T-4.....too big?

a guy that i work with has a pair of t-4 turbo's off of a late 80's early 90
s ford......like the turbo cougar or something...

he is looking to get rid of them, 350 for the pair, he decided to go with a larger single turbo setup.

what i am wondering is, i am toying with the idea of a B20B turbo setup. would a single t-4 be over kill for this motor? what would be the pro's and con's?

are you sure its a t4? Im pretty sure the t-birds came with a decent t3(im pretty sure the cougar is running the same setup, since theyre basically the same car)
imo a straight t4 is overkill. there will probably be a lot of lag before it spools up, and not as much boosting time as say a t3/t04e or a t3

shuold be T3s but no matter what it is don't waste your money

after you buy the turbo then what? set them on your desk and use it as a paper wight maybe get lucky and e-bay them or piece a turbo system together from junkyard parts and hope you get the fuel some what right and not blow your engine up

just remember turbos get a bad name becuase of people not knowing what they are doing

its very easy to blow enignes up or make a crappy running turbo car

save your money and buy a kit and have it tuned on a dyno

Originally posted by jeffie7
shuold be T3s but no matter what it is don't waste your money



just remember turbos get a bad name becuase of people not knowing what they are doing

its very easy to blow enignes up or make a crappy running turbo car

save your money and buy a kit and have it tuned on a dyno

I agree to a point....if youre new to it and are just buying parts and slapping them on your car without doing research then youre asking for it, and should just get a kit. but if you know halfway what youre doing then piecing a kit is a lot better than having to swap out the poor components that a kit uses(oil lines,fuel setup etc), and it can be done for the same price as a kit, or cheaper.

its not all that hard to do atlest if you understand turbos and how they work

but a home made system with bits and peices from all kinds of dif cars will never run anywhere near as good as a system that was made for the car running the same boost

my friends running a B18C with a custom turbo setup T3/T4 turbo Greddy intercooler/blow off valve custom piping and a VAFC

I have a B16a and Im planing on being able to milk his car with no problems then again Im spending more but you get what you pay for


anywho if you know what your doing and what a so so gain in power go for it but if you want to go real fast don't waste your money save up and buy all the right things later

all good things come in time

well, if i were to buy the turbos, i would sell one and keep the other. purchase a turbo manifold. scour junk yards for a flange for the turbo. have that welded to the manifold. get all of the piping to run everthing.
other items necessary:
blow off valve
turbo timer (so not to ruin the turbo by nuking the oil left inside3)
boost controller (keep that bust under control0
various guages (a/f, boost, oil pressure and temp, engine temp, you know the drill)
AEM PEMS
injectors
fuel pump
etc.

then install everything but the PEMS. take it to dallas mustang and pay the 75 bucks an hour for the dyno and tuning time. probably a little more. i'll install the PEMS there and have them dyno and tune it. i beleive that should take care of just about any problems that would be ran into. of course i will probably add an intercooler and the proper piping to keep the air temps down creating more power.

c'mon...im not just gonna bolt in a turbo and not have it tuned or anything like that. thats ignorant. and a waste of money. there isn't any need to school me on all that stuff. i could install it all myself. i plan on rebuilding the b20 myself. gonna put rods and pistons in it to help handle the boosted pressure. upgrade all fasteners to nothing other than ARP. probably go with a larger capacity oil pan to keep extra oil on hand. and an oil cooler wouldn't be a bad idea to help fight the added temperatures of running a turbo.

now back to the subject i originally asked about. is the T4 too big for the b20 (anyone know the redline on this motor?) the guy who has them...who is very automotive savvy says they probably wouldn't spool till like 3500 and i think the b20 redlines about 4500 or 5000 right? wrong? i always forget. which only leaves 1000-1500 rpm's in the boost range....not very smart. I'll probably go with a smaller turbo that will spool faster.

oh and another friend of mine drives a mustang GT and i speculate it puts out around 400+ hp...at the wheels. he wont give me any numbers though. and he tunes that himself. he is merely a phone call away.

jeffie7
and please leave your criticism somewhere else. Dont just come bashing everyone you see with posts such as these. the person you are bashing, could very well be quite auto savvy, and are just not as good in certain areas such as turbo sizing. the best thing you can do is constructive criticism, the whole paper weight comment was quite uncalled for, that is why people leave boards like these, cause of people like you dogging on them and giving negative reinforcement. this is a board intended to help people learn about cars and make the most with what they've got. so please think before you type next time.

