Guest shattyfatmas Posted May 3, 2004 Share Posted May 3, 2004 right now it has all new suspension, and all new wires, general stuff to keep it running has been overhauled. new breakes too. its selling for 700 from a good freind. however, the 130 hp is no dice. how much would i have to invest into this car to get it to the 250rwhp range? i dont know alot about the engine, but i really do love these cars. just not very powerful stock. turbo/super chargers sound liek a good way to go, but then we are talking mantinence. i liek the idea of forced induction alot, so i came here with my situation first. however, would i be better off spendig a ton of money on a bigger engine? i would have about 2.5-3k dollars to invest into this car immediately, but for about 250+ rwhp (just hoping to have at least 250), what should i be looking at spending? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted May 3, 2004 Share Posted May 3, 2004 Ahhh someone is gonna say it I'm sure, so I will beat them to it Use the search function There is LOTS of info from lots of guys who have done all kinds of build ups and swaps on this entire forum. However... I'm usually bored off my ass with nothing to do so I'll give you some of my experience as well. 250hp isn't hard to get from either a turbo setup, or from a V8 setup. For the money you say you will have, you're probably better off going the turbo route, as V8 swaps *tend* to be more expensive. However, in my case, my turbo swap cost me a hell of a lot of money... granted, I'm more the exception than the rule, but it goes to show what CAN happen. If you can do the work yourself (motor swap, wiring) you can easily drop a turbo in your car and hit 250rwhp on your allotted budget. Here's what you would most likely need, and some possible costs: 1. An '81-83 280zx turbo donor car. This way you can get almost everything you need in one shot. Alternately, you would need to hunt down a complete turbo long block, including the exhaust manifold and turbo, and then hunt down the entire EFI system as well. Alternately, you can hunt down the turbo and manifold and adapt them to the motor already in your car, and again, swap over to the entire turbo EFI system. Alternately again, you could just adapt your stock N/A EFI to work with any of the above setups. These alternates are listed in descending order of desirability You could spend anywhere from a couple hundred here, to a couple grand for a complete donor car. 2. A good intercooler. Tops you could probably pull off without one would be about 200-210rwhp (as I have). I picked up a used Buick Grand National I/C for $75... it's a very good unit and can easily handle the air flow of a turbo 2.8L engine and lots of hp. It needs to be modded slightly to work. You can find similar I/C's out of other cars for cheap, up to maybe $200, or go all out on an aftermarket unit. Getting the pipes made/installed will probably run you $100-400... you're best bet here is to buy one of the universal pipe kits on Ebay, which can probably be installed with much less work, or just buy a bunch of pre bent and straight sections of pipe from a place like summit. This way you'll pay much less at the welder. 3. Lots of fuel. If you go with a Turbo EFI setup, you'll need at the very least, an upgraded fuel pump ($100-250), and then a way to get more fuel at the injectors, either run bigger ones ($???? you can get used 370cc's for cheap, ~$100, or spend big bucks on new ones), or cheat with the stock injectors and run an adjustable fuel pressure regulator with the pressure turned up ($50-200) 4. Blow off valve. While not essential to make power, it should be considered a requirement for keeping the turbo healthy and long lived. $50-200+ (save money here by getting a used BOV from a 1st gen Eclipse/Talon/Laser) 5. Boost controller and boost gauge. The controller can be made from easily obtained parts for about $15, or you can buy a fancy one for $200+. Gauge will run you about $75. For 250rwhp, you're looking at about 13psi of boost, possibly more Now I"ll impart some of that experience I mentioned earlier Notice that to reasonably get to 250rwhp on your budget, you're gonna be buying a lot of used parts. That's okay... that's what I did, as well as most of the other guys on here running turbo's. But in my case, this was the worst thing I could have done. I've had a LOT of big problems, a LOT of hard parts failures and expensive repairs, and in the end, where my original projected cost of the whole thing was supposed to only be about $3000 (this included paying for lots of the labor as I can't do this stuff myself), my costs to date over about a six month period have probably doubled that, just to keep the car running. So just be aware it CAN happen when you're using used stuff. Turbo motors tend to get abused... but on the flipside lots of guys go this same route and have no problems for a very long time. It really is a game of russian roulette. If I could do it all over again and I wanted to go turbo (which I probably would not) I'd save up more money and start the project right. Getting things new instead of used, rebuilding the motor and possibly the turbo, and most likely going with an aftermarket programmable fuel system. This probably would have saved me a lot of time and money over what I've spent so far, and had the car on the road constantly as opposed to me having to park it every month or two when something goes wrong. It's parked again as I just found that my crank bearings are worn and the crank is moving quite a bit back and forth. This will be the FOURTH major engine repair I've had to do since swapping. Just something to consider. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lifegrddude Posted May 4, 2004 Share Posted May 4, 2004 Who needs a search function when we've got Bastaad? Should have a link that says "ask Bastaad" lol John 82ZXT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted May 4, 2004 Share Posted May 4, 2004 like I said... bored with too much time on my hands... you can always tell when my Z is having problems because I spend way too much time on Hybrid Z for lack of anything better to do ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest shattyfatmas Posted May 6, 2004 Share Posted May 6, 2004 woul buying a Garrett GT40 be a bad idea? spearco intercooler as well. would those work out alright on a 79 280zx? also, thanks for your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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