suggest turbo

I am looking for a turbo that will engage at a good 3000-3750RPM's in my 1999 accord LX... It's a 2.3 Vtec with about 74,000 miles on it.. I'm not looking to do any major boosting on it until I get a different engine this summer, and build that one up... the current engine will run on about 6-8 PSI daily IC'ed. any suggestions? I want this to improve the lower end, but still be able to keep up with the top range of the engine (6500RPM's). Would a hybrid be advisable? If there's a kit avaliable for my application where?

Thanks

there are kits avail. but you can save quite a bit of dough over the kits (around 1000 depending on your component choices) if you part it together. a t3/to4e will be spooling at 3000 easy, but a ball bearing unit (read, more expensive, but worth it, for longevity too) will spool much sooner.

couple of questions tho, how important is the bling? ie, powder coated or "chrome" charge piping, a poliched or chrome compressor housing etc? doing aluminum charge piping yourself will save $$. granted steel is a little cheaper and easier to weld, aluminum is waaaaay lighter and easier to cut (assuming you don' thave a cut off wheel. couplings are cheap too. the priciest parts will be the IC, TC, mani, and DP, but a local shop should be able to fab a DP for less than $50 and most t3 flanges are about $25. I'm all over the place, I know

couple of questions tho, how important is the bling? ie, powder coated or "chrome" charge piping, a poliched or chrome compressor housing etc?

Its not about bling... if you see a 'chrome' exhaust manifold and turbine, most likely its for heat retention.

"THERMAL BARRIER PROPERTIES REDUCE RADIANT TEMPERATURE
HIGH ABRASION RESISTANCE
INCREASED GAS VELOCITIES
REDUCED UNDER HOOD TEMPERATURES
HORSEPOWER GAINS AVERAGING 2% "

http://www.airborncoatings.com/customer/index3.html
read that. sure it looks like chrome, but it is meant for helping keep the heat in the exhaust manifold and not in the engine bay. Heat is energy, turbos use heat energy to make boost. I'm having my exhaust manifolds coated inside and out, turbine and compressor housings , all intake charge piping, valve faces, combustion chambers, and piston tops aluminum ceramic coated. Piston skirts and main bearings will be solid dry film coated. I'm considering having my intake charge piping Xylan coated, but it doesnt list how much it costs on their site. Average HP gains of 2%, probably much higher on a turbocharged engine. Reduced radiant temps mean more heat in the exhaust, reduced underhood temps mean your turbos are gettin cooler air, and increased gas velocities mean faster moving exhaust to push the turbines. In my eyes, its purely for performance. I'd be happier if it were black and not chrome, i'm not a big fan of all the bling.

i was talking about charge piping and the COMPRESSOR housing not the mani, feel free to re-read my post

I didnt misread. I thought it was a typo. If you have the outside of your compressor housing chrome plated and not ceramic coat exhaust manifold/scroll you don't know what's good for your car and are wasting your money. Unless chrome and NOS stickers make your car faster. I don't see why you took an aggressive stance in your reply, I don't see how 'bling' pertains to the question at all. He never mentioned money, he never asked for help on how he's setting up the system, he just wanted a recommendation on a turbo. Your talk about bling doesnt help his turbo spool faster or help him chose a turbo. I was attempting to make something useful to him out of the whole 'bling' thing. Ceramic coating will help your turbo spool faster. Chrome plating your compressor will not. I was not angrily correcting you, I was informing killah_xft what a performance "chrome"/aluminum ceramic coating is for and how it helps him in his spooling problem.

:rolleyes: whatever

The shiny silver 1300 degree paint that you get from most places like jet hot etc does dick all for performance. It fades off and peels after a year on the street, spool doesn't decrease, underhood temps don't decrease. The only coating i've used that actually does something for headers is Swain's white lightning. It's put on like .020" thick, and actually keeps a ton of heat inside the header. This is coming from experience, not just what i've heard on the internet.

uhm. That isnt paint. It is a ceramic coating done by professionals. If it was paint then they'd just sell it, why would they make you have them do it. If they charged $160 to paint a set of headers, they'd be out of business in no time. Did I EVER say "paint", "jet hot", or anything about that. If you read the site, they have thoroughly tested their coatings against heat, abrasion, and salt.
"OXIDATION RESISTANCE:
No coating defects, slight discoloration 500 hours at 1,000 ° F
CYCLIC OXIDATION/CORROSION RESISTANCE 6 cycles : 1,000 ° F for 16 hours then salt spray (ASTM B 117) for 32 hours:
No Coating defects
ABRASION RESISTANCE (Fed. Test Method Std. No. 142):
Greater than 150 litres of sand per mil (.001 ") of coating thickness
"SALT SPRAY TEST (ASTM B117):
No red dust - 1,000 hours"
This is NOT a paint.
I've been to the place, I've talked to the employees, they know what they're doing, they're not some ripoff company who goes to home depot, buys a can of high temp aluminum paint and paints your manifolds then charges you 160 bucks. If you dont know what ceramic coating is and know what it does you dont know shit so shut up.

