Greddy Based or Complete DIY
 

I have a quick question. I am going to be setting up my car with megasquirt pretty soon and selling the JRSC to fund a custom Turbo setup. I am shooting for 250+ RWHP on my 1.6. I am still trying to decide if I would be better off starting with a base greddy kit (mainly just manifold and turbo) and then getting the stripes intercooler kit, turbotony or begi DP, with the megasquirt. Or would I be better off just doing it all DIY. It is my daily driver and I have no welding experience or anything, so the greddy option is appealing, but I dont want to have a limited setup by going with such a small turbo. Will the greddy be capable of my HP goals? How will the drivability be compared to say a t3 super 60 setup? Thanks for any input.

It's really going to be a toss up and will depend on what you want to spend time doing. If you want to do the build a piece at a time while driving the car, the greddy+stripes+DP+MS is going to be good for this. If you have patience and can wait to piece together the setup you MIGHT save a little money by going with a DIY setup. I'd start out with a BEGI Manifold and DP that will accept a cheap and plentiful turbo. Then you'll have to figure out the IC piping.

Ultimately one setup might be a little better or have more potential than the other, but really it'll come down to the tune. Lots of people complain about the Greddy manifold, and with reason I suppose. My advice would be to make sure the relief cuts are made on the flange and you update the hardware to studs. Either setup will get you where you want to go.

Jay

Thanks for the input. I have mentally thought through this a hundred times, but I am still not sure which route to go. The greddy is appealing mainly because there would be less fabrication involved, but budget is more important than anything else, so a complete DIY would be nice in that regard. If only I had a welder and the knowledge to use it. I can learn, but the initial welder purchase would be a suck on a tight budget.

You could probably get a local shop to tig weld a manifold that you have already cut the weldels and all for $150 or less. But then you're looking at a downpipe too. If i was to go the route you are, i would go Begi mani/dp and just get er done right the first time. The greddy is cheap though and you could get away with going that route for the time being. Just make sure you get a good greddy mani the first time, most of them have cracks.

It would probably be easier to go DIY. There's going to be the same amount of fab work. New downpipe & intercooler. You'll want to pitch the FMU and go with an EMS setup. So you'll spend $1,300 on a new GReddy kit, and toss all of the components except the turbo and manifold...I say find a cheap turbo and find a manifold/dp combo, fab an intercooler setup or buy stripes and mod it to fit (easy), go with MegaSquirt or similar, get some 550cc injectors and call it a day.

If I had it to do over again, I'd get the MS running, then add the turbo after.

I'd also have gone with a free-r flowing manifold than the Greddy, the Begi looks like a lot less of a bottleneck for the exhaust.

^^^^^ Listen to this man.

That's how I ran my project. First part I installed was the EMU. Then the WBO2 (temporary fitting on midpipe.) Then a week later the injectors. The turbo itself was just about the last thing to go in. This made things a lot calmer, knowing that the engine management was working properly and getting to know it well before making any boost.

Yeah, if you're going to do EMS, might as well do it first...then tackle the turbo setup.