Im doing a custom turbo job soon with a 14b running only 5psi.... im not going to go above that.... my car has 90,000 miles on it... i just recently replaced the tranny, headgasket, timming belt, cam seals, and anything needed to do the headgasket.... i was just wondering what is the first, or most common thing, to go after turbo.... i will have an intercooler and any mods to try to keep engine temp down..... i was just seeing if there was anything i could take care of before hand....thanks
doug

14b custom turbo kit, modified starion front mount, 9.6:1 JE pistons/Eagle rods....running 12psi
screw flanders

The pistions.


1999 Anniversary Edition
HRC Stage II w/FMIC

"The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifegaurd"

i guess i should of also said what is the likely hood that this will happen..... at 5psi,6,7,8..... is it the pistons, or piston rings....would the pistons crack?....would the connecting rods bend... is 5psi safe on a higher mileage engine if i just maintain it well and dont floor it all the time?

14b custom turbo kit, modified starion front mount, 9.6:1 JE pistons/Eagle rods....running 12psi
screw flanders

sorry....accidentally hit the submit twice

piston rings

__________________________________________
~Chris
03 SRT-4

well.. usually after you install a turbo, youre foot usually goes to the floor

James

i know ill want to, but im going to try to hold off until its neccessary...you know, every stop sign, light, etc.....no really i know the concequences so im going to try to keep it light...... i just wanted to know how likely it is that ill blow something with only 5psi and 90xxx miles.....and another side question, does anybody use that stuff from the autoparts store (advance) that you put in with your oil and supposively cools it to "52 degrees"...im sure it wouldnt do that much, but would that help with turbo?...they also make it for fuel, power steering, radiator additive, etc......it seems like it might help keep engine temps down.... thanks

It will blow. Have some money left over for a rebuild kit.

intricatelines.com/ -graphics and vinyls

"Tell them of us and say,
For their tomorrow,
We gave our today."
-- The Kohima Epitaph

that always makes me feel good..... i thought i was pretty safe with only 5psi?

make sure you dont get detonation. that will kill your shit fast. um... ad check your compression every so often. i only boost about 90% of my driving

what exactly is detonation?....and how do you avoid it...i would guess just proper fuel setup would help avoid that.....i really dont see how HRC can sell a setup for 5psi (without intercooler) that says it will bolt right up to a stock engine if its almost guaranteed to blow your engine.... i still have it in my head that 5psi isnt going to hurt anything if i set it up right.... any insight on what to watch out for, or what stuff to avoid? thanks
doug

Tuning is important. Get an exhaust gas temp gauge so you can watch your temps. Buy (or borrow) a logger and check out your 02's and timing as well. If you're running 5psi with an intercooler and you have it tuned correctly, you should be fine.

But like everyone else, you'll start to want more power. Eventually you'll buy a boost controller and crank up the boost a little bit. Very soon you'll reach the threshold for the stock pistons and the piston landings will crack. Then it's rebuild time.

Also, when I first turboed my car, my stock clutch had many miles on it already. It only lasted about 8-10 days before I had to upgrade.

You are not your job.
You're not how much money you have in the bank.
You're not the car you drive.
You're not the contents of your wallet.
You're not your fu**ing post count.

97 Eclipse GS - *SOLD*
01 Audi A6 2.7T
01 YZF-R6

i was paranoid with my stage 1 on too, i have 139k on it, 10k miles with turbo. i havent had to do much fixing wise really, just make sure the HRC manifold bolts (the ones that are hex) are screwed in good (they wobble out eventually) u might even wanna pick up some manifold studs for a gst and throw those on. um besides that some things i would recommend to keep your temps down are:

160 thermostat from howell automotive
watter wetter (coolant additive, actually works good imo)
oil cooler
fully synthetic mobil 1 10w30 (or whatever)
some ngk spark plugs (bkr 7e11) stockers are 6e. 7e dissipates heat better.

INTERCOOLER!!!!!!! get the stage 2 pipes from hahn and the side mount. or just get a 1g side mount and hook that up, tons of people on here can walk u through what u need (VERY MUCH cheaper that way as well) its WAY safer to run 5psi intercooled, you dont have to crank the boost up just yet either, yet...always have the option to go 7-10 pounds. also, BRAKES. when your making a car faster start at the stop line, its safer to be able to go fast and stop then it is to go fast and not stop. of course...this is my opinion. just throw some ceramic pads on there or somethin, wont hurt

also might wanna keep your eye on your head gasket, clutch etc... those will go slowly but surely under boosted operation. bringing a non turbo motor into boost territory always has its quirks and issues...but u'll be alright, u have some of the best guys on ur side over a billion turbo kits installed i bet, lol i wonder the combined boost pressure this board has pushed into the 420a...

good luck mang
_________
96 talon esi-t
san clemente, ca

Uberingram> I bow down to the Geo

Turbo8u said it all. You'll be fine if you stay at the recommended boost levels and have the right fuel pressures. As long as you stay in spec you should be just fine. The guys who blew their motors usually did so because they were sort of pushing the envelope on their stock internals, at least from what I've read.

