Turbo / Supercharger Latest Topics

Triple Blowthrough Turbo

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 16:35:09 +0000

Hello fellow HybridZ members,

Over the years this community has been great and provided tons of info on my rebuild, build, and build again. For context: my initial rebuild was to recondition the entire car mechanically (all new suspension, driveline, powdercoat everything, etc.) and fix all of the rust on the car to make a reliable and fun daily driver which has been a smashing success this past 2/3 years. Afterwards, the first build was pretty basic and focused on improving the driving experience- triple carbs, header, exhaust, some interior, etc.

In searching around I haven't found a ton of info online for triple blowthrough setups for the L-series and so far as I know there are only a couple of cars here in the Bay Area which are running this setup currently. I've been collecting the components and slowly tackling the projects associated with this sort of build over the years but am finally at the point where I have most of the pieces in place to make this a relatively straightforward project. I've decided to chronicle this process to keep me on track and hopefully provide info for those curious about this setup in the future.

A couple of weekends ago my buddy who is a fellow s30z fanatic drove my car for half a day and liked my last setup so much he bought my triples, manifold, exhaust, header, fuel system, etc. We pulled everything off the next morning and so the 2nd build began.

Here is the short list of what's been done so far:

Drill carburetors to mount to surge tank and manifold
Mount manifold to head
ATL black box installed into OEM fuel tank with -6AN feed -8AN return
123 Ignition BT

Here's (a long list) of what needs to be done:

Set up linkages/throttle cable
Run new -6AN and -8AN fuel lines and fuel system
Mount electric fans and install fan controller
ARP head studs, new headgasket (it has become apparent this past year that my headgasket is leaking fluids all over my block)
Install turbo and plumb oil / coolant
Install charge piping / intercooler
Install downpipe, exhaust
Install vacuum lines
Some tuning

Draw through turbo.....hard lessons learned, and passed on to you. YES they can be made to work well.

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 02:56:27 +0000

My custom modified crown turbo system on my L series six. here are pics of what I fought through and learned lessons very valuable. The Crown turbo kits, are very basic, and were designed to use stock parts to get a turbo onto the engine, and this was back in the days of carburetors and point ignitions. the factory exhaust manifold is used and a "J" pipe, made by Crown bolted on to the bottom of it and curved up for the turbo to mount on. From that point the exhaust went to the right and down, and to the left was an adaptor, the carb, and then you had to finagle on your own a throttle cable, fuel line and air cleaner. It was designed without a wastegate....the idea being your foot is the wastegate....you have to be smart enough to know when to let off. The J pipe, I had to cut off the factory flange and weld on a flange for a T3 turbo housing. I had a welder do this and he had to do so that the pipes from the J pipe came into the flange with any gaps closed off. Here is where my problems began. on the factory Rayjay turbo, the turbo flange came straight down......on modern turbos the flange is offset. So, today, you either have to make a new J pipe that is a tighter bend to make the room necessary, or what i did, which was to cut a hole in the inner fender and part of the strut tower and run the turbo halfway into the wheelwell and angle the intake out and back into the engine compartment. This required me taking the wheel off and bending sheet metal around the turbo to close it off....in effect making a channel down the side for the turbo. I recommend NOT doing that. I would recommend using a 280ZX exhasut manifold and having a T# flange welded on, or getting the CX Racing turbo header and then using the crown pieces to get the charge from the turbo into the intake manifold. Also, I initially ran this on a Mikuni 45 HRS motorcycle flat slide carb, and then went to EFI. EFI is the only way to go. You will have to weld an O2 bung into the exhaust, and while I am thinking about it, know this, with a draw through turbo setup it is MANDATORY to have the turbo rebuilt with CARBON SEALS installed. "G Pop Shop" has done them for me, cost is under 200 bucks. you can't avoid it. without the carbon seals the turbo will create pressure that will pull engine oil through the regular seals and the engine will smoke like a chainsaw. Don't take anyone's word for it that it already has them.....pay the money have new ones installed and they go through the unit and you get back a turbo that will actually work. RLR makes the intake I used. It is made for a draw through turbo to be installed on a air cooled VW engine. In the Draw Through Turbo world, the only ones who anything about it are the air cooled VW guys and the Corvair guys. 99.9% of the people you talk to DO NOT know anything about them....and I was told I would destroy my engine, it wouldn't work, they are terrible, I was an idiot etc. This is not the case. (never got any apologies)...but they are a bit of a wild animal......in a carb'ed setup, you can only tune it to a happy medium, and that frankly sucks. they only run good when floored, every other time, they are a real pain int he neck. Don't debate it with me, I have lived it. spend 800 bucks and later go EFI anyway and the money you spent for that turbo carb was wasted. The Holley Sniper 2 saved me. BUT you have to unscrew the port plug and put the plug in the threaded hole on the bottom, the base....then install a 1/16 NPT nipple into the boost port. This allows the Sniper to make corrections based on actual air fuel ratios in the intake manifold, instead of a guess by the ECU from where the fuel enters the throttle body before being charged. Turbo Joe's is a page on Facebook, and he is the sole tuning source for making these work. Thanks to him, my car runs crisp and normal. The Water methanol injection is my intercooler , is set to start flowing at 4 psi and has added over 30 horsepower on it's own and allows it to run on pump gas. Spark plugs. NGK is the only way to go period dot. NGK BPR8ES..... 2 heat ranges cooler and go .031 on the gap. Well.....Good luck. There is a draw through turbo page on facebook as well. It is ran by a 240Z guy. Pics follow, Peace and God Bless. ~ Joe Guy 12-21-2025.

