xyouthx

so, I have become frustrated with trying to power up my tC, I tried to turbo it last year, and very very bad outcome, and choose not to try to go that route again, not to mention I dont have the 5k budget to do so correctly. An option I am very close to, is trading my tC for a Type S. I never thought I'd go Honda, but my good friend's RSX is at 200 whp with just simple bolt ons and I envy that. Is there any way possible to go all motor in a reasonable price range(under $1500) and reach anywhere near those numbers? I am not a noob by any means, but it seems that the only real power additions offered to our platforms are F/I, and I opt not to go that route. But if there is no other options, I might just have to go Honda, but other than the lack of power I desire, I love my car. hence this cry for help.

lil_will

What went wrong with your turbo build?

deathbyc4

get a honda, so we dont have to hear complaining. if you don't have the money then don't try to power up your ride.

Neothin

type-s's are expensive as sh*t dude. with the money you would spend on a type-s, you can either get all the n/a mods + a ported head and be at the same power level or do a mild turbo setup and exceed it.

i dont see what the gripe is :-/

TheQuietThings

If you want real N/A power, buy a Mustang, or a Corvette, or even a 3.5 SE-R Altima

malibuboy54

hondas aint bad, but they only pull on the high end.....i used to have a honda prelude 97.....that thing pulled hard on top, but no torque.....what i liked about the scion was a decent balance of power without having to rev so hi.....remember that high rpm engines don't last as long.....and i think i heard that the rsx is being discontinued since honda wants to work on the civic si more, since the rsx doesn't sell as well.....also, on the dyno, the rsx type s makes on average 170 hp, and 125 torque....so its really only fast when yo rev really really high.....which means with bolt ons, you'll only attract more attention than wanted...might as well get a civic si anyway...better tranny, lighter, etc.....

xyouthx

well, I might as well just let it all out now:

I bought the kit used (was the 1st production kit from ZPI) off this kid here in cincy, he went bankrupt and lost the car, so i bought the kit off him and had ZPI install it in Louisville so I wouldn't have to worry about it. They were very nice people down there, and took me and my friend to a movie while we waited, and they said they was gonna have their new mechanic do his 1st turbo install at their company. Long story short, the install was finished and Kenny took me out in my car to make sure it ran and he told me, "if it's gonna blow up, might as well be here", which I agreed. And I didnt push my car hard enough, so he drove it. And not to sound like a puss, but he beat the ____ out of my car. Ive never felt the tranny slam so hard under my feet, but all that happened was the couplings blew off the intercooler piping a few times, but all in all it ran alright(other than the stalling issues which he said would go away). So it was 1 am and I had school in the morning, so we called it a night. Well about a half hour into the drive home there was what I thought was my intake rattling, because it wasnt restrained by anything in my engine bay. But I babied it all the way home, to give my motor the 500 mile break in period or whatever. Next night, I go to my friend's garage to fix it, and he listens to my motor and says, "dude that's coming from the motor , not the loose intake." Turns out he was right, it was a very bad valve tick. I immediately told Kenny and that's when things went downhill. It was bad, and my oil was silver. He told me to check a few things, and we did. Nothing fixed it, so we started taking things apart. Upon taking the charge pipe off, we saw that the housing was caked in oil, which Kenny denied any relation to my problem. Took the valve cover off, one of the lobes on my intake cam had bad scouring on it, again Kenny denied any relation. He asked how does he know that I didnt beat my car driving home, and I couldn't prove I didnt. Just like I couldn't prove that his crazy driving the night of the install had anything to do with it. He said it sounded like that the problem was already existent and the turbo just made it occur quicker, so he told me to try to take it to Toyota without the kit on. He sent my stock parts back to me, and it worked. Toyota replaced the whole bottom end, and it took 5 weeks total. I then asked Kenny if he could atleast help sell my kit because I decided to buy a camera for school, he agreed to help, but just stopped anwering emails and/or phone calls. I wish it never happened because i want my car to be turbo'd more than anything, but it's not really possible now. Im a full time student and dont work enough to save up 5k to have it done again.

I wish ZPI would've handled things better but ohwell, I learned from it. My friend builds nissan's, and reviewed the kit and just ripped my a new a$$ hole for buying it. His compaints were: the BOV should've been recirculated to help stop stalling(Kenny stated this wasn't the problem), that the oil feed line into the turbo was way too big(a few months after this, the feed line from ZPI was changed), and whoever installed the kit put a horrible kink in the return line to the oil pan.

Now I dont think it was really the kit that caused my motor to go because it ran fine on David's car for so long, but I wish that ZPI would've done more to help. For the record my car had this installed at 21k with ZERO problems, so Kenny's suggestion that the motor was already messed up before the install is definately not an option.

There, that covers it.

flintgauge86

wow... that, sucks!

20tCDude05

The used turbo might have been a factor.

flintgauge86

Get a 350Z, like i did. I traded in my 2005 FM 5spd for a 2006 black 6spd 350Z and I couldn't be more happy.

20tCDude05

Dude, I hear they have ____ty motors, but good potential tho.

20tCDude05

And why the heck are you still here? We have a foreigner here!!!! LOL

xyouthx

Tried that too, being in school i could only afford an 03 Z, but I test drove 2 in two weeks, and both had the uneven tire wear problem I found out about. And its just not worth the expense of alwasy buying tires every year to me, it just wouldn't be practical. But that's neither here, nor there.

flintgauge86

The motor is fine, just as susceptible as any other motor. It's just that lots of people like to add superchargers and turbos without laying the ground work for them. Then the power overwelms the stock internals and boom! bye bye motor.

TheQuietThings

weak motors? The VQ engine has won awards time in and time out

I think it is a great motor out of the box, but it is hard to tune and upgrade.

20tCDude05

I meant as in crappy, break down, etc. Yea, it's powerful, etc. But, complicated.

flintgauge86

It's mainly just that kid that was 15 and was knocking on the G35 owner. He forgot to follow the break-in period and that's probably where the negative stereotype of the VQ came from. That , and the negative stereotype of young teen drivers.

20tCDude05

I don't see many teen driving them, they're pretty expensive. More like 25 yr old peeps

kungpaosamuraiii

A reason to keep the tC:

Save enough money to buy a new and much better car. If you upgrade to a type S, you're making a largely lateral step. The demographic is pretty much the same.

Or if you don't mind driving a pretty much boy racer car for a bit, you should get the Honda. If power for less is what you want, you need to start with a better breathing head.

tikbhoy

get rid of it and get something youll be happy with. u started with a new platform with barely any parts in the beginning.

u should have went with dezod or turbonetics.....