Hi all...
This is my first post so I thought I would start with my home made conversion. I know many people say turbo charging a 13a is pointless and unreliable but I like to tinker and I had the car and all the bits. I actually have had the car since near new - an 88 sierra with now 220k on the clock. Its been handed down and recently retired for the occasional bash on the beach. I always wanted to turbo a carby car and this was more an exercise to see if I could do it cheaply and actually make it work.
So firstly let me say the entire conversion cost me $500. Everything was fabricated in my garage and yes, it works! Surprisingly the power increase makes the car drive like a dream. Smoother, torquey and sounds ridiculous haha. Using the ass dyno i would say a conservative 30% increase in power. It actually moves out nicely
Toyota CT12 turbo running 5psi
S13 intercooler
webber 32/36
Electric pump/boost ref reg
So to keep it cheap and easy, I fabricated a 'J-pipe' to mount the turbo. Basically a piece of pipe from the standard exhaust manifold to the turbo. Added a bracket at the top to stop it moving then smashed out a dump pipe, cut up an old 2.5" exhaust system and plumbed up the lines. To avoid the $100 drain line from the local fitting place, I used copper pipe from bunnings and just braised fittings on and tapped a brass fitting into the sump. Water is easy to source and the oil feed came from the spare bung next to the oil pressure switch.
As for the carb, I filled the floats and copper coated all the gaskets. Boxed it up and bolted it on.
Fuel was simple - used a 14psi electric inline pump, swapped the breather and return lines around (the breather is twice the size) and used a boost referenced reg to send the unwanted fuel back. Base psi is about 4.5 and it rises 1:1 as boost increases.
I got most bits of gumtree and what I had laying around. It was fun and definitely worth it!
That picture is before I finished it... It now has the intake and the rocker cover breather feeds into the turbo inlet. This was essential as the crankcase would pressurise and pump smoke out the back on boost. And just in case you are wondering, I have been driving it everyday and I have not had a single issue... The little zook has a new lease on life.
Any questions, ask away!
Mike
