Hello everyone, I’ve had my E30’s for around a year now and I am looking at sticking a turbo on it. I am from the UK and I’m struggling to find any information regarding everything single part I’d need. I know the obvious stuff like clutch, injectors, ECU, manifold ETC... I am looking for around 350-400bhp on stock engine with apr studs and updated head gasket. Could someone point me in the right direction please.
Cheers
325i M20 Turbo info
Moderator: martauto
Consider it from the intake back. Obviously you'll need a new filter, then the turbo, then a charge pipe to the intake. On that pipe you'll need a blowoff and a means of cooling the charge. The means of cooling can be an intercooler, water/meth injection, or both. You may need a larger radiator and high performance thermostat and water pump, as well as cooling fan.
So from there you'll need upgraded injectors, ideally you'll run a better coil system too. Spark plug will need to be a closer gapped and colder heat range. If you are into serious boost you'll need better valve springs - I'd consider this a must do for anything voer half a bar (7psi). Running all that you'll need a better ECU. Haltech are a popular brand with excellent support to name just one.
For the ECU you'll need wiring harnesses and sensors. These can be adapted to stock or all aftermarket. Somewhere you'll need a boost controller, either ECU solenoid type or even a simple manual 'boost tee'. A boost-referencing fuel regulator will also help. These keep the fuel pressure in proportion to the boost, eliminating flow problems when you are running higher boost levels. Think of it this way - if you have 20psi of fuel pressure meeting 20psi of boost, you will have no flow! Not a real world scenario, but you get the idea.
The manifold itself will connect to the hot side of the turbo. The turbo will best be something fairly ordinary; a TD04 variant, GT28, GT30 or even a Holset. I say this because they are all readinly available, and even Chinese turbos off the internet are okay nowdays with a bit of prep. I'd recommend a GT28 for packaging reasons - they're reasonbly small - and because on a stock engine they'll be perfect for that 350hp-ish figure up top with a wave of torque through the midrange. Any larger and you'll start losing response and drivability as a sacrafice to get the bigger power number. Unless you're a dragstrip hero and don't care about driving the thing in traffic or even simple stuff like roll-on throttle response... you won't want an 'extreme' or even 'moderately big' turbo.
Make sure the turbo has an internal wastegate and actuator, this will help with packaging. If you cannot find or don't want to use an internally gated turbo then of course you need an external gate. These are great in extreme performance scenarios for precise boost control, but probably not needed at this level.
The dump itself will ideally be as large as you can fit. For an RHD E30 that won't be big without some extensive modifications, so get in there and see what you can make fit alongside a turbo manifold. After the dump, route it to your exhaust system as per normal.
That's the guts of it, there is obviously a lot more to a turbo system (tuning, fuel maps, fabrication and packaging etc) but the essentials are there. If you can use a soldering iron, cutting wheel, hack saw and hand wrenches you can assemble the system, but to get it running you will need a bit of knowhow in tuning it.
If you're still around or anyone else reads this, I hope it helps give at least a basic understanding.
So from there you'll need upgraded injectors, ideally you'll run a better coil system too. Spark plug will need to be a closer gapped and colder heat range. If you are into serious boost you'll need better valve springs - I'd consider this a must do for anything voer half a bar (7psi). Running all that you'll need a better ECU. Haltech are a popular brand with excellent support to name just one.
For the ECU you'll need wiring harnesses and sensors. These can be adapted to stock or all aftermarket. Somewhere you'll need a boost controller, either ECU solenoid type or even a simple manual 'boost tee'. A boost-referencing fuel regulator will also help. These keep the fuel pressure in proportion to the boost, eliminating flow problems when you are running higher boost levels. Think of it this way - if you have 20psi of fuel pressure meeting 20psi of boost, you will have no flow! Not a real world scenario, but you get the idea.
The manifold itself will connect to the hot side of the turbo. The turbo will best be something fairly ordinary; a TD04 variant, GT28, GT30 or even a Holset. I say this because they are all readinly available, and even Chinese turbos off the internet are okay nowdays with a bit of prep. I'd recommend a GT28 for packaging reasons - they're reasonbly small - and because on a stock engine they'll be perfect for that 350hp-ish figure up top with a wave of torque through the midrange. Any larger and you'll start losing response and drivability as a sacrafice to get the bigger power number. Unless you're a dragstrip hero and don't care about driving the thing in traffic or even simple stuff like roll-on throttle response... you won't want an 'extreme' or even 'moderately big' turbo.
Make sure the turbo has an internal wastegate and actuator, this will help with packaging. If you cannot find or don't want to use an internally gated turbo then of course you need an external gate. These are great in extreme performance scenarios for precise boost control, but probably not needed at this level.
The dump itself will ideally be as large as you can fit. For an RHD E30 that won't be big without some extensive modifications, so get in there and see what you can make fit alongside a turbo manifold. After the dump, route it to your exhaust system as per normal.
That's the guts of it, there is obviously a lot more to a turbo system (tuning, fuel maps, fabrication and packaging etc) but the essentials are there. If you can use a soldering iron, cutting wheel, hack saw and hand wrenches you can assemble the system, but to get it running you will need a bit of knowhow in tuning it.
If you're still around or anyone else reads this, I hope it helps give at least a basic understanding.