brohr01

yes, im a new here and have read quite a bit about turbos. one thing i noticed is that no one makes a turbo kit for us NA guys, everyone says to do the TII swap. i would think that there is a huge market for a turbo kit for the RX-7, or am i missing something. list some reasons why you think there is not a turbo kit.

rotaryracer1

iTrader: (1)

you obviously dont know the difference between the naturaly aspirated 13b and the turbo 13b. if u did u wouldnt have wrote what u did. people have been putting posts like yours on this forum for years now. the naturally aspirated 13b has a higher compression ratio than a turbo 13b, you need low compression to run a turbo. the N/A 13b is not as strong inside as a turbo 13b as well. no one has produced a turbo kit cause the N/A 13b blows up due to detonation and forced induction. there are just to many things you would have to worry about. do a better search find "arroncake" and get on his web site he did a turbo on his N/A 13b. look and see all the **** you will have to go through, its not worth it.

theloudroom

Watch out! Get ready for other people to flame you. They don't like noobs with turbo questions around here.


I'm a noob interested in a turbo setup myself. My guess would be the limited market. Aaroncake has a good page up about his turbo setup, but there's not enough info there to build up a kit.

He had to make an adapter to make the turbo exhaust manifold fit the n/a engine, and he had to make another custom piece as well.

From what I've seen, these are the two pieces missing that are needed to make a "turbo kit". The rest can be pulled out of a junkyard.

I think it would be nice to have a "shopping list" of all the necessary stuff to pull off a turbo model, and part drawings for the two custom pieces. Some of us like to drive our cars, meaning that if I'm putting in a turbo, I want to have everything I need sitting on a shelf before I start. It seems that if you had all the parts, including the 2 custom pieces, you would have a kit, and installing a turbo wouldn't be such a headache.
(I suppose there would still be the matter of hooking it up to whatever intercooler you chose, but this doesn't seem like as big a deal to me.)

brohr01

i was thinking of making a whole new intake manifold for the NA engine. if the only other problem would be compression that is not that big of a deal, get new rotors, or do some work on the stock ones.

poor_red_neck

Or just do a TII swap... why try and mess with internals, like changing rotors, and making new intake manifolds... why? To get the power of a stock TII? You wont be able to run more than 8 psi, and with the N/A drivetrane, no more than 220 HP or so safely. There's a guy on here... chuck, that did this. He was pushing around 240 HP, at 8.5 psi I think.. his motor blew quickly after.

Aaron cake is doing it safely, and he has ALOT of knowledge about cars, rotaries, and just about everything else You obviously do not, and I wouldnt even consider it.

The amount of money and effort you're going to want to put in it, is NOT worth it. You can get stock TII HP out of a N/A.

Take *most* people's advice here... if you want boost, either 1) sell your N/A and buy a TII (best option) of 2) If you're "inlove" with your car, or what not, do a TII swap (what I will be doing).

If you cant afford to do the entire swap (tranny) just get the TII engine, ECU, etc etc and use the stock N/A tranny (change the flywheel to a N/A while using a N/A tranny and drivetrane. Note you CANNOT switch any of the parts in the drivetrane, its "all or nothing" from flywheel to differential) Once you can afford to swap the tranny, do so.

YearsOfDecay

Dude...

I have to dissagree with rotaryracer1 on a few points and agree on a couple of others...

1.... I just saw a guy put a big assed, ball-bearing turbo on a 89 gtu and run 12.8 at the track. He slapped bigger injectors on it and ran it rich and ran the stock ECU..... It IS GOING TO BLOW the way he has it set up... no doubt about it.

I was going to attempt this myself, but my friends talked me out of it and now i got six grand into a TII that is barely faster than my old GTU because it needs a new motor on top of all the other crap I bought for it.

The race guys build motors with N/A pistons in them to get insane HP.... BUT, they are building specific motors that they KNOW are going to chew parts up.

The reason that there isn't a mod is that it isn't like slapping a turbo on a piston engine car, you have to change a LOT of stuff, and it would be helaciously expensive to buy all the parts new, so expensive that nobody bothers.

you CAN do this mod and have the motor live, but you HAVE to do the following things. (in my opinion)

1) I you will have to modify a TII lower intake intake manifold to fit the gasket outline of the intake to block gasket for your series car and remove the six port sleeves from your car. The sixport lower intake manifold is too wide to directly drop a turbo into it (Guys have done it, but you have to make spacers and all sorts of crap).

2) Oiling system for Turbo.... N/A's don't have anywhere for the turbo dump the oil back into the pan... and getting the oil for the turbo can be a hassle as well. However, i came up with an alternate solution. You can run the turbo on a dry sump system with its own resevior tank, oil cooler and an electric oil pump. Or you can tap into the oil pan and create an oil return line, guys have done this as well.

