hey dudes,


My friend and i are looking into turboing my A14. With standard compression, a CD 175 carbie, and a simple draw through setup could be as cheap as 500 bucks.

We've got prices on everything, and it all should go to plan. My friend has previously had the same setup on an old A12 we ripped out of a 120y, and had big results out of that.

Just wondering if someone with more turbo experience than me can tell me to watch out for something? espcially with an A-series.

We'll be running between 7 - 9 psi, on a standard A14 with standard internals. Dont know what sort of turbo yet, my friends gonna pick it out coz he's the turbo know-how person.

Any suggestions, info, or things to watch out for will be greatly appreciated!

thanks

-Jesse

Sounds awesome. I'm considering turbo'ing an A15, might even bore it out to 1.6l before I start. I hope you two can take alot of pictures along the way, and post them online. I'm really interested to see how you decide to mount the turbo.. Where, and such.. I plan to run a blow through fuel injected setup on mine. Are you just going to take a well used engine and strap this stuff on, or are you going to do it to a freshly rebuilt one? That'd be my only concern, tired old engine suddenly getting beat on. But then, the A series engines are bulletproof, it'd probably say thank you and take off like a rocket. ;)
Good luck, keep us posted. :)

Here is how I'm going about it. I'm going to use an A-12 bored out to accept A-14 pistons, this should yield around 1300cc (1270 if you want to split hairs). As a side bar, the A-12 rods are being opened up to accept the A-14 wrist pins. I'll let you all know if this was a mistake! I'm mounting the turbo (one Mitsubishi TD04 from a twin turbo 3000GT) on the distributor side of the engine and ducting the exhaust around to it. (Don't bother with the lag argument or I'll have to resort to pointing out that the main reason for locating the turbo in the traditional location is for ease of packaging and then say something about how the Subaru WRX and Buick Grand National gets away with a very long primary pipe setup and still makes gobs of power and none of us wants me to do that, do we?) Now where was I? Oh yeah, I'm then blowing into a Saab intercooler (ain't e-Bay great?) and out of that into a box that completely surrounds the Weber 32/36 carb. When I get the engine and turbo back from the machine shops, I'll take some pictures. Did I have a point? I can't remember.

<small>[ Edited by dimlight65 on 2002/5/29 14:13:08 ]</small>

The reason i am using an A14 is because i have one :) I only got the engine out of the crate about 8 months ago to put it in my datto. It was brand new, standard bore, and hadnt been run yet. Been thrashing it for 8 months n/a, and i think it's time for a turbs

the A12 we used on the 1000 sedan had over 500,000 k's on it, and still ran a 14.8 down the quarter. It did blow a head gasket after a few weeks though...

Mounting the turbo will be on the exhaust side of the engine. Having a draw through setup, it's gonna be easier to just move things around to make them fit

And your right about A-series being bulletproof. I seized my old A12 (water pump cracked and pissed water everywhere). number 3 piston ended up taking a chunk out of the block, and yet, it still started up and ran, and i continued to drive for 2 days, hehe.

later

-Jesse

I would recommend against a draw through. If you think about it, the fuel has such a long and tortured path to try and follow that you are lucky just to get the thing to start and idle. I know, I know, they DO work and they DO start and idle but I think it is because they don't know that they shouldn't. The other problem is you can't use an intercooler. Sure, when it is under boost there is a nice hurricane keeping the fuel in suspension, but most of the time the fuel is just going to drop out and puddle in the bottom tank. Then you go lean, next time the boost comes on, pig rich. Oh, not to mention you'll have a pressurized bomb there in front of your radiator! When it is all said and done, I have to quote Corky Bell from his book "Maximum Boost": "The draw through system is a dead fish."
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I went by to check on my turbo rebuild yesterday. Ouch! I found out it is going to cost almost $800 to get it done! I may start shopping for a different turbo.

