3sgte, 4agze or 4 age turbo

[danhtruong]

Hello guys;

Finally, I just done disassemble my 4 age. I want to ask for your opinion. My goal is 250-300 whp. A lot of people told me that it cost a lot of money and risk to do 4age turbo because 4age is not design for turbo. They told me to go with 4agze or 3sgte. It cost less money, risk and will reach my goal. I did all the research about 3sgte engine and how to convert it to RWD. To go with 3sgte, It is cheaper, but the problem are finding bellhousing and transmission. Some people on the forum was already done with 3sgte set up. What do you suggest? I think 4agze is the cheapest way and less headache.

[jondee86]

My goal is 250-300 whp.

This kind of power is always going to cost... if you want the engine to last
for a while, and the car be reliable for daily driving. Yes, you can get there
with a 4AGZE and a decent turbo, but the secret for making it last is to use
matched quality components and get a good tune.

Your aim should be to make the power you want with the least amount of
boost, and with the turbo sitting in its sweet spot (best efficiency). To do
that you need to do more than just bolt together a bunch of random parts
and hope for the best. The turbo and exhaust manifold need to be matched
to each other, pipework and intercooler correctly sized, custom inlet
manifold, programmable ECU and WBO2 gauge, head cleanup, and engine
components either upgraded or replaced with new OEM parts.

Here are a couple of websites that can help you...
http://www.matrixgarage.com/
http://www.mrpltd.co.nz/index.html

However, the best components in the world cannot save your engine if you
don't have a good tune. Severe detonation can destroy your engine in seconds,
so it is essential to have the engine dyno tuned by someone who knows what
they are doing. That and a knock sensor input to your ECU.

Cheers... jondee86

PS: And yes, (just to save the flamers from a bit of typing) I have heard of
your friend of a friend who strapped a turbo he found in a dumpster onto his
300,000 mile stock bluetop and made 350hp on the factory ECU with a 5th
injector. You will have to bring him around one day... I'm a bit of a BS man
myself but I love listening to a real expert

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Hello guys;

Finally, I just done disassemble my 4 age. I want to ask for your opinion. My goal is 250-300 whp. A lot of people told me that it cost a lot of money and risk to do 4age turbo because 4age is not design for turbo.

Anyone who says anything like that should go on your permanent ignore list because they don't have any idea what they are talking about. Either that or they are just clueless on their terminology.
4AGZE means supercharged. While the supercharged long block will make a lot more than your goals with a turbo it will not do it with the supercharger so it would no longer technically be a 4AGZE.
If you started with a 7 rib 4AGE the only internal difference between it and a GZE will be the pistons. The GZEs are much stronger but the compression ratio is depressingly low. For your goals everything else that you paid for attached to the GZE would go in the dumpster. Or maybe you could find some other sucker to buy it.
So if you come across a killer deal on a 4AGZE then jump on it. It's a good 7 rib starting point. On the other hand if you already have or come across a better deal on an NA 7 rib then jump on it and throw some better pistons in it. Either way I would replace the pistons personally because the NA are too weak and the SC are too low.
Or if you come across a killer deal on a 7AFE you could jump on that and slap it on to your 16v head.
http://www.matrixgarage.com/content/get ... brid-build

Personally I am a fan of staying with the 4A over the 3S but both have their pros and cons.
It might cost more to build a 4AGTE properly but in the end you have a fully rebuilt motor with a ton of capability. If you swap in a used 3S then you have a used motor of unknown condition. If you use the stock ECU then you are still limited on power. The built 4/7AGE will also hold up to more power better than the stock 3SGTE although either will handle 300 no problem.
Either way you are going to have to deal with the trans which kind of sucks. If you babied the T series you might be able to get away with it for a while but if you really want to hammer on it you will need something stronger.

[danhtruong]

Thanks a lot Yoshi. I have one more question:
I have 7rib block 4age already. The cost to buy a new set of Pistons is $6oo to put in my 4age. Some guy offer me a 4agze engine pull out from his running AE86 for $650 without knock sensor, oil cooler, oil pressure sensor EGR, water tempsensor, rwd wiring harness, exhaust manifold. For your opinion, which one that you would go with?

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Well for one I wouldn't spend $600 on pistons for most builds.
http://www.matrixgarage.com/store/pistons-1?page=1

For another it kind of depends on what you are looking for. I would never run GZE pistons because I like high compression. So if I got the GZE motor I would yank the pistons anyway and put better ones in.
My goal is to try to see how close I can get to 300 WHP on the stock BT pistons at 11:1 compression and pump gas so you can see that anything under 9:1 is just too far off my radar.
I am pushing things and may not hit that. I am confident I can get to 250ish WHP once the new cams, new turbo and engine management go in.
A more conservative high comp build might be something like 10:1 compression and maybe something like my 272 cam.

