Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

hi all,

I have tried searching but it comes up with a bilion results & non seem to answer my question..

I am wondering if it is possible to bolt on a Series 4 or 5 Rx7 Turbo onto the stock RB20 manifold?

- Do rx7 turbo's have the same T3 flange?

- Would it be worth it in power terms?

I understand I would have to get water & oil lines made up & also a new dump pipe.. but as the Turbo would be free I believe this would be a small outlay if its going to make some decent power over a Stock RB20 turbo or a SI R33 turbo..

All help would be greatly apreciated.

Daniel

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/141361-sv-rx7-turbo-on-rb20/
Share on other sites

If its a series 5 itll be really laggy, even a series 4 will be very laggy, they aren't a to3 bolt pattern, and dont have very big compressor side to them, it would be quite a lot of work to make it fit, they are quite a unique turbo which is really only suited to rotaries without a fair amount of internal modification requuiring at least a to4 comp wheel, but by thr time you have done that, the budget isnt so attractive

From memory the S4 and S5 turbos were Hitachi HT18-S by name . Neither had a T3 mounting flange and one or the other had a twin entry turbine housing .

Rotors hate backpressure which is why their turbos are large on the exhaust side compared to 4 stroke piston engines . So they are not really suitable for an RB20 though many have used them as the basis of high flow turbos . You could look at their centre section as a T3 copy with a pretty healthy sized turbine . The comp wheel is quite small as is the compressor cover . They are not a total loss but any potential they have may not be cost effective unless alternate compressors and housings are cheap or free .

For an RB20 I'd give it a miss .

Cheers A .

Good advice from all. Rotary turbo's are not a good match for piston engines (as in putting a s5 turbo onto a RB20. It will be laggier and doubt it would flow any more than a r33 turbo at similar boost pressures.

As another example, in terms of T04 turbo's, I think most piston guys would be running something like a .84 A/R turbine. Rotors would use the 1.00 or 1.15 or even 1.32 A/R turbine because of exhaust flow. I have a T04R turbo sitting next to me, I chose the 1.32 exhaust A/R for good top end on my 13BT. If I stuck it on my RB20, I reckon I wouldn't see meaningful boost until about 5000rpm in 3rd gear :ninja:

Fixxxer

it would be ace if you had a rotary engine, but you don't

much like a truck turbo would be ace, if you had a truck engine

there would be better suited turbos, the rotary housings are usually large as the flow tons more gas than a humble piston engine

I've done this about 5 years ago when i put a NICS rb20 into my R31 skyline. I had the turbo off my S4 rx-7 rebuilt std, and used that.

I had a flange made out of 12mm steel and welded onto the manifold, then i ported it out to make a smooth transition to the turbo flange.

The power doesnt come on hard till about 4500 rpm, but after that is went very well.

Please note, the S5 turbine housing is actually the smaller AR of the two. It also has the much better wastegate , with its twin flap design.

SO if you were going to try it, use the S5 (if you need to know how to identify them, let me know)

I spent quite abit of time manually messing with the R31's computer and i got the timing and fuel pretty decent on it . I sold the car off and after 5-6 owners and flogging, it was removed and is now in a Bluebird wagon , of all things. New owner whacked on an aftermarjet ECU and tuned it with somemore boost and its run a low 12 sec ET ..... Still all stock internal etc .. food for thought.

I guess if you had one already in good nic, it could save you some dosh, but as the other guys have stated, there are alot better suited turbos out there that just bolt on.

Gary

Edited by Fastrotor
Please note, the S5 turbine housing is actually the smaller AR of the two. It also has the much better wastegate , with its twin flap design.

SO if you were going to try it, use the S5 (if you need to know how to identify them, let me know)

actually, TMK the S5 had the bigger A/R. I've looked at quite a few and the S4's are 0.88 (equivalent*) and the S5 1.00 - it is def. the one with the tricky dicky twin flap wastegate arrangement however. the S4 has a piss tiny flap that is very prone to creep.

back end of the S5

img_1007.jpg

they can be high flowed easily with T04 wheels and comp covers.

my mate ran a flat 12 in his 4.0l cortina, had;

Garrett H3 60mm compressor wheel

TO4 .6 comp cover

360 degree thrust bearing

Sierra GroupA turbine

full boost by 2000rpm - but on 4.0l - ie: not so good on a 2.ol :ninja:

C+

*they were twin scroll (rubbish) with a 0.4 primary and 1.0 secondary

Yep plenty used them as a Hi Flow basis , mine had an 8 bladed TO4B -24 compressor which was a bad move . I was not clued up in those days to the fact that the 8 blade wheels were intended to be used with larger TO4 turbines and were low speed wheels . The 6 bladed B series wheels worked much better because they don't try to pump as much air at low wheel speeds where the turbine is not really developing enough shaft torque to be responsive . Also the extra air from the 8 blade wheel tends to make the turbo surge prone when it does come on boost .

