Does anyone know of a thread or website that might show me how to build my own turbo kit? A friend of mine who's helped other people with turbo'd cars asked me if i was going to do anything my z. He mentioned that it might be possible to use an eclipse turbo and buy everything seperate off ebay for alot cheaper than a whole kit. My military pay check can only take me as far as payments, everything else is on a tight budget. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

The toughest thing would be the manifolds, I know of a place that is selling APS exhaust manifolds if you would like to buy them from them. That would take alot of the work out of it, the rest is where to position the turbo's and what intercooler and how to run the piping.

 

Are the APS manifolds from the dealer or??? Can you post the site for me please? Thank you for the help

 

I wouldn't be comfortable building my own kit for this high compression, low boost tolerance motor. Seeing the damage people have caused with professionaly designed systems such as the Greddy TT kit, I can imagine the margin of error would be very slim.

But, if you're willing to learn, I think Maximum Boost touches on the basics of planning your own turbo build.

 

I'm not looking for huge amounts of boost, just a little extra "zip". Something beside the basic everyday mods. Of course i don't want to ruin my car and if the risk out weighs the gains, i'll nix the idea.

 

The reason GReddy's are blowing doesn't have to do with the kit itself. 90% of going F/I is tuning. The problem is, even if the 90% is there, the full 10% of parts...isn't. It's an incomplete kit for out-of-the-box stock boost.

BTW, I couldn't find the link anymore, it used to be on splparts.com, shoot them an email and see if they are still selling the exhaust manifolds seperately. They also sell the APS kit for $6970.

 

i actually have this book on my desk right now - its awesome, the author is corky bell and it will let you know everything you need to know to boost your ride. excellent suggestion taurran.

if you can afford to properly boost your car - save and wait. why put a "junkyard" kit on your Z? i know where you are man, i had a prelude for a while, was always on honda-tech, and i knew almost everything i needed to know to put a snail on a h22, and my boys were running boost and i was like "well, i can just piece it together and be boosted for around 1200-1400, and be set." i want to hear the bov and feel the pull of the boost so bad i could taste it.... LMAO... when i got my tax return, which was nice, i had the chance to put a decent kit on the lude, and i bought the z instead. the headache and worries werent worth the investment - because to properly boost my beloved little fwd four banger, it would have cost me at least 7 large. and thats just to be reliable - not to be nasty. that was far more than i was willing to pour into my honda (nothing against honda's - i love em).

a boosted car is going to be a constant expense with constant up-keep. and with a car with a low boost tolerance (as mentioned above) and a low budget, you'll have to buy expensive (ie equality and somewhat reliable parts) to make sure your psi doesnt randomly spike and blow your stock motor that cant handle the increased pressure... then we're taking big bucks.

not to be an a**hat, but if you have to look for a website to teach you how assemble a cheap turbo set up, you're not ready to run a turbo. read "maximum boost" as suggested and get the knowledge you need to reach your goal - the knowledge is what is going to save you money in the long run - slapping cheap parts on your car right now with little knowledge (it doesnt matter how much your buddies know, because they wont be paying the bills at the shop when block has a hole in it... when it comes to boost, dont let anyone do anything to your car unless you understand what is being done) is only going to cost you a lot of cash in the foreseeable future.

seriously - just looking out for a fellow Z driver.

 

when piecing together a turbo kit, the most important thing is engine manegment, i.e. controlling fuel, ignition, timing, ect... You can always copy a turbo kits EMS but remember that 8psi on one turbo isn't 8 psi on another.

And you should do alot of research before doing anything.

 

Tuning is the most important part of turbo kits on the Z. Look at how many low boost motors have been detonated! Even if you save money on parts, you will more than make up for it in tuning any 'frankenturbo' system you wind up with. So either have an extra $8K to replace that blown motor, or save up till you can buy a proven, complete, safe kit for the Z.

 

getting an eclipse turbo from the junkyard and putting it on your new Z is definitely not a bad idea.