Boosting the DC5R

dave c

400hp K20
Messages
2,501
CaLi said:
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.
You're dead right, thats all the decision should be... Is this worth it?

Simple as that
 

ShoryuKEN

Active Member
Messages
55
It's really not about the affordability. Almost anyone with an ordinary job can take out a loan and get forced induction but just have more bills to pay over a period of time. It's the fact that places like eurospec and TDI are actually taking the piss when it comes to k20 tuning. The money they take from you for every hour that goes by is unbelievable. I won't take a dig at eurospec personally, had my car mapped there and they're a nice bunch but If you want me to be honest, I paid £350 for an n/a tune and it didn't really take romain much longer than an hours labour.........that's bollocks if you ask me, no one makes that kind of money, tuners are having a laugh. Money is so hard earned these days and spent too easily for that kind of extortion. Unfortunately the tuning market for k20's is unpopular in the UK so tuners that have any remote knowledge about tuning them are able to abuse it cause there's hardly anywhere else to go for the closed minded person. Frankly, I'd rather sell my dc5 and get a better car altogether than have to pay £6k to charge it. 5's are being sold for less than the price of these turbo conversions alone now. Also, bolting a turbo kit on that's made to fit is really not difficult even an amateur can do it with the correct guidance, space and time. Mapping should be left to the professionals though. These company's bump people a lot but most people don't want to accept they got rogered so they constantly swear by them and put down anyone who wants to find a cheaper way. Typical behaviour of the Honda community and it's for that reason that these tuners can continue to rape wallets. I know they charge too much because I know the costs of boosting other cars other than Honda's and they cost literally a fraction of the price to get done. My friend got his mx5 boosted professionally for under 3k parts and labour including mapping.

Someone else I know had boosted his ep3 with a turbo kit off ebay that costed under £1k. He had it fitted and mapped at a garage nowhere near as popular as TDI etc and his car is still running fine a year on.......I would never do this or recommend it though, it's just food for thought that there has to be cheaper ways that won't necessarily compromise reliability. Importing kits from the US seems to be on the rise as people are slowly waking up to robbery here.
 

discodave22

Advanced Member
Messages
195
dave c said:
You're dead right, thats all the decision should be... Is this worth it?

Simple as that
Couldn't of said it better, even if your that committed to cars in general and have the money it's very hard indeed justifying that price to turbo, even rotrex. I guess Thats why most people jump through hoops to snatch a 2nd hand jrsc kit ! Which does the job nicely, 300 ponies is more than enough to make the 5 a much better and exciting car to push at those B roads or on track ! Turbo I'd say only makes sense if your wanting in excess of 350bhp because in a jackson you wont be far behind in power or torque and paying a lot more money for what ? Yeah its efficiency for power is the best but are you going to have drivability with say 400bhp with a fwd everyday getting all the power down on the bends/ straights without spinning it away and needing tires more often than not, will be tiring !
Then there's rotrex if your wanting that bit more power than JRSC for the money you'd pay for the kit and up & running. Then you May aswell go turbo if it's big power your looking for potentially with internal work to be taken in to consideration too.

But if your set on turbo I'd just look at other builds or seeing on there website parts required.. Sign upto the mr2 and evo forums and get piping, intercooler, turbo, wastegate atleast 50% of parts 2nd hand, saving money.
For the money to map them I don't mind so much, as It takes time to learn and build up knowledge of tuning, which I can appreciate and still have factory reliability. So can't really argue for the sake of a few hundred for my engine not blowing up and being good to go daily with some abuse :)
 

integraleo

Advanced Member
Messages
1,873
All good information and opinions here makes for good reading. I will let you all know my feelings on my jrsc when it's finally up and running.
On another note about 10 years ago I turbod my dc2 with an eBay turbo kit from America,I paid £450 for t3/t4 turbo,down pipe and wastegate. Add to that second hand injectors from an evo for about £80,intercooler and oil cooler from the states for less than £200 delivered. Intercooler pipework again from America for £100 including the silicon hoses and clips. 2 6 foot long oil lines made in UK for £120,low compression pistons,head bolts and head gasket kit around £400. Add to that few little things like oil catch can and b.O.v and cost was around £1600 10 years ago,not including around £1000 in mechanics bills and specialist work like re boring,head skim and tapping oil pan and few other bits and pieces. I actually ran the fuelling on an apexi vtec controller which is pretty crude but worked O so well. I was running 320 bhp at 8.7psi and to this day is the smoothest turbo car I've ever driven...it was amazing and I miss it almost daily. It can be done cheap but takes a lot of hunting for parts
 

p1tse

Advanced Member
Messages
2,696
Can't believe you car enthusiasts are moaning about this.

If you think its too expensive from a reputable business, who has taken years to build on the experience, business name, then go elsewhere.
If I was going FI aftermarket on a car I would definitely prefer a place which knows what they are doing (but personally I would never be able to justify it and would just buy a big power car from factory)

The business has got overheads, rent, salary to pay along with profit to put back into the business on equipment update, making sure staff is trained upto date.

If you think its too much go elsewhere or its a personal opinion not value for money.

What's the boosted increase? 80bhp to 300bhp, at £5k that's £62.50 a Bhp.
What about an average intake cost £300 and maybe gives you 3bhp, that's £100 a Bhp.
If that is the case then the boosted Bhp/£1 is better value for money, but is it something you want to outlay its a personal matter.