____________________________
HAD: '98 Eclipse RS

HAVE: '04 Grand Prix GTP Comp G

my money seemed to go pretty quick after turbo.

to answer your ? though, most of the normal things have all been covered in the thread already.

______________________________
Matt D.
'06 Evo IX SE
'98 RS-T 13.8 @ 106.1

thanks for the replys everyone...now im starting to feel a little better.....actually my headgasket was just replaced and i already have a new clutch about 10k miles ago.... i do plan on intercooling it with a 1g smic... i am only staying at 5psi until rebuild and i guess im going to have to spring for a vortech sfmu to keep it all tuned correctly.... i actually have an engine in my basement from a previous 96 talon that i had put a engine in..... it had a broken crank... so maybe ill start rebuilding that from ground zero and ill have it ready incase i blow something....one more question about intercooler pipes.... what have you custom jobs used...thanks again
doug

14b custom turbo kit, modified starion front mount, 9.6:1 JE pistons/Eagle rods....running 12psi
screw flanders

i have made over 4 sets of intercooler pipes....

on weekends i get crafty what can i say.

ive made them out of pvc (sucked) didnt even use it actually. steel exhaust piping (to heavy but worked good imo, hard as shit to bend without a press bender) a fence pole (pretty much the same thing as exhaust) i just got a 6 foot section from lowes and made some piping lol, just so i could say i had fence pole intercooler pipes :-P finally i just cloned the HRC pipes out of alluminum and powdercoated it. (works the best and is veryyyy light)
_________
96 talon esi-t
san clemente, ca

Uberingram> I bow down to the Geo

where did you find aluminum pipes?...i cant find them anywhere

i work at a performance shop, i couldnt tell you where they get them....i have no clue

maybe jcwhitney?
_________
96 talon esi-t
san clemente, ca

Uberingram> I bow down to the Geo

Your piston ring lands will break. Guaranteed. Sometimes you get 2 hours, sometimes 2 years.

I blew 3 pistons on 6psi with the HRC stage 2 installed exactly as described in the manual. I even had a professional shop do the original install for $1000. I troubleshot all the problems with HRC tech support and it still blew.

I've since traced back all my problems to detonation caused by faulty, inadequate, and missing fuel components in the HRC kit, and of course the weak brittle stock pistons.

one way to be nice to your pistoin rings is a crackscraper, the oil doesnt get flung around as much, less blowby. dont worry about your pistons.... ive never heard of someone blowing them on 6psi....thats not normal.
_________
96 talon esi-t
san clemente, ca

Uberingram> I bow down to the Geo

Actually with the smic it fine to go to 8 psi... but just to be extra careful i would stay at 8 psi MAX. Good luck. And def. get all the gauges and whatnot so u can always monitor

Ring lands WILL NOT CRACK unless your car runs lean, period. The thing that cracks ring lands is getting the internals way too hot, the rings and pistons expands as they are supposed to. when the rings touch ends (supposed to have between .010 and .028 clearance) it is like hitting the brakes in the piston usually ripping the top off at the same area they meet. Don't run the car lean and it will be fine as long as you have it. I have ran the shit out of mine on a stock bottom end and never damaged a piston or anything else, just the stock oil control rings. Be smart and understand what you are doing and you will be fine dude.

______________________________________________________________
1999 Civic SI, Boosted and built, 12.67@112.

Gone but not forgotten.....
1998 Eagle Talon ESI, built and boosted 14.2@98
1992 Eagle Talon TSI AWD12.91@104
1992 Honda Hatch swapped and sprayed14.0@108

Yes, you're right, ring lands will only blow if the pistons get too hot or there is detonation.

Turbo kits have been blowing ring lands on this board since the day they came out. Do a search of the turbo forum for "ring lands" or "compression" or "blown" and you'll see that most everyone with 420a turbos blow their piston ring lands at one point or another.

In my case, these factors contributed to blowing my engine at 6psi:

HRC FPR: Defective (by design) Fuel pressure fluctuated by as much as 20 psi between starts.
EGT Gauge: Missing. HRC kit doesn't include one.
Stock Injectors: Inadequate. They "can" be forced to work by running them way outside their spec. One of mine jammed.
HRC Fuel gauge: Defective. Not HRC's fault.
HRC Boost gauge: Defective. Not HRC's fault.

