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New guy and an 89 4WS.

Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 7:58 pm
by Jim_TSO11751
Greetings,

I am trying to help out my cousin with his 89 Prelude.

He was having it built at a local shop. I do not know the details, but he now has the car in his garage. All over his garage. This is his baby, and is very upset and overwhelmed with it in so many pieces.

I am a heavy equipment mechanic, so I have a pretty good understanding of the whole "put it together" thing.

I do know, so I am told, that it is a B20A5. The plan was to turbo it. The turbo was set to go into the trunk. The spare tire tub was cut out and was braced with tube steal. I have only looked at it for a few minutes, so I was not able to look over the welds and check for integrity. I am a little concerned with the turbo in the trunk. Will it make enough pressure to be effective, will the air be cooled enough, has anyone else seen this done?

I am going to start putting it back together for him, and I am going to take pictures of it along the way.

I am very sure that I will be back on here asking a whole lot of questions.

Jim

Re: New guy and an 89 4WS.

Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2014 9:14 am
by spiffyguido
I've never seen a turbo in a trunk.

It will work, but the lag will be awful, so I'm not sure why this is the desired approach. The turbo will have to charge a lot of volume to get the pressure up enough to bring the power up. That's really only going to happen at sustained high rpm, which a car really only typically sees in race applications. Around town, such a setup would be a dog. Plus, you have a longer expanse of pipe for which you have to deal with heat issues.

I'd put the turbo up front.

Re: New guy and an 89 4WS.

Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2014 1:31 pm
by Jim_TSO11751
The lag has been my biggest worry. I think that I have talked my cousin into mounting it under the hood. The problem is that it is not a stock turbo for a Honda. I do not know the model of the turbo, but I believe that it came off of a Cat. I am thinking that he needs a little bit smaller one for his car.

Re: New guy and an 89 4WS.

Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 8:43 am
by spiffyguido
Lots of different turbos will work, obviously. But to get the most efficient power you certainly want one that is sized correctly.

There are lots of people who have done turbo builds on 3rd generation preludes, so it won't be hard to find examples to go off.