Honda B-series turbo kits

[sleepydsm]

Hey, anyone have any experience with any B series turbo kits? My friend wants a turbo kit for his 2000 Civic Si, and he doesn't know which to get. I suggested the Turbonetics kit because it looks solid, but what do you guys think?

Yes, I am aware this is a DSM Forum. I'd probably get a better answer here than on MNSC.

[Kougar]

Just for more choices, I guess Boost Factory came out with a kit for the B series engines. Mani, DP, and Lines for $350 I believe?

[Jakey]

Talk to Shane, I'm sure he can give you plenty of advice.

[Black97civic]

I have heard good things about the edelbrock kit. Comes with everything, including a new intake manifold that a lot of people buy even if they don't go with that kit.

[Jakey]

Now that I think about it, didn't Joe & Ryan (the Hudson boys) put together a Honda turbo kit quite cheaply about a year ago?

[Shane@DBPerformance]

The best option is to piece one together and do a Hondata for engine management and bigger fuel injectors.

The Turbonetics kit isn't too bad, but most kits use some kind of halfass way to do fuel and timing control(if at all). The Turbonetics kit uses an Aquamist additional injector controller setup to add fuel by having 2 fuel injectors spray into the upper intercooler pipe. It is somewhat tunable with that box. It also uses an MSD BTM to do timing retard versus boost pressure. This type of setup is no where near as elegant as a Hondata or AEM EMS, but it is actually one of the more complete setups as far as Honda turbo kits go. A lot of them just use an FMU, which isn't tuneable without swapping discs and nothing for timing retard. The turbonetics kit uses a decent size turbo.

The Edelbrock kit is okay, it uses additional injectors on the back of the supplied intake manifold to supply fuel. The fuel delivery to those injectors and timing are controlled by a Link systems box. The box isn't reprogrammable without purchasing a bunch of other hardware and software. I have done conversions to Hondata on cars with that kit before, when they wanted more boost/tunability. The turbo that I have seen with that kit is a bit on the small side and internally gated.

[blageo23]

Originally Posted by ecoli

The best option is to piece one together and do a Hondata for engine management and bigger fuel injectors.

What would you suggest for turbo, injector size and whatnot?

[Jakey]

If it happens to be 450s, I have a set I'll sell real cheap.

[Shane@DBPerformance]

Originally Posted by blageo23

What would you suggest for turbo, injector size and whatnot?

Depends on the power and RPMs that the car will run. Most modern Hondas run high impedance fuel injectors. You can usually get up to 440cc injectors for fairly cheap. RC has started making high impedance fuel injectors larger than 440cc in the last year or so. If you want to run low impedance injectors, like 450s from a DSM(extremely cheap). Then you need a resistor box or you can wire individual resistors into each injector pigtail. I would look into running something at least the size of a 50-trim. Often kits designed for the 1.6l motors will run a smaller exhaust side like a .48 T3. Turbo choice will depend a lot on how you want the car to respond, are you going to rev it to 8500 all the time or do you want it to start spooling as right away for auto-x use. The GT28RS aka Disco Potato used in some of the Edelbrock kits makes a few pounds of boost pretty much instantly from just about any RPM and then slowly spools from there like normal(a lot of dual ball bearing turbos do this).

Doing Hondata on an OBD2 car can be a little spendy though, you first need to convert the car back to OBD1 with a conversion harness and get a socketed OBD1 ECU.

[Black97civic]

www.homemadeturbo.com

These guys have lots of info about making your own turbo setup, and lots of manifold fabrication stuff as well.

[sleepydsm]

Originally Posted by ecoli

Depends on the power and RPMs that the car will run. Most modern Hondas run high impedance fuel injectors. You can usually get up to 440cc injectors for fairly cheap. RC has started making high impedance fuel injectors larger than 440cc in the last year or so. If you want to run low impedance injectors, like 450s from a DSM(extremely cheap). Then you need a resistor box or you can wire individual resistors into each injector pigtail. I would look into running something at least the size of a 50-trim. Often kits designed for the 1.6l motors will run a smaller exhaust side like a .48 T3. Turbo choice will depend a lot on how you want the car to respond, are you going to rev it to 8500 all the time or do you want it to start spooling as right away for auto-x use. The GT28RS aka Disco Potato used in some of the Edelbrock kits makes a few pounds of boost pretty much instantly from just about any RPM and then slowly spools from there like normal(a lot of dual ball bearing turbos do this).

Doing Hondata on an OBD2 car can be a little spendy though, you first need to convert the car back to OBD1 with a conversion harness and get a socketed OBD1 ECU.

I'm pretty sure the guy who wants the turbo kit for his Si would be happy with the increase a basic turbo kit would have. He knows it won't be that fast, he just wants to make his car at least respectable. He'll be on the stock engine for awhile, basically.

What are some basic things he could do to prolong his internals with low boost (6-8psi)? I'm talking about things like a thicker headgasket, or a rising rate boost sensing AFPR, etc

[Shane@DBPerformance]

Rising rate FPRs are called FMUs and are a ghetto way to go. The stock internals should be able to handle 6psi-10psi fine with a decent tune. The reason to goto something like Hondata and a bigger fuel injectors is to get safer tune. The ways that kits like the Turbonetics and Edelbrock handle fuel/timing are much safer than the old FMU approach, but not as perfect and reliable as doing a Hondata style setup. When you install any kit though, you will want to make sure that whatever fuel and timing system it comes with are actually working.