None of my turbo setups have electronics. Mine is all old school. I just run a carb, boost gage and a pyro. Next one will be an EFI though. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

do you have any pics? or any tips on how to do an electronic free turbo setup?

 

People have been using turbo's and superchargers with carbs for a long time. First you need to decide if you want to draw through (carb before the turbo) or blow through (carb after the turbo) as they take different setups to do. If you blow through, you need to pressurize the fuel (3 psi off boost, then 1 psi for every 1 psi of boost) so you need an electric fuelpump. you can use a non-electric fuel regulator that is boost referenced to control fuel pressure. You do not need this if you draw through but jetting is a little more difficult. If you try to build your own system, you will spend just as much time trying to calibrate an EFI system as you would trying to get the jetting right on a carb. Believe it or not, you can build a turbo setup cheaper than most think. The turbo itself is only part of the cost though.

 

Let me first say that I have no experiance in turbo'ing anything less than a 2 liter. Most were V8's. That being said, if you try to turbo a quad, there will be many problems, or many, many, many problems.

First there will be space problems. You have to get that turbo piped so you can get air to it and air out. Then you have to get the exhaust in and exhaust out. Oil in and oil out. That's a lot of lines and tubing to fit into a tiny space. You will spend many days bending and welding pipe to make everything fit.

Then there is a problem with heat. These things get 1,200 to 1,500 F. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "hot seat." Then you have to have a positive oil pressure feed to the turbo. If your engine has one; fine. You have to find a way to tap into that feed. If it does not, then you have to have a remote pump of some kind. Belt drive or electric? Either one of these are a pain.

Then you have to deal with rebuilding the engine to take the power the "snail" puts out. I personally don't put anything but forged pistons in any motor I build. If the rod has a known problem with stock power, it's for sure the thing will break under boost.

When you get all of that sorted out then there is the carb. I've only built "suck through" designs. Thats what I like and thats what I build. If you go with a "blow through" design, then I would have to write a book to tell you the potential problems.

Can all of these problems be fixed? SURE!!! But be sure you have a platinum card ready, because this thing is not going to be cheap.

If it were cheap and easy, everybody would have a turbo car or quad or whatever.

I also don't really know what you mean by "added electronics?" Are you talking EFI or boost controllers, or gages or ????? I can tell you that the only electricity my engines had going to them was the coil, and the alt.

 

Doc pretty much summed up the trouble spots with turbo's in general and particularly on a quad. If you are thinking about going "low tech" i would recommenc the book 21st century turbo, you can get it on ebay. the way it is assembled is difficult to read but it is all about low tech solutions to high dollar questions. Most people would say you can't build your own blow off valve for $17.00, but it is in the book, and even i can build one of those. Also a section on how to easily mock up your owning piping- so you can just hand it to your local Exhaust shop and say make me one of these- which he can do easily and cheap. The biggest value to the book is getting you to not think like the commercial shops do, since they are out to make money and you are just out to make horsepower. I believe you will be seeing more emphasis on turbo/supercharging small motors in the future. Like doc said though, there are things to work out. For electronics, you probably should get either a exhaust gas temp gauge or a GOOD (not what most people have) air fuel meter. These aren't real cheap but they aren't fuel injection priced, and are low amp draw.

 

cool thanks for all your help