How much does EFI and turboing cost?

[Danman]

This is a question that I have heard... Here is my list of costs (I might have forgotten something, let me know)

Intercooler 450x300x76 96.50
Turbo T25/28 334.99
Turbo oil and water lines 97.99
Gemracing turbo manifold 550.00
Haltech E6X computer 400.00
Loom for Haltech 315.00
Haltech throttle position sensor 138.95
2 bar MAP sensor 97.00
Air temp sensor 17.35
Wideband 02 sensor and gauge 219.99
Rodeo inlet manifold, plenum, tb and injectors 82.00
Fancier Intake Plenum and throttle body 150.00
4x2.5inch clamps @3.45each 13.80
1x 2inch clamp 6.30
3x 3inch clamps @3.85each 11.55
3x 3in-2.5in silicone bend @17.99 53.97
2in-2.5in silicone bend 19.00
2.5in aluminium bend 29.99
2.5in aluminium straight 37.00
LS1 coil 39.50
LS1 connector 19.80
Dump pipe 69.80
Dump pipe modification 25.00
Exhaust adapting ~210.00
Crane cams xr700 (points replacement) 39.80
smaller battery to fit next to piping 160.00
525cc injectors (overkill!) 246.60
Walbro 255LPH fuel pump 139.50
Surge tank with fittings 75.30
Fixing hole in surge tank 10.00
Fuel line and clamps (can't remember costs) ~50.00
Simota pod filter 22.50
Accelerator cable Free

TOTAL $3779.18

All of this stuff was bought over many years, just kept checking ebay and ozgem for things I needed. Then when I had most of the stuff and the opportunity arose where I could have the car off the road for a while I put it all together.
As I had no idea about EFI and turbo things I took my time and read a lot (then re-read it). Putting it all together whilst purchasing the missing pieces took a few months, then getting it to work took a few months, just got stuck with getting the spark setup right. It was off the road for a total of 6months.

Here are some notes about the above things and some bits I could have saved money on:

Gemracing manifold, could have got a cheaper manifold, disappointed that the paint burnt off after the first medium length drive. I like the design, but it looks 100years old with paint flaking off it!

Can not live without wideband 02 sensor! Tried to do it without and failed, don't waste time get one first go!

Fancier intake plenum neatens everything up glad I got it (very happy with painting it blue and making a NOS sticker for it too). To make the intercooler piping easier it is a necessity. Four silicon bends and 2 aluminium pipes is so straightforward! I did need to trim the battery tray to get some clearance, that is the only cutting.

Shiney wide clamps are pricey, should have bought all from same ebay shop to make sure they all match, they are close enough though.

The dump pipe I bought was for a silvia (low mount turbo) so it needed to be turned around (so it dumped down, not up). Was quoted 600 at the exhaust shop, so I took it home and attacked it with the angle grinder and got it to look right then took it back to the exhaust shop and he welded it together for $25. Saving of $575!
He got me back a bit on the joining of the dump pipe to the rest of the exhaust though...

The crane cams XR700 unit was already in my car but I used it in the EFI setup so I had to include it in the price. I also blew up a couple of the optical sensors when I initially wired them wrong, but I wasn't going to mention that because I didn't include them in the price list...

Fitting a smaller battery is possibly cheaper, but mostly easier, than relocating the battery.

The standard rodeo injectors would have been fine for the car as it is at the moment, if in the future I go for more boost... I still won't get near the limit of the huge 525cc injectors!! Wank factor? E85? I don't know...

Stupid surge tank, I bought it years ago (like a lot of the stuff), polished it up beautifully! Finally put this stuff together and couldn't stop the fuel smell! Then found a pinhole in the weld on the base of the surge tank. The guy who sold it to me was really good and said he would fix it I'd just have to post it to him. In the end I went to a local radiator shop for less hassle.
So now my highly polished surge tank has a real ugly patch on it...
and its not in the car, In my opinion the surge tank set up is a little bit overkill, I have set the walbro pump down low in the boot. It sits below the level of the fuel tank, the fuel tank would have to be very empty to cause it problems and you save a lot of money on clamps and fuel line without it, don't need a second pump to prime it too.
I didn't include a second fuel pump in the list because I assumed most people have an electric pump already that will be suitable for priming the surge tank.

You need a longer accelerator cable, I found a suitable one on our old paddock basher and made it work.
The XF falcon throttle body normally has the throttle pull from the front, I modified it to pull downwards, this neatened it up and reduced the length needed for the cable too.

You also need a laptop for tuning and for sticking all your stickers on

Hope this helps,
Dan.

