Quote from Nathan_French_14 :

I can see what your saying. It is true that it does depend from car to car. Im not much of a nissan guy, so i dont know much about them stock. But some cars can benefit extremely from a bigger intercooler. For example, the sierra sapphire cosworth has the most ridicoulous intercooler ever. Its very small, and sits on top of the radiator, so its also getting heat from that. My dad fitted a Radtec one to his (cant remember the size, but it was absolutely huge) and once it was setup, it was dyno'd, and got a decent hp increase.

Same with the early impreza's. They had a intercooler at the back of the engine, and it was very poor. Thats why you see alot of people fit front mount's nowadays.

Either way, its down to what you think. As for me, i believe he could get a decent hp increase with an uprated intercooler. I personally would'nt fit one for performance though. I've recently bought one for my RST, purely for the fact that it will help with the cooling.

@ Gripdriver. He got 25hp with an uprated intake?! I think that may be bending the truth a little. It's highly unlikely you will get 25hp from just an uprated intake, even with a tune.

Well obviously a bad intercooler is going to be worse than nothing at all. If it's basically not able to do any cooling worth talking about and is unduely restrictive to the flow then sure replacing it with one that has good flow and actually does some cooling should result in power improvement. But it's going to depend a lot on the actual car, and I would have thought most modern cars don't have nearly such crap intercoolers in them.

To be honest. The most I would bother doing tuning wise to a standard turbo engine is get it chipped by a reputable company. Assuming it's the kind of engine that responds well to being chipped. Like the VAG engine do.

You just pretty much repeated what i said?
And its pointless talking to me about "modern cars". I hate them with a passion. Im also aware that more modern cars have better intercoolers, but the car the op is talking, is not modern.

Quote from Nathan_French_14 :

You just pretty much repeated what i said?
And its pointless talking to me about "modern cars". I hate them with a passion. Im also aware that more modern cars have better intercoolers, but the car the op is talking, is not modern.

ummm.. Generally speaking it's called having a discussion. That means people might post things that concurr with what you said, or even not concurr with it. If you want to interpret that as a general attack on your beliefs, opinions, sense of self worth be my guest, (it'll be no skin off my nose), but it certainly wasn't intended that way. My posts weren't even in direct response to yours

Quote from ajp71 :

The starting engine had 140bhp, a rolling road can easily invent 25bhp plus a bit of exaggeration from owners and the actual output is more likely to be under 190bhp which is easily obtainable by building a nice naturally aspirated engine. Presumably some of the internals of the turbocharged variant of the same engine were used and the compression ratio must have been reduced.

to go from 140 to 190 on a n/a engine is more expensive than a home brew turbo build. Turbo is by far the cheapest power upgrade $/hp wise.

Funny how you doubt even relatively mild power upgrades. The dyno plots I have seen are all corrected for drivetrain losses and in no way bloated for bragging rights. If that's how it's done with the people you know, that's cool...

Dyno readings will ALWAYS be out. It depends on MANY factors.
Where the sensors are placed, what gear its in, the resistance on the dyno, the temperatue, the humidity ALL play a part.

You'll NEVER get a 100% accurate reading.

However, if you do a dyno run in the same conditions/circumstances, same time of the year, same temperature/moisture... then you will get a good idea of power increase/loss when doing a "before/after" run.

But it is just that - a 'good idea', i.e +-10 or 15%.

Quote from tristancliffe :

But it is just that - a 'good idea', i.e +-10 or 15%.

The absolute accuracy isn't nearly as important as the consistancy. I've had plenty of dyno readings done on my motorcycles and always went to the same place and had the runs done by the same operator(s). The thing that surprised me is just how conistant the figures were for each of the bikes, eg within 1-2 hp on a 90hp reading. That's pretty consistant, (5%). There are good and bad operators and I strongly suspect the majority of the variation that people see with dyno runs is either down to:

a) swapping makes/models of dynos

and/or

b) operators that don't know what they're doing.

For a start you can't just take one run, dynos don't work like that, (I forget why now - but I've seen the results).

Well the Miata is a bit of an unusual example, I admit, because it's based on an engine that in a previous incarnation was turbocharged. So it's already built to take some boost. But, the point I was trying to make is that you can't just use a blanket statement like "you need this and that and the other if you're going to turbo a car".

