1.8 turbo

KamB

KamB

Kam Berry
I have a old turbo sitting around off a Saab, garret gt1752. What would be needed to Make it work on my impreza? Beside the exhaust, piping to the intercooler, and oil/coolant lines. Reliability is sort of a concern, would keep boost low... 5psi, maybe a little more. What would I need for tuning and such? Mechanically it is no problem making it all fit and doing the piping for me. It's the tuning part that confuses me. The cars a 1994 L wagon, 5 speed.

 
One of my favorite projects. This guy made 255 whp running 20psi. Pretty good for an engine that started out at 70 whp.

http://www.rs25.com/...ject-ej18t.html

He put roughly $3000 into the car. As far as just running 5 psi you may be able to get away without major modifications. You will need to either notch your crossmember or get one out of a legacy turbo shell. Then the list goes on and on.

 
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I have a couple motorcycles and a dirtbike I'd sell or trade for the stuff I need to do it... It's just the tuning part that confuses the heck out of me. Motor would come out for head gaskets and timing belt anyway so crossmember wouldn't be a big deal.

 
Whatever you do make sure you can afford to have someone help straighten it out. I have seen a bunch of ads for swaps and builds that don't run right and they don't want to put the money into it.

 
If you don't know what you are doing, you have three options. 1. DIY and read read read read. Get comfortable reading RS25. 2. outsource the build (not worth it) 3. Just swap in a bigger motor. A 2.2 or 2.5 swap can be done on a saturday.

 
Well guys just found out I'm losing my license for awhile, a lot longer then i thought. If someones following you, dont outrun them... i outran a car and well he found me later on.. gorham pd officer I had outran. :/ so it gives me some time anyway... Not too concerned about a timeline once summer hits, my subaru stays parked all summer anyway so might as well be a ongoing project. Hrradness pm me what u have for it.

 
Got that right! Thought it was a buddy messing with me, since I was about a mile from my house and had just left a game at the high school... Oh well.

 
Well this projects taking shape again. I'm gonna shut up about what's going into it for motor work, engine management, all that. Kind of... Interesting. But should all work pretty good I think. Garret gt1752 turbo, fmic, 8-10 psi, hope I don't need to buy a fender due to shrapnel flying out the sides lol goal is to build it for under 400. I paid 500 for the car so refuse to put more then that into it just to boost it. Goals 200 awhp. Lets see how this goes.

Ill document the whole build if anybody cares to see it?

 
Good luck getting the parts for $400. Not to mention all the wiring work that needs to happen. You should really do lots of reading. Those who happen to build a boosted N/A for cheap can do so purely based on having all the parts laying around.

 
CoupedUpSubie said:
Good luck getting the parts for $400. Not to mention all the wiring work that needs to happen. You should really do lots of reading. Those who happen to build a boosted N/A for cheap can do so purely based on having all the parts laying around.
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It's actually not that expensive if you know where to get parts and know what you're doing. Chris and I have talked about DIY turbo builds and we definitely come in at just a couple hundred bucks.

 
2point5RS_Dan said:
It's actually not that expensive if you know where to get parts and know what you're doing. Chris and I have talked about DIY turbo builds and we definitely come in at just a couple hundred bucks.
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How about a quick run down Dan? I think you'd have to have access to an engine hoist, welder etc to get close to a few hundred dollars.

 
JoshP said:
How about a quick run down Dan? I think you'd have to have access to an engine hoist, welder etc to get close to a few hundred dollars.
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Mike did his turbo swap for basically free because he had old turbo bits laying around.

The way I'd probably do it, get a used td04 or something. Fabricate your own exhaust and intake routing. Or just get stock takeoff parts. When people upgrade they toss off stock intercooler and whatnot pretty cheap. One difficult part of the turbo swap is getting an oil feed line, but there are a few options there. I believe there's a good spot on the pass side head to drill/tap for that.

getting the turbo hooked up is the easy part, that's just fabrication.

The hard part is engine management. I'd probably get a 02/03 wrx ecu for that part.

Engine out/in is the easiest part of them all. I don't have an engine hoist, I use a come-along from anything above the car. I've used a tree, at home I used a joist in my garage. I've even done a clutch job with the engine hanging from park bench hooks under someone's deck 1500 miles from home all with the tools in the trunk of my car.

 
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I'd just use bugeye everything from classifieds/partouts/junkyard runs.

If you're doing a budget turbo build the give a cookies will be low to begin with, so you can just use ebay trash if you want, notch the crossmember, ebay oil lines, get a free wrx up pipe and punch out the cat, ebay or stock downpipe, headers, buy a cheap top mount for like 20 bucks, etc. Hell you can get oil from the port chris mentioned easy.

The part that nickles and dimes you is the little things like gaskets and fittings and oops I need this. That and engine management. Either junkyard a wrx ecu and wire it yourself, or piggy back. Some folks on RS25 have done stock ecu on 2.2's, not that I would.

Granted I'm partially talking out of my ass since I've never done a turbo build nor do I really care to, but if you want to do it on the cheap, read RS25 and hunt the classifieds and junkyards.

400 is probably on the low side, but if you're smart and take your time you could probably get there. 600-1000 depending on how much the "need this now" factor is and if people just don't have the parts you need, (we're banking on people having random crap in their garages and selling it cheap here)

 
You can actually fit a 2.0 WRX turbo inlet under a 2.5 DOHC manifold with slight mods to the manifold. I think in a phase 1 car, 2.5 dohc heads and mani + 2.2 shortblock and everything else stock or ebay wrx parts might be the best option for under 1k. I think an rrfpr with a good fuel pump and mbc and you could do about 10-12 psi and be around stock 2.0 power levels. Theres no real room for upgrades without spending a lot more at that point though. Without having a ton of parts on hand and welder access to do it, I think that an actual wrx swap is a much better option for not a lot more money.

 
The 2.0 likes to blow rod bearings. The 2.2 block is pretty beefy and hard to kill.

Honestly, I'd go with 2.5 sohc heads, eff anything to do with the dohc heads. Also, if you use the sohc manifold it has a built in iacv. So the wrx computer will be happier about that. The DOHC heads don't flow better or anything. The only advantage is that they suck because you have to remove the cams to install them, they have bucket shims, and they're a pita to time. Oh wait... that's not an advantage.

 
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