Boosting the DC5R

[ShoryuKEN]

Right guys, I have decided that either I will boost my teg in the future or change car completely as I feel n/a is unrewarding considering how much it costs per pony, literally. Does anyone know the maximum power that can be pushed through the k20a with completely stock internals? I've read many figures online ranging from 300-500hp, 300-400hp sounding more realistically safe. I know the JDM k20a is higher compression than the the UKDM k20a2's found in the ep3 so is more risky to boost on stock internals, apparently.

My second point is about the turbo kit. I already know about TDI, their pricing and what they offer but there must be cheaper alternatives that are still reliable. The market for the DC5 here in the UK is very small so I've been looking at the RSX's across the sea in the US. They seem to have many kits developed over there for their 5's including sidewinder turbo manifolds all to a decent quality judging from reviews and all at a fraction of the price of what is available to us here in the UK, which is not much. Anyone know if they fit the DC5R's or is it only the RSX's? From the looks of it the RSX is very similar to the layout of the R in the engine bay and rest of the chassis. It also runs the same k20a series motor like the ep3 just no JDM Type R cams, pistons etc so runs lower compression.

I know of many people that source their own turbo kit parts and get conversions completed to a good standard yet don't pay out the whole value of their car to get it done. It's hardly ever with a k20 car though. You put k20 and tuning in any sentence together and you're already looking at crazy money around here.

A US company selling kits, interesting pictures at the bottom of the page: http://www.cxracing.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CXR&Product_Code=TRB-KIT-K20-RSX-WT-GT35-IC-AI&Category_Code=RSX

A video with it installed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-4NX7hvIp0

Hope to have a cool discussion but lets keep it on topic

 

[Crazylegs]

10 million bhp it will take.

 

[kazmo]

I already know about TDI, their pricing and what they offer but there must be cheaper alternatives that are still reliable.

lmao at this, TDI are cheap, and imo you get what you pay for.. cue haters.. how much were you looking at spending? it's serious money to do it right.

 

[integraleo]

A friend of mine is quite good friends with paul from TDi-North and the cost in parts to them for the turbo kit is way less than £2000. So the labour and profit on each kit is in excess of £3500.....not exactly cheap I'm sure you will agree

 

[Crazylegs]

That is ridiculous, how can companies get away with charging that much.

I've been doing a bit of research into both this and the supercharging route and it seems the best way to go about it is to source all the parts yourself and then get a place such as TDI/Eurospec to map it.

TDI want around £5000 for a turbo setup. Eurospec want nearer £6000 for a Rotrex charger setup, it's ridiculously expensive to do either if you get a company to do all the work. You're looking at getting work done that pretty much matches the cost of the actual vehicle.

I appreciate mapping etc takes time and costs a lot in itself but again I can't understand how companies can justify charging 4-5 hours work at around £500, sometimes more to map an ECU. Yes I appreciate it's involved but surely places can offer cheaper prices than that.

The problem you have is that most people such as myself are not mechanically minded and therefore wouldn't have a clue about fitting a Turbo or a Supercharger so it's easier to go the likes of the above. Is fitting one of these something any competent mechanic could do?

 

[Crazylegs]

A friend of mine is quite good friends with paul from TDi-North and the cost in parts to them for the turbo kit is way less than £2000. So the labour and profit on each kit is in excess of £3500.....not exactly cheap I'm sure you will agree

How did you go about it with yours, did you source all the parts yourself?

 

[integraleo]

Well jrsc is less complicated than some and just requires,charger,injectors,dc5 manifold (ep3 one won't fit on ours) as I'm finding out a smaller power steering pulley too. Add to this the full charge cooler set up from merc racing which isn't required but does lower intake temps a lot,a k100 or kpro and then fitting and mapping. It's not cheap! I scoured ebay for a while but the kits don't come up second hand very often so put add on here and ctro. A guy from ctro contacted me about a charger he would sell me for the right price. I almost changed my car because I wanted more performance but I'm hoping once it's running It will be worth the money and stress

 

[TyperItr]

I agree with boost, its the best bang for buck, and regularly hear of lads running good power on the K20 with no problems. I don't see what's the big deal between NA and boost if the boost power is delivered on a nice curve, very much the same as NA, what's the difference? Same delivery but much more power, OR am I wrong?? Granted more power means wheel spin causing the car to be a bit more squirmy but again that comes with more NA power as well. You can map the car to give a Vtec kick if you want to keep it and you keep much the same of the Vtec sound if not a tad more aggressive sounding. So really apart from racing classes in rally / drag events etc.. why such a big argument as to where you get your power from?

