whobeyou

So my roommate doesn't have a computer so he asked me to put this in here.

He bought a 1981 Accord Hatch with 40000 original miles on it for $500. Pretty good deal lol. Now he wants to turbo it. He just bought a garrett turbo that has the downpipe, and also the headers for a civic (not sure what year, just says civic). He got it for about 100 bux, not bad. Anywho, anyone ever attempt this before? I know the general stuff on how to turbo a car, but this one is carbed, SOHC, and old as hell. I know he's going to have to do a major rebuild but he's ok with that.

Basically, I just want to know how hard will this be? Is it worth it? What are some things we should look out for?

veggie

Keep it stock.

NW Classic Honda

You just proved by your questions stated above that you dont have what it take to turbo that old Accord. Stick with boosting something newer if you are really looking for power and keep that car stock.

You HT kids really make me laugh...

whobeyou

To be honest with you I would do the same. I would rebuild the engine and let it run forever, but alas, it's not my car. It's my roommates and he's dead set on putting a turbo on it. I told him to keep it stock as possible and maybe put a performance carb or various other things on it to get a little more speed, but he wants to turbo it. So seeing as he wants to turbo it, I wanted to get some advice from you guys so that he doesn't mess up the car a ton.

I know he should keep it stock, but I dont think that's an option in his mind. If you guys have any pointers, let me know .

NW Classic Honda

Tell him to put his "boost dreams" away with this car. That is all.


Heres a pointer: Tell him to find a different car to build...

redr2

very hard car to turbo for the sake of the exhaust mani coming out the back. The clearance to the mani to the firewall will prohibit most applications.

RuskeR

It's an 81 accord. Why would he want to spend any money attempting to make this car faster?

Does he even know what size turbo he has?

My advise... If it was such a good deal, I would clean it up and sell it for a profit. Take that money and buy a better platform.

There is a reason you won't see many of these cars turbo'd.

PittsburghNBP

yeah IMO.. just fix up the body/paint whatever apperance is messed up and make it look nice.. maybe wheels that arent too flashy.. and fix up the motor. no reason to put any power adders on it.

2ndGenGuy

If you do decide to turbo this car, you're going to need a couple of things.

A) You'll need a turbo manifold. The turbo manifold from the Honda City Turbo will bolt onto this engine, and is your only bolt-on option. However, it's built for a ~1200cc engine, and it's very tiny, as is the turbo that goes with the manifold. The turbo is about the size of your fist. So you'll probably have to build something custom.

B) You'll need to decide how to fuel it, either blow-thru or suck-thru carburetion, or find some way to convert to fuel injection. I don't think the stock carb will be a very good idea to try to blow-thru, as it's a CVCC carb, and that would probably be ridiculous to try to pipe up unless you put the entire carb inside a pressurized box. Your best bet for blow-thru would be a Weber with solid floats. You'll need a rising fuel pressure regulator as well to keep the boost from blowing air back up past the float valve into the fuel lines.

Suck thru always seemed a bit sketchy to me. You can't really do any intercooling with it, and you're pulling air and fuel through the turbo. It's probably a lot easier as far as dealing with the carburetor though, and the atomized fuel might provide some cooling effect on the turbo.

You could convert the car to fuel injection, but that requires adding crank/cam sensors, you need a manifold and throttle body, or run ITBs. Then you need MAP and TPS sensors, and probably a few other things I'm missing as well. You'd have to run new fuel lines, and a return line. Then figure out what kind of ECU you'd wanna run. Find a stock Honda ECU that could run it and chip it, but you'd be likely be better off with a standalone like MegaSquirt...