turbo on stock engine. what to expect? Na6

[garettb16]

what sort of power figures can be expected from a stock engine with a bolt on turbo kit to a NA6>?

im tossing up which way to go before i begin buying the parts i need and want a few estimations of KW figures from eg. a bolt on Greddy or similar kit

with or without a cooler and running standard ecu

i guess im after obviously more power but i want my car to be drivable in every day conditions aswell so im not after a drag car

\"A more spirited NA6\"

[Sheck]

Here are my experiences:
Stock GReddy with cooler a little bit quicker but i'd much rather an N/A Na6, the car is not exactly laggy but the amount of lag compared to the top end power is not worth it and detracts from the driving experience,

stock kit on 12psi with EManage its fun again! Car actually is fun to drive similar to when it was N/A but with more poke. Its a descent power level - tuned bymyself it had around 150hp atw.

Now with R32 turbo, new IC, and HKS VPC on 9psi its at 189hp atw and is a lot of fun. I want to turn up the boost so i can drift with grippier tyres but for everyday this is a descent power level even though i'm pretty used to it.

Hope that gives you some sort of idea on how the car will feel..
Dave

[Steampunk]

Amongst many others .... PM Uncle Arthur and Jules

[lowmiata]

what sort of power figures can be expected from a stock engine with a bolt on turbo kit to a NA6>?

How long is said piece of string?

FWIW
Sheck has just mentioned two setups he has used with different outcomes
it all comes down to
A how good your current motor is
B what engine management you will use
C Turbo and intercooler choice
D Driveline sustainability

and E How much money you are going to throw at it

I spent alot of money well probably minimal these days with cost skyrocketing but anyway

Mine runs 9psi on Microtech ecu(piggybacked) T25 front mount and GTX 1.8 injectors

All my parts were new except for the injectors so I spent alot of money on "new items" that i didn't have to but I wanted the piece of mind

the power out put at the wheels is 179 HP which for the amount of time i drive it is keeping me happy.
You always want more though!

Factor in when you do it that you want a setup that you can upgrade
Nothing worse than doing something then going back later and have to upgrade other things cause you never spent the extra time factoring in increases!

In perspective Sheck probably spent half what i did and has a slightbit more power it just depends on how much you can

A do yourself
B improvise
C scrounge up the parts cheap etc

My motor has just shy of 300,000k's on it so don't be afraid to do it
they are a strong motor thant can handle a few tweaks
up to 10-12 psi (then you will start having to do "other things" that will cost more money!

Once you go turbo you wont go back though
Its great this side of the fence!

[jules]

WOT he said. JUST DO IT!

UA's car is totally drivable and just gorgeous to handle. The power is predictable and matches the MX-5 beautifully.

You know how the handling on one of these cars gives you plenty of warning before letting loose? Well his turbo install is the same. I found I could drive the car with it just onto boost much like a naturally aspirated car. If I chose to put the boot in then it would just GO.

The only 2 things that changed my driving style in his car was that I never had to wring the engine like I do in Malibu, the revs were always pretty tame, so in essence it's like having a bigger engine, and I guess perhaps the engine gets saved a bit by this. The 2nd thing was that I needed to be careful with how much I gave it when turning at an intersection, as it was very easy to light up the back tyres.

That was it.

The great things about the car stayed, and he got a whole world of improvement power wise. It was bloody hard to go back to a non-turbo car after that. It still is.

Malibu is naturally aspirated, but if someone offered me a turbo for free, they would lose their hands in my rush to take it off them.

I would suggest aiming for 7-9psi and about 115-130 odd kw? With decent mapping, the car should be really nice to drive in any traffic, and I did use UA's car for daily driving very happily.

I'm no turbo expert, but I do know what I like, so I hope this helps.

