I have a 2006 GV and do Cross Country.Here (lowlands) we have no possabilities to drive off roads and mountains. In 2008 I imported and installed a J20 turbo kit from Turbine-tech.ca (Quebec) With some modifications of the hardware, its doing his job well. It is not an easy thing and people needed who are experienced in turboing engines and ECU modifying.

 

yeah i seen that kit aswell, its a bit expensive and would have to mod it a bit to fit the vitara, i would just make my own header but for cast one for under $300 posted to my door its not worth my time to make one. please give me some more details about your turbo build? how much boost, fuel management, injectors? do you have front mount intercooler? how much power does it make? I have had a bit of experience with turboing stuff not meant to be turboed, i had a turbo kawasaki zx6 that was all maybe by me and have 2 other turbo cars atm. my main concern is not running to much boost i have seen a pic of the rods in the motor and they are tiny

 

Would love more power from my 2.0 but the 4 speed auto box is not that well geared in my opinion and only get just over 20mpg so gods knows what a turbo would drop it to.

 

i have a manual, but turbo makes the car heaps better specially with auto, because the auto loads up the motor which makes more exhaust gas which spins up the turbo better, so instead of having to rev its nuts off to get any power you have more power/torque down low.

I just ordered the exhaust mani so will post up some pics when i get it.

 

For about two years i added a turbo-kit with 20" watercooled-intercooler
to my 2006GV 2.0. An experienced cie. did the job. 25/30% more power.
I drive the GV. only for fun-competition, but the car need always serious maintenance. I'm happy with the car.
But i don't advise those kits for all day purpose. No good milage, lot more hardware to add. More attention. More money. When its not an OEM build-in turbocar, just think about it a couple of days!

 

how much boost are you running? stock internals? what turbo are you running? what rpm does it come on boost?
im gona go for a front mount air to air cooler for mine, i have turboed stuff before the pros outweigh the cons.

 

for your information. IHI-RB32(modified) max.boost 8,5PSI.MasterClutch+fly-wheel.Air to liquid.intercooler. waste-gate 38m/m. bigger ECB rotors. Bigger
reardrums.Modified ECU. Rear diff. from Auto. etc.etc. Engine blue printed.
I got somewhere a Dyno-test report. (Average) max. 135mph. 200HP?6sec.@ 67mph? Due to +country and possible engine-overhaul,never drove it to the max. also wheels with lower ET. value

 

got my turbo and manifold, t3/t4 turbo and cast top mount manifold

next on the list is some injectors and aem piggy back

 

did some work on the engine bay, moved the vac tank to the other side to give some more room for the turbo, will need to move the fuel lines and vapour line also. ordered all the fittings, think i will weld the oil drain to the timing chain cover since its easier to get off then the sump

 

its been slow but I have almost all my bits together, so i decided to do a test fit of the turbo and manifold to work out what I will have to mod to make it fit. had to move the fuel lines and bend some of the aircon pipes and will need to remove the cooler pipe and cut the end off and make it straight to give some clearence for the turbo intake. I wired in the aem fic and got it all working and did some test runs to work out the max voltage for the map and maf so i can clamp the voltage when its boosted so it doesnt see and boost.

Next will be working out where to mount the oil return, either try to drill and weld fitting to sump on car or remove the front timing cover and weld the fitting onto that.

 

fg xr6 turbo factory cooler

fg falcon xr6 turbo mounts bolted straight onto the vitara brackets

 

gday mate. im new to the suzi forums and have been scrolling through the forums, came across your post, ive wanted to turbo my suzi, ive got a 08 auto grand vitara same as yours only white, looks like you have spent a bit of time fitting the turbo, how much did you spend on parts, and where did you get them from. i wouldnt know the first placed to start getting parts for the turbo. i am a mechanic but have never attempted to do any thing on that scale, any advice would be much appreciated. whats it go like, was it all easy enough to do. thanks mate, look forward to hearing from you. and maybe some more pics would be graet.

 

Hi welcome to the forum, I think most of the info is in this thread but I will go over it again.

My engine is the 2lt j20a 06/07 mod so not sure if the 08 has the 2lt still or got the 2.4?

