Turboing Spec V question

I drive an 02 Spec V with CAI/Header/Exhaust atm, and am gonna get a midpipe very soon. I am thinking I’m prob gonna turbo instead of VQ swap. Here’s my question. Is there anything I should do to the engine before I slap a turbo on or are they bolt on to stock engine as the ads say? On the flipside, is there anything I shouldn’t bolt on before a turbo? I know I’ll be taking the header off if I turbo.

why whould u do that? spend another 4 grand! why dont u buy an sti, dont get me wrong spec v’s are awesome, but you never get your money back in mods. if you buy a car that is aleady fast stock and add a few minor mods, you will not loose as much money. if you have the cash go for it, ill buy your header! you just got it right (ssautochrome), turbo is sweet but more problems i guess, look at what chasenyadown is going thru!

I paid 16k for sentra (I kno I got hosed some but eh you live and learn) 5k for turbo. What can u get for 21k that’ll push 280 whp? STI=300 bhp… But they’re 50k new… Spec V new 22k. SRT-4 new 28k for 230 bhp. I won’t have the cash for a turbo til prbos Dec/Jan just speculating here.

oh yah but you know what i mean right? i still think it would be sweet to have a turboed spec v as there pretty cheap and run pretty well, but if i was going to spend another 5 grand id just sell my car and buy another one that is faster for 5 grand more if i can get my hands on a good one, the less mods the better because you will get more money for it in the end. sorry im not much help tho good luck

Man are you thinken I bought the car cash? Cuz I’ll tell you right now I didn’t just have 16k in hand to buy it. I’m financing it til I’m old and wrinkled (2010).

haha shitty, i owe 6000 left, im hoping to have it paid down by next summer forsure.

work a night time job part time(pimp out your ladies haha) haha jk , i had to throw that in

I prob should put every spare dollar I have into buying out my car so I save myself an assload in interest but eh… Gotta have some fun right?

exactially why im modding mine haha, i COULD pay it all off, BUT i want to have some fun too.

How long have you had your spec?

P.S. this post got off topic very quick haha

i say turbo that sexy girl, but i love nissans and would pick a nissan over anything

i bought my car about 2 months ago for 17000 has 4 yrs warrenty left and i have a set of winter rims and rubber. i had 10 000 saved when i bought it ive payed off 1000 since i bought it. amd o hope to have the rest payed off by next summer at the latest.

That’s beauty man! I put 2000$ down payment haha. I was gonna wait til I had 8k to put as down payment. But I got sick of driving my lil 89 Civic beater around and I went out and bought my Spec.

Well, if you go turbo, pretty much all your exhaust mods are useless now, since you will need a 3" for best results. Also, slapping on a turbo is not as easy as it sounds, you have to know how it works and how to maintain it. Don’t expect to spend 4k on a kit and that will be that. You will still need to tune it, buy shit like gauges, pods, new tires, etc.

Personally, I would not go too crazy with a car that I still owe moneys on, perhaps save up, pay off the spec and go from there. I was fortunate enough to pay cash for my used 02.

BTW, look into a Supercharger there is less maintenance then a turbo and is a lot more reliable, from what I’ve read anyways.

BMASON,

I drive an 02 and it’s been turboed for 40k kms now. My problems have been minimal and given that I’m even on the dreaded 02 platform, I think I’ve succeeded in proving the doubters wrong. Recently I’ve even run 11psi for track night, putting down roughly 320 whp on the stock block. On the Vboard there is also another guy named KAV. He’s actually had his turbo on for even longer than I have and it’s still going strong.

My issues? I’ve had some MAFS problems because of oil contamination on the sensor. Took me a while to figureout the cause and ended up blowing a few expensive sensors, but since I fixed the issue it’s been perfect. Even runs harder now. My really only other tubro related problem is that the hose onmy fuel pump vibrated off inside the pump. The fix was free, but finding it was a little frustrating at the time because I didn’t knwo where to start looking. But just last week I had a guy in Ohio with the same kit in as mine write me about similar problems. When I told him where to look it literally took him 20 minutes to realize he had the same issue. And in the end the fix was free.

My point is that, yes you’re going to have ot do some tweaking. And there’s certainly a learning curve to owning a turboed car that wasn’t a turboed car from the factory. But anyone who expects that there won’t be issues when you do this is not thinking straight. But usually if you’re patient the issues are usually easily dealt with. I mean a vacuum line disconnected can make your car not run, but if you know what to look for and what the symptoms are then things like that are easily found.

And the comment that chasenyadown is having all these problems, well regardless of what was written about his issues, outside of the kit itself, he’s had some turbo problems. I know 4 different guys who got a turbo right out of the box and had issues with it. And that was froma few different manufacturers. But to add to that, you need to respect that certain things need to be done to operate these vehicles and expect a certain level of reliability. Tuning: You can’t slap a turbo kit on, drive it around untuned and then be surprised when shit goes wrong. When I put my kit on it was tuned so rich that after less than 500 kms the oil was so thin it was practically useless and was basically contaminated with fuel. After it was tuned, no more issues. However, I still check my oil regularly and change it quite often to avoid any chance that the oil will break down prematurely. I mean, you not only have to think about it running through an engien now, but it’s also running through - and protecting - a $1400 turbo. And at 30k + RPM your turbo will be less forgiving of crappy fluids than your engine will.

