Hey Jon, what are your thoughts on turboing my P5? I think you and I have similar work ethic and ideas when it comes to builds and your P5t was very nice. If you had the opportunity to turbo a P5 again, would you? My motor has 125k miles on her but doesn't burn any oil, still pulls well and runs just fine. I've never had any issues with the motor (or the entire car, really) other than the vacuum leak which was my fault from not tightening the intake mani bolts hard enough when I did my VTCS removal. So I was thinking of just going with a simple and reliable MSP turbo setup. Nothing over 8lbs of boost. Just for a little more zoom-zoom. And I would do it right and get it tuned. I think you know how I work, we're on the same page with workmanship and quality parts. Opinions?
Well, I guess I'll start that before you even consider turbo'ing you need to make sure your engine is up to it. You say it doesn't burn oil - that's a good start. Do you have catless exhaust? I ask because it's easy to tell if you're getting any smoke at start up or acceleration without the cat (visual and via smell). Definitely do a compression test though a leakdown test would be even better. I know this seems like a lot but higher mileage FSDE's don't have the best reputations.
As far as the choice to turbo the P5, like you said, we're pretty much the same there. My P5 was my daily driver (in college) and I turbocharged it with relatively no problems (most, if not all, were my own fault). I didn't start to burn oil until a year or so after it was turbocharged. That being said, the hardest thing about going that route is it really takes control to know where to stop. I originally had plans like what you have, but in the end I ended up with the be-all-end-all exhaust manifold, the MAM, was in the 505zoom IM group buy and had a bunch of other "go faster" goodies. Basically, my next step was a built motor and bigger turbo. If you think you can restrain yourself then I'd say go for it!
As for doing it again, I do think I'd like something along the lines of a slightly modified, fun daily driver because more and more I find myself tempted to turn the RX-7 into a full-out race car. I probably wouldn't do a P5 again because my wife already has a four-door car and at some point I had to step back and say "this is a FWD, 4-cylinder, four-door car, not a race car or even a sports car". That being said, I'll probably have a little fun with my Tacoma once its warranty has expired. However, if I didn't already have three vehicles (including the wife's) I'd probably look into an older 1st Gen Protege to play with (I'd love a GTX).
Sorry for the long-winded post, LOL!
