Im sure alot of you are thinking, oh no. Not another dreamer who comes online, posts ideas, then dosnt follow through.

Im not that person.

Ive been considering a serious NA build for a while, something along the order of 200fwkw. Spoken to a few about it, and my mechanic was willing to give it a ago pending some further research on my half.

Ive recently had an idea of a Turbo setup, and thought I might run it past you guys. In the past, the limitations of a single turbo setup was the throttle body being on the "wrong" side for a front mount. And also, the fact you need a new front bar to get a front mount working efficiently.

Well, my idea is a single turbo, fed into a water-air intercooler, then straight into the throttle body. Ill provide pictures.

Excuse the crap drawing, but it shoes the general idea.

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/7850/turboideard1.th.jpg (http://img413.imageshack.us/my.php?image=turboideard1.jpg)

Turbo will be located between the firewall and engine. Exhaust gas will be straight from where the extractors join together, then sent straight down the normal exhaust pipe path.

The compressed (the blue line) will go under the throttle body region, and into the water-air intercooler (yellow-orange line) Battery may have to move, however, it may still fit. A smaller battery may be needed.

From the intercooler, the air flows straight into the throttle body (green line).

The red line on the left side of the engine will be the air intake. This may fit on the right side however.

Things I havnt looked into in detail yet.

The size of the turbo, and if it will fit between the firewall and engine.
How expensive the custom piping will be
The ability to mount an extra front radiator for the intercooler (it should fit, its only small, and people have put front mounts there before)

I will run all this by my mechanic in the comin weeks. But, i wanted your guys opinions first

Why not air-air intercooler? Also turbo will fit above the gearbox, and throttle can be relocated to the other side of the manifold to pipe an intercooler in easily.

Turbo will fit above gearbox, but behind engine may be better for heat, and easier for exhaust piping.

I wasnt sure what was excatly involved in moving the throttle body to the other side.

And as for a front mount. Its a little trickier than most think to install. Also, with the stock bodykit airflow is going to be an issue. Water to air also has some advantages.

I have a GT28R mounted off the rear head, between the engine and the firewall. While there is a decent amount of room between the firewall and the engine, access is a major problem. Also - with all the pipes you are going to have converging on one point I'm highly skeptical that you will have room back there.

In my opinion you'd be better off bringing the exhaust from the rear manifold under the engine and up to the front, feed into a decent sized turbo occupying the space near where that big flared air intake is now, feeding directly into your water-air jobbie (you'd want to know the exact dimensions of this device before you even started).

Depending on the size and eventual position of your turbo, you might get away with running an intake pipe directly down and across 90 degrees allowing you to position your maf sensor and pod filter in the space behind the passengers side fog lamp (identical position to the air intake with certain designs of CAI).

Your battery will need to go to the boot.

I have considered going down this path as well.... It may still go ahead provided interest rates don't keep going up (it's getting difficult when you've got a mortgage and about to get married!!!)

I have enquired about the size of the turbo with GCG Turbos in Sydney, and they recommended a Garrett GT3076R with an 0.82 rear housing (rated at 600hp), either internal or external wastegate (I remember Boosted Booya ran a GT40R - 700hp internally wastegated, i think it's too big, unless you're intending to drag race). This size turbo will allow exceptional response and a nice top end (especially in a manual Magna). You could go smaller, however, will spool up too quickly and die off late in the rev range, this would be inappropriate as the TJ's are quite torquey from 2500-5000rpm anyway....

With custom fabrication, the turbo should fit between the firewall and engine.... another option is on top of the gearbox. Relocate the battery to the boot while you're at it. Good for your stereo too.