<small>[ Edited by dimlight65 on 2002/5/30 8:22:28 ]</small>

I kinda agree with Dimlight65 about the draw through setup, but if you do it and it works fine for ya awesome as long as you go fast right? Sure fuel injection and an intercooled turbo are ideal, but that's easier said than done with the A series. Like you said you did it before and ran 14's on a tired engine, you got to respect that! I would really like to do something similar with my 1200. Now that I have a decent paying job I can afford to play like I've always wanted to...finally! I'm sick of getting beat by some punk with NOS (not nitrous) in a fartpiper (My own workd for any newer import with the huge, farty sounding exhausts, all different colored lights, and triple decker spoilers). Anyway, I want to build an A-15 with forged slugs, an engine built with all the machinist goodies, get a custom cam ground, some 1.65 roller rockers, ARP studs/bolts all around, lightweight flywheel with a NISMO racing clutch, and THEN throw on my fuel injection setup and the turbo I've had sitting around for the last couple years. I know that's a lot, and it will cost a lot, but probably about the same as putting something else in, with half as much cutting/fitting/customizing/junkyard surfing. Plus I love my A-15, I did a fairly cheap rebuild on it back in 1996, and it just won't quit no matter how hard I drive it. It just gets quicker and quicker (16.96) with more and more cars on the kill list. I wouldn't mind putting something else in it (SR20/CA18/VG30) but the weight and balance of the A series can't be beat. I'm gonna throw some Dellorto's on there soon and see how those go in the meantime. I just love people coming up to me after they see my car go, and want to know what's in it, they never want to believe it's a pretty much stock engine.

-Andy

Oh yeah, $800 for a rebuild on a turbo? Ouch! You guys probably know all the good cars to get a good turbo off of, but one that is always looked over that I got mine off of is from a Subaru. It's a IHI RHB5 from an 86 GL-10 Wagon. I don't know how much boost it's good for, but most of those cars are not thrashed on because they're Subaru drivers....come on! (no pun intended ) The nice thing about them is they all have the water inlet/outlet to help keep the bearings cooler, especially for people who just shut the car off right away after running hard letting the oil cook in there. All of the ones I have seen are still tight on the bearings, they're super easy to come by in a junk yard, and usually really cheap too, just make sure to get the exhaust pipe flange with it. It's kinda a big unit all together, but if you mount it like Subaru did with a long pipe from the manifold to the other side of the engine, there's plenty of room. Good luck to all the turbochargin freaks out there...hopefully I'll join ya soon!

-Andy

Thats the main reason i am using a draw through setup...no need for an intercooler, and it's cheap power.

I did not know about the downsides of a draw through setup, thanks for that.

Basically what your saying is that it will keep running rich/lean without any control over it? I spose thats the whole point of fuel injection, controlled fuel.

I'll hafta do some hardcore research on draw throughs....coz i dont want to kill my A14 early, it's just run in

-Jesse

Really, the two main drawbacks on a draw through are the tortured air/fuel path when not under boost and the lack of intercooling. But since you don't want the intercooler anyway, gopher it! They do make power, other designs just have more potential. A good book for info on carbureted turbos is "Turbochargers" by Hugh MacInnes printed by HP books. It was written, or at least "updated," in the early '80s so some of it is a bit dated, but it does have tons of good info.
Note to AFRacer, funny you should mention the RHB5 turbo from a Subaru, I just bid on one on e-Bay yesterday. Just checked on it, I lost the auction, never mind. Junkyard, here I come!
I'm not going to take offense at the slam on Subaru drivers. I will say I drive the piss out of my '98 2.5GT Legacy though.

i thikn i will chime in wiht my .02 as well. i have to agree with dimlight on not using a drawthough setup. its just not worth it in my book. and it is a really simple procedure to make it a blow through setup that leaves lots more breathing room for future modifacations and additions to the system. i would look into a rhb25 IHI turbocharger possibly for use. it was equiped on the 87-88 ford thunderbird turbcoupe 2.3L motor. they were undersized for the 2.3 so they should be a nicely matched size turbo for the lower displacment A-series. another nice thing is that when ford chose these turbos they had quick spoolup in mind so it will have a nice midrange powerband. in factory trim these turbos produced 15PSI of boost on the 2.3 but started to overheat the air at a little over 18PSI. i try to find the flow chart fo you so you can figure out what you efficency(sp?) percentage will look like.

the REALLY nice thing about these turbos is you can gte them CHEAP. go to turbofords.org adn look in their forsale adds. a good IHI goes for about 75-120ish bucks their if your a member. they like to get rid of these turbos and step up to a fullt T3.