Ok, I've done some research (albeit not as much as I could have) but thought id pose these questions to some of you who may have experience with one or both of the setups. I've also seen the flaming that happens with a thread is made with not enough info so here we go...

I currently drive a 1994 Acura Integra LS. Only "power" mods ive done are just a catback exhaust and a short ram with K&N filter. I picked it up off of an owner who had it 9 years before myself who was unsure if any work was done do it before him. So for all intents and purposes we will say its the original motor. Motor has 215,XXX on it right now. Runs like a champ. Small oil leak but nothing out of the ordinary. Realistically this car will never be anything more than a fun daily driver (maybe enter it in a show or two once all the non-motor related upgrades are finished).

I'm trying to figure out which set-up would make more sense/more reliability for this car. I picked up the car itself for $1500 so I really cant justify spending more than that on a turbo build (no disrespect to those that have). My previous car was a stage 2 WRX that I built so I'm relatively familiar with turbos, but I know NOTHING about nitrous whatsoever other than what is crudely depicted in Fast&Furious movies lol. I'm just looking to gain alil horsepower while keeping my car as reliable as possible since it is and will be my daily.

If I went turbo, it would be one of the Godspeed kits from eBay for roughly $650 (or possibly a second hand kit off craigslist for the same price point). Like I said, not looking to drop much more than that on a kit for a car I got as cheap as it was. And on top of the kit I would need another $600ish towards injectors, radiator, EM and a tune.

As far as nitrous goes, I dont know much about it. I still dont really comprehend the difference between wet and dry shots. I did read that a 75 shot (50ish whp?) is about as large as anyone would recommend on a stock motor. Also, not sure of how long a bottle last someone who isnt spraying as the daily drive around town lol.

As far as pros and cons go I think ive narrowed it down to these...

TURBO PROS:
More power
Easily upgradeable
Bling factor (lol, sad but true)

TURBO CONS:
Higher initial start-up cost
Higher cost of maintainence if anything related to the kit itself were to break/crack/wear
Less MPG

NITROUS PROS:
Lower cost for the set-up with less supporting mods needing done, leaving more room in a budget for other upgrades
Its power that's at your call as opposed to stress on the motor constantly

NITROUS CONS:
Possibly more dangerous in an accident because highly flammable?
Cost of refilling the nitrous tank

Regardless of whatever option I ultimately decide on I will be doing the headgasket and timing belt (both firsts for myself) as well as a compression check to check the health of the motor. I was also thinking if I went with the cheaper nitrous option it would possibly leave enough cash for a LS/Vtec setup (which I have recently started reading may not be as good as I thought) or buying a used motor "just incase" lol. Sorry for the long read. Cliffs below

CLIFFS:
$1000 or so budget
Turbo or Nitrous?
Wanting to just gain alil more power will remain as reliable as I can
????
Profit!

 

anyone at all?

 

For 1000$ dont even think about turboing it...That should have answered youre question right there. Nitrous is not flammable. So that can be taken of youre cons. Usualy cost about 50$ to fill. Depending on how much you use it, and the size of the shot will dictate how often you wil have too fill it

If 1000$ is youre budget id go nitrous. DOnt go over a 50 shot if you want to be safer. especially without a good managment

 

This.

You will want to do a dry set-up most likely since you wont be going over a 50 shot. (I personally wouldn't go over 50 on a stock fuel system) Do a lot of research and learn whats safe and whats not and take your time and do it all right.

For a turbo setup 1000 dollars isnt going to get you everything thing you need. And those ebay kits come with a lot of parts that i wouldnt trust to use.

 

What they said^^^

N2O is just adding oxygen to the burn through the gas input. Anyways, dryshot is just adding the N2O into the mix. A wet shot is adding N2Oand fuel into the intake at the same time (through separate nozzles). You will have to add gas regardless, but if you do it with the N2O and use nozzles it might be easier (never done it, but it just seems logical). If you don't use nozzles, then you might have to upgrade your injectors and/or get a management system in place for controlling when the fuel is added with the N2O.

I think it would be a safe thing to go ahead and get a spare motor also as you never know what's going to happen. And this will limit the down time.

 

Buy a dry kit you can find kits a lot cheaper on craigslist. You can easily do 100 shot, nitrous is like any other power adder you just have to tune it. If you look good enough you can find a kit for cheap. For 120 bucks I found a 10 lb bottle (full) 2 nitrous solenoids and everything else needed for a dry kit
Also get this stuff
Upgrade fuel pump
Upgrade fuel injectors 440s
Get arp headstuds
New headgasket
Ngk bkr7e spark plugs

 

What about an plan for tuning?? He'll need at least a chipped ECU (possibly a converter from OBD2-OBD1). These are the things that you'll find eating up your budget also. So you'll probably be closer to the $1K mark than thought.

