advanced turbo sizing questions

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Second Shadow
Posts: 190
Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2003 3:10 pm
Car: 93' 240sx, s13 blacktop sr20det
Location: Columbia, MO

Post

so I've read a couple threads about people swapping the head from an SRXXVE(it seems there are a couple different heads you can use), onto the SR20DET block, for better flow, shaft mounted rocker arms, and nissans VVL(basically the same thing as honda v-tec, except in an SR engine).

Mazworx was doing some crazy stuff with this, and have SRs revving up to 11,000 rpm. now on one of the discussions(and it wasn't on nico and I don't really like the other forums for this kind of thing) someone mentioned that the VVL wasn't helping them that much, because they sized their turbo too large to make use of the midrange, and to fully take advantage of the VVL they would need a turbo that was about stock(although it wasn't said there, I read that as S15 turbo).

I got to thinking about the turbo sizing of that and I'm wondering; would such a high rev limit pull a turbo that size out of its efficiency range even at what would be normally acceptable boost levels? as far as I know(and please correct me if I'm wrong here) but a turbo makes boost by flooding the intake track with more air than the engine is consuming, and that rate of consumption is determined by displacement and RPM (and a few other things I'm sure, but I don't wanna make this too complicated). when the revs rise, so does that rate of consumption, meaning to maintain the same boost levels a turbo has to spin faster.

now there are lots of turbos and when we talk about their efficiency range and what's the max boost they can put out before being out of that range, we should be talking about(in this section anyway) an SR20 with a standard rev limit(which is 7500 I believe?). at different displacements the max boost the same tubro can handle should also change. for example an S15 turbo making 10psi at 5k RPM in a KA24 is working a lot harder than the same S15 turbo making 10psi at 5k RPM in a CA18.(that's kind of a question)

this should also apply to RMP as a higher RMP means a larger volume of air is being consumed(or more air in a given time frame anyway). if you were to build the head so it can rev to 9k, with the same turbo you should have to run lower boost for the turbo to not leave its efficiency range shouldn't you? and that would be even more extreme for an 11k VE head.

if I'm right the turbo would be in its ER for most of the rev range, but once the revs get high enough the turbo would have to actually reduce boost levels(which I guess you could do with a really elaborate boost control system, but not with standard ones that just use intake track pressure as a reference), but then the power would fall flat of course so what the point...

I'm just curious if I'm right about this or do I need to go back to school?


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