[Anthony_Gemini]

Nice write up danman

[Jonno]

And $50 for advice phone calls from me

[Anthony_Gemini]

Is your gem racing manifold painted or hi temp coated?

[Danman]

And $50 for advice phone calls from me

lol the advice you gave me was take it to a pro and throw money at them to get it to work... This did motivate me to do it myself!
Fixing your gf's gemini before summernats was also helpful.

[Danman]

Is your gem racing manifold painted or hi temp coated?

I assume it was painted? I bought it in 2010, Gemracing should know what was on it.

Forgot pod filter! lol I've added it to the list.

[Danman]

Here is a picture from the gemini nationals, you can see how craptacular the Gemracing exhaust manifold looks. Yeah I know the whole thing is a mess! I was in a rush to get it finished, or something...

And apologies to Jonno, it was always a delight to get a phonecall from you. You did offer to help whenever the local shops were hopeless, you always said I could send things down to you to get them looked at by a useful shop. This happened a lot, Armidale shops are so useless!

I was thinking about Jonno's phonecalls and this reminded me why I bought the huge injectors. No where could flow test the rodeo injectors to see what their flow rate is and/or if they flowed the same. The only shop that had an injector testing machine said they just watch them spraying, if they spray ok then they are good... If they aren't spraying good they couldn't get replacements... How much do they charge for this "service"? $25 each injector...
So I bought the 525cc injectors that are within 2% of each other so I knew they were all good.

My tuning laptop, the Haltech E6X is the red box behind the top left corner of the laptop.

Fuel setup with the slightly leaking surge tank.


Taken on a very old phone here is the Gemracing manifold before going on and the silvia "dump" pipe before I modified it.

You know I love you Jonno <3

[Anthony_Gemini]

Any reason why you have the diesel 2nd firewall in?

[ajs991]

The car was a diesel he converted to petrol.

[Jonno]

I know man

[Danman]

The car was a diesel he converted to petrol.

And it gave me something to attach the MAP sensor and EFI fuel filter to

[Naukai]

You didn't include any costs for engineering. Do you need engineering for this mod?

Ash

[Danman]

Probably needs engineering! The car is registered with that engine in it (2lt petrol rather than it's original 1.8lt diesel), which is about as legal as I cared to make it.
I downloaded that thing Jonno put up about the engineering I'll look into it more when I get back to Australia (currently in the UK for a year). Here in the UK you can modify your car however you want, the police have the attitude that if you are spending money on your car then you obviously care about it and would prefer it to be safe, so they never stop people for having their car too low or whatever here.
They do make it complex in Australia with too many rules and regulations, which is why a lot of people don't bother with engineering, instead opting for the dodgy rego inspector, or rego that doesn't require yearly inspections etc. It's also damn expensive! It would be good to be fully legal and not have to worry about being defected all the time... But a few years ago I got defected for having a tail light out...

I was asked once by the police whether my racing seats and harnesses were engineered, I had an answer ready for that, "the seatbelts are ADR approved and the seats are mounted on the original rails", this seemed to satisfy the policeman, it's true but probably not legal.

[Naukai]

Arh okay I just saw that you're from the ACT and thought you might know.

I've looked at the info too and the engine capacity is within specs but the issue I see is "significant power increase" which is a bit ambiguous if you ask me. I'd say 500kw is significant but 200kw isn't...

I spoke to an engineer today and he said 20% so in a gem thats 72kw with original 60kw as a base figure...

NSW Engineers will only sit down and talk to me about the mods but since I'm building it at my parents place in Tassie that's a bit hard! I can't even say okay I'll take pics of the build and bring it up for sign off and can charge me appropriately (well like a wounded bull).

I was driving around in a lifted 4b for years and the only ones that would worry me were the highways as they knew what they were looking for but with big tires and big lift it didn't look out of the ordinary. It sucks that kids drive them like hoons and wonder why they roll going around a round a bout.

I want to use it for work as I specialise in motor vehicle liability (mechanics ect) and I always get the question are you a mechanic and after that they try and bull excreta me. I want to be able to turn around and say no but I built that... The 4b wasn't very road friendly so I had to drive the misses car (yarris yuk)

At least I've got some idea on the brakes required now so I can pull the fingers at the engineer and say its all done, thanks for your help and just sign the thing off... thats the idea anyways, I know they will find one way or another to get their coin!!!

Sounds like I might need to move to the UK but I'm not a fan of mud lol

Ash

[vivoacer]

How well is the $350 turbo going? And howmuch boost? Hear a lot of negative things about ebay turbos, want to see if it's worth getting a second hand t28 or ebay spec gt2876