Is it out of the question to get an A12 engine revving up around the 10,000 rpm mark?

The engine im building will have a nissan E15ET turbocharger running 8psi boost, fuel injection, computer controlled ignition, heavier valve springs, mild headwork, upgraded cam of some description, stock compression ratio, stock pistons, microtech computer all along with a full balancing job running optimax/bp ultimate/vortex 98 petrol.

What horsepower do you reckon i should expect from all this?

10,000rpm will require a very serious investment, and a really good engine builder, and A series cyl head specialist...

what bhp depends on how well its all built and the suitability of the turbo...

where are you?

Mate, I reckon you can expect about 10,000 horse power - is that what you wanted to hear? You could just modify the tacho so that it over reads by 3,000 rev's.

If you want an engine that rev's go and stick a superbike engine in it - then you can tell all of your mates that your engine rev's out to 20,000. I'm not being critical, well, maybe a little, but I just don't see the point. There are plenty of engines on this site that rev hard (but not 10,000 rpm's hard) and equally gain pace across the whole rev range - (which is the point right?) and are reliable.

Yes there are 10,000 rpm engines out there (I think), but you really have to know what you are doing. Anyway... you can go and make your engine hit 10,000 rpm's if you want to - but for the money that could cost you really could have a neat, worked, and reliable A12.

Anyway, tell us more - are you planning to be using this car on the street or track?

I believe there are sprint cars using A series engines that rev to 10,000 RPM but I dont know anything about them, I can only guess that it would be both difficult and expensive to achieve.

I would think that such an engine from a sprint car would be unsuitable for use in a road car.

The modifications you are talking about would probably be good for in excess of 200HP at the crank in an A15 and somewhat less in an A12.

Can definitely be done.
Some things you'd have to consider though..
1 - To develop power up in that rev range your cam profile would be useless for anything less than 3,500rpm

2 - You will need to get stainless valves to withstand the stresses and also help with lightening off the valve train.

3 - Your extractors would need to be 4 into 1 with a primary length of around 30" and fitted with a muffler with bugger all back pressure. Oops, just remembered you said it was going to be turbo and that is not my area of expertise.

Overall, yes it can be done reasonably easy if you know what you are doing.

The main areas I have dramas with are that the front crank pulley regularly crank along the key way slot (this is because of the harmonics created at that engine speed) and the fact that when you have an engine let go at 10,000 rpm you better be prepared to start over from scratch because you're not going to find to much you can salvage from it. (talking from personal experience here.

As far as hp is concerned, the more you can rev it the more hp you make but with a turbo I'd be more concerned with making huge amounts of torque over a wide rev range.

Well said Mark,

The Tomei A13 F3 engine I have would be a useless slug below about 5500 rpm with the cam it needed to run to to its 10,500 rpm designed max endurance Rpm.

Without titanium rods this engine would be in trouble at engine speeds above 9000 Rpm.

For a turbo engine the whole point is using lower engine speeds to make the torque required. This reduces stresses on the engine and also reduces internal friction losses enormously.

ok, i think i may have been hearing stuff from a mechanic that likes to exaggerate alot. Its gonna be a warm street engine, built mostly from parts i have sitting at home. The guy i was talking to said he used to have a rally car with twin webbers and a lumpy cam and heavy valve springs, stock everything else and he used to rev it from here to eternity (around 9000-10000rpm) and it lasted a couple of rally seasons until he pulled it out to do an engine conversion.

I aim not aiming for outright horsepower figures, i just want a good compromise between street and track. It will be daily driven, but i dont want it to be useless on the track. I dont want it to have a useless top end. I dont think it will be getting 200hp, im sure you'd need a lot more than whats goin in this engine to make that. This is gonna be my first engine build project, closely overseen by my father.

Im in sydney btw... need to update location.

well,i had an a12 that would rev to 11000 rpm,or at least thats what the vdo tacho said.one day it stopped working (the tacho),& while it was being repaired,i found out it was
showing 4000 when it the engine was doing 3000.that was the way it came out of the box,because i bought it brand new from a vdo dealer.this could be a similar case.but boy,didn't it scare the competition when i said mine goes
to 11.