Hi There. Long time listener, first time caller.
A short story before we begin - I bought this ZX12 purely to turbocharge. I've done a turbo conversion to my car, and after reading some threads on here about budget turbo setups, I figured, how hard could it be? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So I got the bike cheap cause it was a streetfighter conversion - meaning it had been crashed at one point. $3400 AUD. Its got a PC3 which saves me $500 to begin with. Good score I think.
But then I lost my job. So the build got put on hold. Then I scored an apprenticeship, but its part time. So I'm veeeeeeerrrry short on funds. But when you gotta go you gotta go.... fast that is. And I gotta go fast. So I said fuck food and shelter who needs that? And I've decided to start on the build.
Here's the bike.
So I've only just started the build but heres what Ive done so far.
I contacted forum member and all round good guy Scott Davis a few months ago about turbo ZX12s and ended up grabbing an exhaust flange off him. I then got some 1 1/4 sch40 steam pipe and tacked up a manifold.
Im gonna get my buddy with a tig welder to weld it up completely. But before that I gotta get a T2 flange for my turbo! But thats next payday. Baby steps.
Ive also made an excel spreadsheet of estimated costs if anyone would like to know what I'll be PLANNING to spend. Keyword: planning. Anyone whos ever had a turbo car/bike knows its a fuckin nickel and diming money pit. But that's a problem future me can deal with.
Plan and reasoning behind the build:
I was able to score a GT2871R for cheap. Which is quite a large turbo for this application. But my thinking goes - a larger turbo at say 7psi will not heat up the charge air as much as a smaller turbo at 7psi. Add the fact that I'll be running it on E85 and in my head I should be able to get away without running an intercooler and sticking to stock internals. I'd be happy with >200hp and a 9 second pass. I'm not shooting for the moon here. Hopefully I can get it done on 7psi.
The plan is to do most of the tuning myself on the road, and at the strip. With a PC3 ignition module to control spark. Otherwise known as alpha-n tuning. Which is a terrible idea, because when the bike is accelerating under different loads, the turbo will spool at different times, but since this ECU system has no boost reference, it only calculates injector pulse width based on throttle and RPM, it WILL be overfueled or underfueled in some gears. Obviously being underfueled is less desirable, the plan is to tune the bike in a high gear, and in the lower gears, part of the rev range will be running a bit rich. I am doing this because its the cheapest way to do it.
Anyway that's all I've got for now. Fell free to tell me how stupid I am.
Stay tuned for next week when I finish the manifold!
Peace
A short story before we begin - I bought this ZX12 purely to turbocharge. I've done a turbo conversion to my car, and after reading some threads on here about budget turbo setups, I figured, how hard could it be? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So I got the bike cheap cause it was a streetfighter conversion - meaning it had been crashed at one point. $3400 AUD. Its got a PC3 which saves me $500 to begin with. Good score I think.
But then I lost my job. So the build got put on hold. Then I scored an apprenticeship, but its part time. So I'm veeeeeeerrrry short on funds. But when you gotta go you gotta go.... fast that is. And I gotta go fast. So I said fuck food and shelter who needs that? And I've decided to start on the build.
Here's the bike.
So I've only just started the build but heres what Ive done so far.
I contacted forum member and all round good guy Scott Davis a few months ago about turbo ZX12s and ended up grabbing an exhaust flange off him. I then got some 1 1/4 sch40 steam pipe and tacked up a manifold.
Im gonna get my buddy with a tig welder to weld it up completely. But before that I gotta get a T2 flange for my turbo! But thats next payday. Baby steps.
Ive also made an excel spreadsheet of estimated costs if anyone would like to know what I'll be PLANNING to spend. Keyword: planning. Anyone whos ever had a turbo car/bike knows its a fuckin nickel and diming money pit. But that's a problem future me can deal with.
Plan and reasoning behind the build:
I was able to score a GT2871R for cheap. Which is quite a large turbo for this application. But my thinking goes - a larger turbo at say 7psi will not heat up the charge air as much as a smaller turbo at 7psi. Add the fact that I'll be running it on E85 and in my head I should be able to get away without running an intercooler and sticking to stock internals. I'd be happy with >200hp and a 9 second pass. I'm not shooting for the moon here. Hopefully I can get it done on 7psi.
The plan is to do most of the tuning myself on the road, and at the strip. With a PC3 ignition module to control spark. Otherwise known as alpha-n tuning. Which is a terrible idea, because when the bike is accelerating under different loads, the turbo will spool at different times, but since this ECU system has no boost reference, it only calculates injector pulse width based on throttle and RPM, it WILL be overfueled or underfueled in some gears. Obviously being underfueled is less desirable, the plan is to tune the bike in a high gear, and in the lower gears, part of the rev range will be running a bit rich. I am doing this because its the cheapest way to do it.
Anyway that's all I've got for now. Fell free to tell me how stupid I am.
Stay tuned for next week when I finish the manifold!
Peace