Re: Turbo questions

simpleton,

My car might surprise you. The camry is going to beat me from a standstill as will a honda civic (stock) from 0-30mph. Of course I have absolutely nothing off the line -- unless I hold the brake, run rpms high, and take off, which I never even tried because it's so hard on the tranny -- I stick with a rolling ' street start' and I really doubt the auto trans camry (I might be wrong) is going to beat me like that.

Believe it or not I do like the torque steer -- the engine has some power and is flexing some muscle -- Weak tranny? Maybe it was the engineers or maybe it was the bean counters who wanted to lower the hp to play it safe on account of the

7/70 powertrain warrantee because I drove this trans hard for 142,000 mi. (w/ at least 200 hp) shifting manually half the time until aamco SAID it needed to be rebuilt which I think was bull%hit anyway. Set from the factory the tires chirp on the 1st to 2nd shift which is nice. Wheel hop? Do you mean when the turbo kicks in? On my car, since I use that rolling start, the turbo is kicking in full force at around 15-20 mph ( mph depends on when I decide to hit that throttle) and it spools up fast and kicks in hard making the tires chirp a couple of times which I like. As far as wheel hop off the line, no, I've never experienced that for the reasons I mentioned above. Yeah, those rotors are weak but w/ a slight pep boys upgrade I've been good for the past 2 yrs. I still really enjoy driving this car and I could trade it in for something that is marginally faster in a straight line but that is only 1 aspect of the car. You failed to mention that I would leave that camry choking on the exhaust fumes of my 13 yr. old/153,00 mi car when that road starts to twist ( that's running on worn out struts too). I like the fuel mileage much better than the camrys not to mention the weight, body stying, interior, and cockpit set-up. So. when all things are considered I can't seem too find an alternative used car that will come close to mine on an even trade and right now I don't have much money to play with so I'm going to stick with this one but ultimately it is going to have to go -- probably to the junk yard where It'll belong. And did I mention that I STILL take it out late at night to race around a bit or just cruise at normal speeds just because I like to drive it? Is that worth anything? I know that if I had a brand new camry or the like that this DEFINITELY wouldn't be the case because I drive cars for Hertz part time and I'm not impressed with your average passenger car at all. This would include the camry, galant, maxima, jaguar S-type 4.0, and dozens more. Although if they gave me the jag -- I'd probably take it.

-greg

A 14B/16G/or *gasp* even a 20G with a decent setup will spool as fast (and in most of the cases *faster*) than the current setup in your car. So the aspect of keeping with the TD04-13 in your car to keep "midrange" rush as you put it is just a bad assumption.

The auto transmissions with a shift kit and and end-clutch kit (both inexpensive) will hold up quite well for the limited power you'll be putting down with a 14/16/20 turbo.

I forgot how much fun a 14b with exhaust and things can be. Full spool by 2700rpms. It's not much fun past 5k, but from corner to corner, good stuff. The longer you drive turbo cars, though, the more most people probably lean to the top-end aspect of big turbos and you find yourself never having the tach under 3500rpms. That few extra hundred rpm of spool is soon forgotten when the power hits.

Automatics are tricky. They basically have nothing off the line (unless you are brake-torquing) no matter what turbo you have. As you say, though, midrange will be good with pretty much any street-size turbo. Automatics can be fun, but they simply have no low-end unless you launch them, regardless of turbo.