In regards to the radiator, you could always get a custom unit from PWR made up at the same time as a water-air intercooler for your application. The cooler should fit the front bar without too much mods (I think BlackBeard has a front mount behind the factory front bar with minor trimming - looks stealthy)

So here's a list of things you would likely need for a Single Turbo TJ with an internally stock motor (that I though of):

- Garrett GT3076R with an 0.82 rear housing (600hp) (or bigger if you want)
- External wastegate (if using externally gated model turbo)
- Slightly larger injectors (if you plan to run more than 7-10psi)
- Boost controller (Mechanical or electronic) and Engine management system (either full replacement or piggyback - personally i'd go for full replacement to give control in all areas)
- Custom intercooler (water-to-air or air-to-air), radiator and piping
- Air filter
- Upgraded clutch
- LSD (Quaife, Cusco or Ralliart models come to mind)
- Upgraded fuel pump (Walbro or Bosch)

These are the main items I can think of at the moment, but I'm sure there's more that will ensure that the Magna will run smoothly with these mods.

You need to ensure that tuning is spot on, otherwise you may risk blowing the motor up like some of the other Magna's here with forced induction.

All up this will give you a nice cruiser with the ability to mix it up with other performance cars on the road/track. My mechanic has figured that with such mods, the Magna should be able to crack 200kw@wheels and a bootfull of torque with plenty more in reserve if the tuning is correct and motor holds up.

All this should cost at least 10k (give or take) in total.

Hope this helps.

what about dropping a VR4 engine in and working that a bit?

I have a GT28R mounted off the rear head, between the engine and the firewall. While there is a decent amount of room between the firewall and the engine, access is a major problem. Also - with all the pipes you are going to have converging on one point I'm highly skeptical that you will have room back there.

In my opinion you'd be better off bringing the exhaust from the rear manifold under the engine and up to the front, feed into a decent sized turbo occupying the space near where that big flared air intake is now, feeding directly into your water-air jobbie (you'd want to know the exact dimensions of this device before you even started).

Depending on the size and eventual position of your turbo, you might get away with running an intake pipe directly down and across 90 degrees allowing you to position your maf sensor and pod filter in the space behind the passengers side fog lamp (identical position to the air intake with certain designs of CAI).

Your battery will need to go to the boot.

Just the man I was hoping to get advice from.

Turbo at the front, where you said is a resonable idea aswell. I thought about it, but, thought if it could fit, behind the engine would be better. However you say its a tight fit.

As for the water-air cooler, there a PWR unit, sold be tweakit in NSW (and im sure, many other companies) I have the size, and it will fit. I would be going for the larger intercooler, as apparantly, PWR tend to over rate their water intercoolers, ie 600hp intercooler is only good for about 400hp. This info comes straight from a few who have used this design.

As i said, im just fishing for some info at the moment

Just to reiterate, I'm not saying it won't fit behind the engine (infact my mechanic initially had the same idea), I'm just saying access is going to be a bitch. I know the guy that did my fabrication work had lots of fun getting the intake and outlet pipinig to the rear turbo on my car. What you are wanting to do will involve more complex piping, and larger diameter pipes.

Thinking about my car - I'd be very surprised if you could fit anything larger than a 2.5" diameter pipe around to the back of the engine if you take the same route my intake pipe is taking - and in your case it would be the turbo outlet.

Also you need to allow for lots of silicone in the piping setup, because of the nature of a front wheel drive (especially if you add a beefed up clutch) the engine will move "front to back" in the engine bay alot, giving it a tendency to pull pipes out of their clamps if you haven't allowed for enough "flex" in the pipe work.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/618527

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http://www.cardomain.com/ride/618527

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||check the link, pics on page 2.
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||read the article for details

also 3L not 3.5, so some slight differences i believe

next question, asking BB if the money/time/car off the road was worth it ;) if you could do it all over again, would you take the same path, go s/c-ed, or something else?

also 3L not 3.5, so some slight differences i believe

next question, asking BB if the money/time/car off the road was worth it ;) if you could do it all over again, would you take the same path, go s/c-ed, or something else?

Honestly - If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, knowing what I know now I probably would have sold the magna and put all the money into a nice S15 or something with a decent factory turbo / AWD platform.

Yeah yeah, unique blah blah blah. But there's just too much that can go wrong with a high powered FWD (in my case it's been diffs, plenty of other members have found other weaknesses), and virtually no manufacturers making aftermarket performance parts means everything is overpriced or needs to be custom fabricated.