uhm. That isnt paint. It is a ceramic coating done by professionals. If it was paint then they'd just sell it, why would they make you have them do it. If they charged $160 to paint a set of headers, they'd be out of business in no time. Did I EVER say "paint", "jet hot", or anything about that. If you read the site, they have thoroughly tested their coatings against heat, abrasion, and salt.
"OXIDATION RESISTANCE:
No coating defects, slight discoloration 500 hours at 1,000 ° F
CYCLIC OXIDATION/CORROSION RESISTANCE 6 cycles : 1,000 ° F for 16 hours then salt spray (ASTM B 117) for 32 hours:
No Coating defects
ABRASION RESISTANCE (Fed. Test Method Std. No. 142):
Greater than 150 litres of sand per mil (.001 ") of coating thickness
"SALT SPRAY TEST (ASTM B117):
No red dust - 1,000 hours"
This is NOT a paint.
I've been to the place, I've talked to the employees, they know what they're doing, they're not some ripoff company who goes to home depot, buys a can of high temp aluminum paint and paints your manifolds then charges you 160 bucks. If you dont know what ceramic coating is and know what it does you dont know shit so shut up.

Go jump on my ass for one little typo :rolleyes: Paint, coating, spray, whatever you want to call it IT PEELS OFF. I have run this coating on 7 or 8 cars of mine, and if you drive the car on the street at all (read: heat cycling the header(s)) this stuff peels off within a year. As for the "you don't know shit so shut up" I'd like to give you a big fuck off. If everybody was as handicapped as you and took everything any company said as gospel we'd all be driving around with spiral-maxes on our car. Untill you've actually had a product on your car, don't go by shit the OWN COMPANY says about THEIR product to determine if it's good or not.

Good god, after reading that page you don't even have to be smart to figure out how badly that WILL peel, if you've never had that shit on your car before. "The aluminum-ceramic matrix provides continuous protection up to 1,200 ° F (650 ° C) and will endure intermittent exposure to 1,500 ° F (815 ° C)" 1200 degrees, gee-whiz, that will NEVER peel off. CRUISING at 70 MPH in my car I see 1250-1300 degree EGT's, and my probe is about an inch and a half off the turbo on the downpipe. I'm sure it's much hotter on the manifold. But yeah, you're right. Even though you've never used this before, the company told you it's a good product and it'll never peel, so you're right and it'll never peel. :rolleyes:

If this shit peels off, why would professional race engine builders put it on VALVES, PISTON FACES, AND COMBUSTION CHAMBERS?!?!?!?! the LAST thing a professional engine builder would put in an engine is big ol flakes of metal!
http://www.bacomatic.org/~dw/index.htm
Read all those engine builds. Almost all of them have ceramic coated pistons,chambers and/or valves. He's never had any complaints. AND even if it DOES peel off after a year(which I HIGHLY doubt) then its still worth it... 160 bucks a year for me to keep my v8 performing its best? worth every penny. And you're all running 4bangers, so its even cheaper for you.

Oh, and how would your manifolds be hotter than the thing thats heating them? That just doesnt make sense.

http://www.sdsefi.com/techheader.htm

A turbo header built by a professional racers, and its not being sold so no reason to discredit it! AND its ceramic coated! who coulda guessed? oh that was me. Sorry. I know people who run this exact coating from airborn coatings and they're still runnin strong. If you're are peeling, maybe its time to find a new company to coat yours. I've talked to dozens and dozens of people and no one has anything bad to say against a quality ceramic coating.

And if it was such a bad thing, why would you have run it on 7 or 8 of your cars? Must be horrible stuff.

If this shit peels off, why would professional race engine builders put it on VALVES, PISTON FACES, AND COMBUSTION CHAMBERS?!?!?!?! the LAST thing a professional engine builder would put in an engine is big ol flakes of metal!
http://www.bacomatic.org/~dw/index.htm
Read all those engine builds. Almost all of them have ceramic coated pistons,chambers and/or valves. He's never had any complaints. AND even if it DOES peel off after a year(which I HIGHLY doubt) then its still worth it... 160 bucks a year for me to keep my v8 performing its best? worth every penny. And you're all running 4bangers, so its even cheaper for you.



Silver polished 1300 degree ceramic coating is much different from 2000 degree black ceramic coating and swains 2000+ degree poly-moly, gold-coat, and PC-9. The silver polished coatings are for "bling-bling" factor, that's IT.


Oh, and how would your manifolds be hotter than the thing thats heating them? That just doesnt make sense.

