Retro-Turbo an NA 2.2

[Shelby Dak]

I have a nice 84 Charger 2.2 just sitting in my garage. It has 8k miles on a good rebuild. It was, at one time my FSP autucross car then was my daughter's high school car. I had the idead of adding fuel ijection (run by Megasquirt) and maybe a turbo or centrifugal supercharger. I would like to swap the carb for fuel injection, but don't know what parts I will need. Any ideas?

[raccoon]

Have you thought about just swapping over a turbo drive train? shouldnt be too hard to wire everything up at the bulkhead connector with the proper diagrams

Take for example my shadow, It was a NA car. I changed the engine, tranny, wiring harness, computer, fuel pump. and a few other odds and ends. mine was direct plug and play. yours will require some custom wiring.

[Shelby Dak]

I would need a tank from a turbo L body and much wiring. Also, my engine is new. If it was an old engine, I would do the swap. I don't want to give up an 8000 mile engine for a 50,000 mile engine.

[raccoon]

well if you have some coin, maybe try to find the 2.2 direct connection supercharger kit.

[Shelby Dak]

I would rather go centrifugal, through an intercooler, but may have to build a box for the carb.

[daytonaturbo87]

I take it the motor in there is the factory 2.2 HO? If so, I would not turbo or supercharge it. The HO 2.2's had their blocks decked .030 from the factory, giving you 9.5:1 compression. Way too high for any kind of forced induction IMO, unless you plan on building your combo to run E85. You would be best off ditching the carb and manifold and putting on an intake manifold off of a T2 or 2.5 T1. Run the fuel with megasquirt but let your factory spark box still take care of ignition timing. Also pick up an exhaust header. Should give you a very nice boost in power, driveability and throttle response.

[Shelby Dak]

No HO, but the deck is lower as it needed to be re-trued. I would say we are at 9:1

[ShadowFromHell]

I would bolt on a entire log turbo setup. Weld the injectors holes shut, and put a carb before the turbo...

Ive always wanted to do this, but havent ever had a carb car!

[turbovanman²]

You could add the later one piece intake fuel injection stuff and recal a computer to run n/a. That would be dirt cheap and reliable.

[Shelby Dak]

What computer would I re-cal and how?

If I wanted a higher performance N/A I would go with a 2.4 engine with DOHC Neon cams and disconnect the balance shafts.

[1FastCSX289]

I would bolt on a entire log turbo setup. Weld the injectors holes shut, and put a carb before the turbo...

Ive always wanted to do this, but havent ever had a carb car!

Interesting idea. Cant see any reason why it wouldnt work and it would be simple. All you need is an 84-87 T1 top end and then retrofit a carb to work in place of the throttle body. It would be a neat experiment.:eyebrows:

[turbovanman²]

What computer would I re-cal and how?

If I wanted a higher performance N/A I would go with a 2.4 engine with DOHC Neon cams and disconnect the balance shafts.


Depends on what harness you use, then have the computer chip socketed and have one of our cal guru's recal for no turbo use.

[RoadWarrior222]

I think you could "get away" with just putting the stock turbo bolt ons on it with the stock T1 electronics, no more than stock boost, and it would hold up for a spiced up DD. You'd never get to turn the boost up though.

[daytonaturbo87]

If you ran it intercooled, kept the boost at the stock T1 level, and leave it computer controlled so it can reduce boost if it detects ping, and run pump 93 octane I'm sure you could get away with it. Problem is, how much hp would you be at? Probably 150, could maybe get a little bit more out of it with a good exhaust system but you will be very limited. You'll eventually get the urge to crank up the boost and that's no good with 9:1 CR. But if you like living on the edge, you could try it, just always be sure to run a good brand gas, highest octane you can get at the pump.

[contraption22]

If you ran it intercooled, kept the boost at the stock T1 level, and leave it computer controlled so it can reduce boost if it detects ping, and run pump 93 octane I'm sure you could get away with it. Problem is, how much hp would you be at? Probably 150, could maybe get a little bit more out of it with a good exhaust system but you will be very limited. You'll eventually get the urge to crank up the boost and that's no good with 9:1 CR. But if you like living on the edge, you could try it, just always be sure to run a good brand gas, highest octane you can get at the pump.


Caution: Wild-azz theory!
You could probably get away with a little more if you use alcohol injection, OR, design the thing to run on E85 if it's readily available. Yeah ya get less mpg with E85, but you have much more resistance to detonation. E85 is roughly 105 octane.

[Aries_Turbo]

if its at 9.0:1 you could get away with a light pressure turbo but you are going to want to use the turbo intake and ecu to keep an eye on knock and to make it safe. just get the turbo top end (or at least replace the exhaust valves as the na ones are not enough metallurgy wise) and a turbo engine bay harness and strip out all the non engine essential wiring and wire it up like a standalone. you dont need all that many wires to run just the EFI stuff. youll definitely want to run less timing than the stock ecu will have as the CR is way high but at 5-7psi it would scoot. :)

you could always run a thicker headgasket to get the CR down too.

what rods and pistons are in it?

