Turbocharging the new rice???? *rant*

[b16asi226]

im sorry but i see a huge pattern of everyone saying "turbo is the only way to go fast", im starting to think turboing your s**t is the new rice. everyone wants it, and no one knows how to do it right, they just bolt up a kit and think they're good. go ahead and throw a kit on your bone stock civic, if you drive like my mom it will last, but if you get on it and drive like i know people do, your s**t wont last long and your gonna wish you did it right. there is a reason turbo eclipses come with 9:1 CR, it is better for the engine to run that. honda's run 10:1 because the dont come with a turbo and arent meant to be...im not saying its stupid, but do your engine right so you dont find yourselfin a big hurt 3 months down the road. ive seen it all to many times. but thats my P.O.V. i know about 99.9% of CC hates this, but look around you, you guys spit the same s**t over and over with out any real research. you do need things other than that kit and an exhaust....nuff said. no flame this cause i know its gonna happen....

 

[4thengine]

Turbo kits suck. Homemade turbos suck. The only good way to turbo your car is to take it to a performance shop for a custom turbo. If anyone has any questions about that I'd be glad to answer in a later post.

Handlebarsrfr, I have an honest question for you. Every time you do work to your clutch, you should have your flywheel resurfaced, which would shed a negligable amount of weight. So, wouldn't getting your stock flywheel lightened be just a VERY extreme version of resurfacing? I'm not disagreeing with you because I've heard it's bad too, but I'd really appreciate if you elaborate a bit more.

 

[4thengine]

I think that if you have a pro shop set up a custom turbo for you then you should be okay. I know what you're saying though. All these "bolt on" kits with a T3/T4 turbo make me want to vomit. And quite a few people do neglect to think of the fact that as boost raises, compression needs to be lowered. People with homemade turbos also tend to leave out quite a few essential parts or adjustments. Done right, though, turbos can be one of the easiest ways to gain massive hp. You just need to know what you're doing.

 

[b16asi226]

yea, turbos are a great power adder, dont get me wrong, but you just need to know what youre doing first. i know most of us arent made out of money, but if you dont have the cash to do it right, dont do it half assed, cause once you f**k up that engine from half assing it, its gonna cost the same to fix as it would have to get the stuff you needed to do it right in the first place

 

[Blue2k2]

Originally posted by b16asi226
yea, turbos are a great power adder, dont get me wrong, but you just need to know what youre doing first. i know most of us arent made out of money, but if you dont have the cash to do it right, dont do it half assed, cause once you f**k up that engine from half assing it, its gonna cost the same to fix as it would have to get the stuff you needed to do it right in the first place

......well said...

 

[Blue2k2]

the other thing is that turbos are getting easier to get ahold of and cheaper then they used to be....so when people see full kits for 3100 they jump on it...little do they know there car will be needing a new engine in 6 months...but its a great 6 months

 

[4thengine]

That's why I said that the only good turbo is a custom set up from a pro shop. Done right the turbo will give you many years of reliable use. I've seen too many poorly done half-assed turbos though.

 

[Handlebars]

yes, resurfacing is just a tiny bit of weight. when you shave it, you remove enough of it to significanly weaken the entire structure of the flywheel. your talking somewhere between 5-10 lbs being taken off for a noticable gain, thats half of the weight of the flywheel. if you take any stressed part of a car and reduce its weight (from the factory) by half, your gonna be pushing it. if you shaved 50% from your con rods, how strong would you expect them to be? or your pistons? block? etc. the difference between resurfacing and shaving is like the difference between sanding down a 2x4 and ripping it into a 2x2. the more mass a flywheel has, you also have a given heat absorbtion. the stocker is meant to have all that metal there to absorb the heat, so it doesnt have to shed it as fast. shave it down a lot, and you lose half of its heat storing capability. subject it to the now higher loads of it being lightened (higher revs to start up) and you have significantly more heat. that heat warps the stocker. thats why only aftermarket light flywheels are safe at their given weight, they were made to shed heat faster, given their lowered weight. if a flywheel is lightened incorrectly, ie its out of balance by just a tiny amount, it will cause lots of shaking even a slight imbalance at the rpm's the fly sees is a recipe for drivetrain soup. same with warped flywheel, it shakes the whole drivetrain to death. a lightened flywheel can be fine, there are lots of people using them just fine. but if the stocker has any sorts of imperfections, if its done incorrectly or poorly, or if you just drive really hard, your taking a big chance of ruining a lot of parts. ive heard of cranks, clutches, trannys, blocks, etc all being ruinied and traced back to a poorly shaved flywheel. i just dont see it possibly being worth it, when the cost of an aftermarket unit isnt that much more, and frankly, neither really does anything for absolute performance (driveability is in the air, ive heard positives and negatives)

as for turbos, i think your wrong. a person who knows what their doing can do it themselves. if you know what you want and get a properly sized turbo, either new or rebuilt, you will be fine. only think i see that needs to be done at a shop is fuel tuning, with a real tuneable ecu. a hondata (cheapest tuneable ecu) needs to be done by a pro, but the rest of the parts dont need anything more than someone mechanically inclined with a good set of tools. besides drilling the oil lines, just about every kit is more or less bolt on. shops dont know anything we dont, all the information anyone needs is out there, you just need to find it. ive spoken to many shop people, and id be terrified to hand over my car to have them do work on my car- not a single one ive ever talked to me knew any more about anything than i do, and theres a lot of things i dont know about. i know there are shops that could blow my mind, but nothing ive ever come across, and from what ive heard, thats pretty much the sentiment across the country. finding a truly good shop is very difficult, and i see no reason why a well read person cant do their own work on a turbo.

