L1's Garage

I was told that 5 pounds of boost was good for a converted engine. Get the turbo, slap on a mechanical boost controller for 5 pounds, and go with it.

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Well then either wait or dont do it. N/A-T isn’t very practical.

Compared to the 18 lbs a base WRX can take its silly at best.

5 pounds is still greater than no pounds.

I’ll make recommendations or discussion based on what people want to do, and I may comment that I think there are better decisions, but ultimately it’s not my decision to make.

Do I think adding a turbo to a stock EJ25 is worth it? Not really. Would it be fun? Yes. My father owned a converted EJ22 Outback Sport. The car was a lot of work with it’s 10 pounds of boost, but it was a lot of fun in that little car.

EDIT: It was actually like 18 pounds, but I don’t really remember. It was a lot and I doubt the car would have made another 100,000 miles.

I’m not looking to boost it to 18lbs. I don’t see why it has to be an all-or-nothing deal. First order of business is just to make sure the car is in decent working order. I’ll worry about whether or not I attempt to boost it probably much further down the road.

I’ve found one WRX within a reasonable distance for $2.5k, but it has 218,000 miles and is a salvage rebuild. Tempting as it is, I’m not sure I want to have a look unless the RS falls through. I’m checking that one out tomorrow.
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I mean the extra 10hp in my opinion still falls under nothing. Not trying to be a dick just don’t think it’s smart. It’s perfectly fine to be N/A

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Seeing so many poorly maintained turbos really put me off the idea of a used wrx.

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Unless if the turbo shatters, which is rare, it’s pretty cheap to replace.

Didn’t want to deal with it when I wanted to get away from my pos jeep

Yes, but superchargers make less power given a certain max boost.

turbos have “lag” but it’s only on a turbo that’s not properly sized for the engine. Some of them do don’t spool until X rpm, but once they build boost, it’s more or less full boost through all the rev range.

Get the RS. you can always throw WRX parts in it.

Don’t tell me what’s practical and what isn’t! I’ve got nearly enough turbo parts laying around to make another Miata turbo. (assuming someone knows how to weld)

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Twin scrolls from what I understand are very unreliable. They have the same problem as rotary engines, to many parts sliding on each other, sure they have Teflon between said parts, but it still going to wear out. Definitely not trying to talk you out of it, just something I think you should know.

I’ve never messaged with a supercharger, so this is stuff I’ve heard about (could be wrong).

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They require rebuilding and rework, but I had a supercharged buick with a twin scroll. It was fine for 140k miles until I sold it.

That said, if I were to try to eek more than the 8psi it had from the factory out of it, I’d probably have issue.

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I don’t know if it was ever rebuilt, but my Volvo runs 16psi stock, and the odometer stopped at 170,000 miles 3 owners ago (5 or 6 years), and we beat it to death, and the turbo still felt great when I did the engine swap a couple years ago.
As long as you take care of a turbo it should last years of abuse… or maybe I got lucky IDK.

Well all the wrxs I looked at had wisps of smoke coming from the turbo after the test drive

Oh, that’s nothing. Just needs a rebuild. You should have acted like it was a big deal, demanded like $1500 off the car and spent the $150 in parts to rebuild the turbo.

If you have the tools, it’s maybe a 2 hour project to rebuild a turbo.

I might have gotten lucky. We did keep good synthetic oil in it.

Also that Swedish engineering haha.

I know the turbo was probably not made in Sweden.

That’s the thing I was buying a car because I was tired of having to always work on my car.

Hell I only installed my own stereo because some idiot quoted me $900

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Don’t buy a turbo car if you want maintenance free operation. Get something like a Honda Accord.

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I didn’t I bought an n/a Impreza, which I love

That works as well.