So upgrade turbo or find safe way to increase boost?

[Mid_Life_Crisis]

I'm with SuperStretch on this. Let's pretend that all the bolt ons are done correctly, the tune is perfect, etc, etc. How much horsepower can the stock internals of this thing take before something breaks? It'll be a year or two for me before I can afford the mods that will push me anywhere near that point, but I am curious.
Now that I think about it, how much power is the tranny/clutch assembly rated for?

 

[jbiird317]

cranking up the boost can be safe as long as you have the supporting mods to keep your engine from detonating. If you want to upgrade to a forged bottom end/internals, then you could probly take the boost up as high as you want. With stock internals, you are running a risk everyime you increase the boost past normal.

 

[serialtoon]

Some of us can't offord to chance pushing our cars that hard on the chance something may happen. Hats off to you for letting us know our limits.

I second this. Although i can afford to break things here and there, i DONT wanna afford it. I like spending my money on other hobbies.

 

[kdubs m$3]

if you want to "upgrade" with a bigger turbo, you will also have to change the down pipe and charge pipes. stock might work, but wont fit like stock or flow enough.

i think the stock turbo is big enough really, yet lacks the proper internals to really make the power everyone wants. i know turbo shops out there that can re-trim this turbo and i think thats the route I'm gong to go. the stock fan wheel is only 50mm, so I'm thinking with a 57mm or 61mm fan you could make more power more efficiently while still remaining relatively stock.

 

[redrocketz]

if you want to "upgrade" with a bigger turbo, you will also have to change the down pipe and charge pipes. stock might work, but wont fit like stock or flow enough.

i think the stock turbo is big enough really, yet lacks the proper internals to really make the power everyone wants. i know turbo shops out there that can re-trim this turbo and i think thats the route I'm gong to go. the stock fan wheel is only 50mm, so I'm thinking with a 57mm or 61mm fan you could make more power more efficiently while still remaining relatively stock.

The charge pipes are the same for the bigger turbos they will work but the DP has to go or atleast be heavily modified.

And in terms of bottom end strength we have been testing those waters for a while now. And at 330AWHP and almost 400 AWTQ (yeah it's crazy high torque) the engine is holding out for a long time now. But we spent hours upon hours of tuning time both on the dyno and street tuning making the thing just right.

 

[builthatch]

i researched the engine a bit before i got it by talking to an old friend who was heavily involved in the ms3 coming here- nathan tasukon from motec who is ed bergenholtz's crew chief (a noted 'import' drag racer)

the biggest problem i see is a lack of a real engine management. there are so many complicated intertwined parameters tied into the awesome but somewhat unknown direct injection that a viable engine management is going to be tough to develop, atleast at this point. cobb evidently has made massive progress with their access port, but it's not yet released so noone knows for sure. mark mcgovern at turboxs has indicated to me they are hard at work on something too but have their work cut out for them.

anyway, nathan claimed the weak points on the engine are the crank, number one, the rods number two and the trans number 3. for #3, he's seen this evidently in some sort of road racing development environment they worked in. on the street side, this might also tie into the engine management issue. if there was a viable choice to tune the combustion events and cope with increased boost with that compression, maybe the window would be a bit more open for more power before failure. but again, we are getting spoiled here- i mean s***, it's making 280ftlbs at the crank from the factory and we are not pleased, upset that the stock bits might give at the 400whp mark hahaha....

so, evidently the mark is 400whp according to nate...

 

[Haltech]

Bah, the crank is fine... its forged man. The Rods and Pistons are the weak link in the engine and definately the tranny if you are power shifting it. If you lift during shifts, tranny will be ok to about 500hp. You can worry about the crank once you start making 800hp at the wheels and even than, you are going to need some nitrous to snap it. Those guys can speculate all they like, but the crank would be the LEAST of my worries.

They are spot on regarding the ECU however.