3) Intercooler... you have two choices, go with a complete stock turbo II intake system, which requires a the purchase of a stock TII hood, or the installation of a hood scoop for the intercooler. OR, you can go with a front mount intercooler (they go for 850 to 1200 Bucks), or.. you can build your own like I'm going to do for my TII but still figure 500 bucks. I'm going with a FMIC, but i'm keeping my TII hood for the added engine cooling the empty scoop will provide.

4) Turbo.. I'd use a stock TII turbo, BUT, i'd buy an exhaust manifold with an external wastegate because the stock internal wastegate is not big enough to properly handle your boost.. You are NOT going to be able to run high boost... but you won't need to... get one with about a 6 PSI spring in it... will be equal to a TII running 12 because of the compression difference. If you run big boost... god help your apex seals.

5) ECU... you will HAVE to run a Haltec or other stand alone ECU... if you don't, you simply will not be able to control the fuel and ignition systems well enough to make the car reliable. IE the motor will PUKE,, real quick. Figure 700 bucks AT LEAST for a used one. This also allows the usage of a MAP sensor rather than the

6) Oil injection system for the engine..... If you have an 87-88, you are good ta go.. if you have an 89-91.. they use an electronic oil metering pump and its a real pain to set it up with a haltec... You can either block the oil injectors off, remove the pump and run premix... or you can use an S4 Setup with the mechanical pump and the controll rod from the throttle.

7) Bigger radiator.. You engine is going to produce a LOT more heat, and your stock system isn't going to handle it... these are about 450 bucks.

THere are other things that need to be swapped, but I have to hit the crapper and really, I'm just trying to tell you that A) its a PAIN and B) its expensive... but so is upgrading a TII but it can be done if you so desire.

poor_red_neck

You dont really have to make new manifolds....

Here's that guy's website i mentioned earlier.

Did I mention his motor BLEW because of this

http://users2.ev1.net/~ccoutts/turbo..._a_project.htm

theloudroom

This is mostly the advice I got when asking too...

I'm not necessarily saying it's bad, but I don't feel a TII swap is worth it to me. Turboing an n/a means unbolting a bunch of stuff, doing a little fabrication, and bolting on a bunch of stuff. A TII swap means pulling the engine, transmission, rearend, etc. That means a lot of equipment I dont have.

Heck, I don't even have my own garage. For other people a TII swap probably makes more sense, but to me it doesn't seem worth all the money and effort.

If ever I have to actually remove the engine, I'm thinking LT1/LS1 & T56 swap.

brohr01,
If you're going to be changing the rotors, you may also want to change the housings as well, going from 6 ports to 4.

poor_red_neck

You make a very valid point also.

Let's face it... for most of us, we want more power from a N/A. And like you, I dont have a garage, Own a lot of tools, have an engine hoist, or anything.

1) So my 4 basic options are:

Supercharge the N/A: Expensive and power to cost isnt very nice, but ya gotta love the increased low end Most people say you have to go to a carb setup... news! ya dont I found this site http://www.geocities.com/boatseason/rx7.html

2) Turbo the N/A: I could be happy with TII horsepower for a little while, and just having a turbo is kina neet
The link I gave above... I forgot to mention. The motor had 180K on it as it stood. He did this during one weekend, and cost him about 800 bucks.

3) TII Swap: More expensive than turboing, but can get MUCH MUCH better results (300+ RWHP )

4) Just buy a damn TII. I dont want to do this coz I love the N/A so much. Even tho I dont own it yet.. hahaha.. but I know I'll become attached to it very dearly.


If you can live with 7-8 psi boost, ~225 HP... more power to ya... but if you start to get greedy with power... kiss ya motor goodbye


Jon

YearsOfDecay

Yeah.. you did see that that guy was using a custom made spacer for the turbos to get them out father from the engine... its far easier to use a TII intake and mill it out to fit. Also.. He wasn't using a Haltec.. Safc's just won't cut it.

Finally... Don't even think about doing this on a motor with more than a few thousand miles on it... it'll nuke very soon after you apply boost!

But i just did a quick tally of parts and you can figure spending about $4000 to do a turbo mod to an N/A at a minimum, but I think I'm going to do it in the next year or so,,, just to be friggin different and prove that its not impossible to have a RELIABLE turbo upgrade on an N/A.

theloudroom

I completely agree.

Here are the options I'm considering.

1) Keep it stock. My car on has 40k on it and in another 6 years it's a classic.

2) Turbocharge it. Big front-mount IC, parts from a turbo II, etc.

3) v8 swap. I know I'll be burned at the stake on this forum, but it's sooo tempting. I'd have all the power I'd ever want, a newly rebuild engine, six speed, custom exhaust, etc. I figure it will cost about as much as a TII swap, +600 for the Granny's kit.


Here's an off the wall question.... anyone know anything about Supra engines? I know where I can get one cheap