Searched, but didint find anything

Have any of you installed a turbo kit yourselves?
I dont want to send my to a shop, its like $400 just to install it, i find that ******* crazy, I would rather do it at home with a friend that know pretty much a lot about car, but still i want to hear some recomendations.

How hard is it? what about the oil lines? time of work?

That includes: disasembling front bumper, taking out stock air box and resonator, installing pipes, SMIC, mainfold, turbo, downpipe, air filter, inyectors, fuel pump, fuel regulator?

Also im planing on runing 6 psi, around 150 whp, what diameter exhaust should I use?

Thanx for helping a n00b

 

what type of kit are u running?

 

I installed my turbo myself, well, with a friend. Do alot of research first, have everything planned out exactly how you will perform the install and you'll be fine. It took me 2 very full days to do it, but half the time was spent running arount to get misc. nuts and bolts and fittings.

In the end, you'll know exactly what's what and be able to trouble shoot much more effectively.

Good luck.

Oh, what car/engine and what turbo kit?

 

D16A9 on a 92 Sedan Si

Homemade turbo kit:

-ct-12 turbo (old supra or newer auto tranny mr2) with internal wastegate
-Eclipse 1g side mount IC
-1g BOV

 

also what do you think of these prices:
-Custom made Mainfold : 70 $
-Custom made downpipe : 40$
-2.5" or 3" exhaust piping : 40$ (2.5 or 3 better?)

 

When it comes to turbocharging, even if you do it yourself, going the cheap route is asking for trouble... hope you have a spare engine...

[edit] It's not hard to install at all... it's the inital tuning w/o any diagnostic tools at all that's hard.

 

great prices...... since your kit is homemade... it a little bit harder to do... But with some common knowledge and some research.... i think u'll do fine.

 

I've installed both of my turbo kits myself. Both of them were Drag kits tho. I've never done a custom kit. It doesn't take very long if you have everything you need. Like the guy said earlier, I spent most of my time hunting stupid misc. pieces. The drag kit doesnt just bolt into your exhaust, and I didn't have the money/time to get it welded, so I had to goto my local autozone to get some flexpipe/reducers. As long as you have pipes that you know are going to fit, you should be ok. My last turbo installation took 2 hours, but that was because I already had my downpipe/wastegate pipes welded and they just bolted right in.

The oil line is easy as long as you are careful. Twice I've broken off the T-fitting inside of blocks and spend 30+ minutes or more praying and using my easy out to get it out. Again, make sure you have the right fittings.

Honestly, $400 is not a bad deal to have a custom kit installed. If they do it for $400 and not hassle you about stupid pieces, I would get them to do it. My local shop charges more to put a turbo kit on than to swap a motor.

 

we finished mine last night. Just take your time and double check EVERYTHING. we needed to do some fabrication work to some of the parts so they would work how we wanted them to but everything will come together in time.
goodluck

 

Tuning WILL be done by a shop, on a piggy back (unichip, dont know if u have it there). $400 but u have to give them every single piece...u still think thats good?

 

I have. Wasn't to difficult. The only hard part was the piping.

 

i installed my greddy turbo kit on my civic in about 6 hours. the hard part for me was running the fuel lines.

 

piping is done, custom aluminium with good bends, not that crappy exhaust style bends $75

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ha illuminato un &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the hard part for me was running the fuel lines.</TD></TR></TABLE>

what fuel lines?

 

well...i guess they aren't really fuel lines, but hooking up the fmu for some reason just seemed really complicated to me

 

It was a cinch.

 

took approx 20 hours. most of the time was cutting all the mandrel bends and first trying to jb weld them. the jb didn't work so i decided silicone connectors was the way to go. i could have saved 5 hours easily if i hadn't screwed around with jb weld.

 

I did a Greddy kit with FMIC in a day. Do reasearch, and be prepared for anything. I mean an-y-thing!!!

 

I've done a hell lot of researching, now you say <TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Hondatec38 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> an-y-thing </TD></TR></TABLE> I feel i should do some more

Thanx for all the info everybody

 

What exactly has to be welded on the drag kit ? Turbine&gt;manifold ?

 

greddy kit on sohc took me 6hrs to physically install and 1 day of careful inspection and driving to check for leaks and connections. only work i had to do myself was get ss braided oil return line and connectors and have my friend drill out the hole in the oilpan at his shop.

 

My first kit took me 4 days and it was full custom. We did all the mandrel bends for the i/c piping and got them welded at the shop w/ the DP/exhaust.

After that, I was able to take off the kit in approx 3 hours and put in on in approx 4 hours (by myself). If you're mechanically enclined and are good w/ engine operations, you should be able to install the kit as long as you understand how it works. Having another knowledgeble person/friend is a must.

Blindstuff... do other hondas run Unichip down there (boosted)

X2

 

Did my install myself with a good knowledge of cars but with minimal hands on experience. My advice is to make sure you have a good set of tools. Bolts can be akward to get too and they're usually torqued to about a million pounds. And be prepared for stripped bolts which happened to be the bane of my install. Next in line for trouble is the oil sending line. The amount of space I had to work with was the size of a soda can so imagine trying to clamp a foot long 24mm wrench onto the oil sesnor with that much space to work with

 

I did my install which took about 2 and a half days, with help from various friends with different knowledge. The piping, manifold, turbo, oil pan was all a cinch. I pretty much was finished on all the wrenching the first night. Then the next day my friend helped me install the injectors, map sensor, and black box. Then finally I thought I finished, but the next day I realized i didnt install the oil feed line. Just be patient with the install, its a good learning experience. Anytime I got stuck, I just found myself searching the old honda-tech threads and I always found my answer.

 

I am installing my turbo this coming weekend with a couple of friends. I will check back and let you know how long it took and what hang ups we run into. It is a greddy kit by the way, and i lucked out the oil pan was tapped by the guy i bought it from.