hoohaa Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 I'm in the process of turbocharging my WD21 pathfinder and I'm wondering if there would be enough interest to warrant me building a few extra sets of manifolds. The manifolds would be schedule 10 stainless steel with 1/2" flanges, and the turbo would be located behind the driver side headlight. You would need to remove your stock airbox (obviously), and the charcoal canister from their locations to make room for the turbo. I'd probably only make the manifolds themselves, I probably wouldn't sell turbos or anything extra, so the customer would need to figure out how to add extra fuel at boost. There are a number of options for doing this, one is Nistune, which allows real time modification of the factory ECU, making it very simple to add extra fuel at specific boost levels. There is also the FMU option, which increases fuel rail pressure at a specific ratio per extra pound of boost. It's not the most elegant solution, but it works. There is also talk of the WD21 MAF and ECU being able to handle low levels of boost. I have not seen this myself, but Lee of L&P reported that his pathfinder saw good AFRs even at moderate boost with the supercharger with a completely stock fuel system and ECU. Of course a turbo behaves differently than a supercharger, so the MAF will be more prone to being maxed out since turbos flow more air at higher RPM while superchargers tend to run out of breath at high rpms. Anyways, I would leave it up to the customer to figure out fuel delivery. The manifolds would be made to fit non bodylifted trucks. If there was enough interest I might make manifold for 3" bodylifted trucks, but there would definitely need to be interest, since I would have to seriously modify jigs. What do you guys think, would there be any interest in something like this in the pathfinder or D21 community? I would probably need to sell five sets or so to justify the time and research. -Bryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88_Pathy Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 What about a rear mount set up. Or a set up for a TBI system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88pathoffroad Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 Log-type or header-type manifold? Which turbo flange would you be using? There are a lot of different flanges out there for turbo inlets, aren't there? I wouldn't want to get one and be limited to only one type if the turbo's going to be really expensive. A good compromise might be to figure out which turbo is commonly available and works well with the engine displacement we have, then make a choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoohaa Posted July 21, 2007 Author Share Posted July 21, 2007 Log-type or header-type manifold? Which turbo flange would you be using? There are a lot of different flanges out there for turbo inlets, aren't there? I wouldn't want to get one and be limited to only one type if the turbo's going to be really expensive. A good compromise might be to figure out which turbo is commonly available and works well with the engine displacement we have, then make a choice. The manifolds would be header style, but not equal length. (equal length with long runners would be the most ideal but that would take crazy amounts of work) The head exhaust flanges would be my own design, I'm actually putting the finishing touches on a CAD drawing of a set of flanges right now. The turbo flange would of course be the T3 flange, since this is by far the most common turbo for use on the VG30. With a T3 flange you can run a T3 .60 AR which comes stock on the 300zx, or you could run a T3/T4 if you wanted to go larger, or even a Holset turbo from a Dodge diesel truck. If you needed a different flange I could probably make it happen. A rear mount would be cool, but since I don't plan on making one of those myself, I don't want to invest the time in making a kit of some sort. Rear mounts are IMO easier to build than an engine bay mount with manifolds, but there are some unique challenges, such as oil scavenging and recirculation. Rear mounts are cool though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88_Pathy Posted July 23, 2007 Share Posted July 23, 2007 We planned a rear mount and were going to use a 2 or 3 quart tank with a small electric oil pump to circulate the oil. The only thing I was concerned about is the air filter location. Also the thing with a turbo in the engine bay is heat and room. Then the California smog nazis would hate that set up. How much boost and price estimation are we looking at cause my rig is a snail and I need power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoohaa Posted July 25, 2007 Author Share Posted July 25, 2007 We planned a rear mount and were going to use a 2 or 3 quart tank with a small electric oil pump to circulate the oil. The only thing I was concerned about is the air filter location. Also the thing with a turbo in the engine bay is heat and room. Then the California smog nazis would hate that set up. How much boost and price estimation are we looking at cause my rig is a snail and I need power. Boost level.... How high do you want to go? Plop a huge turbo on the manifold and your truck can be pushing 600 HP with the right injectors, cams, heads, and bottom end. I would, of course, recommend a smallish turbo for a truck application to give more usable boost throughout the powerband. An HY35 is an excellent match to the VG30 and will flow plenty of air to make 350+ HP and still spool up early. You could be pushing 20 psi at high rpm with that turbo. Price is the limitation. In order to boost a non-boosted truck you have to do something about fuel. There are plenty of options. If you are looking for a relatively easy and cheap setup I would strongly recommend looking into Nistune. You can have someone in your area install and tune it. If you farm out all the work, expect a project like this to have a total cost of up to $3k, depending on how far you want to go. If you do it all yourself you can easily keep it under $1500, and possibly lots less if you spend time researching and looking for deals. Those figures I'm giving are for a very solid and reliable setup with no corners cut. I would expect the manifolds to range from $400-$500 in stainless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88_Pathy Posted July 28, 2007 Share Posted July 28, 2007 Is there any pics of your progress? Sounds sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88pathoffroad Posted July 28, 2007 Share Posted July 28, 2007 Ouch, man. What about regular steel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoohaa Posted July 30, 2007 Author Share Posted July 30, 2007 What about regular steel? I'd think mild steel manifolds would be around $100 less than stainless, maybe even less than that. I'm still planning and rebuilding a VG30 for the project, so the manifolds are a way off still. I'm thinking there probably wouldn't be a market for anything like this for the Pathfinder unless I offered a complete kit, but that's way more work than I have the time to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88_Pathy Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 Sweet, how about the heat off of the turbo in the engine bay behind the headlight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88pathoffroad Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 Hey, lots of people custom build manifolds for different cars. Don't let the lack of a kit bring you down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoohaa Posted August 1, 2007 Author Share Posted August 1, 2007 Sweet, how about the heat off of the turbo in the engine bay behind the headlight. A heatshield would be necessary. It could be something pretty simple though, just to block radiant heat from the back of the headlight. A watercooled turbo would also be ideal to keep temps down as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now