 

[b16asi226]

ok, youre not understanding me, everyone wants to turbo this and that to be THE KING OF THE STREETS or some s**t like that, they want to kill V-8's, well with a bolt up kit you wont be that fast, and if you try and run with them your gonna push your car to the limits and BANG, your nice $3000 kit that was tuned to hte stock engine is worthless along with the engine.

 

[Handlebars]

dsm turbos also need 15 psi of boost to achieve 195 crank hp. the compresson thing works both ways. lower the compression, you have to crank the boost to make power, which means more lag cus you need a bigger turbo and more heat and.. well you get the idea. as boost goes up compression doesnt need to go down, tuning needs to go up. lower compession only gives you room for more goofs in the tuning. the higher compression motor will make far more power on less boost. its just harder to tune and work right on pump gas. im with you 4th, a t3/4 is a huge turbo for a honda. but thats because turbo kits sell by numbers- and the best way to achieve peak hp numbers is with a huge turbo. but for driveability, it sucks. its just like anything else with advertising, there are the sheep who blindly follow what companys say and advertise. and there are lots of sheep in the import world.

 

[4thengine]

Thanks, handlebar. You're on a roll lately. I didn't know what methods were used to lighten flywheels (never thought about it really, since I'd rather just buy the parts and do it right).

What I was trying to say about turbos, though, is that while the average person can bolt one up, tuning it usually requires tools only a shop would have. Sorry aobut being so vague. And most turbo kits I've seen come with a T3/T4, which is going to have way more lag than their worth. That's why I say custom is the only way to go. I've dealt with some shady mechanics myself, so before I go to any shop for any kind of tuning I'd put some serious research into their reputation.

 

[Handlebars]

im not disagreeing with you at all man. an improperly sized turbo combined with shitty fuel management is a recipe for disaster. i just discribed 95% of the turbo kits out there. theres no reason why you cant run 6-8 psi properly tuned on a stock motor, and make good hp in the process. the problems come with poor/no tuning and people using the boost controller to push the limit. slapping a t3/4 and an fmu on a stock d is a great way to kill a motor. putting a t25 and a hondata on that same motor, with proper tuning, is gonna be as fast or faster, have far less lag and be a better driving car, and will last a hell of a lot longer.

 

[Handlebars]

what special tools? besides tapping the fitting for the oil lines, theres no special tools needed. just a good set of wrenches, screwdrivers, etc. please tell me what functions of a kit need specialized tools.

 

[b16asi226]

well if you wouldnt trust them why trust yourself. yea then atleast you did the work and there is no one to blame but yourself, but you still have a broke engine.

 

[KennyC]

Originally posted by b16asi226
im sorry but i see a huge pattern of everyone saying "turbo is the only way to go fast", im starting to think turboing your s**t is the new rice. everyone wants it, and no one knows how to do it right, they just bolt up a kit and think they're good. go ahead and throw a kit on your bone stock civic, if you drive like my mom it will last, but if you get on it and drive like i know people do, your s**t wont last long and your gonna wish you did it right. there is a reason turbo eclipses come with 9:1 CR, it is better for the engine to run that. honda's run 10:1 because the dont come with a turbo and arent meant to be...im not saying its stupid, but do your engine right so you dont find yourselfin a big hurt 3 months down the road. ive seen it all to many times. but thats my P.O.V. i know about 99.9% of CC hates this, but look around you, you guys spit the same s**t over and over with out any real research. you do need things other than that kit and an exhaust....nuff said. no flame this cause i know its gonna happen....

gonna have to strongly disagree. everybody wants engine swaps 2 snd those r cheaper then turbos and those r done wrong too so r engine swaps rice now ? rice is when ppl overdo sumthin rigth ? well ppl r now overdoing the word f**kin rice, pretty soon everything is going to b goddamn rice and were all gonna b drivin mustangs.

 

[4thengine]

The problem here is that b16asi226 is thinking strictly in terms of the half assed turbo kits, while handlebarsrfr is thinking in terms of not how to do things wrong, but how to do them right. I personally agree with both of you, seeing your different viewpoints.

 

[b16asi226]

yea, but how else do i describe it to most you these people as being played out, done, over, bone, those words dont come across as strongly as rice does. and for motor swaps...they have been done since WAY long ago, dropping big blocks into AMG's and 280Z's, that will never be played, its timeless

 

[4thengine]

Can you merge the "quicker acceleration" thread with this one? They're going in exactly the same direction.

People have been adding compressors, whether they were in the form of a turbo or a supercharger, since those came out too. Sorry, just need to play devil's advocate.

 

[Handlebars]

Originally posted by b16asi226
well if you wouldnt trust them why trust yourself. yea then atleast you did the work and there is no one to blame but yourself, but you still have a broke engine.

because a shop is in the business to make money. the more shortcuts they take, the less they pay their employees, and the more money they make. if im careful in choosing my parts and doin the installation, i feel that its a good idea. not to mention i, along with just about eveyone here, isnt made of money. paying a shop to assemble your kit for you and install it, and your looking at least a grand, between their install cost and their markup on the turbo pieces. probably more. if i mess up, i have an extra grand to fix my s**t with than if i paid them and they messed up. or i have an extra grand to buy superior parts, or to build the motor, or whatever.

 

[b16asi226]

??? good question