I dont have the turbo on the car yet, since its the everyday car I need to be able to do it in a weekend so have been doing bits and then putting it back to stock for now.

theres a bit involved with the turbo conversion but not to hard if you are a mechanic

the manifold is a cast t3 with 38mm external gate its made for fwd j20a which is in the sx4 and baleno and the other one, but the baleno and other one have the smaller engines over here, so thats the first problems, since the j20a is a fwd engine the coolant hose is at the back of the engine so you have that metal pipe next to the engine and that is in the way of the turbo intake so i will have to cut the end off it and weld it back on with some clearence for the turbo.

turbo is ebay special t3/t4 with .6something rear ar
wastegate is a ebay china one also
intercooler is a fg falcon turbo cooler fits in easy and bolted upto some mounts that were already there.
the car was in a accident and the airbox was smashed up so I have already ground all the air box off which leaves a 2.5inch pipe with the afm/temp sensor in and i have a pod filter on the end atm but will just have 2.5inch pipe from the cooler to the afm then a 90deg bend from afm to the throttle body
you could also just get a bit of 2.5inch pipe and weld a block on and put the sensor in it just have to be the same size dia as the original so the ecu is happy.

the fuel lines had to be modded because they sit where the turbo is, and the vac tank i mounted on the other side of the engine that was in the way also.

I still have to weld in the bung for the oil drain which i think i will pull the front engine cover off and weld fitting into there because to get the sump off is alot of work

there is a plug in the side of the engine that you just remove and screw in fitting for the oil feed to the turbo

dump pipe is easy i will be using the stock cats and exhaust system so will only be one bend and maybe 3-4inchs of pipe. not going for mega hp so stock exhaust is fine for me, i have removed the rear muffler already. and there is a second o2 sensor after the cat so want to keep the stock cat to keep the ecu happy and no check codes, altho you can just take the sensor out and wire in a resistor and something else and keeps the ecu happy might do that down the track if i put a high flow cat in.

biggest problem is the ecu, how to add the extra fuel and keep the ecu happy

I have installed a AEM FIC and also have 420cc injectors which are about 50% larger then stock

to make it short the fic lets you add fuel under boost and can -+100% fuel and can pull 10deg timing if needed, it lets you trick the ecu so it thinks its a stock car.

hope that helps a bit

its not something to jump into if you are just starting off but its not to hard to do. ill add some more pics once I have some more progress

cheers
Josh

 

Hi orangeute,
Nice thread you have going. I have no interest in turboing as I have the v6 3.2 and have done the whole turbo on n/a car (hang on, I'm still doing it on another car - haha) but wanted to ask a couple of questions that are baffling me:
- is there a need to go with bigger injectors? I would have thought they could flow enough fuel with a RR Fuel Pressure Regulator.
- why go with a turbo that's externally gated? Takes up more room and makes set ups slightly more complex piping wise.
- ecu - does your piggy back take over all fuel/ignition output or modify?

Good luck with the setup, hope it all works well.

Cheers,
Ivan
P.s. still looking for those ford atv wheels!!!

 

well its better to be safe then sorry with injectors. why push the stock ones when its easier to just upgrade. na at max revs they might be getting close to max duty cycle so wont be able to flow any more at boost, and rising rate regs are a poors way to add more fuel.

theres a few reasons why its extenal, i had a external gate left over from another project with different springs for different boost, turbo cost less because its external gate, exhaust manifold is external gate so would have had to cover the hole anyways, leaves the option for screamer pipe and piping isnt a issue for me.


check out the aem fic on the website or google it theres alot of info about it.

i dont get what you mean, does it take over control or modifiy? thats really the same thing

what you do is work out what size the old injectors are and the new ones and anything off boost you just minus fuel so to make it easy i got 50% larger injectors so anything off boost its -50% so car is like stock, and before you put it all on you do some runs with the car stock and data log and find that max v that the maf sensor outputs are different rpm. so you write a map so at 3000rpm the maf sensor might output 3v but on boost it might be 4v so the ecu would throw a code, so the map will be 3000rpm 3v+10% so ecu only eva see's what it would normaly see before the turbo. The extra fuel on boost is added but the fic using its onboard map sensor. same with the timing you can only retard timing which is delaying the signal of the crank sensor. you can pull upto 10deg. they say you pull 1deg per psi. its pretty easy to setup, you just put in your max boost level and your injector sizes and it writes a map for you and then you just fine tune it. hardest part will be if it boost in closed loop and the ecu trys to keep it at 14.7 while the aem will be trying to add fuel under boost, hopefully its laggy enough to not be to much of a hassle, fic can also mod the signal of the o2 sensor so can get around the closed loop

 

orangeute338,

This is awesome, I have considered some sort of forced induction since the day we bought our 12' GV. I have a few questions I would like your opinion on....

Do you think that manifold would work on the 2.4?
Do/did you upgrade the fuel pump at all?
What injectors did you use? I.E. what brand/part number or off what vehicle?
Do you think that a small rear mount turbo might be a better way to go with the under hood packaging of our vehicles? (I understand that it isnt ideal, but I am only looking for 3-4 PSI to help pull the hills and at my elevation (5,280+)
Did you consider using the intercooler for the turbo diesel model? Im curious if that would be a good way to go for an OEM install?

