Anyone want any information on this topic ask away and i'll give you my best answer from real experience not crappy rumours. Please understand my situation after reading this, things may be different with different people and cars. This is only my experience
I drive and own a 1996 S14 S1 sr20det, i've only had it for a few months so i can only really tell you what i know about that car. Im 20 years old so i dont have much Knowledge on the difference between models either so im really sorry about that
Okay so first off you can drive the car without the turbo she will run fine. occasional irregular idle after punching it a bit, which i'm guessing is due to it flooding cause it will be running rich. It is perfectly legal for p-platers as the car came out without a turbo. I had a policeman pull me over and ask why i'm driving a turbo car. I pointed to my exhaust and said where's the turbo then explained that i removed it and he even said it was perfectly fine. Also insurance said it was fine so no issues at all with that.
Don't let any mechanic tell you otherwise. I had two of them tell me the car will be rendered un-drivable which is complete utter s***! I've got the proof in my front yard. That really pissed me off because they speak from myth rather truth. Yes the car has less power OBVIOUSLY your running it without a turbo DERRRRRRR. the compression ratio is 8.5.1 for standard and 8.0.1 for turbo so not much difference although you can feel it. I still get wheel spin in second with brand new tired and i can still beat your every day falcon/commodore so she runs good in my books.
NOW with the turbo. You can re-route the intake to bypass the turbo but leave it connected i drove like this for a month. I dont think it is legal as the turbo is still on the car and running even though its not in use. Also i had an issue with idle because i think there was a vacuum leak somewhere. Best thing to do is remove the turbo all together.
TO DO THIS you will need a set of exhaust manifold from standard sr20de. and 3 bolts to plug up the water inlet, outlet and oil inlet. for the oil dump you can just use a bit of plastic. I cut the tip of my broom and stuck it in the pipe. yes it was clean and no splinters came out. You also need from memory a 3" pipe to go from the intake box to the inter cooler. Check the size though not sure about 3". So you have to basicaly remove the turbo, block the water inlet water outlet oil inlet oil outlet, a vacuum pipe coming from a valve which i got no idea what it dose and also the hose coming from the rocker cover. As the rocker cover is only a breather you can go to any auto shop and buy a small filter with mounting and attach that. I'm pretty sure thats all that is needed really. If i left something out just ask. I did the mod awhile ago so its kind of old in my little brain
Last off, I bought a nistune board and am going to hook that up hopefully this week. once she is up i should be able to adjust the timing to increase power when the turbo is meant to kick in. Also in the future i'm going to hook up a wide band sensor so i can re do the AFR
Hope this information helped at least one person out there. Oh just to let you people know
p-platers are people aged between 18 and 22 or 23 depends anyway they cant drive high powered or forced induction cars in certain states in Australia. So yeah that probably clears up the reason everyone is wondering why some fool like me would remove the turbo off his pride and joy thanks for reading