2000 Saturn SL2 Turbo   

Page 1: Overview
Page 2: MegaSquirt install
Page 3: NEW Turbo Setup
Page 4: OLD Turbo Setup

Even newer pics:

Turbo cams were made by FSR Motorsport Creations. You can visit them at http://qksltwo.com/
The only way to go if you have a turbo saturn, but they make other non-turbo customs stuff as well, not just for saturns. Very reputable company, affordable pricing and friendly, responsive customer service.

Pics as of March 26th, 2009!

As you can see from the older pictures below, I upgraded to a cast iron DSM manifold. Why? Because my old one cracked after the motor mount went and the turbo poked a hole in the radiator, spilling coolant on the red hot manifold, thereby cracking it :( But this new manifold is much sturdier and flows no worse!

OLDER PICS below...

The idea behind this project was to create a quick, fun to drive, decent looking and comfortable daily driver. I thought long and hard and decided that it would be much cheaper to turbo my current car than buy a new car. The work definitely paid off. This build was worth every penny.

The car gets anywhere from 20 to 28 miles per gallon, and it runs on regular 92 octane pump gas. Does not burn any oil and gets me from point A to point B quickly and reliably. It's quite cool actually, it feels and performs like a stock boosted production car. My friends call it the "plastic Evo". Except that it's front-wheel-drive. Past dyno results have shown it to be putting out right around 200 horsepower to the wheels at 7 psi. The amount of boost I run now is 10 psi on the street. However, my friend and I rigged up an electronic solenoid to OBX manual boost controller, so that enables me to switch between 10 psi and 20 psi on the fly with a simple button. I have not made it to the dyno at 20 psi due to a slipping clutch, but a computer estimate (calculated off the actual weight of the car, the gear ratio, tire size and a datalog) is in the mid 300 whp range. Real dyno results will show how accurate that is.

A few words about the parts I used: a lot of people in the Saturn tuning community shun using China-built parts. Many people heard horror stories about the turbos and wastegates and just about everything else failing because of poor quality of the parts. I tend to disagree. I did a lot of research before deciding to go with a cheaper Chinese turbo and other said parts. From what I was able to gather, most of the failures came from improper installation and user error . Things like blowing turbo seals because they didn't use an oil feed restrictor, or turbo's exploding because of balance issues, or the bearings failing because people do stupid things to their turbos. Yes, some parts legitimately had design flaws, but for every Chinese turbo failure story I could find a genuine Turbonetics or Garrett failure story. A turbo is a turbo boys and girls. It's not rocket science. Chinese have been great at reverse-engineering quality parts, and many times over comparsions have been done by taking the parts apart and comparing the knock-offs to the real thing, then discovering they are nearly identical inside. With that said, my cheap turbo parts work just great. I have spooled this turbo past 20 psi and it did not explode (and luckily neither did the new engine!) And the new setup, minus the engine, cost me less than a grand. The moral of the story here is, yes you CAN do this for cheap. 15 psi from a Chinese turbo is still 15 psi.

Bye bye, old blown up turbo engine! You did well for making it over 200k miles, in stock trim, with a turbo for a long-ass time! I'm sorry I fucked up the timing and you detonated. But that was the idea from the begining. Now make space for a REAL engine!

OLD (left) vs NEW (right)
Same car, new heart.

Modifications

Engine:
- Crower Rods
- JE Pistons, stock bore, 8.5:1 CR
- FSR turbo cams
- 2000 crank and girdle
- Balanced to 9k RPM
- ARP head studs
- Huge P&P head
- Stock cams (just sent them to Ian for a turbo grind!)
- .060 valve spring shims
- High temp valve seals
- Port & Polished intake manifold
- GSI throttle body
- CoolingMist Methanol Injection system
- T3/T4 Chinese turbo .63 a/r, 62 trim
- Modified cast iron 1G DSM manifold
- Chinese 38mm external wastegate (10 psi spring)
- Black 2.5" powdercoated intercooler piping
- Golden Eagle vacuum block
- Chinese BOV (RFL knock-off)
- CX Racing intercooler
- Golden Eagle vacuum block
- 2.5" exhaust all the way, Cherrybomb, Magnaflow muffler, no cat.
- OBX needle-valve MBC
- Vacuum solenoid enables switching from 10 to ~17 psi instantly
- OBDI spark conversion
- ACT 6-puk unsprung cllutch
- RSX-S all aluminum radiator
- 225 lph Walbro fuel pump
- 750cc Siemens injectors
- Megasquirt-I PCB3.0, fuel and spark control
- Launch control, flatshift (anti-lag)
- Glowshift mech boost gauge
- Glowshift electric EGT gauge
- Glowshift electric oil pressure gauge
- AEM UEGO Wideband O2
- Timex digital oil temp gauge

Suspension:
- Aerospeed coilovers
- Ling-Long tires (lol)
- 17" IKON rims
- Drilled/Slotted rotors
- Ceramic NAPA pads
- SDA dogbones
- Ground Pounder TAM
- GP lower trans mount
- AMR Engineering STB

Interior:
- Vue cluster
- Matching white-face gauges
- Full red LED conversion
- Black leather seats all around
- Black interior swap
- RedlineGoods leather armrest, ebrake and shift boots

Exterior:
- 20% tint all around
- Small chin spoiler/splitter
- Painted skirts
- Rims, lowered
- Magnaflow muffler with stainless steel tip
- Black 2nd gen headlights with 8000k HID's

Audio:
- Clarion 230 Watt RMS deck
- Infinity component speakers
- Pioneer 800 Watt RMS monoblock amp
- Pioneer 12" woofer in a bandpass enclosure
- XM Radio receiver
- Fat ebay capacitor

That's about it. I'm sure I forgot something, and some of this might have changed.

The new turbo setup is definitely quicker judging by a complete lack of traction in 1st and 2nd gear, and one-wheel-drive traction in 3rd gear :D The goal here is around 300 whp while being street-legal, with full interior and stereo. Dyno slips soon, once I find time to tune it. Some cars I beat with it so far:

- Boosted civics/integras
- A couple SRT-4's
- An older vette
- Evo 8 MR
- A few WRX wagons/sedans
- A few V8 stangs, including one Cobra
- Bimmers (including M3 and 540)

I'm sure there are some that I forget.

HEADLIGHTS: I appreciate the comments about the headlights. Thanks guys. However, to prevent any further questions about them, I'm going to spill the beans and say that nobody makes these. I made them myself. I don't want to write a guide since it will take me a long time. And I don't want to make any more, even for money, because they were a pain. Thanks!