Not all HRC kits have all these problems, I got unlucky to a certain degree. If HRC would replace the Cartech FPR with the Vortech SFMU, and require bigger injectors for Stage2 and above... we'd have a nearly perfect turbo system. However, Bill insists on using the cheaper Cartech unit, and relying on the factory injectors to function at 110psi instead of the 43psi they were designed for.

If you're building a custom turbo setup, post all the fuel components you're using.

You can search the archives, but the basic necessities for 5-10psi are:
SFMU, 310-440cc injectors, Missing Link, intercooler, EGT gauge, a/f gauge or datalogger, boost gauge, high pressure+high volume fuel pump, and a fund for a rebuild kit. I've seen turbokits work on 2gnt's with 160,000 miles no problem, its just all a matter of whether your fuel system works right. Our stock bottom end can handle about 12psi on 93 octane or 10psi on 91 octane forever as long as the fuel system works.

dude all my hahn stuff works fine....

u must have gotten hosed with shitty parts or somethin
_________
96 talon esi-t
san clemente, ca

Uberingram> I bow down to the Geo

My biggest complaint is that craptech FPR and the exhuast mani bolts HRC sends.

__________________________________________
~Chris
03 SRT-4

>My biggest complaint is that craptech FPR and the exhuast
>mani bolts HRC sends.

correction....all the HRC stuff works BESIDES the things uber said ^^^

the PENIS fuel pressure reg leaks eventually....fuel cooler fixed that believe it or not...and the studs, well...loctite worked. god bless air guns when it comes to takin that shit out


_________
96 talon esi-t
san clemente, ca

Uberingram> I bow down to the Geo

>>My biggest complaint is that craptech FPR and the exhuast
>>mani bolts HRC sends.
>
>correction....all the HRC stuff works BESIDES the things uber
>said ^^^
>
>the PENIS fuel pressure reg leaks eventually....fuel cooler
>fixed that believe it or not...and the studs, well...loctite
>worked. god bless air guns when it comes to takin that shit
>out


Hey turbo, are you still using the cartech?

__________________________________________
~Chris
03 SRT-4

yup
_________
96 talon esi-t
san clemente, ca

Uberingram> I bow down to the Geo

what kind of octane is needed for only 5psi....does the higher octane help cool the engine at all?.... what exactly does it do
thanks

Not a text boook explaination but easier to understand, higher octan fuel is less volatile, the optimum way for fuel to burn in an engine is the burn starts at the top of the combustion chamber when the spark ignites it and burn smoothly down the cylinder, lower octane with forced induction will cause pre ignition meaning the gas can ignite off the heat and the compression in the cylinder from the botton creating the explosion before the piston reaches top dead center (actually just prior to TDC) making the piston take the shock of the explosion on the up stroke and by doing that trying to stop that piston and force it back down the way it came instead of completing the rotation and going back down. 91 or 93 (whatever the highest you can get) is required for turbo cars.

______________________________________________________________
1999 Civic SI, Boosted and built, 12.67@112.

Gone but not forgotten.....
1998 Eagle Talon ESI, built and boosted 14.2@98
1992 Eagle Talon TSI AWD12.91@104
1992 Honda Hatch swapped and sprayed14.0@108

yea.... i thought it was required, but in my 92 talon tsi it never said premium fuel only or anything like that....maybe thats why that car ran like shit...... thanks for the info

14b custom turbo kit, modified starion front mount, 9.6:1 JE pistons/Eagle rods....running 12psi
screw flanders

No problem dude, my AWD Talon doesn't say it anywhere either but the 7.8 compression may have a lot to do with that. In stock form with the boost as low as it is, you probably could run cheap gas and be fine on the 1st gen turbo cars.

______________________________________________________________
1999 Civic SI, Boosted and built, 12.67@112.

Gone but not forgotten.....
1998 Eagle Talon ESI, built and boosted 14.2@98
1992 Eagle Talon TSI AWD12.91@104
1992 Honda Hatch swapped and sprayed14.0@108

i've had my stage 1 hrc kit on for about 8months now, and have not had a problem, besides the fpr, which throws my fuel setting off after every start. i dont even have the egt gauge. my car is at 127k miles. my car is completely stock besides the turbo and the ngk plugs, and i'm always going to the track to race.

SoCal DSM
1996 RS-T: Under Construction
1999 GS AE: New daily driver
"USING NO WAY AS A WAY, HAVING NO LIMITATION AS A LIMITATION"--BRUCE LEE

>i've had my stage 1 hrc kit on for about 8months now, and
>have not had a problem, besides the fpr, which throws my fuel
>setting off after every start. i dont even have the egt
>gauge. my car is at 127k miles. my car is completely stock
>besides the turbo and the ngk plugs, and i'm always going to
>the track to race.