If you think that's expensive, I was looking at e46 m3 and for a service (inspection 2) some dealers are charging £1k+. That's just a service!

Even though I can't justify it myself, that's why I like seeing build threads on those who do attempt it as an appreciation to someone's dedication
 

beppe786

Beppe
Messages
2,062
why turbo when supercharging is easy as pie and with a few jrsc mods you're up in the 400 hp range

stock k20a 349whp is around 400hp plus you wont break nothing with no torque spikes.

 

discodave22

Advanced Member
Messages
195
Beppe said:
why turbo when supercharging is easy as pie and with a few jrsc mods you're up in the 400 hp range


stock k20a 349whp is around 400hp plus you wont break nothing with no torque spikes.

Beppe makes a point ! Turbo is what breaks things, standard gearbox in our cars aren't made for face ripping torque.. based on what I've seen first hand.
 

beppe786

Beppe
Messages
2,062
Torque fools you thinking its quicker.. big misconception

that video is over 2 years old.. how much wheel spin did the turbo fn2 have.. lol supercharger technology has advanced rapidly

like discussed above they will tell you what you wanna hear so you go buy and tune from them.. its a business.. like everyone else.. inflated figure all part of the business process, customer happy. like it or not its the truth

im telling you from a supercharged teg owners point of view.. you can go turbo no problem with that just have to have deeper pockets and do it right like dave black dc5.

NA owners.. dont knock it till you try it..
 

mark2390

Advanced Member
Messages
266
I was thinking supercharger would be less stress on engine ,drive shafts, gearbox? Cheaper and still would be quick!
 

Crazylegs

Advanced Member
Messages
5,224
I've never driven either but my preference would be a SC simply because it's supposed to be a similar to NA power delivery.
 

TyperItr

Advanced Member
Messages
1,643
Here is what the power delivery is like. From 2nd gear no wheel spin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn-B5HMT3_k
 

miki1212

Advanced Member
Messages
256
discodave22 said:
Beppe makes a point ! Turbo is what breaks things, standard gearbox in our cars aren't made for face ripping torque.. based on what I've seen first hand.
yeh, on E85 fuel which is for sale where....???
 

davidpingu

Advanced Member
Messages
2,583
I'm really interested to see what the next generation engine will do for the K20's future. In every other step up in engine tech, people have favoured the next generation and K20 transplants have been so popular in the older type R's over the B series. It will be interesting what the enthusiasts make of the next engine.

I see it going one of two ways. Either it will have much more tuning potential in terms of more boost and you'll see transplants as you always have or people will find that the lower rev limit of the newer engine is uninspiring in comparison and actually means the k20 is still the choice for boosted applications.
We won't be comparing NA for NA like before, it will be NA for FI. So for a true comparison it will either need to be boosted K20 vs the new engine or we'll need more detail on the internal specs of the new block minus the boost and how these changes have made it better. I'm sure if they've saved more weight over the K series that will be a big plus.
I guess my point is you can buy a new K20 from nengun for about £5k plus import fees. You then have to pay another £5k+ to boost it.

What if the new engine is available off the shelf in the UK for £7k? Will that become the preferred choice people will eventually make?

I think it will take time to know for sure. I'm sure when the K20 was first released the B series crew didn't like it and I'm sure it was said that it had no tuning potential. As it happens it's been by far the best engine they've developed up to now!

I wonder if a few years from now there will be DC5's running the new engine?
 

beppe786

Beppe
Messages
2,062
if the new turbo engine has no VTC or Vtec.. then people won't use it.. to transplant..

because the K20a can be mapped so many ways with good gains thats why its favored
 

Crazylegs

Advanced Member
Messages
5,224
It will have VTEC supposedly but at the end of the day it will end up being the same as all the cars in the VAG group and that is a simple remap and you've got a massive torque monster with no drive-ability.

It's a shame Honda have had to go down this route. Then again, no one has driven this car so I could be slating something which might in fact turn out to be brilliant.

I personally just don't anticipate Honda doing anything out of the norm with this car to make it stand out from the other turbocharged cars it's up against. They should have gone RWD or even 4Wd with more power, that's my opinion on it.
 

kieranH

Advanced Member
Messages
168
Crazylegs said:
It will have VTEC supposedly but at the end of the day it will end up being the same as all the cars in the VAG group and that is a simple remap and you've got a massive torque monster with no driveability.
It's a shame Honda have had to go down this route. Then again, no one has driven this car so I could be slating something which might in fact turn out to be brilliant. I personally just don't anticipate Honda doing anything out of the norm with this car to make it stand out from the other turbocharged cars it's up against. They should have gone RWD or even 4Wd with more power, that's my opinion on it.
4wd would have been a fantastic upgrade to the new civic
 

miki1212

Advanced Member
Messages
256
4wd civic? lol way off topic now, how many people commented apart from dave c actually have much experience of turbo'd tegs lol
 

Crazylegs

Advanced Member
Messages
5,224
It would.

The thing is, you've got people who are boosting and SC current K20's to power levels that would not only destroy this Civic but most other cars. In fact you can't limit this solely to K series engines, the same can be said for any high performance VTEC unit. The difference between FI on a current Honda VTEC and FI on say a VAG group car is not only are you increasing the power massively and tuning it to how you want, you're maintaining the high revs of the VTEC engine, you don't get that combination on newer type motors and you're not going to get this on the new Civic either.
 
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