Sorry for all the questions but I am very curious as to how this works out for you.

 

yeah the 4cyl are pretty slow standard.

not sure about the manifold possibly I wouldnt think they would have changed to much in the engine, I got the manifold from the us off ebay so search for it and send the guy a msg he might know, also maybe see what years the exhaust gasket covers.

fuel pump is stock for now will see how it goes

injectors are just cheap china ones off ebay 420cc

I had been thinking about rear mount then saw the manifold on ebay and got it. rear mount would be alrite just easier in the engine bay since everything is bolt on and not as much fab needed.

i just got this cooler for $50 and was pretty much brand new and came off a car with 270kw from factory so thats why i used it. i wouldnt bother with the turbo diesel prob be to small, factory stuff is only made just right size for power level needed. if you got one off ebay something like 400x250 would be perfect can get em for $100-200 way cheaper then a turbo diesel would be.

I have been a bit slack still havnt got the turbo on the car, hopefully will get it on soon

 

I agree, Im mostly trying to improve the perfromance for highway driving (lots of grades/mountains here) and maybe to squeeze a little more mileage out of it. (with the thinking that it would require less effort/rpm's to climb hills)

I appreciate all the help/advice, now get that thing together so we can see how it does driving...

 

progress has been slow, but finished some of the cooler piping, hopefully have it all ready to run in few weeks

cooler piping through the front support frame perfect sized cutout for 2.5inch piping

can see the coolant pipe needs to be modded to give some clearence for intake to turbo

got some new tires 235 70 16 bfg rugged terain and got windows tinted also

 

Looking good buddy, I cant wait to hear how it runs... I like how the tinit looks, keep up the good work.

 

Like the pipework. Looks quite neat indeed. Keep up the posts!

 

started to fit up the turbo parts,

3inch intake few tight bends to clear all the hoses

modded the metal coolant pipe so comes out straight then used a hilux rad hose that was perfect s bend just had to shorten slightly to fit, now heaps of room for intake. also modded wiring loom instead of going over top of motor it goes around the back, i think it looks a lot neater now

have to remove the sump to weld in oil return for the turbo, had to support the engine from above and undo the engine mounts to drop the sub frame

sub frame dropped to give some room to slip sump out, thought it was going to be a huge job but only undone steering rack and the 8 bolts holding frame to body, engine mounts and front shaft then dropped straight down, even left the wheels on. now just need to make up some spacers and get a 2inch body lift

 

Are you happy with the air filter not being boxed? Im guessing creek crossings will be not possible with this setup? Let me guess...you have something planned for that?

 

yeah its not best for off road but a bit limited unless I run a long pipe to other side. for now car is mostly street and no water crossing up here either. was going to see if I can make a sealed box to sit down there and run pipe down to it from a snorkel. not major priority atm

 

Excellent Job! Looks clean and proffessional. Interesting Old Egyptian way of keeping the engine steady. Very effective.

 

thanks hopefully get it going this weekend. still waiting for some exhaust bends to do the dump pipe and some heat shielding wrap to wrap some hoses that are close to turbo. yeah backyard style but works thought would be a mission to drop the sump frame so tried to weld fitting into sump while on car but weld cooled to fast and kept cracking. so now waiting for new sump from wreckers and weld new fitting on and swap sumps over. should have done it right first time instead of cutting corners.

 

sump arrived today so got it welded up with new fitting and swapped it over. a lot easier to weld on the bench compared to welding on the car in bad positions can tell in the pic the difference.

also made screamer pipe for external wastegate

this was also another drama, the oil feed for the turbo, its a 5mm allen key plug which is only about 5mm deep so real easy to round the hole, had to weld a socket to it to get it out after I rounded the plug.

here is the fitting after first time I welded it on the car, nice crack. was real hard to get to the top and see the weld so put alot of heat into it which can see in how concave the weld is, almost melted through.

this is the new sump(second hand new to me) gave me the chance to weld the fitting up a bit higher and better position and easier weld.

tacked fitting on

small welds at a time with time to cool inbetween, didnt want to get it to hot this time and destort the flange or crack it again

sub frame dropped, just enough room to take sump off

sump off

difference between welding on car and welding on the bench, had a few goes at welding the crack up but kept getting bigger

drilled and tapped 1/8npt thread in front of turbo cover for fitting for boost to wastegate

probably only vitara outside of pikes peak with screamer pipe

little oil catch can i made out of some scrap bits

 

Good job! You using TIG or MIG?
Oh man.. that type of work brings back a lot of memories in being bent over an engine bay all weekend. My back started hurting just looking at those photos ;-)