I think I still have mine buried in the cave so I'll try to get some pics of it in a couple of days time . It had a VG30 turbine housing and RB25 style compressor cover at first then an RB25 turbine housing because it was very laggy . The RB 25 housing brought it on earlier but made the thing surge as well . Too much air too early .

As always its a but dubious using bored out non native turbine housings and I'd say the original Hitachi's were probably the only ones designed for it . Anyway that turbine being reasonably large (and heavy) won't be real good for a 2L six and the high oil shear drag from the bush/plate bearing system just makes it worse . I won't say it couldn't work on an RB25 or 30 its just not an optimal basis to begin with . Often you find with any used bush bearing turbo shaft and or housing bore wear and rear piston ring seal groove wear . They may be cheap or even free but the costs mount up down the track . In some ways you can see why companys like Garrett prefer to sell a complete cartridge rather than bits for rebuild . You get factory tolerances and brand new bits and refitting the housings is easy and quick - lower labour costs if your paying for it .

Do your sums very carefully because if you start playing with things like this you can often end up paying more money for less performance/satisfaction/dinosaur technology . If I was trying to do it on the cheap I'd stay with factory type turbos or at least a combination of factory bits . I always thought the RB25 turbine housing on the R32 turbo would be a cheap easy upgrade but thats only a guess .

Cheers A .

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y65/Ceffy_SA/DSC00096.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y65/Ceffy_SA/DSC00097.jpg

I currently have a Rx7 turbo installed on My RB20DET Silver top Cefiro, its basically a Rx7 HT-18S turbo of a S4 Rx7 but it has had a RB20 turbo rear exaust housing fitted to the turbo and the large steel wheel from the Rx7 turbo has been kept with the Rb20 turbo exh housing "machined" to fit.

Overall the compressor is not much bigger than the STD RB20 turbo (from memory it was only 4mm bigger on the exducer side) but ther is not much lag at all, really, currently full boost (around 14psi) is available at around 2800rpm, "Spool up" time is increased a little but its not huge by any means. I havent had it dynoed properly yet or tuned yet for the new turbo but the car does seem alot quicker with the new turbo on, boost no longer tapers off in the top RPM range and i can run over 15psi without worrying about the stock ceramic turbine shooting off. The turbo only cost me $500 and only required a custom oil line to be made up for it (going from ball bearing to plain bearing)

Yes Ceffy thats exactly what mine looked like from the back only with the slightly larger RB25 type turbine housing .

All RB25 turbos had larger comp covers than RB20 types which is not surprising because all the air goes through it and RB25's are 25% larger than RB20's .

Discopotato do you think i would be better off fitting a RB25 exh housing to my current configuration and also going with a better compressor? Also out of interest have you seen any power figures with this type of turbo on a RB20? Thanks

Has a Dr Drift re-tuned ECU at the moment, had the ECu re tuned recently after the turbo was put on but my time was cut short on the dyno because of worn out GTR fuel pump and then Misfiring plugs, its now all sorted but i havent had the chance to get the re-map finished. I was kinda hoping to get close to the 200RWKW mark with the new turbo or al least see an improvement over my original 165RWKW with the stock turbo on. 200RWKW with new Rx7 turbo wishfull thinking perhaps?

In the days of green potatoes we had this frankeinstein built , HT18S turbine in T3 wet core with TO4B -24 compressor in an RB25 comp housing . Don't copy this one because its a surging unit with very average performance .

Both the RB25 comp and turbine housings had the number 2 inside them , in the inlet on the turbine housing and the outlet of the comp housing .