 

Yea get a chipped ecu, tune on crome buy this moates 2 timer that way you can switch between your nitrous map and your n/a map. http://www.xenocron.com/moates-2-timer-p-310.html

But before you start buying stuff get a compression test on your motor to make sure its healthy enough to spray

 

nitrous is not flammable it is just combustible. all it does is fill the cylinders with a gass to bump compression instantly creating alot of heat. nitrous only takes one shot with u to have air in the line and blow ur intake manifold sky high. they have many safety features for nitrous that i would invest in getting. to do it right u will pay a pretty penny for a nitrous setup as well. people that half *** nitrous setups never end up on top and usually with a blown motor.

 

. All nitrous does is simply addes alot more oxygen to the air/fuel mixture. Just like turbo or supercharger it adds more air with more air/oxygen you can add more Fuel = More power. Very simple concept here. More oxygen in combustion chamber, more fuel is needed which results in more power. There is also a gain from the reduction in AIr tempature Temps when using No2. Which again is cause colder air is denser creating more oxygen in the air.

They have a ton of saftey things but a 50 shot you should be ok without. YOu wont need a bigger fuel pump and injectors with a 35/50 shot However with a fuel pump being so cheap i would say why not. YOu dont have the budget too add a good nitrous control system. Buy a simple dry kit. I would stick to Nx express.

Having the chipped ECU and chrome with two maps is definatly a safer option. at a lower cost. Then you have to get it tuned as well, it gets expensive quick. That would be youre safest bet. You could run a higher shot much safer this way. However youre injectors will limit you then. That will add to the cost and bring you over youre budget very quickly. just get a simple dry kit and call it a day. You could always upgrade that stuff when you get bored with it

 

I personally wouldn't run a dry shot.....While tuning a wet shot would be a little tougher than tuning through the ECU(hondata,neptune,AEM, etc) I would rather not have to switch maps everytime I decided to spray. Wet kits are not that much more expensive!
some things i would add : walbro 255, wideband AF gauge, It wouldn't be a bad idea to get a tuneable ECU, but to run a wet kit it is not neccessary!

 

I have ran nitrous on a b18a and b18c with no problems, dry 75shot just retard the timing 2 deg run premium fuel. With a dry kit the fuel is supplied through the fuel injectors.
Depends on the kit you use zex has a smart box easy to hook up most the other brands
use a T that goes between the fuel pressure regulator and manifold and they raise the
fuel pressure to add fuel.

 

Im going to say if your budget is no more than 1000 just save that money for other things. I personally would never run a dry shot of nitrous and expect the stock injectors to compensate for the extra needed fuel.

I've had experience with both turbo and nitrous. I've had good experience with both and bad with both. I ran a wet kit on both my honda (b series) and eclipse, and have ran turbo on the same honda and now own a mitsubishi evolution (even though its factory turbo it still counts).

You have some of the pros and cons right and some wrong. For starters going turbo does not mean less gas mileage necessarily. If your not in boost mpg is usually the same. For those that said nitrous is not flammable but combustibal well are stupid. Something that is combustible is flammable granted if you held up a lighter and opened the bottle it would not ignite, however if the car caught fire and bottle pressure rose it would explode.

You need to consider the cost of each. Turbo is a one time fee granted you do it right and NO ebay crap. Power is there and always free after. Nitrous needs constant refilling. Donno what the price is now, but 4 yrs ago it was 5 bucks a lb= $50 for a 10lb bottle. To me a safe nitrous kit is going to cost you about the same as a decent used turbo kit minus the bottle filling which will be often when using a purge. I wouldn't recommend using one without.

From experience I think turbo is the way to go. I have never melted a piston in such a way that I did with nitrous as to where you could stick a nickel between the piston and cylinder wall.

 

That's the only point I care to make. As often as I have spooled up my turbo, if I were trying to do that with nitrous, I could buy quite a few turbo kits. It's very rare if I do not hit boost more then once a day.

There's an old saying "you have to pay to play" and it is especially true here. The eBay parts will crap out on you in no time, and you will be replacing them and spending more and more money. $1000 isn't enough to turbo a car reliably. Save up the money for a good set of turbo parts, or don't turbo at all. (But if the choice is turbo or nitrous, my vote is still for turbo.. I just think you need to save a little more.)

Sure you can't justify spending that money now, but how long before you exceed the cost of a legitimate turbo kit with all those nitrous refills?

 

I've been running nitrous for 8 years my kit was 300 used zex dry with purge, I have filled
15 times just over 1k in 8 years, I only really use the bottle at the track. It's easy to use,
makes your 1/4 mile time drop about a second. Off the bottle my car runs 13.8 so on the
street I can keep up with most street cars.