Nitrous or Turbo?

[kelleyt217]

I have a VW based rail buggy that I'm looking to add nitrous or a turbo to for sh**s and giggles. I have experience rebuilding motorcycle engines and some light miscellaneous fabricating experience. No nitrous, no VW and very slight turbo experience. Open to suggestions, any help is appreciated.

I was referred to this site by Kangaboy. So many thanks to him.

[turbobaja]

Why not both? More sh!tz n giggles that way

They do work well together, helps if you've got a solid engine to begin with though. What do you know about the engine you have?

[kelleyt217]

The guy I bought it from said it's a 1641, but he also said it ran perfect. When I bought it, it had a single Weber 44 IDF and I played hell trying to get it to stop fouling plugs. Ended up replacing intake and carb with new 34 pict. Runs decent now, I don't have a whole lot of experience with these so I'm having a little trouble getting it to idle, but it runs well the rest of the throttle range. Has aftermarket coil and I believe at the very least aftermarket distributor cap. Other than that the rest is stock I think. On a side note I'm having trouble with the brakes, I have to pump them up but then they hold good pressure until I let the pedal completely return, then it goes right to the floor again. If you have build suggestions for the motor I'm all ears. Thanks again for your help. Also if you have tips on the easiest way to post pictures here I can add some.

[Krochus]

A turbo is a really well trodden and documented path to making horsepower with a Volkswagen.

You will be much more on your own figuring out nitrous. Whichever power adder you choose a wideband gauge is going to be a must. You simply cannot get close enough reading plugs.

[sideshow]

Fix the brakes and steering first

[kangaboy]

Welcome to the forum!
I suggest doing a lot of reading and research.
This is a good read...

http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=108620

It talks about initial build of a turbo project, where to get turbos, what turbos to use, how to prep them, etc...
I had to do a bunch of reading to figure out what direction I was going to go. Others have just bought turbos and mounted them to their headers and experimented as they went.

Here is another good read on a build by Clonebug, who is another frequent STF'r...

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=127936

Like was said above, get the brakes figured out, but in the meantime, do some research.

[Sideswipe]

I've had some experience with nitrous, but not on an aircooled engine. It's rather simple to set up and a lot less time and money invested. Things can go wrong quickly with a nitrous though so you have a higher risk of damaging your motor. If you're not paying attention to your air/fuel ratio and you go lean for a run or two you can burn a piston pretty quick. Then there's the hassle of refilling your bottle, and the fact that you will only get maybe 10-25 pulls out of a single bottle.

Turbo will be more reliable, always on tap, and more controllable. It costs more and there's more work involved, but the payoff is worth it.

Either way you better make sure that motor is solid. Forged pistons would be a good idea.

[kelleyt217]

Now I have a 34 pict on it now but I also have a Weber 44 IDF, which one would be better for a turbo setup? Or should I go fuel injected? I'm in between deciding if I should modify my buggy or my car. Maybe both lol turbo the buggy and put nitrous on the car. Also what's the biggest rebuild I can do my motor without having to do machine work to the case? Also will the transmission need to be beefed up to be boosted? Thanks again for all of your help.

[Chip Birks]

Whats your budget?

[kelleyt217]

I'd like to keep it around $2500 if possible, preferably under that.

[kangaboy]

I'd like to keep it around $2500 if possible, preferably under that.

You can run crankfire and sequential fuel injection along with a turbo for that. Do some junkyard scrounging, buy and assemble your own Megasquirt kit, use a little fabrication/welding, and boom, you're off and boosting!

As many have said in the past, do a little reading on Megasquirt, decide what ECU you want, buy it, assemble it, get your timing and fuel map figured out, strap a turbo on, and tune for boost. For ~$2500, you can build a pretty nice, reliable setup.

Here's what I have in my ECU setup:
https://www.diyautotune.com/product/meg ... lack-case/
https://www.diyautotune.com/product/10- ... -for-ms3x/
https://www.diyautotune.com/product/10- ... ms3-ready/
https://www.diyautotune.com/product/meg ... sion-card/

EDIT: Or you can just spend a few hundred bucks and fab up a blowthrough turbo setup like clone did. There are also people doing the blowthrough setup with crankfire (Megajolt) so they can have a bit more control over their timing map. Many people just take an 009 Distributor and limit it to 24°, which may suck for you regarding streetability. Oh and one more thing...Microsquirt is a viable option and is more weather resistant than the aforementioned Microsquirt. It can basically do what the megasquirt does, just doesn't leave a lot of room for expansions in the future.
https://www.diyautotune.com/product/mic ... g-harness/

So many options...you just need to figure out what route you want to go.

[panel]

On the STF we love to spend other peoples money I was going to ask the same question.

Whats your budget?

[Kalle]

Nitrous is fun and relatively cheap until you start breaking parts. Turbo is also fun but do cost a fair bit more. I played around with nitrous when I got tired of NA before I went turbo. And I also tried both on my 2332 and 1641turbo engines and it worked really well! A tiny 16hp jet resulted in a 40WHP increase on my 1641 turbo (adding 10% fuel and removing 2 dg timing) With such a small jet one bottle of nitrous will last a race season.

Regarding nitrous, I would say that up to 75-100hp on our engines is rather safe, cheap and easy to do. And yes - you need two fuel pumps/systems. One for the carbs and one for the nitrous system.

-K-

[kelleyt217]

Recently had a deal that I couldn't pass up and am wondering if it will work. I picked up a turbo of a 2000-2004 Volvo S40 1.9 curious if this turbo will work on a 1641 motor.

[Krochus]

1D9E038E-60CC-4420-8F18-2EF737CFF3A4.jpeg

Recently had a deal that I couldn't pass up and am wondering if it will work. I picked up a turbo of a 2000-2004 Volvo S40 1.9 curious if this turbo will work on a 1641 motor.

I bought one of those too. It will work but by the time you buy the super weird flanges and rebuilt the worn out thing you can have a shiny new (yes Chinese) eBay turbo with all the flanges, oil lines and fittings in a box. Which is what I’m running on both my bugs.

I have a tiny GT15 on a 1600 single port blowing through the stock carb that has instaspool for DAYS!

That TD04-HL is a twin scroll but you don’t have to use it that way