Thread: turbo setup advice

hey guys,

i recently acquired an sr20de+t (g20 motor). finally got it registered and passed inspection.

i'm looking to fine tune it and make it a dependable car. here's the specs on the car...
motor:stock g20 sr20de+t
transmission:manual g20
turbo:t3, 28mm wastegate with greddy bov
intercooler:fmic (don't have exact size) with 2 1/4" piping
suspension:monroes with stock springs
exhaust:stock 2 1/4" exhaust

here's what i have planned:
1. upgrade exhaust to 3" mandrel bent with borla dual tip muffler
2. paintjob to midnight purple
3. coilover suspension
4. gauges and engine tuning

i've been reading up but still have a couple questions, so here are a couple of my questions:
1. should i upgrade my stock injectors to 370cc?
2. which electronics should i get first to jumpstart the engine tuning? what's essential vs optional down the line. i.e. wideband, boost controller, turbo timer, safc...

any other tips would be great =)

-Penguin

You sure you don't already have 370cc injectors? What color are the tops? Only a handful of people ever boosted on the red 259cc injectors.

just say no to a stock suspension and boost. your car will be all over the place. You will need to upgrade your maf and injectors. depending on the size of the t3 turbo the 370cc injectors will not be big enough. Also I would recommend using the search function. There is tons of information on what you are asking about. I will tell you there are many ways to accomplish what you are doing. You need to set your goals for the project so you can get the right parts.

You should definitely have some 370cc injectors, I would actually go with some 555cc injectors so you can crank up the boost later. The stock maf sucks I would definitely replace it. I would just get a used JWT or Calum ecu if I were you and use whatever maf its programmed for, and injectors as well. As far as tuning goes, a Calum realtime ecu would be best but a JWT ecu and a SAFC should be decent for doing some dyno pulls to get your afr straight I would think. My two cents.

1) yes, you should put 370cc injectors in it at least. That is what the sr20det's come with and what they are made for. If you stick with stock injectors you risk running lean and blowing her sky high.
2) You can use the stock maf. I believe it's good up to 250hp or so.
3) Electronics are up to you. A lot of people stick with the stock ecu and put a daughterboard in it. You have to tune for the bigger injectors and this can be done through either jwt, calum, or some of the other vendors out there. Around here we recommend calumsult's ecu. They are much cheaper than jwt and much more capable of tuning. You can get it in a basic platform or realtime platform. The basic you have to install chips in it to tune your car with the daughterboard. The realtime you can do exactly that, tune the car in "realtime."

Wideband is not really a necessity on a calum tuned ecu but it is very nice to have to tweak the tune. Especially if you want to upgrade injectors, maf, boost, etc. later on down the road.

Boost controller is not a necessity right away. You can run on stock boost w/ the t25 (internally gated) or if you have and external wastegate you can control the boost simply by what spring is in it.

Turbo timer is up to you as well. They are fairly cheap and they help cool the beast down after ripping and running hard. I personally don't use one because it's not hard to go out and just turn the ignition off after a spirited drive, and mine is strictly a track car... But they would be very nice for a daily driven car.

Safc is up to you as well. Some people tune the stock ecu with a piggyback, but I personally would rather tune my ecu to match my set up and it can be done for around the same price.

There is tons and tons of information on this site and the old site sr20forum. Take some time and do some research you'd be amazed at what you can learn.

What car and ecu do you have? If you have a RR g20 then the ECU choices and injector choices will be different since.

i've been searching on information for a month or two while my car was in the shop getting the basic tuneup and inspection done. the information just tends to get overwhelming since there's so much on each component of the turbo setup. i learn a lot better doing it hands on than just reading information w/o diagrams or pictures. i just wanted to make sure i was heading in the right direction before investing.

i know the sr20 turbo community is huge and there's a lot of people with a lot of knowledge on what's best vs practical vs cost efficiency. oddly enough i live in new jersey and i have some friends with sr20 knowledge but haven't had the opportunity to talk to them about it since i didn't have the car to analyze in my garage. i'm sure i will be a better contributor once i start posting, analyzing what i have vs what i should, and getting the know how on everything.

thanks for the input so far guys! i appreciate the help. i'll try to avoid posting on information already covered unless i'm still confused about it.

motor was from a '93 p10. original p10 harness and ecu. but it's installed in '88 Nissan Pulsar NX SE

i have plenty of knowledge on the pulsar nx but barely any on the sr20. i was planning to turbo my pulsar with a ca18det but that was a 2-3 yr plan. then this guy did a sr swap and offered me the car for a low price and i bit it. clean swap since the guy was going to keep it for himself. so basically, i got a turbo swap 2 yrs ahead of planned with a different motor than expected. see... now i feel like an incompetent sr20 owner =/ ... don't judge me =X

Nissan SR engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

might help you get started.

start with how much power you would like to make and add head room. The head room is when you think your car is slow and want to turn up the boost. This also will help you get a idea of cost. You could also set a budget to begin with and build a car based on price. I have done it both ways.