I've got an 87 civic with a d15a2 carburated engine. I've heard that *if* I were to turbo my car, I wouldn't need to do any ECU tuning (presumably, because I don't seem to have an ECU), though I might need a bigger carb. Is this true?

I've also been browsing around the forums and it seems like no one in the turbo section really touches carburated civics. Has anyone here turbo-d a carburated civic before?

I'm not set on putting a turbo in my car, and from what I've read on these forums, an engine swap would be a faster and possibly cheaper way to get more power out of my car (or I could just get a newer car) . I'm just asking because I really like this Civic and it also seems like it could be a fun project.

One more question is concerning the intercooler. If I were to put together my own kit, is this necessary even with a small turbo? I'm very likely never going to take this car to the track or autox, so I probably wouldn't be looking to put in a large turbo. For those who have turbo-d something similar, how will the stock internals hold up?

Oh yeah, anyone out there put together your own turbo kit in CA and pass emissions tests? I couldn't find anything on this while searching, but I thought it'd still be good to ask

 

I know nothing about turboing a carbed engine, but you'd most definitely need to increase the jet sizes dramatically in order to get the car to run right.

It would be a lot easier if you swapped to a MPFI setup with a tuneable ECU IMO, and yes you'll need an intercooler and no you probably wo'nt pass SMOG in CA (but i'm surprised that car isn't emissions exempt).

 

Why would this car be emissions exempt?

I took off the head recently and to get to it, I had to go through a crazy vacuum powered emissions control system. I would hope that all that emissions control hosing is actually necessary =P

Seeing as how most of the knowledge here is on turboing an FI car, I wouldn't doubt that it'd be easier to turbo a FI car. I think I'd like to try turboing a carbed car to be different, though. This wouldn't be before I do tons of research, though. This is in the pre-pre-planning stages, if anything.

 

Most cars around here that are old enough to still be carbed are emissions exempt, at least around here anyway. Anything OBD1 or lower will be exempt very soon around here, but Cali is gay so eh.

Turbocharging an FI engine is no different that turbocharging a carbed engine. It will work the same way, but obviously you will need to find yourself a leak free way to force the air into the carb via some kind of sealed intake manifold. What will be different is how you tune it, you will need to have a way to adjust timing and fuel, and in order to get the amount of fuel you'll need you'll probably need to get some monster jets in there along with retarding the dizzy considerably, and then a few days worth of tweaking and playing with different jets to get the right fuel amount etc.

It's definitely doable, no doubt about it.

 

I think in California, complete carb exemption comes for cars that are older than 30 years. I tried searching on google to verify this, but couldn't find anything quickly. That law may have been repealed, though, so that even 30+ year old cars need to be emissions tested. From what I understand, there is a rolling/graded emissions control for cars based on their age. So my car should have much less stringent guidelines to meet than a new car today.

Thanks for the info. That should point me to a few things to read about. Would I change the jets in the tuning stage by changing a part on the carb, or just adjusting something like a screw?

 

The jet question is an answer I don't have for you, you'll have to ask around to those who know more about the carbs.

 

No, if you piece your own turbo it won't pass. It might be able to pass smog check, but the smog places won't even test you since it won't pass the visual inspection. Basically, any engine mod you do to your to car in CA has to have the CARB legal sticker on the product, if it doesn't it's ilegal[:'(] even if it's not polluting. The only CARB legal turbo kits for civics are the greddy and edelbrock but they don't make kits for your car.

I guess the only way if you still want to get turbo, is to take your turbo set up off when you have to get tested. Or find a mexican smog place and bribe them a little to pass you illegally.