Kid Turbo - Turbocharger Kits

If you've read my other automotive performance articles (hint, hint), you know that what impresses me most is a highly tuned, ultra-efficient power plant. Today I'm going to share some of my twisted thoughts on the most potent efficiency booster of them all: turbochargers! I love turbos. I love them so much I changed my last name to Turbo (it used to be Lippschitz).

Turbos are pure magic. They turn a waste product—dirty, smelly exhaust—into raw horsepower and torque. And they do it all in the grandest of style! My heart skips a beat every time I slip into a turboed ride. I get high on the wail of the turbine, the pop of the blow-off valve as I shift, the fun of watching the boost gauge reach higher and higher, the thrill of being pressed into the driver's seat as I drive off, and most of all, the satisfaction of knowing that I'm getting more power out of my engine than its designers ever dreamed possible.

I can't even imagine how much better the world would be if we could turn waste gases into usable energy in other ways. Imagine a turbocharger for humans! Can you just imagine the possibilities? A marathon runner could load up on Taco Bell, strap a turbo on his back, and finish the race in half the time. But I digress.

Deciding to turbocharge your ride is a big decision, one that will transform your ride for the rest of its life. Turbos aren't cheap, but you won't find another bolt-on that adds as much raw horsepower and torque as a turbo. You'll also find that they transform who you are as a driver, too. Once you have experienced a high-performance turbo, a plain ol' naturally aspirated engine will seem kind of blah by comparison. You're bound to get hooked on that awesome, Knight Rider-like power boost. You'll shift differently. You'll get to work faster. In short, your whole driving style will change to make better use of your new toy.

As much fun as turbos are, they definitely command respect. A turbo taxes your engine like it's never been taxed before, forcing your engine to run much closer to its limits of endurance. Cross that invisible line, and you're looking at the possibility of catastrophic—sometimes spectacularly catastrophic—engine failure. I want you to have a turbo, but I want you to be knowledgeable enough to enjoy it for the life of your car. This means a few explanations about what you're getting into when you install a turbo system.

Whatever you do, don't just rush out and buy the first turbo kit that you see in a tuner mag. Before you invest, you'll need to plan out what you want for your ride in the long term. Do you want to keep your engine, or are you planning on a swap? Do you want to keep it streetable? Are there any particularly strict emissions laws that you'll have to deal with? Is your engine capable of handling the additional stress of a turbo? Is your fuel system up to the task? There are lots of questions, and the answers are sometimes a little hard to figure out.

One way to take a lot of the guesswork out of buying a turbo upgrade—and there can be a LOT of guesswork if you don't know exactly what you're doing—is to buy a pre-configured turbo kit made specifically for your application. The best advantage of getting a turbo kit is that you know that everything will fit and work well together. You'll benefit from increased power while still maintaining a healthy safety margin. If you do decide to put together your own "ultimate turbo" system, be prepared for tons of DIY headaches. Unless aftermarket turbo exhaust manifolds are available for your specific application, you'll need to have your piping and exhaust manifold custom fabricated, which alone can cost as much as a retail turbo kit. You'll have to match flange sizes, study compression maps, and tune dozens of other parameters on a trial-and-error basis. Unless you're a true tuner and are building a full-on race engine, you're probably much better off buying and accessorizing a pre-configured kit. There's no shame in that—even the Kid himself uses a bolt-on kit.

As you're planning your turbo installation, you should think about what accessories or upgrades you might want to add on in the future. Some kits include upgradeable components like blow-off valves, wastegates, intercoolers, boost controllers, and others that can be swapped out in the future as your needs change. It's a great idea to study up on the various components of a turbo system and leave yourself a way to upgrade in the future. I recommend the Turbo Kit Product Guide as a first read.

Pre-configured turbo kits are usually designed to work on stock engines, with stock internals and a stock fuel system. Most of them will supply injectors and other fuel management hardware if the manufacturer deems them necessary. If you simply want to push your engine without spending a ton on engine upgrades, consider that yet another reason to go with a kit.

Once you've planned out what you want your kit to do, it's time to make sure that your engine is up the job. The best candidates for turbocharging are healthy, low-mileage engines that haven't been stressed too much. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that 250,000-mile clunker in your old CRX just isn't going to last too long with a turbo. Make an appointment at your favorite shop and have them give it a once-over, install new spark plugs and plug wires, and run a compression check to test your rings, valves, and seals. Once your engine has gotten a clean bill of health from your tuner shop, you're ready to rumble.

Installing a turbo kit isn't particularly difficult, but given its serious nature, I'd highly recommend that you consider having it installed by a turbo specialist. The reason is that all turbo kits need to be properly tuned in order to maximize safety and efficiency.

Tuning is done at a dyno shop. If you've never had your car run on a dyno before, it's an enlightening experience. The dyno accurately measures the useful horsepower and torque your engine puts out, among other important statistics. The dyno shop will do a baseline run to check for leaks and proper wastegate operation, and then they'll do a series of tuning runs to dial in the boost controller, fuel management, and other tunable parameters. Dyno time usually costs about $80 per hour, and you can expect a proper tuning session to take anywhere from 1 to 4 hours.

Every turbo owner has fun, but if you follow my advice, you'll not only have fun, but you'll also have peace of mind, which goes a long way toward being a happy turbo owner in the long term. Your car will be safer, it will perform better, and when the day comes that you want to amp up your performance even more, you'll be confident that your engine has been treated well and is up to the task.