I never said anything about getting all of the parts out of junk yards. items such as the turbo piping i had planned to source out. get from companies such as greddy and the like. i never said "i am getting all of my parts from a junk yard tell me how bad i am going to screw up"

I don't mean to sound like Im flaming you but 9 outta 10 people I've run across on message boards want to take a turbo some how hook it up and make it work then you see them post elsewhere about what is a CAI


as far as the use it as a paper wight thats what I would use it for I think for what your trying to do it would be too big of a turbo unless you plan on having a drag car as far as driving around the street go with a Mitsu 16G or a T3 from a 280ZX Turbo I think they also used them on 300ZX Turbos

as far as fuel systems go I would get a hondata with boost option and run higher flow injectors the main problem you will have is your fuel system I LOVE my hondata setup you can fully tune it they should make a chip for the B20 but Im not fully sure about that

2nd on the list of things I would worry about is the exhaust man and how the turbo/downpipe hook up make sure its ported really good

what intercooler are you looking into getting? my friends Greddy is really nice Im pretty sure its one of the higher end intercoolers they make for the most part I run from greddy but this I/C is really nice

my first car I took the intercooler of a conquest and used radiator hose/exhuast piping to run it had to cut the stock J pipe and use a torch and cut part of the car apart I also taped the waste gate rods and made it so I could shorten or make them longer shorter more boost longer less boost in the end I had a fully custom 50 bucks for the cone filter and 20-30 bucks for the I/C radiator piping but man was that car fast I ran 14PSI ran 14.1s with fuel problems and crappy tires low 13s would have been so easy if I put just a little money into it RRFPR and some tires ohwell sniff I miss that car

head over to www.zcar.com and do a search on N/A turbo cars in the 70-83 boards theres alot of people that have made there own custom setups you can get alot of useful links from there

now that is what i'm talking about. sorry to get so upset about that. i just hate when people respond like your first post. What was your first turbo car and what are you running now. i am having a hard time making a final decision on what to do. either way its gonna be tons of cash i'll be putting into this thing. does the hondata come with datalogging. i havn't really looked into the fully programmable ecu's just yet. i havn't actually looked that far into the turbo set-up i just have a general idea at the moment. the first hurdle is getting hte motor, trans, and ecu. then getting the rods and pistons in it and getting it in the car. I'll run hte straight b20b for a good year before i am able to put a turbo set up together to run on it.

I guess i should let you guys know what my ultimate goal for this car is. I want to retain somewhat of a sleeper look. there is a car shop around here called the next level and they are total idiots. i want to 1 be able to blow those guys off the map 2 keep up with and beat a few of the mustangs around here 3 get the respect i deserve from some of these guys. all while not having a mega bucks car on my hands.

if anyone has any ideas on how i should change my plans as far as motor goes please by all means....i am open for suggestions.

oh yeah. on the subject of the gsr trans. i really like the close ratio. if i had a smaller turbo that will spool faster, would it be ok. i've just heard from some people the ls tranny is a dog even with a turbo motor. i dont want the tranny to be the weak spot in the combo. thanks for all the help and keep it coming

trust me when I say if you have a 250+WHP civic you will fly thu the gears faster then you can think even with the LS if you have a SI/ITR you will just pretty much be racing yourself trying to shift fast enough
trust me when you have TONS of power you really want long gears

where do you live? my friend just dynoed his 99HX today it has a GSR engine with GSR trans he layed down 318WHP thats about 356 to the flywheel

take a ride in his car and that will give you an idea of 1 if you want a ITR/SI trans he has a stock GSR trans
2 if you really want a B20

if I were you I would buy a B18a/b/c and turbo that as far as money goes I still think over all if your going to get a new I/C piping and fuel system you still might be better off going with a kit like Fmax or drag gen 3 in the end it might be cheaper and you will know it will work

theres a guy in northen VA with a B18C5 running 450Wheel HP before NOS www.tempestracing.com check it out

my old car was a Datsun 280ZX Turbo such a fast pos =) heheheh
my car right now is a 95 DX civic coupe

I have a hondata ECU full exhuast 2.5" even a 2.5" racing cat stock 4-2-1 cast header 62mm throttle body cold air intake MSD plug wires my ECU is programed as a stock SIR rev limit is 8440 and vtech is 4800
as far as logging goes I can't answer that for you Im pretty sure you can theres many stages for the ECU from 300+ mine is $650 worth...
Civic SIR B16a Engine "1991" with a 91-92 or so LS trans

things that are in the mail right now

T3/T4 turbo with full piping made for a B16 in a 95 civic =) for fuel Im running the boost upgrade for the hondata ECU 3 bar map sensor 4 440cc injectors
the intercooler is a sparco I/C and blow off valve is a HKS

and while the car is down for the turbo Im putting another LS trans on the car and a racing clutch we figure the stock LS clutch will last about 1 week before melting if I baby it maybe 3-4 weeks

if you really want to go fast in the end make sure everything you buy even if it cost a good bit more is good for the future like say the I/C buy one not only big enough to keep your setup cool but also big enough to run 5-10PSI more if you wanted to upgrade your engine later

like I said if it was mine I would buy a B16/18A/B/C put that in the car then from there after driving it and saving more money up figure out what you want to do

atlest get the engine in the car

B engines can handle TONS of power my friends is fully stock and holds 318 with no problem and mine will push close to 300 goal is 280 but might hit 200 who knows... heheheh anywho its fully stock too

good thing about B16s if you blow it up you can buy another one for $1200 =)

do check out www.tempestracing.com you can see some of the things they have done with SOHC engines like the 1.5DX that runs 12s or the 1.6EX that runs lower 12s =) or the prelude that should have no problem running 8s "keep an eye open on TV for that car" such a sweet car

nothing like 600+WHP



Jeff