As for reliability, I’ve driven mine across canada now 4 times, and I don’t exaclty baby it. You need to do things to ensure it’s going to maintain good driveability. I always take tools with me on long trips and extra lines and clamps and so on. But as for regualar maintenance, all I’ve really done in the 2+ years I’ve had this kit is change the oil a whole lot of times and swap out the plugs 2 or three times a year. Small price to to pay for a car that came stock with 150 whp that now runs over 300 daily.

Ran a 12.9 at the track last week and then drove the car on a 150km day trip the next day. Didn’t worry me one bit.

Anyway, if you want some more specific questions answered and you’re serious about doing this then post it up drop me a PM. I jsut ahte seeing one person have somethign go wrong witha turbo kit and suddenly ALL kits are money pits and trouble and not worth it. Well I say bullshit. And there are lots of people who can prove it on this baord alone, including me. But also, dont’ expect to buy a turbo kit, slap it on and then never have to pop the hood again and then be surprised when something goes wrong. It will and you’ll only have yourself to blame for not keeping an eye on things, which is a pretty small expectation of time investment to check your oil now and then and go over a few clamps to make sure their tight, just to keep your car running A1.

Anyhow, I hope that helps you somewhat. I mean yeah you could go out and buy an SRT-4. Fast cars and dont’ get me wrong, with a stageIII, they are real quick. But I have a car that I’ve seen grandmothers drive, and I beat up on V8s all the time. The best part is most of them think it’s just another riced up import. Oh the fun. :wink:

Good luck with your decision.

Great post.

Also, no one would expect a sentra to blow your doors off at the line. :wink:

agreed, i raced a rsx and a lancer, and killed them off the line.

Actually that’s becoming a problem… once you start boosting past 8-9 psi on these things, traction off the line is not your friend. :slight_smile:

At the track of course slicks are almost mandatory, but that’s usually the way it ends up once you get over 300who on a front wheel drive. But I’ll take that. :wink:

Actually that’s becoming a problem… once you start boosting past 8-9 psi on these things, traction off the line is not your friend. :slight_smile:

At the track of course slicks are almost mandatory, but that’s usually the way it ends up once you get over 300who on a front wheel drive. But I’ll take that. ;)[/quote]

I don’t plan on going past 8psi or attending the track too often. :slight_smile:

So where to begin, lets start with Silverboost:
Yeah Stephen you’re right it is a bit suspicious that your sig is deleted after a year, and the reason it was deleted was beacuse of this. Ryan (ragerman) made me a Powertech Performance Sig about 2 months ago and Dave(deathby240) deleted it, so if you scroll down to the bottom of the forum index (I think) you will see a moderators section, and yeah I was pissed off that I am a mod on the board and no one let me know that I needed to change it and just deleted it, I was a little embarresed having a sig saying: “Sig deleted by moderator, please read forum rules” when really the only place in this forum I post is the FWD section, and it looks like I deleted my own sig, when really it should read “Sig deleted by admin., please read forum rules”, 'cause mods can’t delete sigs only admin’s can. So, in the moderators section I got a little pissed that I get my sig deleted that I had for 2 months yet someone in the same forum has virtually the same sig as myself for over a year and it seems to be fine so you can (I suppose) blame me for it being deleted.

AND with my car you are right again Stephen, I have had problems with my Turbo, aside from my issues with Powertech Performance (Imports), but, I have never said going Turbo was bad, I fucking LOVE my car, but when a company does not deliver on their agreements with a customer, a customer has the right to inform others of their…experience.

I want to get EVERYTHING out in the open right now, the Turbo kit that I have on my car is amazing and at 3 psi it would still BLOW the doors off of a fully modded N/A Spec V. my Spec (Untuned, on a dyno, but street tuned with my LM-1 Wideband) is an amazing car, yes Powertech Performance has not been the easiest company to deal with, I think pulling out my own teeth would be easier some days (quite honestly), but my Turbo kit is awesome, I have driven in a Spec T from Calgary to Thunder Bay, and back, at pretty much 160 km/hr (or faster) with no issues, Stephen got a nice $300+ Speeding ticket to prove it on the way home (2km/hr under a mandatory court appearance), more people have had to get their engines replaced N/A due to butterfly screw eating, catalytic converter sucking engines than Turbo Spec V owners ever have had to. most people who own a Spec V own one because they are a 4 door ECONOboxes that can compete with A LOT of car, but for an additional 5-6k CDN for a turboed Spec V you will be in the top 5%o of fast cars on the road. Sure you won’t have the traction of an AWD car at a stop but you will have one of the most unique cars in the city and when you step on the gas and give the driver in the car next to you a heart attack from the sound of your car it will to no end put a smile on your face. Spec T’s literally have proven to be more reliable than any Spec V. as of yet.

Sure my car has no Turbo because it is back at its manufacturer getting looked at, but honestly this car is a beast and is hard to fuck with, if you want to go boost than do it. Also, all I can say is a car is worth as much as you buy it for so if you paid X amount for it than that is what it is worth, also if you seriously want a Spec T sell your Spec V and buy mine off of me, I may very well end up keeping my Spec V, but at the same time, I am now officially addicted to my Street Bike and would love to buy a Nissan Titan or Frontier, then buy a boat down the line, 'cause you can’t get speeding tickets on the water.

You have lots to think about, but just remember, a car is worth as much as it is worth to yourself.