There seems to be alot of people wanting to know how to turbo their Maxima lately. I am not trying to discourage anyone from doing so, it is alot of fun driving a turbo car. But, I feel I need to post this thread for a few reasons.

First, if your going to take on a project like this and you have never built a turbo car before your going to have alot of questions. That is understandable. I had many questions when I started and many thing I did not fully understand. But, your not going to get much help around here if you don't help yourself first. There are ton's of old threads of people going through the struggles to get their turbo up and running. These threads are priceless. You need to be able to search. Donate the $20 and get access to search. It will be your best friend. For myself, I am much less willing to help person out if they can't even take the time to try and figure it out for themselves first.

Second, If your not handy when it comes to working on your car do not try and turbo it. A turbo car requires alot of monitoring and problems solving. It is not like throwing on a y-pipe or intake and forgetting about it. Problems will occur and if you can't fix them yourself your gonna be spending alot of time and money at a repair shop who won't know what they are doing

Third, Taking on a project like this is expensive. There is no way around it. Unless you can fabricate pipes yourself it is gonna be pricey. Don't cut corners to save a few bucks.

To sum it up.

You must do the foot work if you think your gonna get any help from people
here.

Read, read, read

Make sure your not getting in over your head

Spend the money that is required to do it right

 

mothafakin

I've seen just how it works. And it's 100% true what Mike is saying about everything. Great skill, craftsmenship, and knowledge is needed to fab. your own kit.


Bottom line is...
Measure twice...cut once.

 

good thing im in a fabrication and high performance engine class to finish up my automotive training. Just need to figure out the perfect fuel setup
But, just from reading endless hours on the net and getting stuff together, Mike speaks to truth, there have been times where I have said, maybe I shouldnt have gotten myself into this. You find out as you go along there are many many things you didnt account for when you did your first couple of passes of "things to get". Even though i will be making all my own piping and bends, it is still a very very expensive deal....

 

No Sh*t! After starting this project, Im in about $6000+. Havnt even gotten to fuel management yet. *sigh*
http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/279367/2

Side note: how much would you think the emanage will set me after all the bells and whistles (harnesses, software, what have you)? From my numbers, ill be set back another $600-$700 (ebay prices too) Before dyno tune of course. Anyone might know of a place where I can get a better deal?

 

600 is about right for all the needed harness and such. Might as well get a wide band to go with that set up and you won't need a dyno to tune with

 

Okay. Ill give that a look see. Any suggestions? Brand wise and ease of use? Oh and price too.

 

So true Mike. There are many little things that come up that you dont expect, and everything takes longer than what you originally planned for. Not to mention the possibility of having a small problem after its almost all together that requires you to backtrack and pull things apart again to fix it.

 

Great post mike, I was waiting for someone to post something like this.

and another thing. Make sure that you Have a safety net of people that you can refer to when something goes wrong, and there are plenty of things that can go wrong.

I think that mike's post should be a disclaimer in the stickies.

 

craftsmanship is KEY here. bubble gum welding will never hold. having fuel lines run next to exhaust pipe won't work...etc etc. you can't cheap something like this.

 

And you need to know that wire harness, fuel hose, radiator hose, etc.. WILL MELT if it gets to close to hot piping.

You may think it'll be fine since it's hot under the hood, but the 1500 deg F temps were NEVER thought of by nissan.

 

It may be worth mentioning too that if you don't have access to another car, you may want to rethink a project like this. You aren't gonna install a custom turbo setup and be back to daily driveability in 3-4 days. I took the lazy route and bought a car that was turbocharged stock (although not much stock left) and I work on it every single time I drive it, if not just playing with the tune chasing knock. I would never depend on a heavily modded car as a daily driver unless I had a hell of a lot of work into fine-tuning it first.