great thread. looking at doin the same thing

 

have you guys heard some good things about the kentucky turbo kit/standard..... i have been looking into that and the sts kit.

is this really the kinda of kit were you just slap it on and go from there?

 

anyone???????

 

the first setup i ever ran was ebay hotside, ebay turbo, ebay cold side, stock motor, 50lb injectors and i spent like $1500 and did all the work/fab myself and made near 550rwhp on 11 psi. butttttt it blew up the motor haha

now i have a 404ci LQ9 with eagle crank/rods, mahle pistons, clevite bearings, edelbrock heads/manifold, ARP head and main studs etc.

im into this project around 7k, but im doing it the right way!

so its really up to you. consider 600 for a good dynotune, 1000 for a decent turbo and wastegate, $300 on intercooler/tubing/clamps/etc, and then a bunch of $$ for other little random crap. plus whatever hotside you go with

 

I have a freind that says you can either be FAST CHEAP or RELIABLE pick 2. you cant have all 3.
You can be FAST for CHEAP but not Reliable.
You can be basically stock CHEAP & RELIABLE but not to Fast
Or you can be FAST and RELIABLE but thats not very Cheap it costs $$

 

I don't think there's any kit that you can just slap on a car that was not in ANY way, shape, or form designed to be forced induction without some kind of difficulty, modification, or custom work.

A-******-men!

 

i think the safest bet would be to build the motor first, force induce later

 

I spent over $700 on U-bends, v bands, flanges, and SS reducers for my kit. Add a couple hundred for silicone and clamps. Add $500 for a dyno tune (because someone with an FI budget of $2k is definitly not gonna be someone who should tune a boosted car).

Add those up ^^^ almost $1500 and no money spent on the turbo, WG, BOV, intercooler, manifolds, fuel system, gauges, etc.......

$2,000???? Not very likely unless you are an uber mechanic, fabricator, tuner, and have awesome hooks on used parts....and a ton of turbo related parts laying around your gargae.

 

pwrtrip knows what he is talking about we both did it on the cheap. It can deffinetally be done!... check out my "budget build" thread.... there are quite a few of us guys that have done it on the cheap!!! do a search for "budget build" or "Turbo build" ect....

O ya they put down some damn good numbers, mine put down 528hp 491tq last dyno session, im sure its pushing over 600hp now with a 5.3!!!! Glad i did it myself for fractions of the cost instead of spending several thousands to accomplish what i did.

 

with buying things used and new i have this so far on my build. about 1600
used masterpower 76mm turbo
used tial 44 mm wastegate
new ebay intercooler
new 60lb seimen deka injectors
new tial 50mm bov
materials for building the headers (gonna make them myself)
new radiator

still need to buy my turbo back exhaust system. and ofcourse get it tuned. i figure after everything is said and done (and running) ill have between 2500-3000 invested.

 

Metal for hot/cold side? silicone/tclamps/v bands? filter? Gaskets? Several more fuel parts? Fans? Feed/drain lines/fittings? Gauges? Material for welding (gas, rod ets), alt relocation bracket, ARP head bolts or studs, SHIPPING CHARGES for all the parts you still need? Plugs, coolant, oil, filter? Your tune alone will put you over $2,000 which is the budget the OP was shooting for. Just not feasible for a good running turbo car......even buying budget parts like you did.

You still on a 10 bolt?

 

dont have a 10 bolt. i also have a rx7 with a ls1 (1993 rx7 with 01 ls1). i dont need an al relocation bracket. i already have my fuel system (upgraded fuel pumpspeed inc rail, like i said i have 60 lb injectors. as well as a fpr) the tune should run between 500-700. and i need about 3-400 worth of misc pipe. i already have clamps from when my rx7 had the turbo rotary. but even still, they are 7 bucks shipped for 2. alot of the pipe on ebay has free shipping. and when u buy most from the same place, u save on shipping. i will do the welding myself with a friend. and when i use his welder i dont pay for gas/wire/rods, ect.

but if someone could not do the welding/fab theirself, then that would def jump the price up alot.


