[Hos]

Hi all...

This is my first post so I thought I would start with my home made conversion. I know many people say turbo charging a 13a is pointless and unreliable but I like to tinker and I had the car and all the bits. I actually have had the car since near new - an 88 sierra with now 220k on the clock. Its been handed down and recently retired for the occasional bash on the beach. I always wanted to turbo a carby car and this was more an exercise to see if I could do it cheaply and actually make it work.

So firstly let me say the entire conversion cost me $500. Everything was fabricated in my garage and yes, it works! Surprisingly the power increase makes the car drive like a dream. Smoother, torquey and sounds ridiculous haha. Using the ass dyno i would say a conservative 30% increase in power. It actually moves out nicely

Toyota CT12 turbo running 5psi
S13 intercooler
webber 32/36
Electric pump/boost ref reg

So to keep it cheap and easy, I fabricated a 'J-pipe' to mount the turbo. Basically a piece of pipe from the standard exhaust manifold to the turbo. Added a bracket at the top to stop it moving then smashed out a dump pipe, cut up an old 2.5" exhaust system and plumbed up the lines. To avoid the $100 drain line from the local fitting place, I used copper pipe from bunnings and just braised fittings on and tapped a brass fitting into the sump. Water is easy to source and the oil feed came from the spare bung next to the oil pressure switch.

As for the carb, I filled the floats and copper coated all the gaskets. Boxed it up and bolted it on.

Fuel was simple - used a 14psi electric inline pump, swapped the breather and return lines around (the breather is twice the size) and used a boost referenced reg to send the unwanted fuel back. Base psi is about 4.5 and it rises 1:1 as boost increases.

I got most bits of gumtree and what I had laying around. It was fun and definitely worth it!



That picture is before I finished it... It now has the intake and the rocker cover breather feeds into the turbo inlet. This was essential as the crankcase would pressurise and pump smoke out the back on boost. And just in case you are wondering, I have been driving it everyday and I have not had a single issue... The little zook has a new lease on life.

Any questions, ask away!

Mike

[Jezza86]

can we has pictures?!

[henno]

Jezza86 wrote:

can we has pictures?!

There's one right there in the OP.

[Jezza86]

bummer

[henno]

How's that.

[Jezza86]

thanks Henno! did well to keep it under $500

[Hos]

It has been revised... jets, fmic and filter relocation. 101hp @ the wheels pushing 8.5psi!

[sideways]

Sweet, 101hp atw is very respectable for a Suzuki! Do you have a dyno graph? What revs does it make full boost at?

[Hos]

Its the rears, not all four. But yeah, makes full boost about 3.5 and then spikes at 5.5. It did lean out top end so if i somehow get the fuelling right I would expect a drop in power. The bigger intercooler made the boost curve much nicer as that turbo is tiny

[4x4xzook]

please post a video of this running/boosting. would love to hear it....

[Hos]

Finally got a video up...

[watermouse]

Hah! that is pretty awesome.

Fingers crossed everything holds together for a while.

[Shane J]

I Stumbled on your youtube video yesterday. Still looking sweet!

Where are those dunes?

[4x4xzook]

sounds great, well done mate.

[lgp29]

Awesome.

[alien]

hah! that's quick! =)

You're going to get yourself into trouble! lol

[vet 180]

Well done! looks like a lot of fun!

[missmyljdaze]

looks good - but it might be an idea to scratch out your number plate in the photos!

[JrZook]

Hos wrote:

It has been revised... jets, fmic and filter relocation. 101hp @ the wheels pushing 8.5psi!

That's 75kw which is quite impressive! For reference I managed to get 47rwkw out of my G13 with a webber/exhaust etc.

[striker99]

Any chance of one for an M13A vvt?

[Joe]

Is this the one that fell over on the weekend?

[tanked]

Looking at doing the same to my 13a, curious to know what the float was filled with? Also is it just bolted to the top of it, looks like it is via picture and explanation of it just want to make sure.

[Kor3y101]

tanked wrote:

Looking at doing the same to my 13a, curious to know what the float was filled with? Also is it just bolted to the top of it, looks like it is via picture and explanation of it just want to make sure.

Is your Sierra geared?

Displacement is no replacement for gearing. Then I'd look at putting a turbo on it if you really felt the need to. IMO, our local terrain doesn't call for more power.

[damø]

were any adjustments made to the ignition advance?

[drakan69]

tanked wrote:

Looking at doing the same to my 13a, curious to know what the float was filled with? Also is it just bolted to the top of it, looks like it is via picture and explanation of it just want to make sure.

To the best of my knowledge, a small hole is usually drilled in the float, the float is filled with expanding foam, and then any foam extruding from the hole is sanded smooth again. The Idea is to stop the float being crushed with the increase in pressure, however I wouldn't have thought it necessary only running relatively low boost pressures on a good condition weber float, perhaps Hos floats were cracking and showing signs of age? Still a cheap and easy mod to perform, cheap insurance I guess.

Although bolting charged air duct-work straight to the intake of the weber is possible with further modifications to the carburetor, usually called 'boost referencing'. In this instance Hos has 'boxed' the entire weber, everything from the intake manifold up is incorporated in an air tight box which is plumbed to the turbo. This overcomes the problems caused by the pressure difference inside and outside of the carburetor, you just have to make sure everything that needs to run to carburetor, throttle cable, fuel lines, ect are well sealed into this box.