Junkyard turbo setup Nissan Bluebird

While completing my HPA EFI tuning course I decided to build a junkyard turbo setup to practice what I learnt

Engine is a Nissan KA24DE that is in a 95 nissan bluebird. The car had nothing going for it.... it didnt handle well, wasn't comfortable and not appealing to the eye but the engine was a solid 2.4lt twin cam and my reliable run about.

The install was going to be practical and as minimal as could be. I started by purchasing a second hand OEM Garret T25 turbo of a Nissan 180sx for $150 and intercooler of a Ford XR6 turbo for $50.

I couldn't purchase a off the shelf exhaust manifold and after removing all of the intake and headers I realized why! There wasn`t much room..... So I welded up a creation and bolted it to the OEM exhaust manifold that I hoped would work but went against all the science of gas flow. I located the turbo where the battery once sat and put the battery in the boot. Holes were cut through the inner guard to run the intercooler pipes, then back to blow through the Standard Maff..... again no work of art but Maff works perfecty in this configuration.

The OEM ecu was fitted with a Nistune board for the EFI control and innovate wideband for Lamda readings. I re scaled the ignition and fuel maps to provide extra resolution for the boost areas..... pulled some timing and fired it up.

First runs into the boost areas of the map I realised it was leaning out at 4000rpm so I fitted a walbro 255 fuel pump and re tested. It was safe between .80 and .75 lamda now but the 275cc injectors were maxed out to do it. I then sourced some 444cc injectors for $80 out of a S15 Nissan Silvia. I can now achieve .75lamda @ 70% @ 6000rpm.

The car has been road tuned using the road tuning techniques learnt and the car is now running 6-7 Psi and the power is a heap of fun. Turbo has spooled by 3500RPM in second gear 3000RPM in 3rd. The car is easily as fast than any stock turbo hot hatch I have driven and has been achieved with all in costs less that $2000.

Next step will be to replace the struggling clutch then dyno tune to see how far off my road tune is. I am looking for recommendations on a shop in Brisbane for some dyno time if anyone can help.

Future experiments will be to increase the boost and support with a home made water meth kit then tune in anti lag for shits and giggles. And of course I will take it down the drags and see what numbers it will pull.

I can highly recommend building up a cheap project like this as I have learnt every step of the process cheaply and never once worried about breaking the car. Now I can put the theory I have learnt into the golf R that`s on the shopping list!

Pictures of the build are below and yes the a/c still works if you spot the high pressure line.

I honestly get more of a kick out of seeing people do more with less than big $ builds. Good work.

Exhaust manifold volume really seems to kill boost threshold, considering you have more displacement than the turbo donor. What diamter is the exhaust?

Yes I imagine so. I used 40mm ID steam pipe bends. Out of interest..... What RPM has a SR20DET spooled to 7psi by?

hey paul, any further updates to this build or any others? Managed to dyno the Nissan?