearly show the different color spectrums and halos, the yellow & green OEM lights compared to the blue and red xenon bulbs.

CAMERA WORK: To get the photos used in this article, we did the testing in a garage with a camera on a tripod 20 feet away. The camera was set as shutter priority for a 1/60th second exposure for all shots.