I'm not in a position financially to be able to sell my car and move on, but if I was I certainly would. As it is I'm just hoping I can keep it in one piece long enough to finish my apprenticeship, and I won't be doing any more major mods to the car.

From my experience from working on dimi's car they are really tight between the engine and firewall.... your best bet would be to mount it at the front of the motor.

hard enough to get the exhaust manifold on, had to remove inlet manifold to get in, so to get a turbo behind there, goodluck.lol

also 3L not 3.5, so some slight differences i believe

if you could tell us some of these differences it would be greatly appreciated, because as far as i'm aware the physical dimentions between these 2 cars under bonnet would make no difference what so ever in this setup.

Honestly - If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, knowing what I know now I probably would have sold the magna and put all the money into a nice S15 or something with a decent factory turbo / AWD platform.

Yeah yeah, unique blah blah blah. But there's just too much that can go wrong with a high powered FWD (in my case it's been diffs, plenty of other members have found other weaknesses), and virtually no manufacturers making aftermarket performance parts means everything is overpriced or needs to be custom fabricated.

I'm not in a position financially to be able to sell my car and move on, but if I was I certainly would. As it is I'm just hoping I can keep it in one piece long enough to finish my apprenticeship, and I won't be doing any more major mods to the car.

I been thinking that way for a while now, and finially convinced myself to stay with the Magna.

And now, knowing your experience in the area, im starting to have doubts again :S

I been thinking that way for a while now, and finially convinced myself to stay with the Magna.

And now, knowing your experience in the area, im starting to have doubts again :S

IMO don't be discouraged by Mike's experiences. He seems to have had an unusual amount of bad luck, and had "teething' problems that are avoidable now (e.g he broke Cusco diffs, but quaifes are available now are bulletproof).

There's always the risk of breaking things when modding cars, but if you do your homework properly and do the things the safe/right way, there's no reason why you can't build a nice reliable quick car that's something different. Though of course you can get unlucky with unforseen problems, so it's better to be prepared just incase.

I'm guessing my next car will be something more mainstream for modding/motorsport, but I am going all-out on this car, really enjoying myself along the way, and yes I like being different. The sleeper value of a fast magna on the track is priceless :)

IMO don't be discouraged by Mike's experiences. He seems to have had an unusual amount of bad luck, and had "teething' problems that are avoidable now (e.g he broke Cusco diffs, but quaifes are available now are bulletproof).
I was under the impression that he broke the Quaife as well? Or am I misreading things.

I was under the impression that he broke the Quaife as well? Or am I misreading things.

No I haven't broken a Quaife. But I think it's too early to say they're bulletproof, haven't yet had mine in for 6 months (which is how long the last diff lasted me).

I wouldn't say breaking 2 diffs is an "unusual amount of bad luck", I'd say it's pretty much par for the course when modding family cars (how many sprintex owners have had to do full engine rebuilds??). Having your car catch fire in the middle of the desert - thats "bad luck".

I wouldn't say breaking 2 diffs is an "unusual amount of bad luck", I'd say it's pretty much par for the course when modding family cars (how many sprintex owners have had to do full engine rebuilds??). Having your car catch fire in the middle of the desert - thats "bad luck".

IMO you were unlucky in that when you got your LSD the Quaife wasn't around, so the Cusco was your only option. Time will tell, but the Quaife units we can get now *seem* to be relaible - I know a couple of guys who run them in big-hp track cars with no issues.

I think thanks to the experiences of members like you, the rest of AMC benefits from being able to avoid many of those problems.

The Sprintex guys breaking pistons were running custom tunes with much less margin-for-safety, or upping boost (Jase did anyway). I think by example the lesson has now been learnt for other Spritex owners - on stock pistons and no WI, stick to the Sprintex tune, or at least if you are gonna run a custom tune makes sure it's nice and rich at the top end.

IMO the majority of breakages that have occured to people here can be classified as "teething problems", bad practice (obviously not in in your case Mike), lack of information, bad products.

The upside is people like myself who went on/am doing mods a bit later have the benefit of being able to avoid problems/breakages to a large extent from better information/products/lessons.