Installation of Holley Sniper 2 EFI and NX Nitrous M1000 install on my Draw through turbo stroked L series

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 02:37:53 +0000

Day 1 of installation. almost 12 hour day and got a lot knocked out. Pics below:

Draw Through Turbo project for my 2.9 Stroker L series COMPLETE 5 MONTHS 20 DAYS

Sun, 03 Nov 2024 08:40:24 +0000

11-02-2024. Well, I found a new project. An old Crown Turbo kit in pieces, that I am going to clean up and install with a new Trubo, some water/methanol injection, and run it on my 11.54 to 1 compression stroker L series. I will keep the boost LOW. It is primarily for looks, and that little shot of power will be cool also. I am at high elevation, so the overall compression is lower, .....at 5 Psi I will be at 14.27 to 1 compression. I really only want 3 psi, no more, so that compression figure would be 12.7 to 1. Methanol water injection 50/50 mix will make the 91 octane act like it's 116 Performance (octane) rating.

dual SU intake for draw through turbo setups!

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 03:37:04 +0000

Aussie Speed has a dual SU intake for draw through turbo setups.

This intake would also allow for dual Mikuni HSR bike carbs as well!

Turbo Guru's, T3 question(s). Please advise

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 22:55:38 +0000

Turbo guru's please read:

I have the T3 Turboboosts M12 turbocharger I got off of eBay, and because of what I have learned on here and other pages....being a draw through setup with crown manifolds, etc., I have sent the turbo off to "G POP Shop" in Arkansas to gee carbon seals installed, and the hot side is getting their high temp coating in Titanium finish, and I am having the compressor side powder coated in gold. Since it is there, I am thinking about possibly having a custom hot side wheel put in to create a faster spool. It has journal bearings, which doesn't bother me as this is just a weekend around town toy.

The Specifics of the turbo are:

Compressor : Inducer 52.7mm, exducer (outer diamter) 76

Ex turbine: exducer 55.8mm, Inducer ( outer diameter) 64.8

Trim: 48.1

A/R .50

420 HP Rated.

Going on to a 171 cubic inch (2859cc) inline six cylinder

Any opinions on exhaust wheel sizes, etc., that will help deal with a 4000 RPM spool, outside of manifold work and larger down pipe enlarging etc. I am thinking custom wheel(s). Not sure if porting would help either.

P.S. I was shocked to find out Garrett turbos are made in Shanghai, CHINA.

what to expect from a T3/T04 .50 A/R 48 trim with a '63 turbine housing (trim 74.2) on my 2.9 stroker?

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 08:19:51 +0000

Hello!