post-9594-1162548796.jpg

post-9594-1162548934.jpg

post-9594-1162549038.jpg

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Update 3: Hi all It's been a while. Quite a lot of things happened in the meantime, among other things the car is (almost) back together and ready to be started again. Things that I fixed or changed: Full turbo removal, fitting back the OEM turbo oil hardlines. Had to do quite a bit of research and parts shopping to get every last piece that I need and make it work with the GT2860 turbos, but it does work and is not hard to do. Proves that the previous owner(s) just did not want to. While I was there I set the preload for the wastegates to 0,9bar to hopefully make it easier for the tuner to hit the 370hp I need for the legal inspections that will follow later on. Boost can always go up if necessary. Fitted a AN10 line from the catch can to the intake hose to make the catchcan and hopefully the cam covers a slight vacuum to have less restrictive oil returns from the head and not have mud build up as harshly in the lines and catch can. Removed the entire front interior just shy of the dashboard itself to clean up some of the absolutely horrendous wiring, (hopefully) fix the bumpy tacho and put in LED bulbs while I was there. Also put in bulbs where there was none before, like the airbag one. I also used that chance to remove the LED rpm gauge on the steering column, which was also wired in absolute horror show fashion. Moved the 4in1 Prosport gauge from sitting in front of the OEM oil pressure gauge to the center console vents, I used a 3D printed vent piece to hold that gauge there. The HKB steering wheel boss was likely on incorrectly as I sometimes noticed the indicator reset being uneven for left vs. right. In the meantime also installed an airbag delete resistor, as one should. Installed Cube Speed premium short shifter. Feels pretty nice, hope it'll work great too when I actually get to drive. Also put on a fancy Dragon Ball shift knob, cause why not. My buddy was kind enough to weld the rust hole in the back, it was basically rusted through in the lowermost corner of the passenger side trunk area where the wheel arch, trunk panel and rear quarter all meet. Obviously there is still a lot of crustiness in various areas but as long as it's not rusted out I'll just treat and isolate the corrosion and pretend it's not there. Also had to put down a new ground wire for the rear subframe as the original one was BARELY there. Probably a bit controversial depending on who you ask about this... but I ended up just covering the crack in the side of the engine block, the one above the oil feed, with JB Weld. I used a generous amount and roughed up the whole area with a Dremel before, so I hope this will hold the coolant where it should be for the foreseeable future. Did a cam cover gasket job as the half moons were a bit leaky, and there too one could see the people who worked on this car before me were absolute tools. The same half moons were probably used like 3 times without even cleaning the old RTV off. Dremeled out the inside of the flange where the turbine housing mates onto the exhaust manifolds so the diameter matches, as the OEM exhaust manifolds are even narrower than the turbine housings as we all know. Even if this doesn't do much, I had them out anyways, so can't harm. Ideally one would port-match both the turbo and the manifold to the gasket size but I really didn't feel up to disassembling the turbine housings. Wrapped turbo outlet dumps in heat wrap band. Will do the frontpipe again as well as now the oil leak which promted me to tear apart half the engine in the first place is hopefully fixed. Fitted an ATI super damper to get rid of the worn old harmonic balancer. Surely one of the easiest and most worth to do mods. But torquing that ARP bolt to spec was a bitch without being able to lock the flywheel. Did some minor adjustments in the ECU tables to change some things I didn't like, like the launch control that was ALWAYS active. Treated rusty spots and surface corrosion on places I could get to and on many spots under the car, not pretty or ideal but good enough for now. Removed the N1 rear spats and the carbon surrounding for the tailpipe to put them back on with new adhesive as the old one was lifting in many spots, not pretty. Took out the passenger rear lamp housing... what do you know. Amateur work screwed me again here as they were glued in hard and removing it took a lot of force, so I broke one of the housing bolts off. And when removing the adhesive from the chassis the paint came right off too. Thankfully all the damaged area won't be visible later, but whoever did the very limited bodywork on this car needs to have their limbs chopped off piece by piece.   Quite a list if I do say so myself, but a lot of time was spent just discovering new shit that is wrong with the car and finding a solution or parts to fix it. My last problem that I now have the headache of dealing with is that the exhaust studs on the turbo outlets are M10x1.25 threaded, but the previous owner already put on regular M10 nuts so the threads are... weird. I only found this out the hard way. So now I will just try if I can in any way fit the front pipe regardless, if not I'll have to redo the studs with the turbos installed. Lesson learned for the future: Redo ALL studs you put your hands on, especially if they are old and the previous owners were inept maniacs. Thanks for reading if you did, will update when the engine runs again. Hope nothing breaks or leaks and I can do a test drive.
    • No those pads are DBA too  but they have colors too. I look at the and imo the green "street" are the best.
    • I’m not sure what happened I told them about sonic tunes free OTS tune and the next the I know .. I was booted..   To funny 
    • Yea - I mean I've seen my fuel pump which is decades old and uh, while I'm not saying this with real knowledge... but I sure get the ick at using anything in the fuel system that produced the state of that pump. Many years ago I went through multiple pumps (and strainers) before I dropped the tank to clean it out with extreme violence. I'm talking the car would do maybe 50km before coming to a halt, which resulted in me cleaning out the filter with some brake cleaner and going on my way. None of my stuff ever looked like what came out of your fuel tank. I don't think I'd be happy with it unless every single component was replaced (or at least checked/cleaned/confirmed to be clean here).
    • I'm not going to recommend an EBC pad. I don't like them. Just about anything else would suit me better. I've been using Intima pads for a while now.
×
×
  • Create New...