M52 drift/street help 350whp questions

[cody2130]

Looking at going turbo over this winter on my street/drift car. Plans right now are a cutring headgasket and ARP studs, have the head cleaned up and double check the bottom end before I start putting boost to it, plus a walbro pump, new injectors and the other standard supporting mods. Need reccomendations for a nice spooling turbo, only looking for about 300-350whp, along with a manifold that wont crack anytime soon haha. Thanks guys!

[chikinhed]

For only 300-350 whp it’s not worth the effort to turbo your car IMHO. Any supercharger can do that.

300-350 whp might sound like a lot of power but it’s really not. Most of us on here have gone through this already and have learnt that lesson.

[cody2130]

Going to be less expensive and give me more options down the road if I go turbo. I dont need or want a ton of power, I have driven 350hp cars that weigh about what my e36 does and they are a ton of fun without breaking all the time. Sorry your not a fan of my plans.....

[Kevin325i]

Spa manifold, s257sxe turbo.

[Mklock]

Cast manifold + Quickspooling Journal bearing turbo, I'd run that combo kevin suggested. Probably could never kill it.

[pbonsalb]

Going to be less expensive and give me more options down the road if I go turbo. I dont need or want a ton of power, I have driven 350hp cars that weigh about what my e36 does and they are a ton of fun without breaking all the time. Sorry your not a fan of my plans.....

It’s no less expensive to do a 350 rwhp turbo than a 450 rwhp turbo, unless you are skipping the $250 copper spacer to run stock compression, in which case you are limiting future power unless you run E85. Otherwise all the parts cost about the same and you are really just reducing boost to limit power. If you really did want just 300 rwhp, the supercharger would be simpler, cheaper and easier, but I’d recommend the turbo if you have the roughly $4k it costs to put together a decent system (and that’s assuming you buy parts on sale or used and do your own work).

[awp235]

I am seriously considering a 450hpish capable build, and limiting it to 300-350hp to begin with. When I cage a shell, I'd swap it into that one and turn the boost up.

Not sure about Bottom or top mount yet.. and have no clue what manifold/ where it get piping.

Will the spa manifold fit an m54?

[drstuess]

SPA and your choice of garret, borgwarner, precision turbo seems to be the default budget but quality set up on here. There are a bunch of generic intercooler kits you can cut to fit available on eBay and Amazon. You can either weld or coupler them together, the first method being preferable but more involved. Running under sub frame piping is really easy with most of the kits. Not sure what differences the m54 could create, but it has been documented a bunch in build threads on here in m/s50/52 motors.

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[Groshuk]

I'm thinking along the same lines as you, I have a convertible so I can't go big on power without bending things. Superchargers seem to suffer from heat soak pretty easily so while they're much easier I don't think they're the way to go.

If you're piecing things together yourself and buying new I would think an EFR is the way to go, they cost more but they spool fast and you don't need to buy a waste gate or blow off valve or worry about the extra plumbing and fabrication so it should basically break even. I'm still trying to figure out the best size, if you're thinking of turning it up a bit in the future then maybe the 7163?

[NOTORIOUS VR]

Superchargers seem to suffer from heat soak pretty easily so while they're much easier I don't think they're the way to go.

They're not... S/C's are just horrible devices in general.

Belts that slip/break, high IAT's, gearboxes that wear, boost that requires RPM to build... I can't say I've ever driven a centrifugal SC car that I liked.

[vwmikel]

They're not... S/C's are just horrible devices in general.

Belts that slip/break, high IAT's, gearboxes that wear, boost that requires RPM to build... I can't say I've ever driven a centrifugal SC car that I liked.

I feel like the belt and IAT issues can at least be engineered out, but the real enemy of the centrifugal supercharger is math. It might make good boost at high RPM. That's probably fine if you just want a drift car that bounces off the rev limiter constantly. But, if you want torque, well it's not really ideal.

[pbonsalb]

I like the bottom mount systems. Compact and easy to plumb.

My old centrifugal did great — 16 psi, T trim, schricks, headers, lower compression. Did 463/368. But yes, it was still a centrifugal and made about 4 psi at 3500. With a short diff like a 3.64, it got off the line well and was very predictable and controllable. What I did not like was the heat. The motor definitely ran hotter and my driving is street. Heat on an extreme centrifugal on the track or drifting would be harder to manage.

[someguy2800]

To the OP, I wouldn’t do anything different for a 350 whp build than I would for a 500 whp build. It still needs all the same stuff, cutring, clutch, tune, ect... just get a spa with a 57 ish mm turbo, cutring and spacer, 60 lb injector tune, and you’ll have a good start.

On the supercharger topic, they are awsome if your putting it on something with enough displacement and head flow to actually use it. Like on a 400+ cu in v8 with good heads that would already make 550 whp NA, a screw blower makes a lot of sense. Such a simple setup and you can get a combo like that up in the 800-900 whp range on pump and meth. Now with that said do I want anything to do with a centrifugal setup on a 3 liter? No Fing way.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

On the supercharger topic, they are awsome if your putting it on something with enough displacement and head flow to actually use it. Like on a 400+ cu in v8 with good heads that would already make 550 whp NA, a screw blower makes a lot of sense. Such a simple setup and you can get a combo like that up in the 800-900 whp range on pump and meth. Now with that said do I want anything to do with a centrifugal setup on a 3 liter? No Fing way.

I feel the same way... although even then I'd probably only want a positive displacement roots style blower for that instant PAH