I see a lot of veterans on here giving turbos as a cheap way to give solid hp gains??? I may be showing my lack of experience here, but they are hardly cheap & while the hp gains are great...doesn't one run the risk of irritating engine internals? How safe are they on a stock set-up? These are the things no one seems to add to their advice about turbos.

Now I could be totaly off base here, but some info on that might be benificial to us newbs...

Just a thought.

 

A turbo is perfectly safe on a stock engine, assuming you don't push excessive air mass into your engine and it is carefully and properly tuned. Yes, turbos are expensive, but on a gain-to-cost scale, they really aren't that pricey, especially when you take the possibility of future expansion into consideration.

 

Thanks for the info, its about time someone let us non-techies know waz up. What kind of investment are we talking for a decent turbo installed with the "properly tuned" adjustments?

 

If you buy an off-the-shelf kit (GReddy, FP, Drag, etc.) and then pay someone to install it and tune it, it's going to be expensive (~$2,000-$2,500 all told, situation depending). Keep in mind, I don't have a running price list of every shop and dealer in the country, so these are very rough estimates. If you piece together a kit yourself and have someone you know install and/or tune it, you can easily knock a grand plus off that.

 

actually, a turbo kit for a d17 can cost as much as $3000+. true honda and dezod are great retailers and are more than helpful in answering all of your questions. of coures $3000 only gets you a base kit, and you'll also need a greddy ems to go along with you kit, so in no way is turboing a 7th gen a cheap thing to do. i believe that there is a member on 7thgencivic.com is running about 12psi and getting around 250whp on a stock motor. then again... he's had about 4 motors and doesnt really care about them. i'd say 8-10 psi for daily driving would be fine.

 

You coudl also look into Apexi/TSI they make a turbo kit that includes a fuel management system along with larger injectors if you wish.

 

ytf would you spend 3000 bucks on a low end turbo kit when you can make one yourself thats better than that for under a grand?

 

better in which way, availability and ease of installation with a kit would be awesome. Granted you can piece together a kit with higher potential but when you have to piece together the plumbing and modify things the degree of diffuculty mounts.

 

you could peice together your own turbo kit, but i doubt that it would make more power than the kits already available. companies like dezod and greddy spend tons of $$$ on R&D for specific turbo kits and have engineers that design the most effective kit possible. i doubt that a custom kit could compete with an off the shelf kit in the areas of performance, ease of installation, and reliablity. granted, you could save a lot of money piecing a kit together, but off the shelf kits make turboing a car almost too easy.

 

truth. but really, there isnt much work involved in connecting pipes. for air moving from the turbine to the intercooler then from the intercooler to the TB, the air isnt that hot. so some uber heavy duty rubber hosing will work fine.

probably one of the most ignorant comments ive ever heard on this forum.

ever

theres not much you can do in engineering of a turbo kit. it is, afterall, a turbine, piping, a small radiator with no fan, and two valves to prevent massive pressure spurs and breakage. you can put engineering into the turbine and thats about it. and if you buy a Garrett or GReddy turbine off of ebay and get mandrel bend piping for all your pipes, its going to be just as efficient. theres not much you can do to mandrel bend piping or wastegates and BOVs, and besides, the intercoolers that come with kits are (for the most part) garbage compared to intercoolers you can buy alone. A spearco intercooler costs 150...maybe 250 bucks and is probably the best one on the market.

also, in kits they include parts that you really dont need. if you look at the DIY Turbo thing at the top of this section, theres a link to another forum that has pictures of all the stuff you dont need in a turbo kit.

and besides, when you can get the same or better effect on less than a third of the price, who can argue?