So you have no other mods than just what came with the kit from Hahn?

User banned for scamming members on 2GNT, WIDSM, and CHITOWNDSM. This user and his brother Jason Ames have been involved with theft of parts from other DSM members. This individual is not trustworthy and should not be involved in any type of sale.

Maybe I'm a newb, but it seems to me that thedawg's problem could have been fixed if he woulda squared away the fuel system as soon as he started having problems. I'm not banging you or anything, but it seems like if you get your fuel system tuned well then the stock pistons/internals are fine for low-level boost, especially with an intercooler.

98 Eclipse GS
"The only good thing about movies like 'The Fast and the Furious' and its many imitators and sequels is that they surely contribute to a number of idiots becoming highway fatality statistics." -Somethingawful.com

You'll be fine at 5psi with the proper fueling. For 5psi, proper fueling can consist of a rising rate regulator, big pump, and stock injectors. Stay away from an SAFC. At 5psi, i was dead on with a big inline, stock injectors, and a 12:1 FMU. My whole problem was getting boost happy - this is what will get you in the end. You'll want just a little more, just a little more... and then you break something. it happens. Fix it, make it better, move on. That is the way the game is played.

______________________________
If a sentence found online has 35% misspellings or greater and includes at least two racially charged expletives, chances are it is a YouTube comment.

'95 Eclipse TurboGS (garage deco)
'95 TSi AWD (restoring a survivor)
'97 Talon ESi-T (poor impulse control)
'99 Eclipse RS-T (daily beater)
'13 Evo X (mostly stock)
'17 Sienna (Middle Aged Dad Mobile)



Factory Service Manuals: http://nawdu.de/files/

ok....a couple more questions that some people brought up.... somebody said that a crankscraper would help alot?...i thought of this but i turned myself away because i thought the added oil would be needed to help cool the engine and turbo...maybe i was wrong, do any of you have this and do you reccomend it?....also somebody said that they used a 12:1 fmu with inline and stock injectors...im planning on using the stockers, and a 255hp pump....would the 12:1 work...is the only good thing about the sfmu is that its adjustable.... id like to stay at 5psi... and id like to have non-adjustable things so i dont get boost happy, thats why im going to modify the stock wastegate.... let me know about those two things...sorry about not quoting it...thanks

If you are blowing the motor(ring lands) at anything under 8 psi, then its your tuning to blame(fuel system). Running lean on these motors under boost causes detonation. Detonation is the uncontrolled burn of the A/F mixture. The tip of the mix at the spark plug ignites, then suddenly, the bottom of the mix ignites, resulting in VERY high pressures inside the cylinder. This cracks the piston's ring land(the metal "edge" that supports the ring). I blew mine at 11.5 psi. I was running plenty of fuel. Either the spark timing was too great for that psi and stock comression ratio, or it was just too much power for cast pistons. Never heard any detonation. Keep it at 8 psi or less, with proper tuning and maintence, and you will be just fine. As Dino said, getting boost happy, and craving more, gets you into debt, real fast. You will see

13.5 @108 MPH-2.2 60ft(stupid FWD!)
S16G @ 18 PSI/FMIC/Running on MegaSquirt II (Now with sequential
fuel injection)
My webpage: http://eclipsed4evr.home.comcast.net
-1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse RS-T- "Toy"
-1992 Plymouth Laser Turbo AWD(SOLD)
-2000 Honda CR-V(daily)

Just for the record, what Dino, Tony, and others have said about my issues being bad fuel management are totally correct. If I had replaced the cartech, or been absolutely diligent about setting it correctly EVERY time I drove, I'd still be fine.

I blew up on a morning run, pissed off that I had to work at 6am on a Sunday. Of course I was too tired to check to see if the Craptech was still set right. It wasn't, obviously. You can either say it's my fault for not checking that morning, or the cartech's fault for changing my fuel pressure setting for no reason.

We made some pretty significant changes to the cartech billet FPR AFTER rebuilding that made it work MUCH better, and I think I might have survived on that rebuilt cartech... but I have an SFMU now so I don't have to wonder.

"So you have no other mods than just what came with the kit from Hahn?"


yup, the only mod i have is what came with the HRC stage 1 kit! i dont even have an exhaust, which is something almost everyone first gets. although i need one bad!

SoCal DSM
1996 RS-T: Under Construction
1999 GS AE: New daily driver
"USING NO WAY AS A WAY, HAVING NO LIMITATION AS A LIMITATION"--BRUCE LEE

the cartech works fine for me, i just got a fuel cooler and it hasnt leaked since. actually works 100x better

colder fuel cools the intake charge as well, so its a plus
_________
96 talon esi-t
san clemente, ca

Uberingram> I bow down to the Geo