Tuning $100 turbo

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Tuning $100 turbo

Raph406

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while at the junkyard i saw a '99 saab engine i think out of a 9-3. i bought the turbo for 100 bucks. its a Garrett T25/GT17 turbocharger. Do you think this would be a good turbo for an x? there is no play in the shaft and its looks in top shape. i took all of the coolant and oil lines.
Was it worth it?
 
I think you wasted $100, lot more to turbo charging than bolting on a turbo, pistons, con rods etc all have to be able to take the extra strain,:(
 
You will also need to consider lowering the CR (although non Euro X1/9's may already have a lower CR) as well as the mounting, pipework, oil feed (if oil cooled) etc. An awful lot of work!
Also consider the affect of the extra torque on the the other components (gearbox, brakes etc).

Not trying to be negative and maybe I misunderstood your question!

Mike
 
i know its not some easy bolt on part. I am going to have the machine shop lower the compression. its 9.2:1 i belive. the the exuast plumbing will be pretty simple, the cooling i can splice off. For the oil i was thinking of having a seperate oil supply for the turbo. The turbo is from a saab 9-3 and they run low boost pressure. I would keep a low boost. This turbo is a very small turbine. Yes i admit it was kind of a spontainous buy. but i have the next highschool year of pow tech 2 to work on this. Is there anykind of auxlary oil pump thats electric? What is the compression ratio on a uno turbo?
 
The american X1/9s have a lower compression ratio anyway and are (relatively) happy running a low pressure turbo system where a european engine would be spitting shrapnel.

Ideally you would need a lower compression ratio to get the power but as a compromise it isn't bad and helps to avoid the terrible lag that could result.

There is a roughly 20% increase in torque and then original conrods and pistons can cope with this - the standard engines are happy with substantially more than that. The only thing that really needs looking at is the pistons as turbo pistons need a bigger gap from the crown to the first ring to avoid the rings getting burned and if you're doing this then you'll be able to reduce the CR at no extra cost provided you get it right first time.

An Uno Turbo runs something like 7.8:1 and maximum (stock) boost of 1 bar but factory limited to roughly 0.8 bar.

I do strongly recommend getting a proper oil feed to the turbo and ideally this is from the engine as you need to buffer the oil temperature as much as possible. A small reservoir and cooler can result in the turbo oil temperature soaring out of control. Using the engine and the extra capacity of the water cooling circuit means small peaks in temperature are properly buffered and you have means to deal with prolonged thermal loadings. You also need to remember that the X1/9 engine bay is confined and not the best place for an intercooler or oil cooler so making the most of it is absolutely essential.

There are plenty of options for auxiliary pumps that don't require direct mechanical drive - just take a look at what happens in the world of motorsport and you'll see there are no end of suppliers. Don't be surprised at the prices though!
 
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