Quick Question about turbo

E

Evilcowboy420

New member
Joined
May 20, 2013
Messages
160
Reaction score
0
Points
0
I have seen the little turbo sunbirds and always thought it was a cool idea but since mine came as a base sedan of course I have no turbo.

So now the question and it may sound dumb but what would it take to install a turbo on mine. since the engine is the same and all there has to be some way of installing one. Also would a turbo from a donor car of the same model year work? does the cavity have enough room for it?

Ok thats a couple of questions but not sure if anyone out there has done this.

Also I have heard that the GM 122 Engine wasn't all that great for turbo and most people say just leave it alone but I am a guy and its a car so that automatically makes it to where I can't leave it alone lol.
 
I saw a super charger on ebay for the 3.4 and was thinking the same things.
 
Someone here was looking for a whole motor for a swap, not many found in good shape.Look for one here................www.car-part.com 1990 or earlier

92 and up 2.0 regular motor had the same cam as the turbo motor. thats all I can tell you............................:confused:

Doug in P.R.:cool:
 
Last edited:
I'd be leary about slapping a turbo on a engine that was not built with it in mind. Typically a turbo engine will have lower compression pistons then a naturally aspirated engine, it also may have forged pistons and connecting rods and crank.
______________________________
 
melsg5 said:
I'd be leary about slapping a turbo on a engine that was not built with it in mind. Typically a turbo engine will have lower compression pistons then a naturally aspirated engine, it also may have forged pistons and connecthing rods and crank.
Click to expand...

Ahhh I didn't think of the pistons before asking this question so basically to be safe I would need a whole new block?

Yeah don't think i'd be doing that lol. I've done enough to this engine I don't need to create work for me to do lol.

Maybe a long time from now when the engine needs another overhaul then I may just swap it out. But thats a long time from now.

After talking to my wife she wants to go the other direction and try and make it really good on fuel economy. So I will be putting a cat back on (the person before me removed it) firgure out some kind of warm air intake and anything else I can think of to make it better on fuel economy.

Really I wasn't thinking I'd be able to pull too much out of a small OHC 4 banger but I guess wishful thinking lol.
 
You gotta totally build the engine for that from the bottom up. Never on an old motor.
 
Plus you would need the computor from the Turbo car too.;)

I would of ported the head while you had it apart, swap in the turbo / 92 or up cam, You could pick up some HP there. I dont know about a catback system since the stock muffler is loud anyways it might not be restrictive. Not sure a bigger rear pipe would fit under there either............... They still make chips for the OBD 1 computors , I think....................

Stick or auto is yours?

Doug in P.R. :cool:
 
Last edited:
Yeah I thought about swapping the cam but wasn't sure if it would cause any problems since the wear pattern on the rocker tops would have been different. But then again I could have used new rockers I think they are only a couple bucks at the parts store.

Yeah my muffler is pretty loud but don't have a bad sound the guy before me removed the cat and its ok sounding but I did want to change the sound a bit........maybe a resonator???

Mine is an auto I am sorry to say. I love stick but this car when I bought it jumped out at me. Its really funny I didn't like pontiacs but it is a car that can grow on ya. Mainly because of my experiences with a couple grand ams I use to own. One cracked the block and blew the gasket and the other the tranny got stuck in neutral and wouldn't go lol.

I guess those cars gave me a bad idea of pontiac but after I thought about it for a while I started thinking about the one with the cracked block and reminded myself it ran for a year with the block that way (yeah I use to be quite ignorant to cars when I was younger). So I jumped on the chance when I started reading the reviews of my bird from that year and was really impressed by how many people loved the car.

Now most of the stuff I did to mine didn't really need to be done but I figured while I had it off I might as well do the overhaul and it would make me feel better.

Final part will be in tomorrow for the engine bay which is the radiator and its gonna be 90 here but oh well. Then after that I will probably just do a TBI rebuild as the last thing. Then I can get to work on cosmetics.

She's been quite the project but she was worth it especially since I look at any and all car work as a great learning experience. I love doing the work and even if its as small as an alternator job which I have done countless times.

Still looking for another car to really trick out either something like old model camaro, T-bird, or just an old 40 olds with a straight 8 in it. but I may have to settle on just tricking out a dirt bike with a small 2 stroker depends on my finances as time goes by. And there I go again posting an entire book lol.
______________________________
 
Evilcowboy420 said:
Yeah my muffler is pretty loud but don't have a bad sound the guy before me removed the cat and its ok sounding but I did want to change the sound a bit........maybe a resonator???.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of dropping my muffler, Cutting it open on the top like Jesse James did on his Figure 8 car he built a few years ago,( Flowmasters , gutted them) and if possible, stuff it full of stainless steel wool or fiberglass to quiet it down bit. All depends what it looks like inside................:confused:

Doug in P.R.:cool:
 
Nice I bet it would come out pretty decent. I have heard about tons of people using the ol steel wool method with a lot of positives. Some actually prefer the sound much better.



92 Sunbird LE said:
I was thinking of dropping my muffler, Cutting it open on the top like Jesse James did on his Figure 8 car he built a few years ago,( Flowmasters , gutted them) and if possible, stuff it full of stainless steel wool or fiberglass to quiet it down bit. All depends what it looks like inside................:confused:

Doug in P.R.:cool:
Click to expand...
 
I put a four into one pipe on my Street Bike and I was thinking about using the old dual mufflers on my six banger after I split the pipes. They sounded pretty good on the bike! I saw a review of my '92 on KBB when I checked the value. This guys got one with 500K and still going!
 
500k holy crap lol :eek:

TrojanMan said:
I put a four into one pipe on my Street Bike and I was thinking about using the old dual mufflers on my six banger after I split the pipes. They sounded pretty good on the bike! I saw a review of my '92 on KBB when I checked the value. This guys got one with 500K and still going!
Click to expand...
______________________________
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top