Making the most power out of my Starion i can. Need guidance

Tamgesic · Post by **Tamgesic** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:15 pm

Hi fellow Satrion addicts

Ill try not to bore you with too much of a long post but i need to throw some ideas around and get advice.

Im a women and need patience lol

Some of you may know that earlier this year i bought myself a totally standard reasonably well looked after 1983 jap Staz

I was then lucky enough to have someone turn up in my drive and offer me their euro Ex with all the goodies but very bad body and deregd and been sitting for 9 years for a few hundred bucks

I need my Starion to be a good reliable daily driver with some oomf for taking to the odd track day.

I was used to driving a little bg mazda familia 4wd sedan which had the nice exhaust, downpipe, intercooler and bigger turbo .It had some guts and i loved the way it pulled .

I just want to make the starion as fast or a bit faster then the mazda was which with the bigger turbo we estimated about 220 at the wheels

My man of 3 years had said without going nuts i could make the starion go for 250 with the standard ecu , an exhaust and a bit of a turbo intake and of course with a good tune on the dyno to push up the air/fuel ratio. We had planned to eventually go mpi once the ex was stripped and had a bit more funds .

The Starion at the mo has not been fun to drive especially after driving the quick maz, it seems to be really lacking in power. It was making a horrible noise which we thought was balance shafts but a mechanic who knows his starions thinks its the turbo which was brilliant news. I think it may not be getting enough spark either , or fuel. If you drive along it sometimes seems to sputter and then zoom forward .

Things have suddenly taken a turn for the worse though and i no longer have my mans help or knowledge.

I dont want to let a break up detroy my plans for the starion and want to try and do this by myself if i can. I have limited knowledge and will have to pay a good mechanic. BUt if i do the leg work and know what i want to do im hoping i can tell the mechanic what i need rather then the other way round..which always ends up in a hell of alot more money spent .

So...i have the tC06 off the EX i could chuck that on as is or he said something about a 16g or 20g wheel upgrade as well as making the hole for the wastegate open again and putting a bit of a screamer pipe on there [ i hope someone knows what im talking about] he showed me the hole next to the intake [ think it was intake ] could go have a look . Anyway instead of that big hole being open there is a small hole which leads the turbo into the other part. Maybe someone knows what im on about and can tell me exactly how to go about doing this as well as opening up the whole leading from turbo to manifold ..apparently you can grind that out to make a but bigger , less restriction.

Then another thing we were going to do was chuck the l300 head on . higher flowing . im guessing that would not be too much of a costly job to pay someone to do ,,its just the head right? So what exactly do i need to look for to get this part done ? How to go about gettng the bits i need etc and whats involved with the actual process of chucking it on

Then a 3inch exhaust less the cat...he said it will be possible to not have to put it on as the EX does NOT come with one but mine does so when you go to get a wof you can just say they didnt come with them yeah?

I think those 3 things might be pretty possible for me to get someone to do without costing too much if i know exactly what it is im asking them to do or even do some myself

The thing that could set me back is figuring out how to get someone to go about doing the 5 stud conversion and the lsd . Any ideas ?

I may be making myself sound like a dumba** who doesnt know jack but any ideas on where to start [ maybe with turbo] would be keenly appreciated .

Cheers people

bridgey · Post by **bridgey** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:27 pm

I found that ive had a huge performance increase from getting a hot cam

Tamgesic · Post by **Tamgesic** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:28 pm

..and what about the type 2 injectors out of the ex . Whats involved with that as i would think its a much easier cheaper job then mpi for now since its sitting there available to me..yeah?

Tamgesic · Post by **Tamgesic** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:55 pm

yeah he mentioned cams..a place in Hamilton or something? How exactly do yuo go about that?

bridgey · Post by **bridgey** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 4:21 pm

I had mine done by kelford cams in CHCH don't know who would do it in hamilton, take the cam out and have it ground... shouldn't be as difficult for your mechanic as it was for me because yours isnt DASH

dirtygalant · Post by **dirtygalant** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 5:13 pm

If you change to the type B injection system from the EX you'll need to change the wiring loom and ECU over too as they aren't the same.

For my Eterna, which is mechanically the same as your Starion, I found it really came alive after a TC06 turbo running 15psi, 2.5" mandrel bent exhaust and a front mount intercooler (I just used a factory one from an E39A Galant VR-4).

Also don't worry about the cat converter, there would be a high chance yours has either been removed or completely gutted inside already. Your car was imported in the early 90s and they were still using leaded fuel until the mid 90s so the cat converter would have most likely been damaged and removed or gutted due to running on 96 'leaded' fuel.

On a side note, when I was up in Whangarei early August I saw you in town like four times haha, we were in Noodlemaster (or whatever it's called) and you were parked outside, then while we were driving around town getting lost we saw you driving around like another three times haha.

redzone · Post by **redzone** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 5:21 pm

you CAN actually change the intake to a type B and retain the stock ecu on the aussie JA cars, as long as you use a leaded type B setup with the 850cc injectors. i'm not sure about the injector sizes on the unleaded ones though, i know the unleaded ones are smaller.

get the TC05 off your car and get the exhaust housing machined to suit a evo 3 Big 16G cartridge and intake housing swap. no worries with dump pipe or exh manifold then. keep boost to 13 psi or so, with an intercooler. 3 inch exhaust. you will crack your stock pistons if u run more than 15 psi boost, no matter how good/safe the tune.

Tamgesic · Post by **Tamgesic** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 6:34 pm

yup i knew you couldnt go over 15 max so 12/13 to be safe.

About the intercooler are the factory ones not good enough as its already got the intercooler on ? I thought they were fine and no need to go massive although ive still got big one off my mazda but have trouble getting that to fit .