Since my turbo project is going well, I wanted to ask if any of you have any thoughts as to what I can expect from my T3/T04 turbo with .50 A/R 48 trim) with a .63 turbine housing (trim 74.2) on my 2.9 stroker? Since I like quick spool, I think a turbine with more vanes might be nice.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Car still runs with fuel pump disconnected

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 00:51:27 +0000

Well I just picked up this 83' 280zx turbo. It sat for 2 yrs. I did the basic tuneup spark plugs, wires, cap rotor, thermostat, oil, tranny, o2, etc... The problem is when I turn off the car and try to restart it the car won't start. I look at the plugs and they are soaked so the car is getting floaded. If I wait all night long the next morning it will start right up. I instaleled a fpr with gauge and it is right at 30 psi at idle and 37 at full throttle. When I turn off the car the psi will go down to 20 psi in about an hour. The weird thing is that I unplugged the fuel pump and the car keeps running. It takes 30 seconds or so to die. Then when it does die, without hooking up the fuel pump, I can start it again and it will idle for 30 seconds again. If I give any throttle during this time it dies. The fpr gauge reads 0 psi the whole time this is going on. I will be taking off the fuel rail to make sure the injectors are not leaking but I doubt it since the fuel pressure stays up for so long. Also there is no other fuel pump or fuel lines running to my engine. Thanks for you time and input.

NA-T Charcoal Canister question.

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 17:12:09 +0000

Hello everyone.

I'm currently in the process of building a 1984 maxima wagon. No not a Z but it s a L-series engine. It came with the same Fuel injected as the late model 280zx's. Now Ive turbo'ed the car and I have a stand alone ECU. This is a daily driver for me and I want to keep it as fume free as possible and the other benefits of a functional EVAP system. I have the canister that came with the car that has the 3 ports on top. Dist VC, Purge, and fuel tank. I have no issues where those would go if I was still NA but with a turbo It seems Unwise to pressurize the system. I look at the FSM for the 280zxt and it has 4 ports. Does anybody have any experience or recommendations? Id like to use my stock canister if possible.

Where did you put your BOV??

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:02:07 +0000

this is where I put mine, was wondering where else you guys put them

Am I missing something?

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 04:15:04 +0000

Hi everyone. Im currently in the process of building a 1984 maxima wagon. I am turbo‐ing the stock l24e for now till I can find and machine a turbo engine to fit a from sump. I know the l24e crank is weaker but I'm not looking for 400hp. 180-200will be fine for now. Below is my set up and curious if I'm missing something.

Stock L24e. Mn47 head. Compression is 170psi across all cylinders

Ecu is a speeduino stand alone runing batch fire fuel and wasted spark on 6 individual LS truck coils.

14point7 wideband

52lb high z 14mm injectors.

Billet dash 8 rail.

Aeromotive adjustable FPR

Running the stock 5/16 feed and return lines which should be fine for my hp goals I think

New 280zx turbo fuel pump

Stock l28et turbo manifold, turbo, and down pipe.

I have the oil feed sorted out. Just need to have a line made.

Stock intake which is the same as a late 280zx small plenum intake(curious if this will be an issue)

Stock auto transmission till I can manual swap it.

Things I think I probably should change but have not addressed yet are switching to a turbo oil pump. And I need to switch to a colder spark plug. I know this is a high compression engine but it is the mn47 head which is a high quench head which helps with detonation. I can wire in a flex fuel sensor if I need to run e85 or e30. Both are everywhere around me.

Any thing Im missing or words of advice i would appreciate it.

Thanks

twin turbo setup for L series

Fri, 18 Nov 2022 04:59:13 +0000

Have any of you had luck with a twin turbo setup on the L series. Seems that 2 small turbo's might help with lag and really provide a movre livable street setup

Turbo manifold

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 01:40:35 +0000

I went to install the new manifold bolts and turbo exhaust manifold the other day and couldnt. Turns out the front exhaust port is warped up about a 1/4”. Has anyone else experienced this and how did you fix it? I am nervous to heat up the manifold because of it being cast I don’t want it to crack. Any suggestions or solutions are appreciated.

Heat wrapping the manifold

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:36:32 +0000

I'm having some issues that I think are being caused by heat from the turbo/manifold, poor hot starts, melting wiring, possibly hot fuel. Has anybody wrapped the manifold? Any problems with cracking, warping, etc? I think I'm also going to wrap the intake runners and put a sleeve over the fuel rail.

Swaintech is local, but 2-3x more expensive.

PVC plumbing with turbo

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 23:30:34 +0000

Gents,

I am turbocharging an L28 using an aftermarket turbo and intake (Protunerz). I want to keep the PCV system functioning, but I get the feeling that the PCV valve from the NA setup won’t work, since it will be seeing boost pressure, rather than manifold vacuum.

how do you guys plumb a PCV valve in a boosted application?

Turbo Oil Drain AN Line Bend

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 15:15:37 +0000

Hi all,

I'm wrapping up my turbo plumbing and wanted some feedback on the drain.