Brian

[RoadWarrior222]

you could always run a thicker headgasket to get the CR down too.

I'd have fun playing with retarding the cam enough to reduce dynamic compression, kinda atkinson cycle with a blower, bet it would run wierd though, like putter putter putter VRRRRRAAAAAAAAARRRR

[Vigo]

i would skip the turbo idea entirely and go n/a with megasquirt, a turbo intake, header, ans cam. you could definitely run in the 15s if its 5spd and you can swing 130hp+ or so. then you can boost it via superchaerger later after you are adept with tuning the ms and leave the fancy header alone and not mess with MUCH more plumbing or wires.

[Vigo]

and you CAN boost it if you are serious about it. 9:1 or even 10:1 is not impossible, but you need GOOD heat management, tuning, and may have to take the head off and round some edges.. if you do, you can put on a thicker hg at the same time.

[daytonaturbo87]

Or if you've got the $ you can go and order a real thick head gasket. Cometic will make you one in any thickness you want. If you get them to make a stock head gasket, but really thick, say .1 to .12 thick, your compression ratio would be down to on par with what the turbo engines came with stock.

But realistically, I think your best bang for your buck would be to convert it to a log intake'd turbo. Don't pull your head if it's good as-is, but you would have to at least change to the turbo cam. I know the n/a valves aren't as good, but at these low boost levels, I think they'd be okay. If you ever do burn a valve, that's a good excuse to buy a pricey thick head gasket. Now I know the log isn't the best, but think about it. All log T1 parts are easy as pie to find at the junkyard and dirt cheap. Combine that with a factory T1 wiring harness/computer from a L body car so the wiring harness would be plug and play. Only thing you'd need to wire in would be the fuel pump. Leave the boost computer controlled with the stock T1's 7-9psi boost setup. The log T1's were rated at 140hp and 170ft-lbs. With pump premium and computer controlled boost I'm sure it would live. Lots of people have run the log T1 cars on 87 octane no problem. If you wanted a lil more power than the T1's had stock, you couldn't up the boost any, but you could upgrade the exhaust system. Get a 2.5 or 3" mandrel bent exhaust kit from one of the vendors, plus upgrade the turbo to a 2.5 or 3" swingvalve. Then port the exhaust manifold yourself, buy a ported one or make a tbi header. Couple that with the extra compression of the n/a engine and I could see you easily getting stock T2 power levels out of a log T1. You should easily be able to bury that car deep into the 15's, if not 14's. If you had an extra $300 burning a hole in your pocket you could add an alcohol injection system and up the boost to the max the T1 computer will support.

I'm actually thinking of doing this same thing to a carb L body I have, so I have put a little bit of thought into this, lol.

[turbovanman²]

Don't pull your head if it's good as-is, but you would have to at least change to the turbo cam. .


You have to pull the head to change any of the manifolds, :thumb:

[daytonaturbo87]

You have to pull the head to change any of the manifolds, :thumb:

I've done both of them before in-car on a L body. :bounce2: The T1/T2 one-piece intake manifolds are impossible to torq down correctly in-car can't physically get the wrench in there, but log intake and exhaust manifold was doable with just the right length of extensions. Easier out of car, at the end of the day it's about as much work either way IMO.

[Aries_Turbo]

dont go too thick on a HG... you lose any of the quench characteristics that were there to begin with and then the engine becomes more susceptible to knock even though the CR is lower.

Brian

[RoadWarrior222]

Good point, there's an ideal quench distance range, something like 80 thou to 30 thou.

[daytonaturbo87]

While these 2.2/2.5's always had closed chamber heads, I don't think there was ever much quench effect, except maybe on the 2.2HO carb shelby motors that had their blocks decked .030 at the factory. From motors I've pulled apart, the pistons are never quite zero deck, I think like .010-.020 in the hole or so(you gotta take into consideration factory tolerences, not all motors were made exactly the same down to the thousanth of an inch. Couple that with a stock/oem compressed gasket thickness in the .045-.065 range(depending on brand, manual states a typical head gasket thickness of a whopping .068!) and you could easily and most likely have a quench distance over .060. Quench is optimal at .040 and pretty much non-existant by the time you get to .060". Also, MP used to sell a .060" shim specifically designed for lowering the compression ratio of n/a engines over to forced induction, probably intended for the old DC supercharger kit. I've also been told the MP 005 and 006 head gaskets are thicker than the .040 compressed thickness than they claim to be, but never measured one myself to confirm.

[Shelby Dak]

I had it up to about 120-125 on my old engine. Compressions was about 9.8:1 due to trung the head and I had the MP suel 5220 setup with a fairly open (load exhaust) and a head with a three angle valve jobe etc and assorted MP n/a bits. My only problem was with cold starting the chokeless carbs and it took me a long time to figure out the appropiate jetting. I had to run ver small scondary jets because in hard left turns, too much fuel would pour down the secondary jets and flood the engine. I would love to have that setup on again with two 38mm DGES Webers (non progressive). I may just go with one 38mm Weber. Does anyone have a used 38mm DGES? ;)

[turbovanman²]

Check out this guy-

http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21630