Now it's true you might be able to hit 300 WHP on a stock GZE with stock cams. 250 would be more realistic. Even at those goals I would still want to add some cam as the stock cams fall on their ass so early. But with the low compression you will need a lot of boost to get there and you would get probably in the range of 26-28 MPG highway.

With a high comp build you can get much better MPG. I still get 34 MPG highway and 31 mixed driving and getting on it pretty hard. My cam grinder says with the right cam timing the new 272s shouldn't hit my MPG too hard.
Then there is spool, response and driveability. Compression alone doesn't have a huge effect on spool but if a high comp build needs 14 PSI to get to 250 WHP and a stock GZE needs 25 PSI to get to that same power the GZE will need a bigger turbo designed for higher pressure ratios and it will take much longer to spool to 25 PSI than the high comp motor will to spool to 14 PSI.
The GZE will also have a much bigger power difference between being off boost and on boost. These are the characteristics that people complain about with turbos. It is hard for people to predict or manage when the boost comes on and when they are not used to driving a turbo predicatively this can make them think turbos are hard to manage. With lower boost and quicker spool it's easier to adapt to and predict and the driving behavior will be smoother and more consistent.

So yeah you might be able to get to 250 hp cheaper with the GZE longblock but peak power isn't everything. Even if I only get my car to 250 WHP I will be able to get it around the track faster than a GZE longblock converted to turbo with 300.
More importantly it will be more enjoyable, more economical and more predictable on the street.

[TwamTuning]

We at Twam-Tuning have built a number of 4age, 4agze and 7afe/age Turbo's, and do not cost a fortune. And we get between 275bhp to 310bhp. Yeah we use the 7rib block's. T3 turbo, what ever intercooler we find, bosh044 fuel pump and Mr turbo efi. Most of are part's are used and from cars at the breakers yards like the Turbo's and intercoolers, great fun building Frankenstein's lol

Twam-Tuning-Garage

[jinx]

We at Twam-Tuning have built a number of 4age, 4agze and 7afe/age Turbo's, and do not cost a fortune. And we get between 275bhp to 310bhp

post of those builds if you can. Sounds intersting

[TwamTuning]

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Twam-Tuning-Garage

[TwamTuning]

Twam-Tuning-Garage

[TwamTuning]

Twam-Tuning-Garage

[jinx]

Nice projects! Heck, each of those deserve their own thread, with a small writeup on the ingredients
You don't see too many 4AGTE setups posted anymore it seems

[TwamTuning]

Nice projects! Heck, each of those deserve their own thread, with a small writeup on the ingredients
You don't see too many 4AGTE setups posted anymore it seems

Thanks jinx, yeah I can't understand why not many people do turbocharge them, it's not expensive and to get 300bhp out of a 1.6 is great.

Twam-Tuning-Garage

[yoshimitsuspeed]

I think there are still a similar percentage of people boosting their 4AGEs. It's just that the percentage of people posting to forums has dropped so much over the last 5 years that you will see a lot less performance builds or interesting threads in general. If you subscribe to a lot of the facebook groups (and there are way too many of them) you will see turbo builds pretty frequently.

[Rogue-AE95]

I think there are still a similar percentage of people boosting their 4AGEs. It's just that the percentage of people posting to forums has dropped so much over the last 5 years that you will see a lot less performance builds or interesting threads in general. If you subscribe to a lot of the facebook groups (and there are way too many of them) you will see turbo builds pretty frequently.

I was going to say, Facebook is killing forums. I guess it's easier to check FB from a phone than a forum. I still use a PC for forums though.

[TwamTuning]

Am not on f.book. who wants to know what you had for dinner lol,people post the stupidest of things on them. Not for me. I'll stick to the form lol.

Twam-Tuning-Garage

[jinx]

Naturally traffic will die down as 4AGs become dinosaurs, but the decline has been too sharp imo
Good to hear that lotsa folks still boosting 4AGs and posting on facebook. ALOT of 4AGTEs on the old forums (oz & nz too)

Its surprising how quick some AE86s gone with 4AGTEs
Tukumi? stock bigport/gze bottom + header + small hks t04e + standalone.... and W58 & 3.90 diff
Gone 12.1sec quarter mile @ only 15psi

Yoyota was the 1st time I heard of Greddy emanage, ran on his MAP 4AGE ecu, stock 4AGE t3/t4 boosted. His AE86 went 12.2
Rebuild added 264 cams and venolia forgies, standalone tuned @ 24psi, the car rocketed to a 10.9 sec 1/4! Pretty dam quick imo

Just to give an idea of how rewarding a 4AGTE AE86 can be with relatively simple combos
Even an entry level FMU(like the famous Greddy miata kit).... or SAFC setup, reaaaallllly wakes the little turd up

[TwamTuning]

We got 12.9sec on the quarter mile with 15psi. Great going engine's and reliable even when boosted.

Twam-Tuning-Garage