How much have you spent?

[Geoff]

I was wondering guys how much you have spent to have a completed turbo setup? And for how many pounds you have spent, what sort of power figures have you attained?

Although i dont have an e30 at the mo, the turbo route will be the way i want in again in the future, so this is going to give me an idea on the level of coinage im gona need!

[Turbo-Brown]

Doing pretty much all the work myself, I spent around £4500 and got 270bhp and 240lbft

[Geoff]

Does that include the cost of the motor? That seems a lot? But then this is the idea of the thread so i can get an idea of how much i need to spend.

[Turbo-Brown]

That included rebuilding the motor, buying engine management, making the entire exhaust system (inc manifolds) intercoolers, plumbing, turbos and so forth and so on.

Even included uprated brakes and wheels to fit them

But yes, per bhp it's a lot of money.

[blingsta]

i think mine has cost somewhere in the region of £2.5k incl Ants labour to fit. That also includes megasquirt.. has given me 203BHP and 237TORQUE.. im well happy with the transformation/difference and dont think i can go back to it being N/A again... only thing i was dissapointed with is the BHP figure, i think that comes down to the size of my blower though?

[fuzzy]

so this is going to give me an idea on the level of coinage im gona need!

what ever you do have a starting budget of at least £3000,and if you do an engine transplant first you can double or treble that

[e30_Turbo]

To make it easier to swallow I have two lists of mods,

Car itself, suspension, brakes, interior etc poss £2k....although it's still a turd

Turbo bits list has crept up and I'm gonna say £3k although thats conservative me thinks, things that break also add up too

Although I do feel I've done really well on parts cost and doing it all as a 'project' with Ant has to be taken into account. I would imagine a 300/350bhp realiable conversion will set someone back close to £6k easy. Now there is growing knowledge amoung our members people are seeing the light as to why you need to spend the money that allow the end results to be awesome.

The main issue for all of us boost junkies is, as our title suggests, greed for more, more means more of everything including money

[Ant]

How much ......

if you can spanner the install yourself and source some good S/H parts or fab from scratch to suit, you can replicate my original setup for around 1.5K, but you need to be a good all rounder with lots of tools to hand, and quite a chunk of time.

you need to set a goal, 250 HP enough ? as Fozz already said, it enough for a while, then the itch will come for more, so you look into a future proof setup.

small cheap turbo for low HP peak but monster TQ and flat curve ( but, the best all round option IMHO ) but spec all the related parts for 2-3 stages of tune above, so big IC, big Inj, Big managment, these are the investments, and these are the biggest cost, next to the labour side.

example: you go 250HP, cost you 3K total, then a few weeks ( honestly ) you decide you want 350, it can be as simple as a bigger Turbo, retune to suit and go for it, or as complicated as new inj ( again ) bigger IC yadda yadda etc etc, all duplicate spending

[Toby_Unna]

mine's an m30, but still relevant i think.

turbo £150 (you really should spend a lot more than this, i wouldn't use it if my engine hadn't cost £100 lol)
wastegate/BOV about £120 for both, new, ebay.com
IC tenner from breaker, charge piping from old inlet boots etc, free
oil lines total £20 (for tig welding return stub to sump)
manifold £50 (spent entirely on head flanges; rest effectively free as homemade from scrap steel)
downpipe/exhaust £60 (all made from an escort RS tubby system i bought on ebay)
injectors £70 used from ebay.com
electric fan £40 used ebay
MegaSquirt something around £200-300 all in for self-build as i remember
uprated fuel pump £70 from usa

so i guess i've spent somewhere around 700-800 quid, unless there's something i've missed.

this is obviously for a full-on scrapyard build (although the turbo/WG/BOV are new, they are cheap and cheerful stuff lol) with a lot of home fabrication etc. however it's been 100% reliable and makes good power (over 300bhp at wheels on 7psi, albeit from 3.5l), and should give an idea of what it might cost if you're a proper cheapskate

[Geoff]

Thanks for all your replys. I might be having a stab in the dark here, but i think there is still abig void in what people are spending to the results that they are getting. I would have thought you could get similar figures to blingsta's beast on a n/a engine for £3k so im not sure if his has the most effective setup..although i have read that with a bigger turbo this will increase significantly.

I recall an old TBMW article from the PPF boys saying you can get 500bhp for £3k sterling....and that was 3 years ago.

All i know is i cant wait for the day i get me a turbo'd e30 on the go. I really do look up to all those that have built/rebuilt their own turbo setups from scratch and learnt shit loads in the process. Its all about Home Brew in my eyes anyway!

[Turbo-Brown]

Oops, add another £215 to mine. Just bought a biiiiiiiig turbo

Which as a case in point, you needn't spend massive money on a decent blower.