I don't have a clue what you're talking about here, how about you go into more detail.


http://www.sdsefi.com/techheader.htm

A turbo header built by a professional racers, and its not being sold so no reason to discredit it! AND its ceramic coated! who coulda guessed? oh that was me. Sorry. I know people who run this exact coating from airborn coatings and they're still runnin strong. If you're are peeling, maybe its time to find a new company to coat yours. I've talked to dozens and dozens of people and no one has anything bad to say against a quality ceramic coating.

LOL, a turbo header built by professional racers. SDS builds EFI boxes, NOT turbo manifolds. That pile of crap doesn't even have a merge collector, the welding is rough and horrible, how can you even try and call it a race header. And you've "heard" from people that this stuff doesn't people. Are you sure this doesn't mean "I've made up that i've heard from people who have this to try and prove me right" :rolleyes:[/b]

And if it was such a bad thing, why would you have run it on 7 or 8 of your cars? Must be horrible stuff.

I've had 3 turbo tech kits, 1 limit engineering (maybe this is before your time, they made mustang turbo kits in the early 90's) twin low mount kit, 1 cartech kit, and a handful of cars with ceramic coated BBK shorties and almost single one of the coatings peeled off. On some of them I just left it bare and it was fine, but on others (like the TE kit and my cartech twin kit) I had the silver crap blasted off and then swain coated because the headers were too close to wires and lines and they were melting them.

well boosted, that doesn't really make any sense to me.. after the first few times it peeled off, shouldn't you have started looking for a different coating??

Whatever. You go your way, I'll go mine. There is no point with argueing with you, neither of us is going to change our opinions. You have yours, I have mine. I like mine. I don't care if you like it or not... I'm sticking with it, and I'll continue to recommend it. If anyone takes mine, yours, or anyone's advice for gospel, especially over the internet, they are fools.

woah woah woah.. so you're saying not to fully believe anything you're saying? that's a little unsettling

Quite the contrary! "I have mine. I like mine. I don't care if you like it or not... I'm sticking with it, and I'll continue to recommend it"
I have full belief in myself and my sources(everything I research is cross checked through professionals who have nothing sell me) I'm just saying, no one should bet their engine on anything that anyone said on a forum online. If it is coming from a expert non-profit source, which I do not consider myself(you can if you want, I'll be flattered...), then yes I believe it. I live for cars and turbochargers, at least half my day is spent somewhere reading about, designing, or building cars/engines/turbo systems, and that is saying something for a college student. except weekends, 90% of my free time. My friend who helped me build my first engine who works at a Cobra replica company(or did until a few weeks ago, he quit because it was boring him) now frequently asks me for advice on building engines, as well as my older brother who was into this stuff over a year before me. But, my point is, I could be lying through my teeth right now and no one would be the wiser. Don't trust anyone you don't know - I've been on this forum for probably around a month at best, have less than 60 posts, so none of you can know me well at all. I know and trust dozens of people at the v8 forum I frequent, and I would base several important decisions entirely off of what they say. I won't mention the name of the forum for privacy reasons... last thing I need is a bunch of people I pissed off here goin there and startin shit!
The best thing you can do for yourself is to learn everything you can about engines. Not shit like... i heard this intake manifold was good, these rods suck, etc. Learn exactly how everything works, learn what all the cutting edge racing teams are doing... dont just memorize some article, KNOW what they are talking about. This is invaluable knowledge when it comes to forums and such, making it easy to sniff out bad advice... Here is an excellent source: http://www.grapeaperacing.com/GrapeApeRacing/tech/index.cfm
I'm currently studying mechanical engineering at UConn, and the knowledge I'm gettin from school also helps tremendously. I get to take Thermodynamics & Fluids and Physics next year... can't wait.

Boosted, I noticed you personally didnt have anything coated. Yours all came with your exhaust manifolds/headers. Companies are interested in making profits, they are not going to pay for a quality coating. I agree with you that if you buy a set of mass produced ceramic coated headers, the coating is trash and is just to make you go "oooh purty" and throw your money on the table. And if anyone is worried about temperature abilities of the airborn coatings place, go to jet hot and get your manifolds coated on the inside with their jet-hot 2000 stuff. Good to 2450*. Then you can get the outsides coated with the normal 1300* stuff, I assure you the outside of your headers will never get that hot with the manifolds ceramic coated on the inside. About SDS - if they're intelligent enough to design and build a proven racing EFI controller, I think its safe to say they know more than a thing or two about all aspects of engines. More than you or I, no doubt. Surely at least one of their employees have had ceramic coated headers, if they really were that worthless, why would they bother on those?

i trust you duplox :)

So do i man, that manifold seems like a great thing. Someone explain how that \_/ thing is not a merge collector?