I assembled 2 ends of Earls 10AN fittings. It looks like the stainless braided hose is about to kink with the bend and curve it needs to run from turbo drain to pan.

This does not look legitimate to me and I'm looking for other options. I was thinking maybe if I can find some shorter hose ends to reduce the pressure on the hose or maybe just go to a push on/push lock style system for the drain which would give the hose more room to run the bend without kinking.

Any thoughts? Or am I overthinking this and it looks ok.

Thanks!

Turbocharge or stroker: which to build

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 17:25:29 +0000

MY 73 240Z, very clean and runs fine with dual Hitachis and a header, no smog stuff.

I have a 79 L28 NA motor complete, which I was in the planning stages of turbocharging, adding Megasquirt EMS and coil on plug. Goal was 300 whp. I contacted a motor builder to get the block prepped (cleaned, honed, new bearings, etc.) he came back to me with a proposal to build a stroker L28 instead. He is confident of 300-350 whp with no turbo.

He proposes diesel crank, K20 or L24 rods, custom pistons, ported and polished head, some cam work, larger injectors and newer intake. He feels there is better durability and reliability with less stuff under the hood (Intercooler, turbo, piping, etc.) He makes some good points, but I’m torn between the two builds.

what sez the turbo gurus here?

Intake Exhaust Manifold Gasket or RTV

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 16:16:50 +0000

I'm doing the final preparations on a turbo motor before dropping it in and wanted to solicit some opinions on using a gasket versus RTV for the intake/exhaust.

On my Rebello built turbo stroker motor, it was recommended to me to run grey RTV for the intake, Red RTV for the exhaust. If both surfaces are true there should be no leaks. I've attached a picture of what the head looked like after removing the manifolds, the motor was run in on the dyno so likely only ran at most for some hour(s). Leaks are either due to improper rtv application or flatness. I'll do finals checks for flatness and get things decked as needed.

In my parts bin I have a new spare Nissan OE intake/exhaust gasket with the metal inserts for the exhaust side. If I run this I could probably put some copper rtv on the exhaust side to ensure a good seal if there are any surface imperfections.

This will mostly be a street motor with some track days perhaps a couple times per year so a few 20 min sessions across a couple days, canyon drives, etc. Probably no more commuting with this car. I have run RTV only on motorcycles bit the service iterval for me was measured in hours so I don't know how well RTV holds up over time to the extreme turbo temperatures.

Any thoughts on if it's better to run RTV or the OE gasket? For those running RTV what is your service interval and how do you drive the car?

Remote mount turbo comparison

Fri, 04 Jun 2021 06:24:13 +0000

Good test video of some extreme tubing. Makes me wonder how the plug-side turbo L engine guys response would drop since the tube isn't nearly as long.

280ZX Stock Oil Feed Unfiltered?

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 16:05:16 +0000

In digging into the FSM, I noticed that the oil feed line to the stock turbo is ... not filtered at all ? Is this an error or is this true? Is there any deliberate reason for this? I would think that engine contaminants are not great for turbo bearings. I would like to filter the oil feed but now I wonder about the Nissan engineers and whether they had a good reason for it. Maybe the pressure drop from the filter is more of a risk than particulates?

L28 turbo Oil feeds FROM WHERE????

Sun, 29 Oct 2017 21:56:43 +0000

Hi everyone! Its been a looooooong time since I've been on the forum, but here I am. I can't for the life of me figure out the name of the part that is used to supply oil to the turbo charger. I know it T'S off the oil pressure sending unit, but what's that T called? What's the part Number? How can I buy one.

I'm turning my NA L28 into a turbo engine and I just need to know what to buy for this part.

AND YES I SEARCHED!!! for days not just this forum but the internet.

Any info would be Rad!

thanks in advance!

BOV Recirculation vs. Venting

Sat, 24 Apr 2004 07:45:32 +0000

I'm using the z31 ECU with MAF. I heard that venting to the atmosphere will cause a momentary richness between shifts. I think Bastaad mentioned this when he tried venting his DSM bov. If I use a Greddy/HKS SS Bov will I encounter this problem if I vent to the atmosphere, or is there a way to do this properly without having to recirculate it?