Can you explain more about getting the 16g wheel in etc?

and about the cams ?

About the type 2 injection i knew you could only run it with the ex ecu so thought it would not be a major deal to just change ecu's? But then the wiring loom is a big deal is'nt it [ as i now know from the EX being half stripped ]

Whangarei is a small town lol and i think there are only 2 starions in town. MIne and an extra nice white widebody [ although its riced up but still stock standard ] not that im knocking it hah just jealous .

I need to get the Staz running so i enjoy it more . At the moment its as slow as me using a 1/2 drive

its been hard not to just give up and just chuck a new engine in the mazda ..id much rather get the Starion sorted but its a big job compared to the maz which already has mandrel bent down , big turb, intercooler etc

Also me thinking its gonna need gearbox replacment too. Pretty sure the 'whats it calleds' are stuffed in 2nd gear . thats it synchros. . there was a warning on wof. Guy said probably just master or slave cylinder ..so replaced with ex one whcih was fine and no difference. . cant have much fun driving when your in the middle of the road and wont go into second. [ man hope my poor old staz cant hear me complaining. . im still nice ]

Tamgesic · Post by **Tamgesic** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 6:38 pm

Thanks redzone just on a side note i spent most of my summers as a kid in maroochydore! By nan and pop have lived in that caravan park forever!

Entaran · Post by **Entaran** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 6:59 pm

Firstly... If your turbo is making a "horrible" noise, chances are it's unbalanced and it may or may not be basically spewing out black or white smoke on boost. (from the exhaust) this is symptomatic of a blown turbo or a turbo on the way out.

A tc06 with a 16g wheel is basically a td05 16g jammed into a tc06 housing (which allows it to bolt onto the starion). I would avoid a 20g wheel as it will be too laggy for "daily" work and move your revrange too far up the tree to be really useable. A 16g wheel would be a serious upgrade on a standard tc06, cfm for cfm I think they flow nearly twice as much.

Screamer pipes are illegal. Period. They also make one HELL of a noise, you would be better off getting the wastegate plumbed back into the downpipe for both legalities and your ears.

Skipping a catalytic convertor is a great way to get a defect or a huge fine from your gov't enviromental agency. You can get cat's from "Metalcat" which flow so high they don't impede the exhaust gas and still actually work. Yeah it's like 350-400 bucks but ... upto you. Also cars without cat's backfire when you get off the throttle as the unburnt fuel explodes in the exhaust pipe. HOWEVER, if this car was in australia it wouldn't be required to have a cat by law due to build date, so worth checking :)

l300 head isn't my speciality. But i'm sure plenty of guys here know about that :)

---

It may be worth considering putting that engine into the mazda and having the starion as a weekend warrior. The starion will have a track record of spending a bit of time in "downtime"

Entaran · Post by **Entaran** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 7:00 pm

BP18's (The familia GTR engine) shouldn't be that expensive. But dunno about NZ prices.

Tamgesic · Post by **Tamgesic** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 7:19 pm

no the engine for the gtx wont be much $400-500 tops [ bpt] ...but im meant to be selling it [ bought Starion instead] definatly cant afford to warrant register and insure 2 cars and the decision was made long ago that i would prefer the Starion over the Mazda but that was when i had someone around who could get it up to the same in regards to performance level..I still want to do this . Im a beginner though so going to need alot of help

I was just passing on what i was told by my bf regarding the screamer . i didnt want it for noise..he mentioned it would make better peformance or something but if they are illegal then thats ok.

For the turbo yes i think we had agreed the 20g would be to laggy so i want to find out exactly how i go about getting this 16g wheel on the tc06 i just pulled out of the Starion.

I think getting the turbo upgraded and then the exhaust would be the best place for me to start then? and maybe cams? how exactly do i do this

Tamgesic · Post by **Tamgesic** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 7:32 pm

and im not that crazy ...a chic mate of me has the same car craze but knows nothing either. She just spent 3000grand on an in bits rx7 she is somehow going to put back together and get warranted registered etc lol

AND

this is the best site in oz/nz right?

so tips [ and in very easy to understand terms ]

Lunacy · Post by **Lunacy** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 10:14 pm

Ok
Well personally id first make sure that it is actually the turbo thats causing the problems.
If its definitely that, id look at gettin a new/rebuilt one to go on there whether it be a TC05/o6/TD05 16g. The evo turbo can be made to fit without alot of effort and will reap good numbers from a sohc 4g63 PROVIDING your engine is already in good condition.
I imagine that your engine wil have somewhere round 180k kms on it already, so worthwile getting a compression and leakdown test done on it to check its condition.
If these come back healthy, then you can look at possibly going to a larger turbo/ intercooler/ exhaust.
TD05 16g will be fine, will just require porting the standard manifold and mounting holes, clocking the compressor housing and making up intercooler piping for it (def want to run a cooler with an uprated turbo)
VR4 cooler or early evo one will be fine.
Also wil need a custom downpipe and 2.5" min exhaust with it.
2.5" should be fine for a street car.
Great idea to also get your AFRs checked to ensure its not running lean.
My 2c worth anyway :)

Entaran · Post by **Entaran** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 11:08 pm

You could pretty much print the above post and take it with you to the mechanic. But I dearly hope you trust your mechanic because if he's an ass all he's gonna see is $$$ signs.

Also, this site and www.team4g.com are the two best :D This is -specifically- starions, whereas t4g is early mitsub's (upto '96) in general and has -tons- of info on upgrade paths and engine specs and so forth.

Also, happy single car chick? Why hasn't someone put a ring on your finger yet? You're lucky I live in a different country! :D

Austarion

Making the most power out of my Starion i can. Need guidance

Making the most power out of my Starion i can. Need guidance

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