Just a quick question though, if hes saying his EGT gauge is saying 1300° and that coating will last up to 1200°, how is it gonna last then if your driving under hard conditions? Is that stuff powder coated, cuz then it really doesn't add much of a thickness and its not like a paint, roughly speaking its resin melted into the metal through high electric charge of over 90,000 volts

Sorry to post 3 in a row, but i just re read this forum and it started out as one with a guy wanting to know what kinda turbo to get on his car. Id say Garrett t03/t04. Any objections please explain in a good maner. Also, does that coating really help you spool up quicker?

EGTs may intermittantly hit 1300* if you're on the gas, but I'm never at full throttle for very long at all. In less than 10 seconds I'm over a hundred mph, I don't know why I'd ever want to go faster than that on the street. With my car, cops will pull me over for ANY reason, so speeding isn't a wise idea. I find it hard to believe that he has 1300* EGTs cruising. Just imagine what they'd be near his redline on full boost, approaching top speed. Probably over 1600*. I'm sure you all drive different than me, so if you are a very aggressive driver, maybe you should shy away from the 1200* coating. The ONLY time my car sees WOT is perhaps the occasional stoplight, and that only lasts 3 or 4 seconds, or when i'm feelin dangerous on a straightaway. Well and of course the track... but thats under 11 seconds at a time, and i'm running water/alcohol injection there so it further cools the exhaust down, maybe to the point that it doesnt even reach 1200*.
as for high temps helping spool your turbo, I'll quote Corky Bell from his book 'Maximum Boost':
"..a high temperature is able to really kick a turbine up to speed quickly..."
"Heat Retention. Clearly, performance of the turbine is in part determined by the temperature of the exhaust gases. It is reasonable, then, to expend some effort toward getting the exhaust gas from the combustion chamber to the turbine with the least possible temperature loss"
Now that we know that exhaust heat is our turbo's friend, lets look at ceramic... Ceramic is a fantastic insulator. It is used in tile form on the nose of the space shuttle to prevent the heat of reentry from melting everything. If you have a ceramic tile, you can take a blowtorch, hold it on the tile for as long as you want, then take the flame away and grab the tile as fast as you can, it wont burn you. In all practical sense, it does not absorb or transfer heat. Now since this is just a .020" thick aluminum-ceramic coating and not a ceramic tile, it will transfer heat, but it will greatly reduce the ammount of heat transfer.

Here is the difference between a merge collector and a normal collector:
http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/0304_merg/
A merge is only worth a few HP over normal on a NA car, and I'd say even less on a turbocharged car.
If you really wanted to, you could easily weld up a a little pyramid shaped thing right in the middle, oversizing it a bit, then go to town with the grinder and make it match up nice to the ports. Honestly, when its going RIGHT into the turbine like that one, I doubt that will make a difference anywhere near worth the effort.
That header there is leaps and bounds ahead of any log type cast iron manifold.

"That pile of crap doesn't even have a merge collector, the welding is rough and horrible, how can you even try and call it a race header."
Most manifolds don't have merge collectors. Few do. The welding is not rough and horrible, what are you talking about there? I never called it a race header.

Ya id have to say that welding is pretty good also. with all this talk of ceramics, its made my go find my nots from intro to cermaics i took last semester. Ok when ceramic material is first fired, it needs to get up to 1875° in order to become solid. Then you would fire it again at 2375° in order for it to be at the form all of you know. So that means a clay pot can be heated up to 2300° and not much will happen. If your exhaust is that hot, wow u got some other issues with your car than your manifold. Now i realize this is ceramic-alunimum, i dont quite know what that exactly means but im guess its a compound of clay and alunimun so it probably can handle less than 2300, so at 1300 im pretty sure that coating will be fine and so will your metal. Ya that merge collector could easily be made if you really absolutly had to have it

well I'm not too worried about any coatings... manifold is either going to be steel, or cast iron, with a steel downpipe.. tubing for the turbo will be Aluminum, since I like the Idea of my car losing weight rather than gaining more weight to it's 3400lbs dry weight. and I was originally thinking of the t3/t04e turbo anyways, but was not sure about the spool up... have has others post about turbos they have that only give boost above 4k rpms. and for my accord that only gives me 2500rpms of boosted drive, which means about 3-5 seconds of time between shifts.

if you get a properly sized A/R housing for your intake and exhaust, you will have no spool up problems.... all t3/t04 turbos are not the same, the housings can be changed around to give you whatever a/r you want.

so what rpm are you suggesting the turbo would be spooled at if you got the right size then duplox?

3500 would be a nice RPM to be spooled at, but would it hold boost after 6000RPMS? car only has a 65000rpm rev limit.

errr uhh... i think you got one too many 0's there..

I wish it had a 65000 rpm limit.... that'd be better than an indy car (19,000rpms).. yeah 6500 RPM limit on my accord.. my new R/C engine goes at about 42,000 rpms...