As for longevity.... the engine already had 150,000 miles on it when it was turbo'd, and it was not in the best shape ever. It's now had the living shit kicked out of it on a daily basis (he doesn't even wait for it to warm up before giving it), for coming up for 3 years and another 30,000 miles, and it's still making 260whp, based on a recent dyno. It's not had a single mechanical issue since putting the turbo. However, it is a DECENT turbo setup from www.flyinmiata.net that has also been properly tuned, not a crappy home built kit built with little consideration and tuned by someone without a clue, so ymmv :P

Quote from Scrabby :

An intercooler (not stock) does add HP

not all the time directly, in fact in some cases it reduces power, or at least reduces a bit of response. bigger intercoolers (often called FMIC - front mounted intercoolers - as opposed to standard SMIC - side mounted) allow you to add more boost. when u compress air, u make the air hotter, hot air = bad (read: detonation), having more cooling power lets u compress the air more safely.

in theory i guess ud expect a small amount of power gains, but in practice it rarely seems the case.

You guys are filling this dude's head with all these ideas and he is getting a car for the first time, if he puts a turbo on it, it should be a simple turbo kit, nothing crazy.

For low boost, provided he rebuilds the engine, it should be fine. If he wants to go crazy with it then he needs to put in stronger parts.

A low boost application isn't going to require reducing compression or putting in forged internals. The KA24de engine was never produced in a turbo version, but it can take a small amount of boost and still be reliable.

Its all about taking care of it properly.

edit: if he gets an S13 240sx (old body style) then it will have a KA24E, but it doesn't make much difference in what he can do to it.

If you are going to rebuild the motor, you might as well put some better bits in it for security, and possible future mods. Otherwise you just end up doing it later, at extra cost. But again, it all depends on Budget and goal of the finished product. I know someone who turboed a CA18DE, and only ran an intercooler, he blew engines every 6-9 months, but at $500 an engine, he didn't care.

If you're running low boost and adding say, 20 or 30bhp, just upgrade the headgasket to a high performance unit for peace of mind and it'll be fine, just regularly change the oil..

There is a fairly simple guideline for this.

If you have a car that isnt turboed. (N/A) then the internals of the engine were not designed to cope with a turbo. A small turbo with very low boost may be ok but could still break your engine.

If you own a turbo car already and try and run huge turbos and/or stupid amounts of boost then you will either get epic turbo lag or break the engine.

Thats about it really.

Quote from danthebangerboy :

There is a fairly simple guideline for this.

If you have a car that isnt turboed. (N/A) then the internals of the engine were not designed to cope with a turbo. A small turbo with very low boost may be ok but could still break your engine.

If you own a turbo car already and try and run huge turbos and/or stupid amounts of boost then you will either get epic turbo lag or break the engine.

Thats about it really.

Sigh....

No and Well duh If you run enough boost on anything it'll break.

Sure there is the possibility but generally no. The amount of misinformation on the internet is astounding.

Well, I am starting to change my mind about getting a Nissan, but if I did get a Nissan, this is my game plan. Get the Nissan, get a SR20DET, rebuild if necessary, upgrade the turbo, get an ALS for it, put the engine back in the car, and drive it! :revs::eclipseeh

Or go for a 3rd gen Camaro RS or Z28.

Quote from GrIp DrIvEr :

Hi people. I have a question; why does a turbo or supercharger ruin engine life? I know it has something to do with boost, I just don't know what.

turbos n superchagers helps your motor, if you put to big of turbo or superchager then you engine will break.

Quote from jcorn16 :

turbos n superchagers helps your motor, if you put to big of turbo or superchager then you engine will break.

Quote from AjRose :

Sigh....

No and Well duh If you run enough boost on anything it'll break.

Sure there is the possibility but generally no. The amount of misinformation on the internet is astounding.

So.. pretty much what i said then?

Quote from jcorn16 :

turbos n superchagers helps your motor, if you put to big of turbo or superchager then you engine will break.

Nitrous helps your motor, if you put two of them. Two of the big ones, then you'll blow the welds on your intake.

Quote from Klutch :

Nitrous helps your motor, if you put two of them. Two of the big ones, then you'll blow the welds on your intake.

I need NOS..... I need NOS.... my car topped out at 140mph this morning,

Amateurs don't use nitrous oxide, i've seen the way you drive, you have a heavy foot, you'll blow yourself to pieces.

I need one of these, one of the big ones. Actually, no, lets make it two. And harry, i need it by tonight.

Quote from klutch :

nitrous helps your motor, if you put two of them. Two of the big ones, then you'll blow the welds on your intake.

danger to teh manifold

Quote from senn :

danger to teh manifold
[3 mb gif]

ROFL a

Hahahah that GIF is epic.

Lol, that film made me laugh when it came out.

Everyone reckoned that their car was a '10 second car' or if not, very close to that speed, so why then, did each drag race in the film take about 2 minutes to complete??

Drag race full of 10 second cars should take.... 10 seconds.