| Quote, originally posted by 500dolla » |
| Take it easy man, do a little research before you want to put a turbo on a small and very unpopular nissan engine. Try some bolt ons before you go right for the turbo. It's going to cost a lot if you try to make that 1.6 a sleeper. |
Are you daft or just ignorant? Unpopular Nissan engine??? The GA16DE was the Nissan workhorse from 1991-1998, and is still in production today! Not to mention the engine came in the Nissan Sentra, Sunny, Primera, Almera, Pulsar, 200SX, Presea, and NX! Clearly you know nothing about Nissans if you think the GA16DE isn't even worth modifying.
Now, from someone who actually knows about the GA16DE. Turboing the engine is a good choice... it loves boost and can handle upwards of 250whp on stock internals. Changing out the intake manifold is unnecessary, and frankly, there isn't any aftermarket intake manifolds for the engine that I know of... though RallyBob is custom fabricating one from his N/A car. Hotshot made a turbo kit for the GA, but since they have gone out of business, you can only buy it used off someone or from eBay. Your best bet (but most expensive) is the buy the TSI turbo kit, which can be found here:
http://www.prostreetonline.com/pnsku/ns2001x.asp
Many GA16DE owners have bought this kit, including blownb310 (in a B12 Sentra wagon 4wd of all things), and say it is more than satisfactory. I find it rather disheartening that it comes with a T20 turbo (not very powerful but quick spool) and only a rising rate fuel pressure regulator as a fuel controller. I am pretty sure they expect you to use your stock fuel pump, which means very little to no actually change in your fuel system. Fortunately, the turbo manifold comes with a T2 flange, which means you can use T2, T20, T25, and T28 turbo variants. I believe Wes and Mike Kojima, who lead the turbo Sentra GA16DE research, both run the "disco potato" T28 on their GAs. If you do buy the kit, I suggest also getting an A'pexi S-AFC 2 to be safe.
Another option is to do what I did. I bought the TSI turbo manifold on eBay for a steal ($150 compared to wanted $399), and expanded the exhaust ports on the manifold as compared to the cylinder head to ensure no exhaust manifold gasket blow-outs. I got a T25g turbo off a friend for free; he builds KA24DE(T) engines all the time for local GIs looking to boost their 240SXs, and had one laying around his garage with some shaft play... so I volunteered to take it off his hands since he didn't want to rebuild it. I also purchased an A'pexi S-AFC 2, a N60 Maxima MAF sensor, a blow-off valve, 259cc injectors, Walbro 255lph fuel pump, and miscellaneous piping. Altogether, everything cost me about $500 as compared to the $2000+ the kit would cost. It doesn't look as pretty, but it gets the job done at 8lbs of boost. All this is in an old B12 Sentra... and the car hauls ***. Nothing like boosting in 5th gear on the motorway while just tapping the accelerator 
.
All in all, the GA16DE is a good turbo platform. It doesn't have the displacement of some engines, but it is nonetheless a potent engine. Jim Wolf Technology makes reprogrammed ECUs and turbo camshafts, and CalumSult also has a B13 OBDI ECU reprogrammed for sale. While the S-AFC 2 can't compensate for the 370cc injectors without an ECU reprogramme (I tried... flooded out the engine even at -50% across the board), the 259cc injectors can handle up to about 12lbs of boost on a T25, which is more than enough! I tried it once, and let me say... scared the crap out of me...
Modified by BeyondBiscuits2 at 12:16 PM 7/20/2008
Nissan B12 Sentra; rusted, busted, used, but trusted.