I am much like a lot of people on here. I would not have said I was mechanically minded, however I went with the attitude that if I mess it up, then I will get the professionals to fit it. In reality all it is is nuts and bolts. Take parts off and put more parts back on. Its not that hard really. When I fitted my own Rotrex Kit the hardest part of the whole thing was fitting the intercooler piping. Getting the angles right and fitting it around the chassis. wheel arch slam panel etc... I ended up buying a intercooler kit for a Subaru Impreza and cut it up to fit, it had all the angles and straight pipe I needed.

I am not sure how much people charge to fit a Rotrex charger, can anybody tell me?

What I will say is this. If I was to fit a Dc5 with a non-intercooled Rotrex charger from the second it would roll into a garage to the time it would roll out would be about 4 hrs. Its easy enough to do. I am not sure about a turbo kit but i reckon it would be much the same, only difference would be plumbing the oil sump to the turbo rather than suing its own Oil reservoir like the Rotrex. Only real thing you are not recommended to do and most cant do is a map. If you have the Kpro already installed that's about 500 quid. Rotrex kit is about 1600 i think from Kraftwerks / Skunk 2

Also in my opinion up to 400 is reasonably safe

 

[TyperItr]

I just re read your post crazylegs. Does £6000 for a Rotrex include Kpro + mapping + Intercooler? I think it is 1 days work if mapping and intercooler are included. My map took about 5-6 hrs to do including rolling road and and fine tuning on the street. so I think there is quite a big mark up on the price of 6k

 

[Mark_teg]

It's called 'business' gents! You pay the mark up on a tin of beans at tesco, the clothes you're wearing and especially the fuel you put in your tanks. If you can't afford it then simply don't buy it!

They have overheads to cover like any other business... And they aren't doing it out of kindness, it's to make a profit at the end of the day.

 

[Mark_teg]

To do it right is costly, to do it on the cheap will be even more costly in the long run

 

[Crazylegs]

I just re read your post crazylegs. Does £6000 for a Rotrex include Kpro + mapping + Intercooler? I think it is 1 days work if mapping and intercooler are included. My map took about 5-6 hrs to do including rolling road and and fine tuning on the street. so I think there is quite a big mark up on the price of 6k

Yes mate that's for everything. This is the full list of what you get for that price.

ROTREX SUPERCHARGER
SUPERCHARGER OIL
ROTREX OIL TANK
ROTREX OIL FILTER
ROTREX OIL LINES
ROTREX OIL COOLER
SUPERCHARGER PULLEY
PLENUM CHAMBER
ALLOY MAIN SUPPORT BRACKET
ALL ALLOY CONNECTING PIPES
ALL SILICON HOSES AND CLIPS
MAIN DRIVE BELT
ALL MOUNTING SPACERS , BRACKETS AND FASTENERS
RC 750 CC INJECTORS AND ADAPTER PLUGS
4 BAR MAP SENSOR
FRONT MOUNTED INTERCOOLER
RACE RADIATER
WALBRO FUEL PUMP

 

[Crazylegs]

To do it right is costly, to do it on the cheap will be even more costly in the long run

Fair enough, but I think what people are getting at is the markup and profit they're making.

Somebody above said the parts themselves cost no more than £2000 yet they're making a £3500 profit. There's a difference between making a profit and taking the pi%s, I'd go with the latter on this ocassion.

I do agree with you that it needs to be spot on in terms of mapping and tuning and it needs to be right the first time round otherwise in the long run it's going to be costly.

 

[kieranH]

But theres taking the p1ss with the price too!!!!

 

[dave7368]

This Thread, But Simplified...

Reliable And Cheap Won't Be Fast

Fast And Cheap Won't Be Reliable

Reliable And Fast Won't Be Cheap

......................................................

 

[kieranH]

This Thread, But Simplified...

Reliable And Cheap Won't Be Fast

Fast And Cheap Won't Be Reliable

Reliable And Fast Won't Be Cheap

......................................................

In a nutshell lol

 

[Crazylegs]

Do you know what. I've learnt a lot from this thread especially the comment Mark left which was "If you can't afford it, don't buy it"

These past few weeks I've been contemplating get myself into debt to make the car quicker but instead I'm going to save and do the things I want to do it without having the need to take out additional funds.

Like he said, if you can afford to do these things then do it but if you can't then don't.

 

[TyperItr]

I also learned something from this thread, I should be expecting some big bills soon as I didn't pay an extraordinary amount of money to get my car Supercharged and it has now become unreliable.

 

[dave c]

Echoing the good advice above, if you are concerned about the price then you probably can't afford it and therefore probably shouldn't do it.

 

[CaLi]

If i was doing it id be concerned about the price even though i could afford it. My concerns would be about justifying the price.