Jules

[garettb16]

i definately want to do it..

i think im going to go down the stock engine with bolt on kit and gently add to it.. start with the kit itself and have it running then go through the engine injectors etc. and eventually engine management.. im only after some sort of piggy back set up though

i think i do want to run a cooler.. and possibly a small one maybe not unlike a s14 intercooler or something like it around 400mm square..

thanks for the input guys

[jules]

If I were to go down this route I would factor in everything first before starting. Injectors, IC, ECU or piggy back, Zorst, possibly radiator, probably not fuel pump, diff, tune and work out what you want to do from there. I reckon if you are going to hold on the car, then you will end up looking at these things eventually anyway.

BUT, to answer your question, buy an inter cooler. There seems to be some reasonable ones on Ebay. I don't think I would even consider bolting anything on without engine management sorted first though. I would not change the engine either.

Jules

[Uncle Arthur]

WOT he said. JUST DO IT!

UA's car is totally drivable and just gorgeous to handle. The power is predictable and matches the MX-5 beautifully.

You know how the handling on one of these cars gives you plenty of warning before letting loose? Well his turbo install is the same. I found I could drive the car with it just onto boost much like a naturally aspirated car. If I chose to put the boot in then it would just GO.

The only 2 things that changed my driving style in his car was that I never had to wring the engine like I do in Malibu, the revs were always pretty tame, so in essence it's like having a bigger engine, and I guess perhaps the engine gets saved a bit by this. The 2nd thing was that I needed to be careful with how much I gave it when turning at an intersection, as it was very easy to light up the back tyres.

That was it.

The great things about the car stayed, and he got a whole world of improvement power wise. It was bloody hard to go back to a non-turbo car after that. It still is.

Malibu is naturally aspirated, but if someone offered me a turbo for free, they would lose their hands in my rush to take it off them.

I would suggest aiming for 7-9psi and about 115-130 odd kw? With decent mapping, the car should be really nice to drive in any traffic, and I did use UA's car for daily driving very happily.

I'm no turbo expert, but I do know what I like, so I hope this helps.

Jules

Makes me feel like a proud father - and LM had a (HUGE) hand in the install and he knows what he's talking about.

Do it right once.

[Fatty]

do it right, do it once.

yep.

i think the idea of taking baby steps and getting a greddy kit (for example) and upgrading along the way will just end up costing more money and at the end of the day it will not be as good as it could have been.

i'm super busy at the moment (moving house) but if i can find some time, i'll have a think about it and post up \"my\" killer cheap turbo kit.

[Fatty]

and yeah, as others mentioned factor in upgrading other parts like the diff and clutch and maybe brakes. it can get expensive!

[jules]

Yeah clutch, forgot about the clutch. The standard 1.6 clutch is crap to start with, so definitely do that before bolting anything on.

Jules

[lowmiata]

Forget about a second hand intercooler
the outlets all go the wrong way for a straight across installation
unless you get an evo one ore one from a U13 bluebird
intercoolers are cheap on ebay!

its just not worth the hassle

[4sfed5]

DO IT, DO IT, DO IT!

Im at 8 psi and around 195RWHP and its great...

you could piece something together like this....

Ebay Intercooler
Used turbo such as a R32 or subie legacy turbo
Emanage or megasquirt ( or even and old AVO extra injector controller)
custom weld el manifold...

running a decent intercooler means you can run 98 gas and not have to worry too much about timing controllers.so you could go really ghetto and use just an afpr instead of megasquirt or emanage

have a look at my cardomain pics in my sig..

[meanmx]

I just installed the avo stage 1 turbo kit and it is the best thing I have done. It cost a bit but it is epa approved which is important in Vic and it has all the bits for a killer setup in future. I got 110rwkw on the avo dyno and 98rwkw on the autosalon dyno with much heavier wheels and that is at 6psi. The best thing is the amount of usable power it has especially on freeways where you are right in the boost range. Before I would have been changing down one or two gears to keep it puffing wheras now I just leave it in 5th and let the engine do the work. It can also keep up with skylines and rexxys at this much power. Brilliant mod and of course fastfreddy is getting to know how the back of my car looks

Ben

[Okibi]

Yup, I recon you should look at the AVO kits because they are the only ADR approved kit (at least I think)

If you have spare cash get a plug in wolf ecu and plenty of dyno time including leaving your car there for some cold start tuning.