Possible spark blow out. How small of a gap can I run

Sat, 15 Jun 2019 06:21:58 +0000

I have an L28et with GT3076r turbo and Megasquirt 2 3.57 with NGK R BPR6EY plugs that were gapped at .03. With this gap, I could not rev past 3200 rpms but after gapping the plugs down to .025, I now can rev my car to 4200 rpms before it happens again. Do I need new plugs or do I keep closing the gap on my spark plug? What is the smallest gap I can run?

and I had problems with revving past 3200 rpms. I changed the gap to .025 and I can now rev to 4300rpms before I run into the revving wall.

List your L28ET setup.

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:28:40 +0000

I think it would be benificial to have a thread of everyone who has a L28 turbo list what you have and your mods as well as when you get positive boost and how well you like it.

example::

-engine= L28ET JE pistons 8:0.1 compression

-turbo= t3/to4E 60trim compressorwheel, .63 turbine housing stage 3 wheel.

-Exhaust system

- How much boost you run and when it goes pos pressure to peek boost.

-ECU= MSNS1 v3

-440 CC injectors

-HP= if you have dyno tuned it and what type of dyno..(this will not be exact as no 1 dyno is the same)

What im trying to accomplish is a nice and easy thread to search and have information on different turbo setups people are using on the L28 motor.

Please let me know if this thread has been started before as I dont want to duplicate one..

Thanks

Need help diagnosing boost control issue

Thu, 04 Jul 2019 16:58:22 +0000

I'm working on a 73 240Z with an L28ET with a larger turbocharger running on a MegaSquirt II running msns2e. Honestly not sure the type of car is all that important as I think this is more of a general turbocharger issue that I've never crossed paths with before. The car runs pretty well and is fun to drive but is doing something sort of funny with regards to the turbocharger and boost control. Here's a graph of a 3rd gear pull from megalogviewer:

Essentially what's happening is, when I go to full throttle, the turbo produces some boost (about as much as it was making previously at part throttle) and just... continues to slowly build more and more boost. Ideally It would hit some sort of boost level and hold it. Or even hit some boost level and creep up from there would be fine, I would be totally stoked to tune for that. Additionally the boost is getting a little hot - maybe this is expected but it feels like the turbo is working hard to achieve the given level of boost. I was seeing AITs in the 130 F at 70 F ambient range on this pull, with a small same-sided intercooler, hot air intake, and a windshield wiper sprayer hitting the IC with watermeth. This might be ok given the crappy intercooler setup, crappy hot air intake. Additionally coolant temps rose to approx 200F from my thermostat's 180F and quickly fall back to 180F over 15-20s - I'm thinking this might be a symptom of me using re-routed heater lines to the water cooled section of the turbocharger, essentially dumping hot water from the turbo directly on the coolant temp sensor but maybe a symptom of something else. I have a large arizona Z car aluminum radiator and shrouded electric fan and new water pump so the cooling system is sufficient unless something else is wrong.

Since taking this datalog, I have fixed 5 very, very tiny pinhole boost leaks in some welds in my intercooler piping using a boost leak tester, but I am thinking it would take significantly more than that to produce this behavior so I am looking for more ideas. I will be re-testing with these very small boost leaks fixed shortly but don't expect that it will resolve the issue due to how tiny they were. When using the boost leak tester, releasing the line from my air compressor let a whoosh of air out the boost leak tester's fitting, telling me that the system held pressure pretty well and that the leaks were minor.

I keep thinking maybe there is a wastegate problem. The wastegate is an integral dual port wastegate with a 7psi spring. I've run the vacuum line directly into a vacuum port before the throttle body to the top vacuum port on the wastegate, and also with a boost controller on that same vacuum line. In this run it was hooked up to a boost controller, but the same behavior happens without a boost controller and the boost controller did not make an appreciable difference in controlling boost. The wastegate actuator can be moved by hand and has good tension and seems to shut fully (I can hear it kind of "clack" shut if I release the spring by hand. Maybe there could be a problem with the diaphragm in the wastegate however? The arm on the wastegate actuator is threaded, so I could also try tightening it up. The arm also goes to the wastegate from the actuator at a slight angle and is not 100% straight.

Happy to answer any other questions that I can about the setup if it helps. The car otherwise drives great and is fun to take on spirited drives, doesn't smoke or anything weird, but I'd like to get some proper boost control in place here and start making some decent power, right now it's sort of underwhelming when you stomp on it. Also worth noting that the turbocharger and exhaust manifold seem tight, all the bolts that I can get to easily are snug, no large amounts of sootiness around anything.