turbo was 538 shippped used
wastegate was 265 shipped used tial 44mm
bov was 180 shipped. new tial 50mm
60 lb injectors 180 shipped new
intercooler 100 shipped new
radiator 200 shipped new

 

i did mine with a strict budget in mind and couldnt touch 2k all said and done with a ten foot pole


best advice anyone gave me when building my setup was price everything out that your going to need and add 1k to it. if you find a WHOLE lot of good deals on used stuff, maybe, but the bullshit that you never think of adds up quick

 

cheap and turbo are like oil and water. im with TALLY TRANSam on this one but i think id need a 17 foot pole and its not even done yet. The price of pipes, fittings and lines and up very quick

 

My projected budget was about 3k when I started, im at 4k now and I still have about 1k left for tuning(HP tuners pro + dyno time). Oh ya, Im still not even running yet! Probably be closer to 6k all said and done but Im on the home stretch now.

As you open stuff up youre going to look at things like the oil pump, timing chain, valvetrain and think about upgrading them because in the long term its cheape insurance against having a pushrod escape the engine or sheering teeth off the timing chain and causing all sorts of mayhem

 

If you are not too greedy for real high power levels then you can do things fairly cheap.
Stick to decent make of turbo, gate and blow off. There are knock offs out there. Hear decent things about master power and they are pretty cheap. And if you cheap on piping,couplers ,clamps you will find it can get pretty annoying blowing off pipes a lot.
Intercooler you can get not bad ones for reasonable money. How well they fit in the car well and how good they hold up well..and how efficient they are well..
And for sure you have to remember you need tuning either buy or get tuning done, you don't need dyno tuning. You do need at least a good single fuel pump and some 60s are good size injectors. And you better budget for better clutch or built trans if you have auto and you better budget for better rearend if you are stick and want to run it with any sticky tires and if you don't run stick tires you won't be hooking up in the lower gears too good. And you need some basic gauges, a wideband, boost controller is not a big deal can go manual dont' need fancy ones if you are on a budget.

and if you get greedy or you tuning knowledge is not great then better budget engine rebuild. I have seen lots of FI builds locally with ati supercharger, sts turbo kit..and lots of blown stock ringlands. Don't take much at all.. Bit of overboost, too lean,bit too much timing,too hot a plug,cheap or stuck gate..

And to me teachign yourself welding to builid a turbo kit is like teaching yourself to take out your own appendix but hey whatever floats your boat. Single kit is more doable for cheap obviously ,even copying a rearmount sts type of setup.

We had local guy in third gen running master power turbo, think jgs blow off and gates,think he got most of his piping ,intercooler and stuff just off ebay and the car ran good like low 11s at like 126mph. he had some little issues, no beaded pipes blowing couplers etc but for fairly budget the car was impressive.

I obviously went the big bucks route on my build but do get some piece of mind knowing have forged engine, built trans and big strong rearend back there. And I got to keep my air conditioning and really didn't have to relocate much. But the problem usually is greed ,boost is addictive ,very addictive.The crack cocaine of any true speed freak.
So you just want to up the boost and thats not too smart on stock bottom , stock auto ,stock clutch,stock rearend and driveshaft. And there is also the tendency to push the tune,leaner, more timing,more boost..So thats usually what happens. You build something that works not bad lke putting a stock sts kit on a stock car with maybe some bigger injectors ,guy runs 42s on local one but he keeps boost to 5psi and is very conservative on this tuning..to the point of being a ***** most of us around there think but he his car has survived for a few years now .I dont think he even put in the racetronix pump I sold him yet. But bet the car hasn't be wide opened more than a handful of times and briefly at that. No track mostly just street profiling no hard use.

Local guy with sts kit and ati prochaged kits both took out there stock engines pretty quick from mistakes/greed. and both sold off their FI kits. Its a slippery slope and isn't cheap when you start taking out trannies,engines..rearends.

 

if you have an automatic, you dont even need a blowoff valve, put that money elsewhere.

 

Automatic turbo vehicles need them too... You eventually have to let off the gas pedal. And when you do, the BOV vents the excess pressure out of the intake tract.

 

You need a bov with a manual or a auto on a forced induction setup.

 

...lolwut